Not Many Experts

Everything Everything have only made one blatant mistake on “Man Alive”; it wasn’t released in 2006. Sitting in 2010’s strange stable of musical fads, and without a chill waves or lo-fi in sight, you could be forgiven for seeing them as slightly out of place. But you shouldn’t do. Undoubtedly they’re not the most fashionable of bands. Radio 1 like them far too much. They’re signed to a major label. Their gigs probably contain more than one attractive teenage girl, which, as you will all know, is one too many for the pretentious and discerning muso. But “Man Alive”, for all its staunch refusal to conform to these fashions, is a gloriously conventional record. That they chose to open with “MY KZ UR BF” is as much a clear statement of intent as you’re likely to get from them; “Man Alive” is packed with hooks, and unless you are amongst the most pretentious of music fans then this can hardly be seen as a problem.

Elsewhere they are far more restrained, however, and its this restraint that saves “Man Alive” from the same fate as so many indie rock bands. “Tin (The Manhole)” is the finest piece of music on the album, a starry-eyed paean to, apparently, a fox. We won’t question their motives. Most surprisingly, although the album is more accessible than a scouse woman after half a bottle of vodka, it would be a challenge to pick another single after those that they’ve already released. They’ve got the balance between big pop songs and the more introverted lyric-driven tracks absolutely right, and the album is far more interesting and unselfconscious as a result.

Year of release aside, the only enormous complaint to be made is of portentous album closer “Weights” which sounds just as embarrassingly earnest as it did as the closer to their live set, although the lyric of “I can tell you how this ends” after 5 directionless minutes takes on a satisfying new vein of irony with repeated plays. They’re easily forgiven though, as the rest of “Man Alive”, without managing to be ambitious, is an enormously fun album that the posturing muso in all of us can quietly enjoy in the knowledge that it has just enough depressing songs to not even be a guilty pleasure. Whether or not “Man Alive” will slowly turn Everything Everything into the platinum-selling band that the BBC Sound of 2010 and their record label envisaged, I could not possibly say, but neither would I want to – “Man Alive” has enough quirky twists and turns to keep us interested whilst they slowly work out where they’re going.

Everything Everything – Tin (The Manhole) by NotManyExperts

Everything Everything – MY KZ UR BF

Nobody asked the Mystery Jets to redefine our perceptions of music with third album “Serotonin”, and they haven’t. In a way, “Serotonin” is predictably accessible, slightly left-field art-pop that should be leapt upon like the drug itself by owners of skinny jeans and emotions. Yet the middle third of the album is a heart tearing bicep of a musical centre that contains, without a doubt, some of their best material yet. Around the edges, things threaten to slip into familiar hazed 80s pop, but are saved by the bands’ slightly dyspraxic twitchings and irresistible melodies. The label’s changed, but the game’s the same; Mystery Jets continue to, if not redefine music, then shift the margins of quality in British guitar music with this fine return.

Mystery Jets – Serotonin by NotManyExperts

I felt the need to flog this dead horse just a little more. As has been painstakingly recorded, “Lights” is nothing special. In short, yeah, it’s a decent pop album, but the trouble with investing in a very precise and unvaried (perhaps gimmicky) style is that, in effect, you end up with 10 songs, 4 of which are very good, and the other 6 won’t be given the time of day by anyone with two ears connected to a brain. That said, this approach is bound to bring Ellie Goulding enormous success beyond anything that even the most optimistic bloggers imagined early last year. Bit of a depressing paradox; banality = success.

There’s a slightly uneasy feeling throughout that the whole electro-pop cliché has become far too forced. Ironically, it also brings the album some of its more original moments thanks to the exceptional production of Starsmith (see new version of “Wish I Stayed”), but it slowly becomes tired when laboured over the entire album.

Without sounding too presumptuous, “This Love” is going to destroy this year in commercial terms, “Wish I Stayed” and Starsmith’s stuttering chorus production has similar potential, and we always knew that “Starry Eyed” and “Under The Sheets” were decent pop songs, but…. beyond that? Quite literally, beyond that there’s very little to waste your seconds on, except 6 slightly inferior, but never bad, variations on a theme du jour.

I wouldn’t call it a backlash… In actual fact, all anyone really predicted was that Ms Goulding has a lot of talent. And she does, you’d be a fool to argue against that, however the emphasis of “Lights” is clearly fixated on commercial success over a full realisation of her enormous potential, and for that reason, “Lights” is bound to be forgotten. The debut album that never happened.

Adapted from something that I wrote here. Yes, I really am that lazy, and no, I wasn’t joking.

By the way, I hope you appreciate that I avoided the two stock introductions to Ellie Goulding reviews:

1. “I am very very clever and first wrote about Ellie Goulding in the year 150BC, here.”
2. “Due to recently being named the BBC Sound of 2010 and winning a Brit Award, there was always going to be a lot of hype surrounding Ellie Goulding. The question is, though, has she lived up to the hype?!?!?!?!?!”. Cue disappointing review in which they will probably conclude that, no, she has not.

If you are very well mannered, old fashioned or intrigued then you can buy the album here. I’ll be honest, I can think of a lot worse ways to spend £10 and at no point did I say it was a bad album; just disappointing. But you know… music’s subjective and all that so part with your cash and see what you think.