27 April 2021 – Gay Bar by Electric Six

April 27, 2021 kevinisabastardelectric six, gay bar, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com1 Comment

The terrifying thing about Electric Six is the thought of what they could have been if they’d used their powers for evil. Gay Bar is a perfect example of the pure song writing ability of the band. The opening surf guitar riff is immediately recognisable and the lyrics are surreal nonsense of the highest order.

I think Gay Bar is probably nostalgic for anyone who was on the internet in the early 2000s. For a lot of people my age, Gay Bar was the ultimate teenage boy song. It’s worth going back and re-examining Electric Six though, particularly the Fire album. It’s a bit like what I wrote in the post about Clorox Wipe by Chromeo. These songs are such a song writing flex. To be able to write incredible tunes while also being goofy bastards is something you can only do as a master of the craft.

Listen to Gay Bar by Electric Six here.

26 April 2021 – Ms. Jackson by OutKast

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 kevinisabastardkevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, ms. jackson, OutKastLeave a comment

Ms. Jackson is an undeniable classic.

It’s a rare thing to have something that crosses over into the main stream but still retains the seriousness of where it came from. Ms. Jackson has huge mainstream pop appeal. There chorus is catchy and everyone knows the words because it’s just a couple of lines repeated throughout the song. At the same time, lyrically it’s iconic from Big Boi and Andre 3000.

Andre 3000 is generally considered to be one of the top rappers of all time but for me, Big Boi is a bit more consistent as a traditional rapper. The reason OutKast work, in my opinion is the solid foundation of Big Boi that allows Andre 3000 to do the more experimental stuff. Ms. Jackson is one of the best examples of that in my opinion.

On top of everything else, Ms. Jackson is a cool song because it’s very real. It’s a real situation for lots of people where there’s a breakdown of a relationship but there’s kids in the middle of things.

Listen to Ms. Jackson by OutKast here.

25 April 2021 – Love and Monsters, Greta, Palm Springs and Promising Young Woman

April 25, 2021 kevinisabastardGreta, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, Love and Monsters, Palm Springs, Promising Young Woman2 Comments

The format for these weekend film posts feel like the need a bit of work so I’m going to try some things out over the next while. I watched a couple of things this week so I did a bit of a round up. In the order I watched them…

Love and Monsters (2020)

Enjoyable but forgettable. It stars Dylan O’Brien, who I know from the Maze Runner films and quite like. It’s been long enough since the height of YA apocalypse stuff for this to feel fun and it has a nice dog in it.

Greta (2018)

This film was ruined on me before I watched it because I didn’t really want to see it in the first place. It turned out to be better than I’d expected. It’s unsettling and fairly creepy. I went on my phone for parts of it but sometimes that’s the type of film you need.

Palm Springs (2020)

Probably my favourite thing I watched this week. That’s very subjective, not necessarily the best, but it is the film I enjoyed the most. It’s a classic Groundhog Day, reliving the day story line, but it’s great fun. Andy Samberg is a very likeable dude. I don’t remember seeing Cristin Milioti before but she has great chemistry with Samberg. It’s funny and silly but it’s also sweet. The time loops set up some good gags, there’s some great dancing and some good testing of the limits of the loop. Definitely worth a watch.

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Promising Young Woman is an odd one. It’s an intensely unpleasant story but a very likeable film. There are a couple of serious messages to the film about “nice guys”, attitudes to sexual assault and cancel culture but the tone of film is generally light and quite funny. Carey Mulligan is superb. Bo Burnham is surprisingly good. The casting in general is very well done. I don’t want to ruin anything so I won’t go on, but there is a lot to discuss after watching it.

22 April 2021 – Sleepy Crusader By Falqo

April 22, 2021 kevinisabastardfalqo, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, sleepy crusaderLeave a comment

I drunk messaged Falqo on Facebook in 2015 to tell him he was a legend and he was very polite in his response. My message was inspired by coming home from a night out and listening to Sleepy Crusader over and over and dancing in my kitchen on my own.

Falqo doesn’t have a huge amount of music out in the world but it is consistently incredible. Sleepy Crusader is still one of my favourites. It’s pure disco wizardry with some slick vocals. There are so many levels in the song that come together to make it impossible not to dance to. There are spacy keys and the bass is running all over the place. It’s worth listening with decent headphones to hear how the track fills the space.

I could probably write a blog entry for every Falqo song, but this is the particular track that has the biggest personal link. Sometimes when I sit down to write about a song I get in my head about it and talk myself out of writing a post. Sleepy Crusader was the opposite. I’ve listened to it so many times and every time I become more sure that this is one of my favourite songs of all time.

You can listen to Sleepy Crusader by Falqo here.

21 April 2021 – Hopeless by Azizi Gibson

April 21, 2021 kevinisabastardazizi gibson, hopeless, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.comLeave a comment

Hopeless is a great song because it’s sad and introspective but also kinda goofy. Lyrically, it’s emotional and confessional, accepting blame for a relationship falling apart. It’s backed by simple keyboards and quite sparse beats. Azizi Gibson alternates between singing and rapping with parts of the singing in falsetto and then repetition of the work fuck in a range of voices at the end of the refrain.

The goofiness of the fucks and some of the falsetto is actually part of what makes the song so real. It has the vibe of delirious hopelessness. It feels like how it feels to be desperately sad for a while when you start to slightly detach from reality.

