Monday, September 17, 2007

No 'Bronze Medal'

Greatest hits packages. They're always a curious thing to consider. On the one hand, they can be an ace opportunity to get all "the hits" from a band you've had a marginal interest in over the course of their career or they can be the chance to get into a band you've respected from the past but never risked buying one of their albums. On the other hand, if it's an act that you've been raving about since they released their first album, the point of buying such a package can be minimal. Usually it amounts to a couple of new tracks, lazily interlinked with "the hits" and maybe the odd fan-favourite/live recording thrown in for good measure. Fair play, in recent years the industry has recognised this by releasing the now-standard "special edition" version with more of the aforementioned fan-faves, rarities and live tracks as a bonus. However, the main point, so beautifully captured by David Cavicchi's discussion of Bruce Springstein fans, stands: do you spend fifteen quid on a collection of songs you already own, just arranged in a different order?

This, Dear Reader, is the dilemma I face a t present, since the mighty Idlewild are set to release their 'Best Of' next month. To purchase or not to purchase? Well, unfortunately that's a foregone conclusion! For completist reasons I pretty much have to get it. The choice of tracks is not that surprising, being "Remote Part" heavy as that's their most popular album. However, whilst it's nice to see them not go for the "just the singles" approach by including some slightly obscurer tracks the choice of some of these is questionable. 'Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror)' stands out the greatest due to it a) not being one of the best songs on "100 Broken Windows" and b) being included at the expense of the awesome 'Actually It's Darkness', but including 'Make Another World' is also curious. Not that the latter is a bad song either, just curious as to why it was included and 'Ghost in the Arcade' wasn't.

Obviously, there are omissions. Significant omissions being 'Captain' (should've been there for old times sake and it's artistic shoutyness) and 'Everyone Says You're So Fragile' (the song with officially the best use of a scream in the history of music). Personally, I'd have liked to have seen 'The Bonze Medal', 'Quiet Crown', 'I'm Happy to Be Here Tonight' and 'Tell Me Ten Words' included, as well as the stonking b-side 'Poor Thing'. However, that's again the problem of a favourite band releasing a retrospective, you're faves are always a little more idiosynchratic than what the everyman requires. However, the real plus for the fans will be the special edition release, with it's inclusion of all of the band's music videos as well as a full live DVD. That's value for money, there. Usually they'd be three seperate releases for another band. However, Idlewild have decided to do them all together, and I for one shall not be complaining.

So there we are, Dear Reader, 'Scottish Fiction: The Best of 1997-2007' is out on the 1st of October. A chance to listen to a collection of brilliant songs by one of the best undiscovered bands of the last ten years. However, if I were you I'd just buy all their albums. And a few of the singles too...

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Getting Out the Childish Things

Good day, Dear Reader. Well it's been a while, has it not? I think I make it about seven months in total. Now, seven months is a long stretch of time and many things can happen to someone over the stretch of that time-period. This, however, will not be a long recourse through those last few months. They are lost to the annuals of history, probably never to be retrieved by anyone other than if someone wants to right my autobiography, which will be a thoroughly disappointing read peppered with the occasional witty observation about Devon. Neither, sadly, will this post cover an in-depth overview of Season Three of Who. That particular job can be summed up in the following statement: "It was awesome aside from the last two episodes". In short, we started with hilariously cack space-rhinos, moved onto epic witches, the return of the Macra (!) and the moving death of the Face of Boe, the Daleks making me scream with excitement as they evolved and then sigh as the second episode was a let down, a poetic study of wanting to live forever, quite possibly the piece of drama Who has produced since 'Caves of Androzani', THE greatest episode of the series (and perhaps since it came back), a thrillingly exciting chase and re-introduction of an old face (minus the beard an annoying heh-heh-hehing), and then John Simm being let down by bad uses of music and not really knowing what to do with DT and Captain Jack. There we are, Season Three in a nutshell.

