2008's Album Disappointments (Part One)

2008 has been a pretty good year thus far especially for debut albums when you consider the likes of Foals, Blood Red Shoes, Los Campesinos, Elle Milano, These New Puritans, MGMT, Born Ruffians, Vampire Weekend, Johnny Foreigner have all released cracking debut albums. However there have been some really poor albums this year released and albums that I expected to be a lot better.

First up The Young Knives released their follow up to ‘Voices of Animals and Men’ which was always going to be a hard task to better or even equal. Sadly the second album titled ‘Superabundance’ was not a patch on the first album which was one of my and many others highlight of 2006. However the second album did not really get anywhere close to being like the first album and it did prove to be that very tricky second album. Despite this the first two singles ‘Terra Firma’ and ‘Up All Night’ did rescue the album, slightly. I expect The Young Knives to return with a strong third album, at least I really hope so because I really love the first album and live they are very good.

The Long Blondes released their second album ‘Couples’ on April 7th and I was very excited the prospect of Erol Alkan and The Long Blondes working together. I was really expecting a great second album which I thought would better the debut album ‘Someone To Drive You Home’ which in itself was a little disappointing to me. Erol Alkan producing The Long Blondes, you’d think that was a perfect combination. However the album did not fulfil my high expectations and The Long Blondes still remain one of those bands I just cannot get into, both live and on record. A shame really.

Single: Tellison - Wasp's Nest

Banquet Records are a record label close to my heart and have been since I moved to University because it’s just down the road for me. One of their favourite bands who they constantly play on at their excellent New Slang night club is Tellison who also happen to be on their Banquet Records label. Their new split single with the rather excellent Tubelord ‘Wasp’s Nest’ is quite easily my favourite song at the moment.

Sharp lyrics, a catchy chorus and some great Dartz influenced guitars make this song a beautifully crafted single. I’m not often bowled over by a single but as soon as I heard this song on their Myspace I had it on repeat. Wasp’s Nest is one of those songs that you keep going back to whenever you open your iTunes.

September 2007 saw Tellison release the full LP ‘Contact! Contact!’ on Banquet Records and Gravity DIP Records and despite that being under a year ago Tellison are back with a brand new single. Just testament that this band has a good future ahead of them and proof they can create brilliant songs. Tellison have been going for many, many years and should be going for many years to come if they can continue to write songs like ‘Wasp’s Nest’.

9/10

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The first film based on the book by C.S. Lewis ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ was absolutely fantastic. Walt Disney created a family masterpiece from the world famous books about the world of Narnia. The second film based on the second book Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia came out this summer and is set to be a great summer family smash.

The film directed by Andrew Adamson always had a hard task following the first film which undoubtedly will go down as a family classic film. To begin with the film wasn’t really filling its potential despite the fantastic settings but as the story went along the film gradually was improving. What Prince Caspian did fantastically was build the story of the film to a thrilling end which obviously you don’t appreciate at the beginning of the film when the story is a little slow.

Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy are waiting for their train home from school when suddenly they are taking back to Narnia after Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) blew the horn when he was in trouble in the woods. The way in which the film took you from Strand tube station to the land of Narnia was definitely an impressive technique, using the train to provide the “Wardrobe” from the first film.

Sergio Castellitto played the bad guy and Prince Caspian’s uncle King Miraz and his performance was really impressive. He played the bad King tremendously well which is surprising when you hear that Sergio has never read any of the books or knows little about the novels. Of course the four children played their roles well like they did from the previous film and Prince Caspian’s performance was good too. Characters such as Reepicheep played by Eddie Izzard, Nikabrik played by the fantastic Warwick Davis and finally Peter Dinklage the cynical dwarf Trumpkin were all on top form and provided a great cast.

Throughout the whole film you are waiting and expecting the arrival of Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) and he finally appears in fantastic fashion. It is the relationship between Aslan the four children and all of the Narnians that makes the films and the novels so special for everyone who likes a good fairytale adventure film.

