2023 – The Year So Far #3

Today is the last day of May – and if the weather is ok – which I suspect it will – the family and I are going on a catamaran so that we can peer over edge and see if we can spot some whales and dolphins.  When I signed up to the activity, it said that actually seeing whales and dolphins was not ‘guaranteed’ and I fear that I may have been lured into this trip by the glowing reviews left on Tripadvisor. 

“AMAZING TRIP, we saw sperm whales!!” said one.

“Brilliant, we saw a whole school of dolphins, right next to the boat” glowed another. 

“Five Stars, a whale squirted me with water, whilst I sipped a Mojito” gushed a third. 

I mean what’s not to like about being squirted by a whale whilst supping a cocktail on board a catamaran.  I’ll have three tickets please.

I think what will happen is that the family and I will traipse down to the marina, get on board this posh ‘environmentally friendly’ boat, get wet, and possibly see a dolphin or something fishy in the distance.   Then we will sit still for an hour near some caves, whilst some people jump in and swim around for a bit and then head back home.  I might of course be wrong, but I have been stung by organised tours before.  My daughter wants to see some dolphins, so there better bloody well be some, that’s all I’m going to say.

I once went on an organised ghost tour of Dublin, which took around some dark bits of Dublin and every now and again, an actor with pretty unconvincing make up would jump out on you an make you jump before vanishing back behind the conveniently placed fence. 

I also once went on a ghost walk in Calgary, where the guides gave you an electromagnetic machine that detected ‘paranormal’ activity.  For thirty five of the forty minutes then machine did nothing, until we reached the ‘most haunted street in Calgary’ when the machines when batshit crazy.  Which was a bit weird, until the guide, about an hour later in the pub, revealed that there were cables under the ground which made the machines go crazy. 

Here are the last three tracks from 2023, from bands that I have either seen live, heard on the radio, been recommended by friends or just tracks that I have hard for the first time via some form of streaming device.

First up excellent electro punk from London via Ireland from Nixer.

Irish Dancer – Nixer (2023, Blowtorch Records, single)

Next up keeping the slightly European theme that appears to have appeared today, here’s some modern day Mersey beat and Oasis inspired pop mastery from Derby four piece Marseille, who seem to have got away with calling themselves that, despite the heavy metal band from Liverpool that made records in the seventies.  This is a good thing because this Marseille, the four piece from Derby that is – are very good indeed, where as the old Liverpool based mob were not – even if they did contain Art Attacks, Neil Buchanan in their original line up (this is genuinely true).

Only Just Begun – Marseille (2023, Broken 8 Records, Single)

and finally, some utterly infectious experimental post punk from Brixton

Woodlouse – Alien Chicks (2022, Self Released single)

2023 – The Year So Far #2

One of the best things about being on holiday or just being in a new place is the exploring.  I love wandering down streets and not knowing where you might end up, what shops, cafes, buildings, parks, statues you might come across.  If everything goes to plan, that is exactly what I should be doing today, just wandering around, getting lost, eating cake, photographing buildings, people watching and sitting around on handily placed benches and such like. 

When I was younger I used to always buy or borrow a tourist guide to cities.  I would gamely stick to the tourist traps, and traipse around the usual haunts.  It was a drunk barman in Budapest who showed me the errors of my ways.  That I sat in a bar watching an awful Irish folk punk rock band on the big screen, whilst my mates asked the barman where we could find a restaurant that was recommended by Lonely Planet. 

“Don’t go there”, he said in his Hungarian drawl, “and don’t read these books”, chucking the Budapest Guide book I’d borrowed from Exeter Library on the floor.  Five minutes later a taxi arrived and whisked across the river to a place that wasn’t in the guide book, where we ate like kings amongst the locals for about £2.50.    Buoyed by this success, I did something similar a few years later in the Hague.  I asked a drunk barman (Hi Joos, if you are reading) for a restaurant recommendation and ended up down a backstreet eating the greatest bowl of vegan chilli I’ve ever eaten. 

In Munich, I asked a policeman on the way back from the Oktoberfest for a good place to get breakfast, and the following day, there I sat, hungover, but full up on world class pastries and a seriously good milkshake.  In Brussels, I went to a great museum that I randomly stumbled across by getting off my metro train a stop earlier because I wanted to check out a bar that was recommended to me.  In Berlin, I caught a Mogwai gig in a bombed out cinema by asking a hotel cleaner to pick a number from one to ten (each number represented a pub). 

