06 April 2021 – Get It On by T.Rex

April 6, 2021 kevinisabastardget it on, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, marc bolan, t.rex1 Comment

When I was 14 I grew my hair long and decided that I had to like rock music. I had some rules. I wouldn’t pretend to like something I didn’t like and I wouldn’t like what everyone else liked. And it’s embarrassing and incredibly lame but it happened. The end result was that I was obsessed with T.Rex, specifically the one greatest hits album we had at home which doesn’t seem to exist anywhere online.

Get It On is an anthem. It’s a headphones on, all in your head escape and a jumping kick, belt it out at the end of a night. It felt a bit risqué as a 14 year old listening to a song about getting it on when I wasn’t getting anything on. Then as you get older you realise that’s what 50% of all music is about.

The other great thing about T.Rex for 14 year old me was that Marc Bolan was not into complicated guitar riffs. The vast majority of what’s going on is sex appeal and charisma and the rest is made up of bits of blues riffs. It definitely helped me to see that it’s not what you play but how you play it when it comes to music. Marc Bolan played like he was looking for the ride and that’s what the music ends up sounding like. When I was in bands with my friends we played like we were there to have fun and I like to think that’s how the music turned out.

You can listen to Get It On by T.Rex here.

04 April 2021 – Ava

April 4, 2021 kevinisabastardava, colin farrell, jessica chastain, john malkovichLeave a comment

Ava is not a good film. Jessica Chastain doesn’t deserve this. Colin Farrell doesn’t deserve this. John Malkovich doesn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve it, but it was less than two hours long and we started looking for a film too late so our options were limited.

I feel like this film might have been made entirely based on contractual obligations. The original director, Matt Newton, has a bunch of charges for violence against women and that blew up and made things awkward for Jessica Chastain.

The film is a standard concept, executed with the minimum effort. Some dialogue is very chunky and some fight scenes are very obviously choreographed. It feels like everyone just wanted to get this wrapped up and go home.

03 April 2021 – I Try by Macy Gray

April 3, 2021 kevinisabastardI try, macy grayLeave a comment

I Try is a perfect song. Macy Gray has an incredible voice, a great combination of a unique sound and an effortless cool. The lyrics are top notch. The verses and choruses are simple but meaningful, understandable and poetic.

‘I may appear to be free
But I’m just a prisoner of your love
And I may seem all right and smile when you leave
But my smiles are just a front
Just a front, hey’

Top tier song. Top tier work of art. Deserves to be considered a classic.

You can listen to I Try by Macy Gray here.

01 April 2021 – Spicy by Ty Dolla $ign feat. Post Malone

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021 kevinisabastardpost malone, spicy, ty dolla $ignLeave a comment

A big part of the charm of this song is one of my favourite terrible song lyrics of all time:

“She my spicy lil’ mama, she let me bust her piñata”

Just incredible stuff.

Other than that it is a great song. It’s atmospheric. The chorus runs together really well. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard it first because the only other song that I can ever remember that includes Ty Dolla $ign is Work From Home by Fifth Harmony.

Listen to Spicy by Ty Dolla $ign feat. Post Malone here.

31 March 2021 – All For The Taking by Meanwhile

March 31, 2021 kevinisabastardAll For The Taking, kevinisabastard.com, meanwhileLeave a comment

I don’t know if Meanwhile still exist. I saw them supporting La Roux in 2014 and they always remind me of this time in my life when I was going to a lot of gigs. I used to always try to see support bands and I 100% judged a band if they had bad support act.

I was struck by Meanwhile because I really liked the idea of a pop band at that time. If I could have been in any kind of band at that time that was it. I couldn’t understand why there weren’t more. I liked the idea of pop music that could be performed live. I’d seen the 1975 play around then and there were obviously extra guitar tracks or keys in the background and it threw the whole live experience off for me.

All For The Taking has an attitude, a cheekiness. I like the ending. It’s a real moment of just going like the clappers and making mad noise. It makes me miss live music.

You can listen to All For The Taking by Meanwhile here.

