1   1   3  LOVE ETC.
Pet Shop Boys

2   !   1  WRONG
Depeche Mode
3   2   6  SOUND OF KUDURO
Buraka Som Sistema
4   !   1  NOT FAIR
Lily Allen
5   4   6  DAY’N'NITE (ORIGINAL/CROOKERS MIX)
Kid Cudi
6   9   4  EVERY GOLIATH HAS ITS DAVID
The Boy Least Likely To
7   3   6  WELCOME TO HEARTBREAK
Kanye West feat. Kid Cudi
8   5   4  JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH
The Saturdays
9   6   7  I’M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS
Morrissey
10   7   3  CAN’T GET OVER
September
(more…)

A week ago, when “Love Etc.” charted in the UK at number 14, James Masterton from www.launch.co.uk mentioned the Depeche Mode syndrome of artists with established fanbase, whose records debut high on the chart, then drop like stones, never to chart again. Next he suggested Pet Shop Boys suffer from the said syndrome and asked dramatically: why do they bother?

While, generally speaking, I think James Masterton is a twat, he’s got a bit of a point here. It’s just that he mentioned it at an exceptionally bad moment. You see, the first half of this year sees albums from three of my favourite acts, each on the market for about ever, each suffering from the Depeche Mode syndrome. And the only one that actually justifies its presence on the chart — the only one that should still bother — is the Pet Shop Boys.

Morrissey’s recent album, “Years of Refusal” is a Morrissey bingo card. Long song titles? Check. Self-deprecating wit? Check. Self-pitying title? Check. “Nobody loves me and so I must aim my love at immovable objects of large size because they can’t escape”? Oh, I just summed down the lyric of the lead single, “Throwing my arms around Paris”. The triumphant return that was “You are the quarry” was stellar songwriting, fantastic soaring melodies, glorious production (long-term Morrissey fans, who hate synthesizers, tend to call it “cheap” but then, they would). “Ringleader of the tormentors”, the four worst songs off which were all singles, was patchy and uneven, but had its amazing, bombastic moments where Tony Visconti’s heavyhanded production shone — “Dear God please help me”, “Life is a pigsty”, “I will see you in far-off places” more than justified the plodding rest of the album.

“Years of Refusal” doesn’t offer anything that we haven’t heard. By that I don’t mean, you know, elsewhere. I mean things unheard on Morrissey albums. His band seems to get worse with every record — there is only one setting on Boz Boorer’s guitar, and Jesse Tobias seems to be doing something — the cover says he plays guitar — but maybe he’s using Boz Boorer’s guitar since I swear you can’t hear two distinct styles on the record. There’s some nice stuff — “Paris” is one of the most beautiful vocal melodies Moz produced in the last… well… three years, and “Something is squeezing my skull” has a great chorus. But that’s about it. It’s not even aggressively bad like “Your Uncle”. It’s destined to be the album that nobody is ever going to cite as the record that changed their life. Which is a sin for someone who was originally a part of The Smiths.

The new Depeche Mode album, “Sounds of the Universe” is out next month and I can’t really review it, because I couldn’t make myself listen to it more than twice. After their worst record, “Exciter” they seemed to realise they alienate the fans, don’t gain any new ones and bore the shit out of themselves even by having to play that kind of material live. The new frame of thought brought us “Playing the Angel” which had a few songs that didn’t last for 9 minutes AND had choruses. And then they obviously decided it was enough.

I fail to see the point of “Sounds of the Universe”. Perhaps it’s the ongoing bet that Anton Corbijn has with Peter Saville — who knocks the ugliest, most disgusting cover art in MS Word and gets paid for it? Saville seemed to win with New Order’s “Waiting for the Sirens’ Call”, but no, it is Corbijn who has the last word. Most parents print out their children’s doodles made in MS Paint and stick them on the fridge, Corbijn took his and made it the new Depeche Mode cover, but not after he embellished it with three fonts one of which looks suspiciously like Arial. (He spared us Comic Sans, but I’m sure it’s coming.)

Maybe it’s that Depeche Mode felt the call of the muse? That muse is a bitch, because she inspired an album that sounds like Exciter Part 2: And Now Without The Few Tunes That Were There. The ice-cold, clinical production makes it difficult to listen to the record altogether, same as it did with Exciter, but where Exciter’s saving graces were the tunes (as proven by “Freelove” there was nothing there a good remix wouldn’t fix), there’s none such stuff here — except for “Peace” and “Jezebel”, none of which strike me as possible single material. It will be interesting to see how Depeche Mode are going to promote this record further, because I swear there is one single on it, it’s “Wrong” and it’s out already.

