Kids, watch him smoothing down his eyebrows and 'tache in the video for 'The Way You Move' and try to tell me that Big Boi isn't the Cool One.

"...personally, speaking as what you'd probably call lower-middle-class, like The Beatles, I can only recall Steven Wells suggesting that being lower-middle-class is The Best because it means you can hate any other section of the populace with absolute impunity..."

Howdy Jakes, Parkes is back.

(Although the older bit here on Tony Blair's self-deluding saintliness v. the openly demonic realpolitik of the likes of Richard Perle - this is best of all. Yes, they said we were the naive ones: fuck them all.)

Today you should be downloading (yes, it's like Fluxblog without the actual MP3s...):

Electrelane - 'Only One Thing Is Needed'

The new Electrelane album, The Power Out is a strange beast - can't quite decide if it's patchy or just patchwork... Y'know, they're trying quite a few different things, which is a big contrast from the first album which was almost entirely one very distinct 'thing'. I haven't yet decided how much of it works, but you have to acknowledge their audacity (choirs, war poets, lines from Nietzsche, not to mention simultaneously going more garage rock, more electro and more delicately indie...).

There's definitely some really nice stuff on here though, and 'Only One Thing Is Needed' is up there with the best stuff they've done (by which I guess we pretty much all agree I mean 'I Want To Be The President', right?). It's one of the first Electrelane tracks I can really imagine being played in a club and really getting people dancing - everything about it just says "exciting evening out!" to me (I think there are even lyrics about "gonna meet my girl tonight"). When the saxophone comes in, first time, it's really jarring, but then you learn to love it. As my loverr said last night, "This song makes me want to wave my hands in the air like this" - I couldn't have put it better myself.

PS: I was going to tell the story of my two embarrassing meetings with Electrelane, only to decide against it, but I'm easily swayed...

disappointment, encore

So I heard and saw 'Mono' for the first time last night. Despite previous comments, and while on principle I'm always gonna have Courtney Love's back more often than not, I am pretty underwhelmed. Let's be honest, it just isn't as good a Hole song as 'Drain The Blood' by The Distillers. Which in turn got me thinking that what ought to happen at the end of the 'Mono' video is that the little girls in fairy costumes who crawl out from under Courtney's dress turn round and cut her up with their chainsaws, and then pick clean her bones. Not cuz I'm hating, but because that's the way the rock/pop game works sometimes. Your children turn round and tear you to shreds - either that, or they surpass you and then you have to get them in to work on your records...

Plus, if I'm going to talk about the video for 'Mono', I have to say how disappointed I am with discovering that one of the things Courtney is hear to save the world from is... that nasty gangsta rap music! %It's all about those aggressive black men shooting each other, you know.% How *old* the joke is depresses me as much as how dumb, sweeping, inaccurate, offensive, etc. Way to get some of the hard rock bores back on yer side, C - I hope it was worth it.

televised award ceremonies rot yr brain part 2

Some of you may remember that a while back, I tore into the Guardian for being dumb enough to christen Pink "the husky voice of authenticity" - which is dumb on a few levels, but my main point was that it erroneously praised an artist for being something they not only aren't but clearly aren't even trying to be - a bit like saying that Zoolander is a great movie because it is a daring example of formal experimentalism and non-linear surrealist narrative.

Well, they've gone and done it again, and perhaps even topped their previous level of numpty-headedness, with one of the most idiotic sentences it's been my displeasure to read, on last night's Brit Awards:

"Even best pop act Busted were evidence that, after several years dominated by boy bands, artistry and attitude are back."

I'm sorry, whuh?

televised award ceremonies rot yr brain part 1

MOVIE NEWS

Here is this week's movie news.



An image of actress Scarlett Johansson (above, centre) is to replace that of the Queen on the UK's five pound note. A spokesman for the Bank of England said: "She's brought old fashioned movie star glamour back to Hollywood! Because nobody else has had blonde hair like that in forty years, do you see?" A leading broadsheet newspaper journalist added: "If you cut open my skull, you would find only worms inside. Worms!"




Controversial, largely talentless woman-hating director Lars Von Trier is to support The Pixies on their forthcoming reunion tour. Von Trier, who is often troubled by punches in the face from passing strangers, will perform only covers of the song 'Debaser' in a variety of styles, whilst wearing an oversized nappy.



Finally, here exclusively is the text in full of respected actor Jon Voight's speech made before presenting a BAFTA award to noted director John Boorman, who directed him in the film Deliverance:

"Christopher Walken? That fuck dances! Dancing is for mommy's boys. He's a fucking weakling. I bet you thought that Anaconda joke was funny, didn't you, you little punk? Yeah? I've seen the way you look at my daughter. You so much as lay a finger on her, I'll eat your fucking face off. Over my dead body, asshole."