Plan B = number 1 album. Plan A = zombie high street. Plan B wins again!

Posted on July 30, 2012 by PopLifer

Congratulations to Ben Drew AKA Plan B on hitting number 1 in the album charts with “Ill Manors”! And congratulations to the British pop-buying public for proving that having  intelligence and something to say is no bar to chart success.

As for George Osborne AKA Plan A – a 10% rise in retail bankruptcies is yet more evidence of the horrifying economic disaster that is unfolding as a result of his policies. Still, at least when we’re all unemployed and homeless, we can all go and live in deserted Clinton Cards shops. It will be fun, like Dawn of the Dead.

To read more of our ongoing coverage of the great Plan A versus Plan B death match, go here.

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PSB Winner #5 – Left To My Own Devices

Posted on July 29, 2012 by PopLifer

In honour of the new Pet Shop Boys single “Winner” we’ve been blogging like bastards about our 10 favourite PSB songs of all time, in no particular order. Each blog has an A side (which made our top 10) and is followed by a B side (a song so good it nearly made it – and would have for any band not as good as the PSBs). For introduction and general love letter to the band click here.

A Side – Left To My Own Devices

One useful litmus test for whether a pop act can really be called great is whether they write songs that only they could have written. We love Coldplay at PopLifer, but let’s be honest: it’s not that hard to imagine Travis coming up with “Yellow” or Keane concocting “Fix You”. But it’s impossible to imagine anyone but The Beatles behind “A Day In The Life”, anyone other than The Smiths forging “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” or anyone except the Pet Shop Boys writing “Left To My Own Devices”.

Who else but Tennant and Lowe could have conceived of this epic combination of swirling strings, pounding dance beats and shamelessly smart-arse lyrics ? The verse’s elegant demand for the freedom to create leads to a chorus so sweeping, confident and uplifting that it becomes obvious that demand has paid off in style. Easily one of the most magnificent songs in the Tennant/Lowe canon, as well as the source of one particularly hilarious image: that of Neil Tennant coming home from a hard day’s slog, pouring himself a beer and watching a boxing match. The video is similarly rich in probably unintentional hilarity. Key lyric: “But in the back of my head I heard distant feet/ Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat.”

B Side – I Get Along Continue reading →

Posted in "Art", Gay shit, Music, Pet Shop Boys | 1 Comment

5 years ago today – the UK finally put away Rihanna’s “Umbrella”

Posted on July 29, 2012 by PopLifer

Here’s a fact which sent a shiver of mortality down our spines: it was 5 years ago today that Rihanna’s “Umbrella” was finally knocked off the UK number 1 spot after 10 weeks – the longest run of the “noughties”, or whatever we decided to call them. Its huge success was sometimes put down to its uncanny timing: a song about umbrellas co-inciding with the wettest and most miserable UK summer until this one (The Sun rather hilariously called this the “Rihanna Curse”, although this position is now filled by Chris Brown). But the reason was actually rather simpler: it was a proper amazing pop song.

Continue reading →

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Picture This #10 – Mulholland Drive

Posted on July 29, 2012 by PopLifer

The moment of truth, in a film where there is none

Of the many, many remarkable things about David Lynch’s masterpiece, “Mulholland Drive”, its sheer visual gorgeousness stands out. You could freeze almost any moment in the film and the image captured would be beautiful enough to turn into a poster.

That’s exactly what we’ve done here, snatching an image from a YouTube of the film’s famed theatre sequence. The backstory: Rita (on the left), is an  amnesiac who finds herself bloodied and stumbling on the Mulholland Drive of the title, with no idea of how she got there. Betty (on the right) is a perky, aspiring young actress who discovered Rita cowering in her shower. Together, they have been trying to unravel the mystery of who “Rita” is, where she came from, what happened to her and why her bag contains a huge stash of cash and a mysterious blue key. They have also been falling, almost unknown to each other, in love. Continue reading →

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PSB Winner #4 – Love Etc

Posted on July 28, 2012 by PopLifer

No doubt we’ll be returning to the Olympics shortly, but for now it’s back to the Pet Shop Boys and the 4th of 10 blogs devoted to our favourite PSB songs of all time, in no particular order. Each blog has an A side (which made our top 10) and is followed by a B side (a song so good it nearly made it – and would have for any band not as good as the PSBs). For introduction and general love letter to the band click here.

A side – Love Etc

We hope by this point we’ve established our credentials as rabid Pet Shop Boys fans, and if you’re reading this there’s a decent chance you are one too (hello members of the PSB Forum! Make yourself at home… Can we get you a cup of tea?). So we can afford to be a little bit honest here. The truth is that in their later years, the Pet Shop Boys rarely scaled the heights they did in their imperial period. And that’s okay: no pop acts ever maintain the audacity and creative verve of their peak years forever. You need only look at the careers of the Pet Shop Boys’ 80s peers (hi Erasure! hi Prince! back off, Madonna!) to realise how astoundingly well Neil and Chris have done to stay relevant at all.

So from “Bilingual” onwards we slowly resigned ourselves to the decline and were content that there were still flashes of the old brilliance, glimmers of the old grace. And then we heard “Love Etc” and it was like falling head over heels in love all over again. From the first second we heard that tingling synthline the hairs on the back of our neck were rising, and by the time the first verse had finished we were infatuated. Add in the ingenious call and response chorus, the whipsmart lyrics and the sheer sighing beauty of Tennant’s melody, and you had what was easily the best Pet Shop Boys pop song in years. The fact that it heralded their best album since “Very” made the whole experience even sweeter. Key lyric: “Don’t have to live a life of power and wealth/ Don’t have to be beautiful… but it helps.”

B Side – So Hard Continue reading →

Posted in Gay shit, Music, Pet Shop Boys, Straight shit | 1 Comment

The Olympic Opening Ceremony: the best, most expensive in-joke in history

Posted on July 28, 2012 by PopLifer

Poplifer is not a fan of most Olympic  opening ceremonies. Think of the trashiest tourist shop at an airport, give it a fascist twist and stadium scale, and away you go – fireworks, flags and kids in militarised lines, a celebration of SFX, spectacle and little else. Well, Danny Boyle’s only gone and blown the bloody doors off….

Starman

If you didn’t quite that last reference (The Italain Job, Michael Caine), that’s because you probably had to be British or have lived in Britain to have done so. Much like last night’s opening ceremony to the London 2012 Olympic Games. This is not a criticism. Danny Boyle’s splendidly idiosyncratic, parochial opening ceremony was littered with references which required footnotes, political points which didn’t and a joy and pride which was engrossing. Even for the most hardened cynic (I’m looking at you, Neil), it proved irresistible. It was bloody marvellous.

There will be plenty of gushing, plenty of talk of a redefined national identity and this is welcome. So are the counter-arguments, that it’s all-consuming Britishness will have confused or alienated the alleged 4 billion non-British viewers. Such meaty topics belong to other writers, other blogs. Below is Poplifer’s brief explanatory guide to perhaps the best, and certainly the most expensive, in-joke ever told, designed for puzzled foreignors, Brits wanting to remember it in all its odd glory and Brits who can’t actually remember it at all through the hungover fog .

Continue reading →

Posted in "Art", Miscellany, Politics, Sport, Straight shit, Uncategorized | 6 Comments