So I have taken precisely no guide books on holiday with me, we have no plans – apart from tomorrow – more on that, tomorrow.  We will ask a local for a tip and hope that random things work their magic

Here are three more tracks made by bands that I have seen live, heard on the radio, been recommended by friends or just tracks that I have heard for the first time via some form of streaming device.

Ethel – The Murder Capital (2023, Human Season Records, Taken from ‘Gigi’s Recovery’) – ‘Ethel’ was the third single to be released from The Murder Capital’s second album ‘Gigi’s Recovery’.  It is a proper belter of a track.  One that constantly fizzes along and then just bursts into life.  It is backed up by singer James McGovern’s wonderfully poetic voice.   Next up something entirely different.

Hit – Uh (2023, PRAH Records, Taken from ‘Humanus’) – Uh are a brother and sister electronic duo from London and they are really hard to define.  At times they sound all acid house, with raw synths fighting for space with soaring vocals and at other time they go all neo celtic rave and well a bit prog rock.  Thankfully ‘Hit’ is closer to the acid house and dirty synth side of the party.

Before You Let Go – Props (2022, Self Released, Taken from ‘songs’

Finally today – some DIY bedroom  pop from South London.  ‘Before You Let Go’ is everything that music made in a bedroom should be.  Manic, full of pop punk energy, infectious, and totally brilliant.

2023 – The Year So Far #1

I’m off on holiday this week, in fact by the time you read this I will either be, driving to the airport to catch a flight, on a flight sipping scalding hot tea and annoying my daughter by constantly beating her at Uno, or at my hotel gazing out the window at the ocean view that I paid extra for.   Right now though I’m not on holiday I’m space filling because May is an odd month that has 23 week days in it and my rigid 2023 resolution of ‘No more than 20 posts in a single new series’ rule is coming back to bite me on the arse slightly because I have three days to fill before June arrives.

June’s posts are by the way mostly written – because they will see another countdown reach these pages, one decided again by the Musical Jury and one that for once won’t see Joy Division as a winner because they are not eligible to take part, but just because I am holiday – there should be no interruption to service.

So, what I’d thought I’d do is a quick round up of some of the new music from new or relatively new bands that I have heard in the last five months or so. These might be bands that I have seen live, heard on the radio, been recommended by friends or just tracks that I have heard for the first time via some form of streaming device.

I’m going to start here with a band who insist on capitals, so are by default, amazing.

Madges Declaration – DEADLETTER (2022, SO Recordings, Taken from ‘Heat!’)

DEADLETTER started out in life as a three piece from North Yorkshire.  In order to escape the pub circuit the band upped sticks and moved to the big smoke of London Town.  They soon found a more creative and developed sound and the band expanded to a six piece.  Musically they remind me a lot of bands like Gallon Drunk and Earl Brutus but there is also a lopsided energy to them that brings bands such as Bloc Party in their heyday to mind and the lyrical delivery of singer Zac Lawrence has a similar fury to that shown on the early Fall records (kind of droll, rather than curmudgeonly). 

Next up, something completely different

The Churn – break_fold (2023, analog horizons records, Taken from ‘This was Forever’)

In contrast to DEADLETTER, break_fold seem to insist on their name being type in lowercase and the underscore is utterly vital to all that.  They make a mysterious type of electronica, which if I was lazy I would liken to the sort of sound that Bicep were making a few years back but I’m not at all lazy so I’m going to describe them as a mixture of blissed out beats, synths, samples, drums and house-y vibes.  Like a less intense Fuck Buttons, or a more intense Four Tet, depending on your view.

Finally today, possibly the greatest band to have ever come from Austria.  Meet MOLLY – a duo who make a shimmeringly beautiful sound.  A sound that has its foot firmly in the room marked ‘Shoegaze’ but its slightly more than that – they bring a post rock feel to it as well.  It is music that soars and sounds celestial and angelic, and therefore, obviously MOLLY are signed to Sonic Cathedral Records – because this is music that dangles you upside down from the roof of the sonic cathedral and then tickles your feet just because it can.  ‘Ballerina’ which opens their new ‘Picturesque’ album packs more expansive sounds in its four minutes than most bands manage in a lifetime.  ‘Picturesque’ by the way – is already well on its way to being the No Badger Required album of the year – and (whisper it) might just be the closest thing to a Nearly Perfect Album we hear all year.  Oh and erm – note the capital letters gang.

