Niklas' blog

Paul McCartney stuns me momentarily with “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard“, his new album that dropped today. He’s toyed a lot with puns on the album. Good one, Macca. In the excellent book “A Revolution In The Head“, Ian McDonald points out that the first time The Beatles used puns like the ones McCartney strews all over his new solo-album, is in the song “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” where Lennon sings “Feeling two feet small” by accident, but The Beatles kept it and twirled onto psychedelia later on; I think their “I Am The Walrus“, which is written by Lennon/McCartney and is mostly made up from mixing the contents of postcards that a class consisting of very young English students were asked to post to The Beatles as part of a school project, is their most psychedelic yet, content-wise. Very William Burroughs-ish.

So McCartney is on a pun-tip. Here’s the very first verse off the second track:

How kind of you to think of me
When I was out of sorts
It really meant a lot to be
In some-one else’s thoughts
In some-one else’s minds
In some-one else as kind
As you

If you say those lines out loud you’ll get the message clearly, reminiscent of Super Furry Animals’ latest one, where Gruff sings “Kiss me with apocalypse”. That album’s also released today, in the USA. Back to McCartney, though. The production, by Nigel Godrich, is really dense, sounding as if every instrument is void of reverb and echo. McCartney plays almost every instrument on the album himself, so the album carries a home-grown feel. Apparently Godrich questioned a lot of stuff that McCartney apparently hasn’t heard from other producers in a long time, for instance “That lyric is a bit dodgy. It isn’t you. You’ve done better.” which has done McCartney good. This is his best since he collaborated with Super Furry Animals on “Liverpool Sound Collage” and before that…”Ram“, maybe. It’s a lot better than the latest album from The Rolling Stones.

Sigur Rós throws down “Takk“, an album that goes back a while. I thought their last one was lazy, and true, their style is, but this one comes up with more good harmonies that they had on their first album, which I still hail as their best, no competition there yet. Check out the video for their latest single, “Glósóli”, in streaming RealVideo, right here.

Speaking of videos, I took that one off Cliptip, a really good blog that notifies you of new video-releases. You should also check out this video [QuickTime], which is Funkstörung’s “Punk Motherfucker”, a very good one. The director must love Chris Cunningham.

I’m listening more and more to Little Brother’s “The Minstrel Show“. Little Brother’s made up of three rappers: Phonte, 9th Wonder and Big Pooh, who all do their bit. The album’s filled with everyday stories, isn’t very political (which is how I love my rap these days, see Blood of Abraham for another example, not to mention Immortal Technique, who’s running late with his coming album: it’s now set to drop during January 2006!) but carries a loving feel to it. There’s a touch of De La Soul’s old style while carrying new school-beats, so pick that one up: I highly recommend it.