Anyways, the subject matter of this post is to discuss the great news that Character, the company responsible for producing those rather awesome plastic figures related to the series, are to start producing figures from the 'classic' series. I fell of my chair when I heard this. I can't believe it. So in short, here are my 5 nominations for figures that should be included in the range of 'classic' Who merchandise:

5. Ace.
Ahhh, lovely Sophie Aldred immoratlised forevermore in plastic. Yes, there is a slightly creepy subtext to that comment, it's not intentional.

4. The Emperor Dalek from 'Evil of the Daleks'.
It's a real shame that this story doesn't exist anymore as it's awesome, and the photos that exist of the Emperor Dalek make it look fantastic, just for the fact that it doesn't look that Dalekesque (is that a word? If not, I'm copyrighting it). Would fit in quite nicely with the new series as well.

3. Soldeed and a Nimon.
There could be kids playing in the street going "Lord Nimon! Lord Niiiiiiiimon! It is I! Soldeed!". Imagine that. I don't think I'd ever be able to stop laughing! I'd have to go up and congratulate said child for doing so! At which instance I'd probably get arrested by their mother on the accusation of being a Paedo.

2. Sharaz Jek.
Best written villain of the old series? Possibly, he's definately up there, apart from the fact that he wasn't evil! Morgus was the real villain of the piece, Jek was the man after revenge after being betrayed. Brilliant performance as well that deserves being immortalised in plastic, even if he does look like he might be dressed in a gimp costume nowadays. But think, the mask could come off revealing the disfgurement beneath. Now that would be cool...

1. Scaroth.
Oh come on! Like you didn't see that one coming! It would be the coolest thing ever. Again, he should come with a removable head that reveals the green cyclops beneath. Kids could get well acquainted with providing concise answers, noting that nobody could be as stupid as he seems, and taunting futile earthlings who believe they are the upmost authority on temporal theory. I'd buy one straight away! In fact, I'd buy three, and one for my niece, and... Oh, I dunno. But I'd find some other people to buy one for.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

A Broken, Discarded Umbrella, Publicly Displayed in a Public Lavatory

A slightly bizzare title for this blog post you may well think Dear Reader, and you'd be quite right. The above title refers to something strange I saw whilst walking back from the centre of Cardiff today. I'd just got past the swanky-looking sushi restaurant (still haven't visited that restaurant. Don't even know if I like sushi to be honest, but it looks quite interesting nevertheless) and soon after that there's one of those 'experimental' public toilets like they have in France where you pay money to get in, then get a set amount of time before the door locks and the place 'cleans itself'. Now going back a few years I have a funny story from Uni about a friend getting stuck in one of these contraptions after a trip to the Welsh Club (hopefully some readers may remember being there), but that's a little aside. What drew my attention was that the door to this public lavatory was wide open, and someone had thrust their defunct umbrella in the bowl of the toilet, so that it looked like some form of modern art; a metaphor for mankind's continual second placing to nature? What really struck me was that someone had gone to the attention of actually sticking the destroyed umbrella in this toilet in such a manner, as it looked as though someone had given it real thought. Bizzare.

So I suppose at this point I should lead the discussion from this opening anecdote into a further abstraction of the above, whereby I discuss something like creating beauty and art out of everyday things? Or perhaps lead in to a discussion of climate change as a result of the blown-out umbrella? Unfortunately, neither of these things will be discussed. The truth is that this incident was one of a number of strange occurances I seem to have been witness to lately. I'm not going to list them all here, as I'm sure some of them aren't nearly as funny or wierd as I seem to think they are, but it seems as though there's a lot of funny business going on with the public of Cardiff at the moment. Perhaps those Krillitanes have been invading again. Last night one fell in to my pot of yoghurt. That, Dear Reader, was a careless mistake.

Is anyone else slightly scared by the fact that it's mid-January already? I mean, seriously, last time I looked it was New Year's Day and I was watching entire series of (the hilarious) Peep Show. Ah well, time flies when you're having fun. Or reading about discursive psychology. One of the two.

CyberControl's Top 5 Points of Stability in a Strange Universe:

The Cooper Temple Clause - Waiting Game
The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres
Roxette - Dressed For Success
Jimmy Eat World - Polaris
Rufus Wainwright - Agnus Dei