Ballerina – MOLLY (2023, Sonic Cathedral Records, Taken from ‘Picturesque’)

The Future is No Words #4 – Engineers

Welcome to Sunday – where words remain overrated.  They are so overrated that massively underrated mid noughties ambient shoegaze band Engineers have decided to stop using them – largely because they only ever whispered them behind a cloak of feedback and effects anyway and no one actually heard what they were saying – but the point remains. 

Here they are to explain, using only ambient soundscapes, why.

Rhenium – Engineers (2020, Independent Records, Taken from ‘Pictobug EP’)

Mazama – Engineers (2020, Independent Records, Taken from ‘Pictobug EP’)

Pictobug – Engineers (2004, Echo Records, Taken from ‘Folly EP’)

Nearly Perfect Albums – #62

Rated R – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records)

Of course there was an eleventh commandment scrawled in a green Sharpie pen on the bottom of a stone tablet left up a mountain by that bloke with the beard. It read:

“Never ever wear double denim”

For years it was pretty much the only one of the Commandments that anyone paid attention to.  Until that is Josh Homme, the 6 foot 4, bequiffed Elvis obsessed singer with Queens of the Stone Age ambled onstage in the desert wearing denim jeans and a denim shirt.  Homme then reached behind his speaker ad picked up a denim jacket and stuck that on as well.  Homme had gone triple denim and he didn’t give a fuck who cared.  He didn’t care because his band had just released ‘Rated R’ an unrelenting juggernaut of a record that was about to blow your mind and that mean he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

Which is pretty much what he did.  Homme went away and made what he described as “a cocaine pop record”.  What he delivered was ten times more than that, he delivered a record that combined punk rock with psychedelia, he then added some decidedly black humour and lots of lyrics about sex and drugs (and as I’ve gone there. Josh Homme and his band took a shed load of drugs whilst making ‘Rated R’, I say shed, I mean industrial sized garage, that much is clear).

At first, people thought he was taking the piss.  

I mean ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ has precisely two notes running through it and a single line (arf!) of lyrics – that being – “Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, Ecstasy and alcohol/ C-c-c-c-cocaine” which are repeated over and over again – and yet somehow it has become as important to rock music now as tracks like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Ace of Spades’ were when they were first released. 

Feel Good Hit of the Summer – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records)

Its became that important, because, it is insanely brilliant, just as virtually every song on ‘Rated R’ is.

Josh Homme would probably think it boring to have just produced an album full of punk rock songs that are obsessed with sex and drugs (even if it absolutely isn’t boring). To combat that, he is also gives us a bunch of crazy and slightly leftfield indie pop songs (about sex and drugs) – like these two for example.  He may wear triple denim everywhere, but no one can ever accuse Josh Homme of not being musically eclectic.

The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records)

Monsters in the Parasol – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records)

Talking of eclecticism – there is of course the psychedelia as well – which does bring us back to the sex and the drugs – but it is more blissed out – and far more attuned to Homme’s early work in the band Kyuss

Auto Pilot – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records) – which features a guest vocal from Pete Stahl from Goatsnake.

In the Fade – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records) – which is sung by Mark Lanegan and almost swerves into RnB territory (still great though)

The album’s finest moment though is another track that isn’t sung by Josh Homme, it is a track yelped by Terrorvision bashing bassist Nick Oliveri that steals the show and whilst it is another ode to some sort of class A, it sounds like the sort of noise you would get if Big Black partied round at Fugazi’s basement flat.

Tension Head – Queens of the Stone Age (2000, Interscope Records)

‘Rated R’ is an astonishing record that refused to compromise – a no holds barred record of excess. One that rightly elevated Queen of the Stone Age to rocks top table.

Alternative Versions – #20

Sunrise (Peel Session – 12^th August 2001) – Pulp (2006, Island Records, Taken from ‘The Peel Sessions’)

Sunrise – Pulp (2001, Island Records, Taken from ‘We Love Life’)

The Pulp Peel Sessions record is a wonderful album.  A two disc, two hour marathon of tracks recorded live for the John Peel show or recorded live for the BBC over a twenty year period.  Pulp only recorded four Peel Sessions between 1981 and 2001 and there were spread out.  There was a twelve year gap between their first one (1981) and their second one (1993) and the difference between their musical sound in that period is astonishing (I mean they are still unmistakably Pulp just post punk Pulp instead of pervy pop Pulp)

‘Sunrise’ comes from the fourth and final Peel Session (2001) that the band did, in true Pulp form, this took place some seven years after their third one (1994) and consisted largely of tracks from the bands ‘We Love Life’ album.   ‘Sunrise’ happens to be one of my favourite Pulp songs, definitely a late career highlight from them.  The Peel Session version kind of sticks to the recipe though and whilst its brilliant – it doesn’t better the original (though it comes mightily close) which means that we can reveal the result of the inaugural Alternative versus Original Competition – which I’ll do at the end.  Although, if you can’t wait till then the originals have it.

