Indie Rockers Can Swear Too - #2 - Rilo Kiley

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"Hey. Do you wanna talk about computer games and our insecurities?"

Indie kids lose their shit for Jenny Lewis. The girls wanna be her and the boys wanna date her. Actually, they want to take her on a kitsch little date to an American diner where they can get a big sundae to share and Jenny'll get a bit of cream on her nose or some cutesy ting like that. That's her in the middle in that photo up there, by the way. She's not amazingly attractive but she's certainly not ugly and she's in a credible band, that really is enough for most people. The best thing about Jenny Lewis and Rilo Kiley, of course, is that they made a great swear song.

2. Rilo Kiley - A Better Son/Daughter

"Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can't move..."

This swear song came to me on the way to work today. I didn't have a moment of revelation or anything, it just came on shuffle on my iPod. Just want to say here that I defintely don't listen to my iPod on the way to work whilst driving, in case the police are reading. Anyway, 'A Better Son/Daughter' is a great song about self improvement, y'know, getting right with yourself. It's a central subject to a lot of tunes if you think about it. In contrast to those rappers and their braggadocio, indie rockers find it a lot easier to sing about being or getting better than actually doing it. It's the chasm between making a New Year's resolution and actually quitting smoking or getting a six pack I suppose.

The curse words arrive in quick succession in this song and they're extremely pronounced too which gets Rilo Kiley ten more points on the, erm, fuck-o-meter. I genuinely think they were added in at the last minute because if you sing the lines without those words they definitely need a bridge word and "...the good seems bloody cheap," just doesn't hit quite as hard. One of the band members probably just went "Ay yo Jenny. Throw a coupla fucks into that verse if you can't think of nuttin'," and the rest was, as they say, history.

# of words - 2
Severity of words - The second worst one to youknowwhat.
Manner of delivery - Fuck with a cherry on top.

Indie Rockers Can Swear Too - #1 - Okkervil River

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Johnny Cash firmly in F.U.R.B mode.

This post is something I've had kicking around the dust bowl of my brain for quite a while now. It's about swearing, cuss words, cursing. Those words you hear day in, day out from just about everyone yet won't hear on the TV before 9pm. I don't need to give you any examples. Just think about Piers Morgan for a second now for me....yeah, those words.

People often ask if I'm a breast or leg man. Well, I've always been a lyrics man. If a song is especially well written you could back it with a blindfolded raccoon hitting a tin of beans and I wouldn't really care. I listen to lyrics over and over until I've committed them to memory, I listen to songs with the liner notes out in front of me, I google lyrics and get viruses from 'lyric' sites that always immediately offer to send ringtones to your phone for free via a ominous looking pop-up. I'm just a freak for them.

What of swearing though? Does it have a place in music? Are lyrics that include curse words necessary? For me, I think resolutely yes - if they are used well. That's an enormous caveat there, I'll concede.Please note that this post solely relates to indie or alternative rock only because, let's be honest, there'd be little point in writing this about Hip-Hop. Case in point, Rick Ross' 'Hustlin'' which has a first line that reads "Who the fuck ya think ya fucking with I'm the fuckin' boss..." That line right there is twelve words long and includes three curses. That's goddamn 25%.

I'm going to think of a song each day that includes one good use of a bad word and post it up. BTW, in case you were wondering, I'm revelling in the immaturity of writing about naughty words. Revelling in it.

1.Okkervil River - 'Red'

"Yes is my favourite answer..."

This really is an amazing song from the world's best band^TM and it dropped pretty early in their career too. 'Red' is written from the perspective of a guy that knows a mother and a daughter that have grown apart. The daughter has grown up to be a stripper and this could be partly due to her upbringing. At separate times, both mother and daughter confess to the songs protagonist that they miss each other and it is in this daughter's confession that we get a golden swear that goes:

"I know that it's easy to have me/but I have seen some things/That I cannot even tell to my family pictures/And I'm full of fictions and fucking addictions/And I miss my mother."

It's lines like these that make you appreciate how good Will Sheff really is. I can't be the only one that pictures a pretty girl choking these words out as her mascara runs. This swear is one of impact that adds a real spit and kick to its line and especially works well, in more ways than one, with the word 'addictions'.

Along with a helpful youtube link and a paragraph or two of my bollocks, each song will also be judged using the below criterion for my records:

# of words - 1
Severity of word - The second worst one to youknowwhat.
Manner of delivery - Poetic

Vampire, You Should've Come Over.