Which brings us to the Pet Shop Boys’ Yes”. The lead single, “Love Etc.”, is killer. So. Good. And… drum rolls… THERE IS MORE. “All Over The World”, co-written by a certain Tschaikovsky, is as good or better. “Pandemonium” is italo disco gone right. “King of Rome” would have fit on Behaviour — the first post-Behaviour song to match these heights. “Did you see me coming?”, which is slightly stained by Johnny Marr’s guitar in its “Electronic, the second album” setting, is nevertheless a very catchy, summery, pop song. “Legacy”, the closer, is majestic, boombastic and amazing the way none of their closers were since “Jealousy”. Even the clunkers — the last clunker-free PSB album being, after all, Introspective — aren’t as bad as the 74 Fundamental ballads. “Building a wall” is the kind of song New Order tend to do when they are feeling particularly uncreative, but with Sumner’s monotone it sounds better. “More than a dream”, a stomping pop song, would make the best Girls Aloud single ever, but there’s nothing remotely Pet Shop Boys about it. “Beautiful People” is Pet Shop Boys doing the Sixties. Don’t know about you, but to me that is a bad thing. I have Saint Etienne for this kind of job. But… the other 8 songs make up for those 3. “Legacy” itself makes up for at least two, with its couplet “you’ll get over it, and I’m on your side, because…/you’ll get over it, and WHAT A RIDE IT WAS” being my favourite Pet Shop Boys moment since Paninaro 95.

No, James, I don’t expect any of those albums to stay on the charts for a long time. Pet Shop Boys started — after Monday sales — at #1, to drop to #4 on Sunday. Morrissey’s CD is out of top 75 after, what, three weeks? Depeche Mode’s album isn’t out yet, but I don’t expect any better. But you know James, the current number one — two weeks on top — is Ronan Keating’s compilation of songs his mum liked. Songs as striking and exciting as “Time after time”, “I believe I can fly” and “Carrickfergus”. OMGZ Ronan’s momma liked boring midtempo crap! Now, James, according to you this is the act that has a point. But whatever that point is, I’m better off listening to Yes.

I’ve never fancied Keanu Reeves — he gets on my nerves and he was in one of the worst movies of all times, i.e. Matrix Reloaded — but when he looks like that… mmm. More here.

Before Guy Ritchie started calling Vadge Madonna “it”, he used to love her. I think. (Weirdo.) And that’s when he’s made his most amazing piece of visual art, which is the official video to “What it feels like for a girl”. Set to a dub mix with barely any vocals left (and with the Charlotte Gainsbourg bit intact!!!!), this video wasn’t shown on many (mostly American) TV stations due to its content. Slightly violent and irresponsible you could say. (I love the Ol Kuntz home.)

But tonight, thanks to Popjustice forums, I have found out that Guy Ritchie made something even better in his career. Yes. That’s right. There exists a Guy Ritchie-directed… thing… that’s better than the What It Feels Like For A Girl video.

Here it is.

Sometimes you read posts on blogs that sound as if you wrote them yourself. Today I’ve had two.

Jennette/PastaQueen writes:

I was 21 years old when I looked in the mirror in the computer science building’s bathroom and saw the first grey hairs growing out of my scalp. It was that same year that I started to see small grey flecks of dust in my vision when I looked up at a clear blue sky or at a white wall. My eye doctor told me these were floaters, little blobs of protein that develop in the fluid in your eyeball. Near-sighted people like me get them quite frequently. [...] A friend my age told me over dinner she is fighting acid reflux disease and takes medication for a slight thyroid imbalance. Another friend was just diagnosed with pernicious anemia and has to get shots of B12. We are not old. We are in out late 20’s and early 30’s.

No one told me my body was going to break down so fast. No one warned me that after 21 years I’d start needing repairs. I cannot trade myself in for a newer model. So if you are young and your body is working, enjoy it for me. It won’t be long until you’ll need a fix-up and wish you’d invested in more dental floss as a child.

This is EXACTLY what I feel like. To a tee. Except with different problems.

A year and a half ago I went to a Suzanne Vega concert. I was completely sober, but overexcited. I decided to jump on the stage of Paradiso to get a setlist — it was the best show I have ever seen and I wanted a memoir. A memoir I got — despite being fit and flexible, my knee said “pop” and when I eventually got home over an hour later, I was in excruciating pain, the knee the size of a grapefruit (luckily not the size of a melon, because that would require immediate surgery). It took a month in bed, then months of physiotherapy to get back to normal. And it is normal. Almost. If I forget my bodybuilding supplement, it gets stiff and achey. I wrote about that a few weeks ago. That knee is not going to go back to its original state. The only thing that can happen is that it can get worse.

I work out like crazy and take care to exercise my lower back, yet in the recent months I discovered sometimes at work it is difficult to get out of my chair, because my lower back is aching. It only happens if I sit too long at work. My chair has been adjusted by a professional to make sure my back is protected as well as possible. So has the height of my screen. Any hints?

