Uneventful, Despite it Being Christmas

Well, it hasn't been the most eventful week music-wise but I expect that things will start to heat up at Christmas, it always does. I'm sort of expecting to receive a rather large pile of CDs this year simply because I haven't requested anything else.

A good point about this week was seeing the Ting Tings on Later with Jools Holland. I saw them live supporting New Young Pony Club in September and, despite my previous thoughts of the Salford pair, they really put on a good show. They were miles better than Black Affair, the other supporting act (who I expected to be a lot better, seeing as how one of the members of the Beta Band is in it) and their songs just seem to make me smile. That's Not My Name and Fruit Machine make me feel happy and strangely powerful for reasons that I can't define. They're one of those bands that I like but can't put a finger on why... Beirut and Band of Horses were good too, but they're not really my cup of tea. I do, however, think that the frontman of Beirut sings very well for a person so young.

Nothing else has really caught my attention this week. I've spent most of it listening to The Red Shoes by Kate Bush in-between working. Lily just has to be the best song from that album - I can't stop listening to it! I adore the way that the song doesn't launch straight in, which would sound odd against the ending of The Song of Solomon. I think there's something strangely religious going on in Lily but in an almost satanic way. It seems to be written from the viewpoint of a child in conversation with their grandmother (or mother, I haven't decided which is the most likely) but the words don't sound naive or innocent at all. I would like to think that Lily has something to do with being at a turning point in life where decisions have to be made and how things are interpreted define which road a person will take. On the whole The Red Shoes is wonderful. The weakest song on the album has to be Eat the Music which keeps reminding me of Eat the Menu from the Sugarcubes' second album Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week. To me, this song doesn't fit in with the rest of the album. That aside, Bush's arrangements are brilliant and I think this is probably my favourite album by her (although my mind keeps on changing).

I am hoping, perhaps in vain, seeing as how the holiday season is coming up, that the coming week will bring me to writing something a little more productive. I'm sure the sound of Slade, Wizzard, Mariah Carey and the rest will bring me to complain about how perhaps the only decent Christmas song is Fairytale of New York but I will try to not let it bother me too much. Hopefully I will be working long enough not to notice!