As previously said the film builds the story wonderfully to an epic finish between King Miraz’s troops and the Narnians, Prince Caspian and Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmond. Having said this, the story does not quite live up to ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ but it has provided a great summer family blockbuster.

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Wimbledon

As much as I like tennis I couldn’t say I was an avid watcher of it, in fact the only time I really take an interest is when Wimbledon is on. Obviously I am aware of the other three Grand Slams but because of the time difference of two of them and the lack of coverage of the French Open usually I tend not to watch any of them. Wimbledon on the other hand I usually get quite excited about and will watch a lot of the matches (if I am not working, which I am currently not). There is something about Wimbledon which sets it apart from any other tennis tournament and every year all tennis players look out for Wimbledon. I'm not suggesting it's a better tournament than the US or Australian however it is different and has something quite special about it the other three don't appear to have.

All the talk in this country at least has been about Murray and on Monday night he provided one of the great Wimbledon comebacks coming from two sets down to win 3-2 against world number 8 Gasquet. Unfortunately for Murray the quarter-final opponent that stood in his way was one Rafael Nadal who is at the moment the best player on tour and is tipped to finally win the Wimbledon title that Roger Federer has dominated for several years gone by.

You can help but not like Nadal who comes across off court as a genuine guy and on court he is a master with a tennis racket. My money is on him to win the tournament because I seriously don’t want Roger winning another. The final looks like it will be a repeat of last year and a repeat of the French open final with number one and reigning champion Roger Federer against hotly tipped and 5 time French Open Champion Nadal.

In the Women’s draw the final looks like it will be an all American all Williams final. Venus Williams is currently destroying number 5 seed Dementieva and her sister Serena faces the un-seeded Chinese Zheng. Who despite knocking out some big seeds will surely not be able to beat the power of Serena Williams? So for the Williams family another final for the two sisters’ beckons, the question is who will the Williams family support?

Big Brother

I said this year that I was not going to watch Big Brother and was even up for backing some campaign I heard about called “Boycott Big Brother”. But having no job means you have a lot of time on your hands so you end up watching things you probably wouldn’t if you were busy. Sadly for me this means being sucked into watching Big Brother, I mean I’m not obsessed and have never watched any live feeds but I will pretty much watch it every night if I’m in.

This year has been the year of the bully (Alex), the rude (Sylvia), the vicious (Dennis) and at the moment the animal (Bex). Thankfully the first three were got rid of pretty quickly and fingers crossed Bex will be next because I think she is the most vile person I have ever witnessed, ever. I mean Jade would usually hit the top of those charts but at least she was funny but Bex is just an animal who needs to be removed from television as soon as humanly possible.

Luke is the biggest bitch I have ever seen, I can’t believe people like him exist in this world. He is always in the camera shot, he is absolutely everywhere and is usually bitching, gossiping and just generally being a prick. Him and Jen must go pretty soon for the sanity of me and others watching Big Brother.

At the moment I am leaning towards Rex winning because I don’t see what is so bad with him. Yes he has lots of money, but he hasn’t been spoon fed as many of the housemates (whom are all jealous) are suggesting. He is a head chef in his own restaurant so therefore he works hard for his money and at least he is good at a trade. What is Bex good at? Absolutely sod all. Last night in the diary room he definitely got my vote to stay in for this week when he said he was lonely in the house and said he doesn’t fit in. We’ve all been there and for people like Jen, Stuart and Dale they have no idea what it feels like because they like to be popular all the time.

I can’t believe I have got to the point where I am blogging about Big Brother, I DEFINITELY need a job. Please, somebody employ me. Please.

Glastonbury 2008

This time last year I was regretting not going to Glastonbury although I did have an A-Level English Language exam on the Monday afternoon so that would’ve made it pretty difficult anyway. However I said as soon as it finished and I’d watched as much coverage as humanly possible that weekend that I would definitely go the next year. Fast forward to the beginning of 2008 festival rumours were beginning to come out and the big talking point was of course the Glastonbury headliners. Radiohead were talked about and everyone thought it would be them headlining one of the nights and I began myself getting excited about the thought of heading to Glastonbury.

