James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
The hugely successful Hard-Fi have gone back to their Staines roots. The video for their new single, Can’t Get Along (Without You), portrays the struggle of good over evil, the message of true love and… binge drinking? Yes, in this scenario, the bad guy is a huge alcohol-fuelled chav, the lovely lady is a long-haired, Converse-clad babe and the hero of the story… is lead singer Richard Archer. Pretty simple story-line: Archer pisses off chav, they fight, both manage to escape the police and a chase ensues, mostly through people’s homes, resulting in some laugh-out loud moments. The video gives hope to indie kids everywhere. It sends out the message, “Yes, you can wear black skinny jeans, but still out-run a huge threatening chav, make him feel foolish and win the girl”. Lovely-jubbley, innit.
On a more surreal note, the video to The Delays' new single, Love Made Visible, has made me indescribably paranoid about green gloves. I actually quite like it, but the start of the video, where green hands slowly move towards the bodies of unconscious people and touch them in what some people may think are rather inappropriate places, is fairly dubious. However, the video develops in a more sensitive way, reminding me slightly of many of the Dove ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ adverts (or maybe that’s just because the unconscious people I just referred to are not the typical toned, slender-legged, hot totty from most music videos, but rather like your average Joe Bloggs), which I quite like. Oh, and the green hands? Yeah, they’re aliens. Obviously.
Nickelback have gone for a more budget approach to the video to go with Rockstar. They have taken the popular format of having the public do it for you, following in the footsteps of Feeder and, more recently, Samim. I really think it works for this song, and they have found an eclectic mix of people including Time Square’s naked cowboy, an old lady on London’s millennium bridge, Hugh Heffner’s three ‘girlfriends’, Nelly Furtado and a handful of crazies. More importantly, they have imposed the actual song over the top of the video instead of letting the stars of the video sing along. This way, we get to laugh at their antics without having to put ourselves through listening to non-Nicklebackers screech away. A feast for the eyes which goes easy on the ears.
More seriously, at the start and end of Duran Duran’s video Falling Down makes a strong ironic comment on today’s addiction and rehab culture surrounding young, rich girls. However, they lose it a little, okay, A LOT, in the middle. What could have been quite a sensitive and hard-hitting video about the stigma surrounding girls such as Lindsay Lohan in rehab, becomes (albeit an artfully shot) video based around half-naked attractive girls, who also seem a bit deranged. They also seem to worship Duran Duran. Well, if you will have gorgeous girls at your beck and call, why the hell not?
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