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If I was dating Kirsten Stewart, the last thing I'd want would be to live forever.

I've spent the last hour or so just loitering around the internet like a pervert in a public toilet. You know how it is - clicking on ridiculous stories that you hope are true on reddit and reading about LOLS on wikipedia - things like that. At some point along this journey I stumbled across this story. For those that are too lazy to even click a damn link, it reads about how Robert Pattinson is "desperate" to play Jeff Buckley in a biopic of his life that is due to be made. It also has some made up vague words from 'sources' saying that Pattinson has asked to play the role. I don't know who these sources are but I'm guessing they're the same ones that comment on celebrity romances, football transfer rumours and WikiLeaks releases.

So, Robert Pattinson as Jeff Buckley. Can you even begin to imagine what that would do to teenage girls around the world? Sensitive tragic dreamboat musician + Sensitive tragic dreamboat vampire = the mass running of mascara and the lightening of parents wallets on a scale never before witnessed. I'm amazed it's taken them* this long to make a film like this in all honesty. I dare say that Jeff Buckley's seemingly endless 'vaults' will somehow provide yet another posthumous release to coincide with the film's launch. Either that or we'll get an album of Buckley covers from some of the music industry's leading lights. I don't know about you but I'd love to hear Ellie Goulding's spin on that "I heard there was a secret chord/that David played and it pleased the Lord..." song. I can't get enough of that one.

Jeff Buckley is known for many things. Drowning in a river, 'Grace' always being on sale, having a really cool Dad. It's amazing that all you hear about him comes off the back of a (admittedly fantastic) debut album and a tragically premature death. He might not have made many songs but the ones he did really were proper songs. It's only right that we honour his memory by having someone like Pattinson playing him in a film about his life.

*them being those dicks in Hollywood just trying to make money off of anything, all the time.

A goldfish could burp a cover of this song and I'd still like it. Yes I know it's not a Buckley original.

"I Was Perfect."

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Swan Lake was composed in 1875-1876 and is still being run today. D'ya reckon 'We Will Rock You' will still be going in 136 years?

I've been pretty stressed recently. Incredibly stressed actually. It's nothing to do with my family, my love life or my health. I haven't moved house nor has my car broken down. It's worse than all of that. Yes, I've got a new laptop and I've had to reinstall and reorder iTunes. If you've done this, you know exactly what kind of trick I'm on. I've got albums with missing tracks, misspelt band names and don't even get me started on album artwork. iShambles.

So an Apple program a day keeps nothing at bay aside from satisfaction and fulfillment then. That's what I've learnt. Things threatened to get too much yesterday when I actually typed 'how much does it cost to have someone do your itunes for you' into google. I'd really hit the wall. In my frustration, I got out of the house and went to see 'Black Swan'. That being Darren Aranofsky's new 'psychosexual thriller' starring Natalie Portman as the newly cast Queen Swan in a performance of 'Swan Lake'. Safe to say, things don't exactly go to plan. Nina (Portman) struggles to come to the terms with the physical and mental demans of such a high profile role. She starts to find that her truest enemy resides in the mirror and as opening night approaches, her life starts to unravel and mirror the tragic tale that 'Swan Lake' has been telling for such a long time now.

I don't really want to say too much and spoil a film that truly has you sitting on the knife edge of your seat but man, it's quite a ride. At the film's core is a contradiction that I should think mystifies many performance artists and people of that sort of disposition - how do you keep precise control of your body whilst simultaneously letting go and giving yourself to a character, an idea, an audience? It's a tough one but Portman is fantastic in a lead role that, much like the one she portrays in the ballet production, is incredibly demanding. 'Black Swan' is one of those films where you think that something or someone truly horrid is waiting around every corner. My mood flitted between tense, mega tense and Mr Tense of Mount Tenseington St essentially. It's a film you have to see at the cinema too so please put your torrents to rest for an evening you freeloading nerds. I really urge you to watch this film at the cinema, just don't see it as a first date. Chicks on first dates ain't quite as down with psychosexual thrillers as you probably imagine.

Also, I only found out after the film that one of the characters is played by Winona Ryder. I can't decide if this passed me by because she looks really different now or whether it's just that I don't recognise her if she isn't on the arm of an indie rocker or another. Can I also take this opportunity to inform you that apparently Mila Kunis use to spend nights playing World of Warcraft for hours and hours when she was dating Macaulay Culkin. Just sat next to each other on different computers. Playing World of Warcraft. For ages. That's what they did.