My eyes… worry me. It feels like the field of vision, especially in my left lazy eye, is decreasing. Also, I’ve been wearing lenses for 12 years now and my eyes are getting very… demanding — nothing but the best lenses and best liquids is accepted. But I don’t want surgery (98% success rate isn’t enough for me to allow people with knives near my eye), and I don’t want to go back to glasses. But who says I’ll have a choice? Not now, but a year, five, twenty years from now? It’s not going to get any better.

My teeth are good. Generally speaking. Except for the fact a dentist once put a metal plate between two teeth to separate them and ever since then food got into the resulting “cavity”. And for the fact that I get loads of plaque despite flossing like crazy (you won’t believe how irritating it is to carry food in your teeth at all times). And for the fact I’ve had about eight cavities repaired. And that still counts as having very good teeth, apparently. Especially next to my friend, who has spent half her earnings on dental work since 2004 or so…

In the last few weeks I keep on waking up with very dry mouth. VERY dry. As if there was a sandbox planted in there while I was sleeping. I dread to think if it means something. It might be connected with the deviated septum surgery I had performed on me 10 years ago that never stopped bleeding. Or with something else, but I don’t want to think about it. Same as I don’t like thinking about the increasing amount of gray hair on my head.

Then I realise the outside world thinks of me as a very fit guy with amazing teeth, great skin, great eyesight (well, those who don’t know I wear lenses) and gorgeous hair. And I start wondering — what do the others feel like? Is the gorgeous ex-model I work with plagued by teeth cavities and skin problems? The cute PhD guy has got loads of problems with his back, I know that for sure. My boss has had problems with knees. Oh hang on, and the writer colleague gets such awful problems with his back he can’t walk at all for weeks. (I want to be like him when I grow up. Only without back problems. Is that possible?)

Okay, I have to finish, as I just ate and now I have half a chicken in my teeth, which drives me mental. (How’s that for a TMI Thursday post, dear LiLu?) But before I go, let me add that I fully and completely agree with Ashley’s sentiments about March. March sucked so far and it doesn’t look like it is about to improve anytime soon. I am still happy, because I decided to be happy and little things such as bills for 1350 euro (another one arrived today, much to my joy and cheer), fights with boyfriends, being overworked and tired all the time, aching back, having no time for myself or for my friends, family problems and last but not least crazy weather won’t get this bad mutha down. But really, March, you have disappointed me. You are dismissed. And, April, if I were you, I would think REALLY well before misbehaving.

EDIT: I have been reminded that Texel was also in March — for the love of Morrissey, my brain really hasn’t grasped the concept of timelines. That indeed is a redeeming quality. March, you get a stern warning, but you may go back to your desk and continue work.

PS. Everyone whom I owe an e-mail — it’s coming soon. Really.

1 1 2 LOVE ETC.
Pet Shop Boys

2 4 5 SOUND OF KUDURO
Buraka Som Sistema
3 2 5 WELCOME TO HEARTBREAK
Kanye West feat. Kid Cudi
4 3 5 DAY’N'NITE (ORIGINAL/CROOKERS MIX)
Kid Cudi
5 6 3 JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH
The Saturdays
6 5 6 I’M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS
Morrissey
7 7 2 CAN’T GET OVER
September
8 12 3 TOMORROW
Ladytron
9 9 3 EVERY GOLIATH HAS ITS DAVID
The Boy Least Likely To
10 8 4 CITIES BURNING DOWN (ORIGINAL/NAUM GABO MIXES)
Howling Bells
(more…)

1   !   1  LOVE ETC.
Pet Shop Boys
2   3   4  WELCOME TO HEARTBREAK
Kanye West feat. Kid Cudi
3   1   4  DAY’N'NITE (ORIGINAL/CROOKERS MIX)
Kid Cudi
4   4   4  SOUND OF KUDURO
Buraka Som Sistema
5   2   5  I’M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS
Morrissey
6   7   2  JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH
The Saturdays
7   !   1  CAN’T GET OVER
September
8   6   3  CITIES BURNING DOWN (ORIGINAL/NAUM GABO MIXES)
Howling Bells
9  16   2  EVERY GOLIATH HAS ITS DAVID
The Boy Least Likely To
10   5   8  METHOD OF MODERN LOVE/THIS IS TOMORROW
Saint Etienne
(more…)

“Pope Benedict XVI said on his way to Africa today that condoms were not the answer in the continent’s fight against HIV, his first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients. [...] The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease. ?You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,? the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. ?On the contrary, it increases the problem.?”

