Thursday, November 30, 2006

UNITED THEY FALL

Luke Haines has always prided himself on being heroically out-of-kilter with the musical Zeitgeist (at the height of Britpop his former charges the Auteurs released a single with the daytime radio-friendly title 'Unsolved Child Murder') so his new concept album about the 70's makes a perverse kind of sense.

An early standout track - indeed one of my songs of the year - is 'Leeds United', a work of minor genius which uses Don Revie's all-conquering but controversial team as a microcosm for the singer's ambivalent emotions towards the decade.

Football and pop music have traditionally made for uneasy bedfellows, and for every 'World In Motion' there's at least a dozen musical abominations of the calibre of 'The Anfield Rap' or (gulp) 'World At Your Feet'. The reason 'Leeds United' works is less to do with any dewey-eyed nostalgia for the "beautiful game" and more for its visceral evocation of 70's life, referencing Peter Sutcliffe ("the devil came to Yorkshire in the silver Jubilee"), teddy boy discos and Jimmy Saville. Caustic, insidious, drenched in melodrama, it's the sort of record you wish that Morrissey was still making.

Ten other great football-referencing songs:

1. The Boy Done Good - Billy Bragg
2. Strachan - The Hitchers
3. Sparky's Dream - Teenage Fanclub
4. The First Big Weekend - Arab Strap
5. Munich Air Disaster 1958 - Morrissey
6. Theme From Sparta FC - The Fall
7. England 2 Colombia 0 - Kirsty MacColl
8. All I Want For Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit - Half Man, Half Biscuit
9. I Don't Want to Play Football - Belle and Sebastian
10. (Oh, go on then) World in Motion - New Order

Listen to Leeds United >>

Thursday, November 16, 2006

LIVE AND LET DIRE

I.JUST.DO.NOT.GET all the current Bond hysteria. I mean, isn't the whole franchise just marketed towards inadequate males desparate to live out their action hero wank fantasies vicariously through a celluloid cipher? And, with its intensive product placement and branded entertainment deals, doesn't it merely represent Hollywood at its shallow, bloated, mercenary worst?

The received wisdom, destined to snowball and become nigh-on irresistable by the time anyone gets round to actually seeing the film, is that Casino Royale represents a barnstorming return to form, with Daniel Craig breathing fresh life into a role which had become lumpen and listless in recent outings. The exact same platitudes wheeled out when Pierce Brosnan first took on the role in other words.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being humourless about this, but I sort of thought any credibility Bond had went out the window with Austin Powers?

Read Will's blog for things to say about Daniel Craig.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

PLEASE HUMOUR ME HERE...

Bobby Charlton, David Beckham, Georgie Best, Fergie, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Wayne Rooney, Sir Matt Busby, Denis Law, Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs, Bryan Robson, Gordon Strachan, Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Paul McGrath, Neil Webb, Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Jim Leighton, Joe Jordan, Teddy Sheringham, Mark Robbins, Kevin Moran, Lou Macari, Duncan Edwards, Gary Pallister, Norman Whiteside, Brian McClair, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Paul Ince, Dennis Irwin, Malcolm Glazer, Gary Neville, your boys took one hell of a beating...