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The InsiderOne Daily Report |
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Tuesday, January 9, 2001
So Many Great Songs! InsiderOne's Michael Goldberg writes: In England, when you buy Q magazine you occasionally get a free compilation CD. Here in America, you can sometimes find those magazines with the CDs stuck onto the cover. If you know a store that carries Q with the CD attached, go there right now and buy the January 2001 issue. Like, pronto! The magazine is usually worth the price of admission, but this month your $8 also gets you Q: The Best Tracks From the Best Albums of 2000. This CD gathers so many great songs: a remix of U2's excellent rocker "Beautiful Day"; singer/songwriter David Gray's electro-folk ballad "We're Not Right"; The Dandy Warhols' Brit-pop by way of the Music Hall "Get Off"; Coldplay's U2ish-but-who-cares-'cause-it's-so-great UK smash hit "Yellow"; Moby's soulful mood piece "Porcelain"; Badly Drawn Boy's elegant folk song "The Shining"; PJ Harvey's transcendent rocker "Kamikaze"; Kelis's exotic "Mafia"; Radiohead's minimalist slow burn "Idioteque"; Grandaddy's breathtaking "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot"; and Johnny Cash's rustic version of U2's "One." But that's not all. There are solid tracks from Muse, Oasis, Doves and Toploader. Even if you've got many of the albums these tracks are pulled from, this is a cool compilation to have around. (Sometimes the only Coldplay you want to hear is "Yellow.") My only problem with this compilation is its inclusion of the Bloodhound Gang's "The Ballad of Chasey Lain." Geffen Records should drop the Bloodhound Gang. Labels across the land should agree among themselves never to release another recording by this dumb, vulgar, sexist "group." Directed at porn star Chasey Lain, the "ballad" unsurprisingly includes what many would describe as disgusting lyrics. In a further lapse, Q inexplicably includes the Bloodhound Gang's album Hooray for Boobies in its top 50 albums for Year 2000 — inexcusable even if they hadn't ignored masterpieces by Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, Solex, John Hiatt, the Mekons, and on and on. Oh well, I guess they wanted to toss something in for the 12-year-old male set. Datastream: Portishead are about to begin recording their third studio album in an Australian recording studio, and hope to have it completed before the end of the year, music site bristolsound.co.uk reports. It's been more than three years since Portishead, their second studio album. Guitarist Adrian Utley told reporter Rachel Owen that he and singer/lyricist Beth Gibbons were set to fly to Sydney to join Portishead co-producer, co-leader and beatmaster Geoff Barrow, who is already there. The group members took a break from each other after their 1998 world tour, but now are eager to get working on the next album. "Towards the end of touring last time we were all pretty fucked up, and we'd had enough of Portishead," Utley said. "But it's going to be nice to start again. I'm looking forward to working with Geoff [Barrow]. We've done stuff together, but we haven't really sat down and stared at each other for a while. We've got a few ideas, but we haven't got specific in any way. We'll just see what happens." The InsiderOne Daily Report appears weekdays at 9 AM PST, except when it doesn't. Michael Goldberg is the president of insiderone.net. He founded Addicted To Noise in 1994. |