First of all, Mr Benedict, if you read papers other than “Vatican Today” and “Playnun”, you would know abstinence doesn’t work. Ask the victims of priests-sexual abusers, Mr Benedict. Ask thousands of pregnant American teenagers. Ask Bristol and Trigg Palin. Ask raped children in Africa, whose rapists believed that they would get cured from AIDS if they raped a virgin. How did abstinence work for them? Did it help much? How does abstinence work for the priests, the special children of God, so special that they leave the church to pursue relationships or just abuse others sexually, luring them with a promise of eternal happiness and scaring them with the threat of damnation?

Second of all, you forgot to explain to us HOW exactly do condoms increase the problem of HIV spread. We will gladly listen to your scientific explanation. You may wish to use the figures. Like, the numbers of AIDS victims who used condoms versus the ones that haven’t.

Third of all, oooh yes, well of course monogamy helps to avoid STDs. It’s just that not everyone is lucky enough to meet their ideal partner at the first go, wait with sexual initiation till the day they get married, then get married and discover they hit the sack regularly and with much luck forever after. Some discover they are incompatible sexually. Some fall out of love. Some fall victims to abusive spouses. Some aren’t even lucky enough to be straight. And, dear Benedict, I understand you have no faintest clue, but sex is actually a vital part of life of more or less anyone who isn’t a pope (or David McDonald, and David got quite enough shagging before he became a saint).

Fourth, it is truly scary that you find it a good idea to abuse your position of power to misinform people who are in lethal danger. When an infected man tells his non-infected partner not to use condoms — against doctors’ orders — “because pope said so”, you will be responsible for the partner’s illness. Benedict. I am not going to say anything silly like “I hope you can live with the guilty conscience”, because I don’t think conscience is a requisite to become a pope. I just think that you’re far, far, far removed from actual human beings. Far enough to forget that some of them are just going to hear the bit about “pope saying condoms spread AIDS” and not the bit about monogamy. How many people will that one little speech kill? Fifty thousand? Ten thousand? Even if it’s just one, Benedict, I hope your boss, that beardy God bloke, will take you upstairs to report on it as soon as possible. And when that happens, I will thank Him.

The world fell in love with Martika when she released “Toy Soldiers”, her debut single. It was a rather poignant song about addictions, but I never really cared about it. It was only the third single, the Carole King cover, “I feel the Earth move” that made me notice.

I immediately fell in love. With her hair — I wanted the same haircut. With the energy — I still think “I feel the Earth move” is incredibly energetic and sounds amazing at the gym. With the song itself and the video — I didn’t know (I still don’t) the original, but the Martika version blew me away and smeared me all over the wall. It. Was. Amazing. It was all that late Eighties were about. It reached #25 in the US, #7 in the UK and #1 on my chart way back then.

I Feel The Earth Move single

The second Martika album was co-produced/co-written by Prince and for some odd reason hasn’t sold anything. And then she fell in love with a Romanian poet and moved to a mountain with him to live the life of a goat shepherdess.

Seven years later she got back to her senses, but the world moved on and emitted a collective sigh at her further attempts. She tried a solo return with a rather disastrous song called “The Journey”. She tried a return with her husband as a band called Oppera. Then Eminem used a sample from “Toy Soldiers” in one of his singles and Martika… didn’t release anything. Sony repackaged her greatest hits (i.e. most of two albums put on one CD). That was it.

In retrospect I have no idea why exactly Martika hasn’t become a lasting success. Was it the poet? Not really, since “Martika’s Kitchen” was a flop already despite being very good. Was it Prince? Was it the fact that Martika epitomised the year 1988 and in 1991 was already a last decade’s starlet? I have no idea. But it doesn’t make “I Feel The Earth Move” any worse. So let’s enjoy it together via the YouTube clip, unless you are in the United Kingdom, you evil thief of copyrighted property who wants to illegally benefit off the blood and tears of poverty-stricken record labels.

“The Bible says gay sex is a problem, biology doesn’t support it, and health statistics demonstrate its problems. Why not abstain? That’s what I’m doing.” – “Ex-gay” gospel singer David MacDonald, who says he hasn’t had gay sex (or any sex) in 20 years because of the health risks. Oh, and to please God. And for bonus Jeebus points, he says hasn’t even masturbated in years. Yeah. — Joe. My. God. reports on a man who calls himself “radically moderate”. David, dear, abstaining from sex for 20 years isn’t what most people call moderate. There actually exists middle ground between fucking anything and anyone that moves and doing drugs at Studio 54 and being celibate for two decades. Also, abstaining from masturbation might get you testicular cancer and is a very unnatural thing — since you mentioned biology, how many celibate by choice animals can you name?

Lovely mixtape at Mixtapes For Hookers — Pet Shop Boys, Bis and Marianne Faithfull doing Morrissey! It almost makes me want to become a hooker. (That would solve my financial worries.)

Isn’t it weird how we saw Rihanna’s bruised face, but not the Chris Brown mugshot?