The first time I saw Empire of the Sun on the BBC’s Sound of 2009 list, I got really excited. After a while, and a few glasses of wine, though, I started thinking. It’s excellent that Luke Steele is finally getting his dues, but I honestly don’t really know why. OK, the Pnau connection here has sharpened up the production values, made it all sound a bit more modern etc etc. But beyond that, is it really up to scratch? “Scratch” in this case being the best of Luke’s output as the Sleepy Jackson.
Also, what is with the neverending MGMT comparisons? I like MGMT, I like Empire of the Sun. Part of me wonders whether a lot of the hype is based around a slight misconception of why MGMT are popular. I’m happy to be corrected on this, but awesome as Luke and EotS are, do they really have any potentially chart-bothering (/indie dancefloor-bothering) tracks like ‘Kids’ or ‘Time to Pretend’? I’m not sure.
Anyway… this is aimless musing really. It’s nice that facepaint and expensive videos are working out for Luke. This is basically an opportunity to have a look at the latest EotS video, and have a glance back over the rest of the videographical career of the excellent Mr. Steele. All to be found below…
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Bit of a break again there, but will hopefully keep this more regular from now on. I tend to post a bit more frequently on Twitter, if you want to follow me over there. So, what’s been going on? Plenty more good stuff on the way, that’s what. Hopefully we’ll get a video for this soon, because it’s awesome: La Roux – In For The Kill (Streaming Audio). For now though, here’s some things that actually have videos and are out soon…
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SO. Back again. Some good new videos this week, as you’ll see if you click below. Fun stuff from Rex the Dog, Brakes, and Sean Paul (yes.) Also some nonvid type links to things by Max Tundra and the BPA. Excellent. I’ve yet to get excited enough by the new Franz Ferdinand to write about it. The new Girls Aloud is boring and the new Jamie T is a bit bloody noisy. Good stuff follows, though:
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A new year, a new format. A new bandwagon to jump on. While my (ahem) comprehensive single review style was a fun experiment for a year (and I even saw it through!), it’s time to move on. I was too tied to outdated physical single release schedules, and ended up reviewing songs after they’d been at number one for 3 weeks already. Useless. As such, I’m now just going to fire out 5-10 singles each week that I like and are around or upcoming in the next couple of months. Or that I’ve just taken a fancy to. They still have to be proper singles, but the timing of them is less important. Anyway, on with business…
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So here, in fact, we are. Number five, number four, number three, number two, and number one. And then I move on, belatedly, to 2009, with a (kind of) new format. Enjoy!
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