29 March – Carol Brown by Flight of the Conchords

March 29, 2021 kevinisabastardLeave a comment

The YouTube algorithm knows me well and, as a result, I get a lot of Flight of the Conchords clips recommended to me. Carol Brown is my favourite of their songs.

There’s lots to like about it. It’s light and sounds sweet but, like all Flight of the Conchords songs, it’s underlaid with constant reminders that the two guys are interchangeably idiots and bad people. I like the classic idea of person’s name with a rhyming reason that their relationship didn’t work. I like that in the show Brett has a weird instrument that translates and transposes the images of himself and Jemaine.

They’re good lads and, while I’m sure there are elements to the show that haven’t aged very well, they have had a serious impact on my little brain

You can listen to Carol Brown by Flight of the Conchords here or watch it in grainy late 2000s/ early 2010s YouTube style here.

28 March 2021 -Velvet Buzzsaw

March 28, 2021March 28, 2021 kevinisabastardLeave a comment

Velvet Buzzsaw is a a strange film. It’s stuck in between two worlds. It’s part horror film, part art world critique and probably isn’t enough of either to really work. And that’s a pity because it has a lot of good elements. I wonder if there was some heavy editing to sway the film in one direction or another.

Jake Gyllenhaal is class as usual, reminding me slightly of Nightcrawler. John Malkovich plays a character that I assume is just himself if he was an older artist. Zawe Ashton is great and I spent the whole film trying to figure out where I remembered her from – it’s an episode of Misfits. Toni Collette and Rene Russo are also very solid.

And that’s part of the problem. The cast and their performances are good. The idea is cool. The context is interesting. Everything works well independently but it just doesn’t tie together that well. It doesn’t commit to being scary or being a critique enough.

Worth a watch but what could it have been?

26 March 2021 – Spice Girl by Aminé

March 27, 2021 kevinisabastardLeave a comment

Another after midnight post for the day before.

“I wanna know, is this real or fake?
Do I have a chance or am I pavin’ ways?
I’m tryna find a reason not to say your name
Like you, there’s no look-a-like”

I really like this song and part of the reason is that I had just become a fan of Aminé when it came out. I had heard his other stuff and had absorbed all the existing music I could find. Then this was released and I couldn’t get enough. It’s the honeymoon phase of discovering an artist.

You can listen to Spice Girl by Aminé here.

25 March 2021 – Hold On (I Was Wrong) by Video Age

March 25, 2021 kevinisabastardLeave a comment

Hold On (I Was Wrong) is a great Spotify recommendation. It’s both sides of the coin. I love this song and I will always be happy to hear it, but I have never followed up and checked out Video Age. It’s the great power and weakness of Spotify for an artist. You can get your songs to people via playlists of recommendations, but how do you get them to come back and see what else you’ve got? That’s the big question.

My conspiracy theory for why I haven’t followed the trail back to see what else Video Age have is that this song reminds me of Picture Of You by Boyzone. And every time I hear it I get lost in the comparison which always ends up going the same way. I listen to Hold On (I Was Wrong). Then I listen to Picture Of You. Then I decide I dislike Boyzone on a deep personal level. I listen to Hold On (I Was Wrong) and decide I like it better. It has something of the elements of the Boyzone song that I like, but without Ronan Keating.

You can listen to Hold On (I Was Wrong) by Video Age here.

And if you want Picture Of You you can hear that here but you’ll be disappointed.

24 March 2021 – The Thrill by Wiz Khalifa

March 24, 2021 kevinisabastardLeave a comment

The obvious strength of The Thrill is that it’s just Wiz Khalifa rapping over Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun which is a near perfect song already.

It’s a mixtape era classic, where rappers would just rap over anything to show what they could do. The emphasis was entirely on the rapping so the beats and samples didn’t have to be perfect and the mixtapes were free downloads so nobody worried about clearing anything.

But then the problem happens as artists become massive and they can’t really get away with not clearing samples, particularly as they add the rarities from their back catalogues to streaming services. So it’s cool that this has been cleared and released and everyone has been credited appropriately.

You can listen to The Thrill by Wiz Khalifa here.