"Shall we have the LAN party at yours or mine?"

Yeah, I'm trying to work out what's worse between playing WoW or dating Macaulay Culkin too. Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Also, if you know how much money Macaulay has I'd like to know that too. A few films decades ago and being MJ's boyfriend doesn't pay that well, does it?

Two Thousand and Eleven.

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This year will be your best one yet.

Hangovers have crawled back into their shells, party poppers have been swept up and everything feels distinctly similiar to last year. The new year is ten days old tomorrow and my 2011 post count is unsurprisingly at a whole round zero. I'm almost shocked.

Still, it's a new year and there's loads of things to look forward to even in the these dark pit months of January and February. Here's a little rundown of what falls into that category for me, from the top of my head, at 18:31 on this overcast Sunday.

If you do go to see Janelle Monae, make an effort and dress well forchristsake.

Amazing shows -Janelle Monae and Aziz Ansari both head to these recessed shores next month for the first time. Expect to dance until you're breathless at the former and laugh until you're in tears at the latter. Whatever you do, make sure you got to at least one of the aforementioned. They will be yardsticks you'll use to measure everything else you see during the rest of the year. Drake is also here in London, Manchester and Birmingham over the coming week. If you haven't got tickets to those dates yet then fully expect to be logging on to eBay and remortgaging your house in the near future.

Do you think Mila Kunis makes Culkin do the home alone face when they sleep together? The freak.

Amazing films - January is oscar month and 2011 sees two massive hotly anticipated releases. Darren Aranofsky is back with 'Black Swan' with Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman and the amazing Vincent Cassel. Christian Bale has (as always, the only variance is whether he's big or small) gone through an incredible body transformation to drop a third of his body weight for his role in 'The Fighter'. If you don't like films about ballet, you'll probably like films about boxing, right? This month, at the cinema, everyone is a winner. 'Black Swan' is released on January 21st, 'The Fighter' hits (geddit?) cinemas 4th February.

Pharoahe Monch bucks Hip-Hop stereotypes by posing for a photoshoot with a revolver.

Amazing records - The early part of the year sees new releases from The Decemberists, Iron & Wine, Pharoahe Monch, James Blake, Drive By Truckers, Wire, Talib Kweli and some sort of Glee release that they recommend you use for a coaster/frisbee to through at wild animals that trespass in your garden. The rest of the year could bring something from Radiohead, Gaga's 'Born This Way', Dre's 'Detox' (yeah, right), Jeezy's TM103 and the return of the best band on the planet, Okkervil River.

So yeah, plenty of things to make you hang around for a bit longer before you choose to hop off your mortal coil. Happy new year all of you mad men and women.

Listasaurus: The Top 20 Songs of 2010: 05-01

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Oh wow. Here we go. It's Christmas Eve and snow is falling neck breaking amounts of sludge are everywhere. As I walk the streets of this humdrum town I can see families huddled around computer screens. What are they looking at? What can unite all these people like this? Oh cot damn. It's my twitter feed and they are all waiting for a tweet to say that this blog post is up. Happy holidays.

05 Rihanna - 'Only Girl (In The World)'

"...be my prisoner for the night."

I'd say the same thing about Gaga but I'm really thankful Rihanna is around. You know by now that pop stars of her magnitude are unavoidable in everyday life. Regardless of your age, gender or anything else you will be hearing songs by artists like Rihanna on approximately a thrice daily basis. In the launderette, in the bakery, on the car radio on the way to work, from the annoying girl singing in the office. Rihanna and Gaga, though, are different to the rest. Why? Well, I find them both genuinely interesting for one. I find a vast majority of their music really very listenable for two. Perhaps you could say that this has more to do with the people behind the scenes than the actual artists themselves and perhaps you could be right. I'll tell you one thing about that though, I don't really care either way.

'Only Girl (In The World)' initially sounded like a bit of a cash in on this recent R&B/dance crossover trend. Originally, I heard it two or three times and dismissed it as a bit of a dissapointment and got on with my life. However, as the days and weeks rolled on and I kept hearing the song through my own choosing or otherwise, I started to dig it more and more with each listen. As always with Rihanna, the song is shot through with a high voltage sexiness but its a sexiness that is edged with some yearning and some real innocence. It's like reading the diary of the hottest girl at school and finding out that she's got it bad for some kid that couldn't give a shit about her. Something like that anyway. Either way, it's fantastic.