Let’s talk about the Pulp Peel Session album a bit though – because its an excellent album – and full of little treats for you to savour.  A real highlight though comes right at the end of the first CD, when you get this marvellous piece of spoken word theatre from Jarvis Cocker.  

Duck Diving (Peel Session – 12^th August 2001) – Pulp (2006, Island Records, Taken from ‘The Peel Sessions’)

I’m not sure if ‘Duck Diving’ was just recorded for John Peel or not but essentially what you get is Jarvis Cocker reading a childrens story over the faintest splash of electronica and it is just about the best thing I have heard this week.

Also very good is the Peel Session of ‘Pencil Skirt’ which is given a slightly Euro pop feel as an accordion squeaks away in the background before it is joined by some excellent keyboards towards the end – if I’d stuck that on the original playlist, we would have almost certainly have had a different name on the cup.

Pencil Skirt (Peel Session September 1994) – Pulp (2006, Island Records, Taken from ‘The Peel Sessions’)

CD Two contains tracks that are performed live in London (2001), Bristol (1995) and Birmingham (2001).  It ends with a brilliant live version of ‘Common People’ which starts with a disco beat, a swirling organ sound and some quality Jarvis swearing.  It sounds absolutely nothing like the ‘Common People’ that we all know and love – the first guitar isn’t heard for nearly two minutes and then the chorus kicks in and it sort off goes back to the script, there is a guitar break five minutes which is just ridiculously over the top as well and goes all glam rock on amphetamines for the last minute or so.  It’s wonderful though, but we all knew that.

Common People (Halloween Night 2001) – Pulp (2006, Island Records, Taken from ‘The Peel Sessions’)

So we have it – A close run thing – the Originals win by 10 points to 9, I really enjoyed this series and think I might make it an annual event.

Alternative Versions – #19

Aisha (Nightclubbing) – Death in Vegas (1999, Concrete Records, Taken from ‘The Contino Sessions – Special Edition’)

Aisha – Death in Vegas (1999, Concrete Records, Taken from The ‘Contino Sessions’)

Aisha (Edit) – Death In Vegas (1999, Concrete Records, Taken from ‘The Contino Sessions – Special Edition’)

Richard Fearless, one half of Death in Vegas, once described ‘The Contino Sessions’ as being “the sort of record that he dreamed of making”.  One of that brought a bunch of his heroes into one room to sing on tracks that he had laid down.  So, you get Jim Reid from the Mary Chain, you get Bobby G singing about “insects hatching in his mind”, and you get possibly best of all, Iggy Pop, being all sinister and drawling as a would be serial killer out on the pull.  In fact the only one of his heroes that Richard Fearless didn’t manage to get to guest on the album was Jason Pierce from Spiritualized.

Anyway, let’s get back to Iggy Pop and ‘Aisha’ – Some people say that ‘Aisha’ is Iggy’s greatest vocal contribution to music since his work with the Stooges as he gabbles out lines about being “A murderer”.  ‘Aisha’ is an ace track, a musical thriller starring Iggy Pop as your serial killer, his spoken vocal is all menacing and drawling which becomes more sinister as it goes before suddenly he starts to sound more desperate and unhinged and his vocals deteriorate to a horrid sounding gurgling scream. All that is set to a rumbling bass, a strutting drum and a buzzsaw guitar and that like organ break around 90 seconds in, is incredible.  Is it Pop’s greatest vocal contribution since his time in the Stooges?  No, don’t be an idiot, it’s Iggy Pop, he wrote ‘Lust for LIfe’ – but it is very good indeed.

Which sort of brings us to the ‘Nightclubbing’ version of ‘Aisha’ – which, when the musical purists out there have finished doffing their trilby’s to the brilliant naming convention used, is conveniently for the sake of a grand finale, even better than the album version.  That strips away most of the guitars and drums, and replaces them with a relentless beat, distorts Iggy’s vocals slightly and throws the track right into the middle of the dancefloor so that the punks out there can kick it to within an inch of its life, as the bass rumbles away in the background, like its stalking you through a graveyard with a knife clenched between its teeth.