So where was I last weekend? At home. Why? Well I think the line up pretty much sums up my reasoning for not going and of course the weather, which this year was actually good in Glastonbury’s recent history. Now it would be easy to blame Jay-Z for the lack of sales this year and for me not going but fuck it I am going to blame Jay-Z. That Saturday night could and should’ve been filled by Radiohead, if so then I would’ve been there and so would hundreds / thousands of others.

Last Friday night I sat down pressed the red button on my remote ready to watch some good Glasto coverage but what I got was mediocrity upon mediocrity. The choice was so bland and boring it made me sick to think these bands are even gracing the great Glastonbury stages. On the red button it was a choice between watching The Fratelli’s, The Enemy or Reverend and the Makers. My goodness what has the world come to when you have to choose out of those three bands? I think I’d rather watch TV coverage of paint drying.

I mean that put me right off even watching anymore footage but I thought no I would give it another go. So I tuned in late Saturday night to witness Jay-Z “performing” on BBC Two and on BBC Three Amy Winehouse “singing”. I wasn’t sure which was worse… no actually Amy Winehouse is far worse. Sunday night didn’t get much better with The Verve (Richard Ashcroft) boring me and thousands of others I’m sure. Of course there was some really great artists playing: Yeasayer, Edwyn Collins, Mystery Jets, Battles, Sons and Daughters, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, Los Campesinos all come to mind. But how much of their sets were covered? Out of those listed I only saw one song by MGMT and one song by Vampire Weekend. Pretty poor, BBC, piss poor.

Oh yeah and how fucking annoying is Annie Mac? God her voice just grates on me and she has no personality what-so-ever and is lacking any sort of charisma or charm to be a good presenter, stick to fucking Radio late night so we don't have to listen to you. Grimshaw is slightly better, but after an hour or so his voice gets on your nerves and appears to be everywhere at the moment which is not helping his annoying cause. So Eavis (and the BBC) sort it out next year, book some proper headliners and stop trying to appeal to “the kids”. For fuck sake.

Euro 2008

To begin with I tipped a Portugal versus Spain final so I got one of the final participants correct. The Germans managed to claw their way through to the final playing some really bad football and not performing like some of the better teams in the tournament (Holland and Russia come to mind). However this is the way of the Germans, but in the final Spain was just too much for them.

Many pundits were calling Spain’s victory over Germany a victory for football because the way the Germans played and the way the Spanish played for the whole tournament. Previously the Spanish knocked out the Russians and before that the Italians on penalties. The win against the Italians was a win for football because the way they set up to play football. I was pretty disappointed with Italy and France in this tournament and I think both nations need to have a look at some of the other sides in the tournament and take note of how they play football.

The best game I watched was between Russia and the Dutch because both teams played fluent football. Quick passing, clever movement, one touch stuff and a real pleasure to watch but I never expected the Russians to be victorious. From the other side of the tournament Croatia disappointed against Turkey and I think had they got past Turkey they could’ve beaten Germany to get the final. However you have to give credit to Turkey for the way they kept coming back in games (Switzerland, Czech Republic, Croatia and almost Germany).

Turkey was the surprise package of the tournament and they never stopped believing which is a great trait to have. The Dutch were playing the best football to begin with but the old cliche "peaked too soon" came out of the closet and proved right in the end. Croatia and Portugal both had their moments but the two winners of the tournament have to be firstly of course Spain. But Guus Hiddink and his Russia side will have made the whole of the World take notice of them. This year's European Championships have provided a great month of June for football and definitely have been one of the better Championships of recent years.

Team of the tournament:

Iker Casillas (Spain)
Phillip Lahm (Germany)
Carlos Puyol (Spain)
Pepe (Portgual)
Sergio Ramos (Spain)
Wesley Sneijder (Holland)
Xavi (Spain)
Andrei Arshavin (Russia)
Lukas Podolski (Germany)
David Villa (Spain)
Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia)

Manager: Guus Hiddink (Russia)