04 Freddie Gibbs - 'National Anthem (Fuck The World)'

"All my shit still be bumpin'..."

Aside from the song at #02 in this list, this is my most played rap song of the year and it takes few listens to work out why. Gibbs really works with LA Riots' beat here so much so that you really cannot imagine them as divided entities. The way in which he slows down to a thug crawl for that chorus and shifts up to a blinding Twista speed for his verses really is spellbinding. As is often the way, Gibbs has really been through a lot in his short life but it's moments like this that make you thankful he came out the other side.

Freddie Gibbs has a lot of material out there. He's a mixtape fiend and filtering this slew of content down to its rawest and purest form can be difficult. I mean, where to start? Well, the easy answer to that is to start with "National Anthem...," because this isn't just Freddie Gibbs' best track, it's one of the best rap tracks of the year. Perhaps more importantly, it marks Gibbs out as a true contender and one to watch very closely come 2011 and beyond.

03 Laura Marling - 'Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)'

"True love is frail and willing to break..."

I posted about Laura Marling earlier in the year when 'I Speak Because I Can' was first released. Back then, I was reeling at how good that album was and how amazing it is that Marling is 20 years old or whatever. Since then I've listened to ISBIC and more specifically 'Goodbye England...' many, many times and with each listen I've realised how irrelevant it is what age Laura Marling is. This is a song that just sounds completely classic. It could've been released at any time over the past fifty years, it really doesn't matter.

Marling has written a song that reads as well as it sounds. It could be read to you as a poem and you'd have nothing to say other than to praise its beauty. You've probably never read a sentence that includes both Freddie Gibbs and Laura Marling before but much like that guy at #04, it's songs like this that mark Marling out as a different breed to her competitors.

There's nothing I like more than being surprised and at no point in the past did I think Laura Marling had a song this good in her. It's simply beautiful and I have my hand on my heart when I say this placing is in no way influenced by it being Christmas nor snow falling in and around this country that Laura and I were born in.

02 Kanye West - 'Monster'

"The best living or dead hands down, huh?"

Who on earth saw this coming? C'mon, hands up. Naw, me neither. When Kanye launched back into the world with his weekly G.O.O.D Friday series no one really knew what to expect. What I didn't foresee was the actual content of these free, weekly released, songs. Firstly, the vast majority of them were pure fire and secondly, the guests Kanye roped in weren't just session musicians or anything, it was stellar major players of (mainly) the rap game. I'm talking Jay-Z, Lupe, Common, Mos Def, Pusha T here. Some of these GF tracks (albeit reworked versions) were later used for 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' and 'Monster' was one of these. It's just too undeniable to be left as anything else.

It's a difficult track to describe to someone without them listening to it as you do. The basics are that it features Rick Ross, Kanye, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver (!). Other than that, the shit's plain ridiculous. Kanye quite typically came up with an entirely untypical beat that jumps all over the place and the rest is down to the respective artists and their verses. Ross is on damage control and only gets a couple of bars (how he is best used) and Kanye's swagger is set on ultra high. Jay-Z's verse I don't actually like very much at all but abide for one reason - it sets up Nicki Minaj to stomp through and rip everyone's balls off. Nicki's verse is my musical moment of the year. It's all crazy voices chasing a beat that just doesn't know where its going to go next. She sounds like Godzilla wearing skyscrapers for stilettos. Her verse forms part of a song that is quite simply, if you'll excuse my language, a motherfuckin' monster.

01 The Walkmen - 'Angela Surf City'

"You took the high road..."

I've hinted at how much I adore this song at several separate occasions this year. This adoration was cemented when I got to witness it performed live last month and it did not dissapoint in any way. This one, dear reader, soars.

The Walkmen never get their dues. They do the rounds, tour incessantly and for an indie band in 2010, are pretty prolific too. Even then, I don't feel they get half the press they deserve. For me, they should be spoke about as loftily as The National are. Now I'm aware that The National aren't exactly U2 but even so, there's a big difference in between being in that band and being a member of The Walkmen. Album sales, gig revenues, merchandise. It all counts in a pretty important way. The reasons why I dig this band so much are right there, a mile high, for all to see in 'Angela Surf City'.

To get the obvious out of the way first, they're incredible musicians and if you can't hear that in this song then you're either an idiot or deaf. The most obvious example of their musicianship is the drumming. Always incessant yet strictly melodic, Matt Barrick could just be the best drummer around. It's clear that rest of The Walkmen know this and Barrick often finds himself at centre stage. 'Angela Surf City' kicks off with him rolling out a typical drum beat, for example.