If Iggy’s warped screams and yelps are slightly too much for you – then helpfully, the band stripped away all that in the ‘Instrumental version’ of ‘Aisha’ (although you still have Iggy mumbling “I’m a Murderer” at you in that version.

Aisha (Instrumental) – Death In Vegas (1999, Concrete Records, Taken from ‘The Contino Sessions – Special Edition’)

So as we move into the final day of this series, we are, because of the brilliance of the ‘Nightclubbing’ version of ‘Aisha’ at an intriguing and not at all planned nine points all.  Which means it is left to Pulp to decide things tomorrow……

Alternative Versions – #18

Kung Fu (live at the Wireless 2008) – Ash (2008, Echo Records, Taken from ‘1977 Collectors Edition’)

Kung Fu (Album Version) – Ash (1996, Infectious Records, Taken from ‘1977’)

The ‘Live at the Wireless’ album by Ash is rather marvellous.  It was originally released in 1997 about a year or so after ‘1977’ came out and is a live gig that the band did in Australia that was broadcast live on air.   I remember buying a copy on vinyl from a record shop just off the Charing Cross Road.  It has one of the best starts of any album ever.  A mike crackles and suddenly an Irish voice blurts out “Hey, We’re fucking Ash”

and just before the guitars kick in, another voice (the radio show host) can be (just about) heard to say

“Oh, Dear god, no”. 

Then you get some heavy breathing and then ‘Kung Fu’ just explodes into life.  It is incredible and considering it’s a live album, full of raw vocals, and at times tinny and badly recorded, that is a very rare thing.  

I love ‘Kung Fu’ I think its probably my favourite song by Ash.  I love the fact that they used the picture of Eric Cantona kicking that football thug on the cover of the single, I love the sampled thwacking noises at the start of it, I love the way the chorus sticks in your mind long after it has finished, all of it is brilliant. 

But there is just something about the wireless live version that I adore more than all that.  Maybe it’s the fact that its played at breakneck speed, maybe it’s the sheer raw energy that revolves around it.  So, with two days to go, the gap closes back to just one point – Alternatives 8 – Originals 9

Ash were tremendous live when they were touring ‘1977’ I saw them at the Town and Country Club in London and came away clutching the head of a cardboard Darth Vader, like it was my most prized possession, which, considering it had been launched into the crowd about ten minutes earlier and then ripped to pieces like it was a piece of meat thrown to some hungry dogs, it clearly wasn’t – yet I took a boot to the back of leg to get that Darth Vader head.   24 hours later I’d left it on Chris’ sofa, never to be seen again.

There are a bunch of other great versions of Ash songs on the ‘Wireless’ album, including these two blasts of brilliance : –

Oh Yeah (Live at the Wireless) – Ash (2008, Echo Records, Taken from ‘1977 Collectors Edition’)

Goldfinger (Live at the Wireless) – Ash (2008, Echo Records, Taken from ‘1977 Collectors Edition’)

The ‘1977 Collectors Edition’ is as it happens a thing of beauty as well.  It gives you 65 Ash songs spread out over nearly four hours, as well as the Live at the Wireless album you get a bunch of tracks recorded at the Reading Festival in 1996, a load of old B Sides, cover versions and early demos and stuff. 

Stuff like this

Girl from Mars (4 Track – Demo) – Ash

Jack Names the Planets (La La Land 7” Version) – Ash

(Both taken from the 2008 ‘1977 Collectors Edition’)

Tomorrow – Death in Vegas

Alternative Versions – #17

Far (Sheffield Version) – Longpigs (1996, Mother Records, Taken from ‘Far’ single)

Far (Album Version) – Longpigs (1995, Mother Records, Taken ‘The Sun is Often Out’)

Let’s begin with a little history lesson from the big book of Britpop (Chapter 12 – ‘Had It Lost it’)

Longpigs consisted of Crispin Hunt, who was the singer, and owner of the greatest cheekbones in rock music, and whose father was a Labour MP at the time of the band’s main success (joining Louis Eliot from Rialto and Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker in the ‘Britpop singers whose parents are way more famous than we are’ Club).  Also in the band were Simon Stafford who played bass, a certain Richard Hawley who played guitars (and who arguably had more success, as a solo artist when the band split) and Dee Dee Boyle, on drums, Boyle previously played drums with A Certain Ratio, which I’m sure you all knew.