The Walkmen's finest and most famous hour was a song called 'The Rat' which was released in 2004 to raptourous acclaim. Since then, it's often been a case of "yeah they're alright but they'll never top 'The Rat'..." and if the band we're honest up until the release of 'Lisbon' then they might've just agreed. 'Angela Surf City' changes all of that. It shows that 'The Rat' wasn't just a one off. It shows that its possible to go from sounding almost bored in an opening verse to launching into a chorus that's as unstoppable as a runaway train. It shows that you can really achieve something amazing in three minutes and nineteen seconds.

So, that's it. List over. Hope you all enjoyed reading, a spotify playlist of the complete list can be found here*. Have a good christmas and I hope next year is better than this year for all of you.

*some songs aren't on spotify. They've been substituted in a 'next best' sorta way apart from Jeezy and Arcade Fire who are just plain difficult and not on there at all.

Listasaurus: The Top 20 Songs of 2010: 08 - 06

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We are now one post away from the top five. That's simple mathematics right there. If you can't work that out then you probably can't read anyway so this blog is completely lost on you. No, I don't do screen readers, braille or large font translations.

08. Arcade Fire - 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)'

"I need the darkness someone please cut the lights..."

When it comes to indie releases in 2010, they didn't get much bigger than 'The Suburbs'. When it comes to disappointments in 2010, yeah, you can use the second half of that first sentence again. Again, my problems with 'The Suburbs' were much publicised on this blog and on my twitter but if there's one thing I couldn't be accused of, it's not trying enough. I gave that record listen after listen, hour after hour and it just never happened. Amazing if you consider that after hearing 'Funeral' and 'Neon Bible' I couldn't conceive of living my life without those records. They were just that big to me. Epic statements of heart, inspiration and perseverance they are albums that are now four and six years old respectively. They are albums I still listen to on a weekly basis. That says it all, I think.

My problems with 'The Suburbs' may have been plentiful but in 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)' I found a saving grace that knocked me off my feet and carried me away. It's a song that you swear you've heard before. It could be Kate Bush. It could be Blondie produced by The Knife. Whatever. It's the kind of song that makes mountains beyond mountains seem entirely surmountable.

07. Young Jeezy Ft. Plies - 'Lose My Mind'

"My house stupid dumb big, my rooms got rooms..."

My God this is a banger. There's no other way to put it. In many ways you can hold it up as the archetypal Young Jeezy song. By that I mean it's big, it's dumb and it smashes you in the face like a sledgehammer. As the lead single from the eagerly awaited 'Thug Motivation 103' 'Lose My Mind' did exactly what it was meant to. It banged and made you think "Man, that new Jeezy album is going to be some ridiculous shit." The only issue, OF COURSE, is that there is no sign of that album at the moment and the release date seems to change with the wind direction.

This is all to take nothing away from the song though. Clocking in at just under four minutes, Jeezy bosses his two verses just as we've come to take for granted whilst Plies spits his out like he's been chewing on concrete and barbed wire for the past coupla weeks. Plies is Plies, I'll give you absolutely nothing if you guess the content of his lines, let's put it that way. Again, God, this is a banger.

06. Robyn - 'Call Your Girlfriend'

"And then you let her down easy..."

Much like Drake, 2010 has been truly a year to remember for Robyn. In a year that saw her release two EPs and a full length, she is now reaping the rewards and also finds herself at the business end of just about everybody's end of year lists.

The biggest compliment I can pay to Robyn is that this song could've been one of about five. If I was intending to include more than one song per artist in this list then she would've had multiple entries. 'Indestructible', 'Hang With Me', 'Dancing On Your Own' and 'Cry When You Get Older' could all be substituted in place of this song I've chosen here quite easily. 'Call Your Girlfriend' is different though. It's simply the most mature, most accurate and incisively written pop song I've heard this year. In her first verse Robyn sings "Tell her not to get upset, second-guessing everything you said and done..." and man, that's a hell of a line. We've all been there haven't we? One thing goes wrong and there you are left wondering if the whole thing was a sham from day one. This is something Robyn does better than anyone. She can take minute details of life, of love, and she can retell them in these amazing songs so they sound anything but small. Oh, and all this to tunes you can dance to. The best way to put this is to say that, at the moment, there is no one making music who can soundtrack tears on a dance floor better than Robyn.