 They were in 1995/96 on the very cusp of greatness, they had via their fourth single ‘Far’ broken into the Top 40, and then with their ballad and strings anthem ‘On and On’ they gatecrashed the Top 20.  Their debut album ‘The Sun is Often Out’ was roundly applauded by the critics and public alike and they looked set to stay, but stay they did not.

Around the time of recording their second album, Boyle left the band and started their decline, the second album ‘Mobile Home’ failed to set the world alight and in 2000 they split and went their separate ways – Hawley – went solo obviously, Simon Stafford eventually joined Joe Strummer in the Mescaleros, and Hunt became a songwriter and producer for people like Natalie Imbruglia and Gabrielle Climi.

In 2019, Crispin Hunt stood for election in the European Elections, for the much maligned Change UK group, which were as you remember a political group formed out of disillusioned members of the three main political parties.  They were rubbish, and Hunt didn’t get elected.

The Sheffield Version of ‘Far’ originally came out as part of the single release of the album and single version of ‘Far’ back in March 1996, and it’s a more bouncier and frantic version than the one from ‘The Sun is Often Out’ and one that I like much more, which at least gives the alternative version a fighting chance for the silver cup that exists only in my imagination, as it is now 9 – 7 to the originals.

There were a couple of other alternative versions of Longpigs tracks released over time, most of which can be found on their ‘On and On’ anthology album, although to be honest you would be better off buying the debut album as its ace, and ignoring the rest of it.

All Hype (BBC Radio 1 Session) – Longpigs  (taken from ‘On and On – The Anthology’)

All Hype (album version) – Longpigs (1995, Mother Records, Taken from ‘The Sun is Often Out’)

Here is one of the two singles from the second album which largely bombed without a trace.

The Frank Sonata – Longpigs (1999, Mother Records, Taken from ‘Mobile Home’) and alongside that is an alternative version of it.

The Frank Sonata (Rae and Christian Mix) – Longpigs (1999, Mother Records, B Side)

Tomorrow – Ash

Alternative Versions – #16

Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe (International Remix featuring Emeli Sande) – Kendrick Lamar (2013, Interscope records, Taken from ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe EP’)

Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe (Album Version) – Kendrick Lamar (2012, Interscope Records, Taken from ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.D City’)

About a year before the ‘international’ version of ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ was released, Emeli Sande was standing in London’s Olympic Stadium singing to millions of people about hope and triumph and such like.  It probably did her career no harm at all, despite like most of the acts on display that evening (Frank Turner and possibly Guy Garvey excepted) sounding bored and bland.

What she of course should have done was said, you know what, Lord Coe (or whoever it was that organised the closing ceremony) I don’t need to do this, because this time next year, I’ll be singing on a remixed version of one of the best tracks off of Kendrick Lamar’s breakthough album and I will sound far better on that than I will in this cavernous library of a stadium.

Which of course, she does but then again ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ is immeasurably better than anything that Emeli Sande has ever appeared on before.  The international version is in some way different to the album version, in that it is more focused on the vocals rather than on Lamar’s withering putdown of the state of the music industry, which dominates the album version.  Sande takes the lead right at the start, with a new intro bit and then joins Lamar on the refrain, and whilst that is still cutting, I still prefer the original.  Although this international remix is pretty cool to be honest. 

But that means that the original versions now lead 9- 6 with four to play, and require just one more point to win the inaugural Alternative versus Originals Cup.

The international remix appeared on the 2013 EP release of ‘Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe’ which also featured this terrific version of the same song featuring a certain Jay Z, which is absolutely better than the original version.

Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe (Featuing Jay Z) – Kendrick Lamar (2013, Interscope Records, Taken from ‘Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe EP’)

It also appeared on the ‘Deluxe’ version of the wonderful ‘Good Kid, M.a.a.D City’ album, which also features these two little known Kendrick masterpieces

Black Boy Fly – Kendrick Lamar

Now or Never – Kendrick Lamar

(Both tracks 2012, Interscope Records, Taken from ‘Good Kid, M.a.a.D City – Deluxe edition’)

The first of these celebrates the success of a few people who made it out of Compton , in particular fellow rapper Game, and the basketballer Aaron Affallo, both of whom Kendrick went to college with.  Obviously, this is Kendrick Lamar, so the tale is laced with reflection and insight.  Ultimately Lamar expresses his fears about not getting out of Compton, which to be honest was never really going to be an issue when his music is so good.

Tomorrow – Longpigs