Then on top of it all the song slaps. It’s mad that something so sad makes me want to dance. The outro, in particular, goes hard and has one of my favourite lyrics, “Let’s try again before you get yourself some new dick”. It’s interesting because the idea is that he could be replaced by sex with someone new, but he ruined the relationship by chasing sex elsewhere. It seems to acknowledge questions about what he brought to the relationship in the first place and the need to be better than just not cheating.

You can listen to Hopeless by Azizi Gibson here.

20 April 2021 – Harleys in Hawaii – KANDY Remix by Katy Perry

April 20, 2021 kevinisabastardharleys in hawaii, kandy, katy perry, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.comLeave a comment

Sometimes it just is what it is. Harleys in Hawaii is a trash song. Just not good. The KANDY remix is great. Part of what I love about it is that it’s still super trashy.

The lyrics are incredibly bad. Inspirationally bad.

You and I, I
Ridin’ Harleys in Hawaii-i-i
I’m on the back, I’m holdin’ tight, I
Want you to take me for a ride, ride
When I hula-hula, hula
So good, you’ll take me to the jeweler-jeweler, jeweler
There’s pink and purple in the sky-y-y
We’re ridin’ Harleys in Hawaii-i-i (Ha)

Despite how hard Katy Perry works to make a terrible song, the KANDY remix is a banger. It takes the song back to that weird phase where Katy Perry put out Swish Swish and Bon Appetite which were so good but so strange. That’s what I want though. It’s a solid car tune, turning it up until the bass wobbles the car.

Listen to Harleys in Hawaii – KANDY Remix by Katy Perry here.

19 April 2021 – Losing Grip by Avril Lavigne

April 19, 2021 kevinisabastardavril lavigne, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, losing gripLeave a comment

Losing Grip is a fucking hardcore song from a bizarre album. Let Go is a really strange. It’s almost a fifty fifty split between a kind of nu metal Alanis Morissette and filler strummy guitar crap with Sk8er Boi as a novelty outlier.

It’s hard to place Losing Grip. It’s probably supposed to be an Incubus song with some Canadian warbling. The pre chorus is one of my favourite examples of creating momentum using vocals. The first three lines build intensity before the last line shifts into the heavy chorus.

“I was left to cry there
Waitin’ outside there
Grinning with a lost stare
That’s when I decided”

I wonder about what the real response to Avril Lavigne was at the time. I’m sure if Reddit had been the way it is now there would have been plenty of toxic commentary on this album because it flirts with being rockier but reigns it in with some lighter forgettable pop stuff. And I wonder if people at the label had a big influence on it, because the end result is a bit all over the place, trying to tick boxes without alienating anyone too much.

Listen to Losing Grip by Avril Lavigne here.

18 April 2021 – I Care a Lot

April 18, 2021 kevinisabastardi care a lot, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.com, rosamund pike2 Comments

Sometimes I have trouble watching things when I can’t figure out who the hero is meant to be. I Care a Lot was a real case of this. Having watched it and thought about it, it’s probably a bit more like a nature documentary. There are predators and prey. Sometimes predators prey on other predators and it gets ugly, but we probably don’t need to root for anyone in that conflict.

Rosamund Pike is very good. She has a very intense haircut and she plays a good bastard. She acts as a legal guardian for older people and runs a racket exploiting the laws around that. She is made to look slick and ruthless and I felt like we were supposed to be impressed, but her business is super unpleasant. Early on in the film we see her in court, where the son of one of her guardians is petitioning for visitation. We feel sorry for this man’s situation but then when his petition is denied, he gets very nasty and misogynistic. It’s all very grim. And that’s the tone for the film, people are bad to people and those people are bad back.

The film is a wild ride. The tone is a bit all over the place. Things just get mad goofy from about half way through the film. Then the ending feels like a double cop out. However, there is a great performance from Rosamund Pike and Chris Messina as the Mafia lawyer is a brilliant character. Ultimately that’s enough to make I Care a Lot worth watching.

16 April 2021 – Bad Boy by BIGBANG

April 16, 2021 kevinisabastardbad boy, bigbang, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.comLeave a comment

BIGBANG were probably the generation before K-Pop really went global. They all went to the military in 2017 and one of them got caught up in that night club scandal in South Korea. They seemed posed to return in 2020 but then covid happened. They’ll probably be back soon and take over the world.

Bad Boy is an incredible R&B/Hip Hop track and a real demonstration of BIGBANG’s talent. It’s like they studied classic hip hop ballads and they perfected them and then added the K-Pop elements to them. The video ties in perfectly. Chilled with laid back piano, each band member is an incredible singer and has a different style. An absolute gem.

You can listen to Bad Boy by BIGBANG here. Also check out the video here.

15 April 2021 – E-Pro by Beck

April 15, 2021 kevinisabastardbeck, e-pro, guero, kevinisabastard, kevinisabastard.comLeave a comment

E-Pro was the first time I had ever heard of Beck. For some reason, I had money to spend and I was getting an album and I was evaluating my options based on highlights from one of the big summer festivals that were on TV and I saw Beck perform E-Pro. I then, and this now seems like an insane thing to do, went on iTunes and listened to the short samples of all the songs on the album that E-Pro is from, Guero, and decided that it was a sound investment. I then went and bought a physical copy of the album, probably in HMV.

E-Pro is probably a perfect big crowd song so it makes sense that I was roped in by live footage. It’s a great guitar riff and a good old na na na football chant chorus with quieter verses for the crowd to catch their breath. It also has a lot of what you expect from Beck, mad lyrics that could be deep but could be nonsense and the beat sampled from the Beastie Boys hiding in plain site.

I’m not sure if it’s my favourite Beck song, or even my favourite song on the album, but E-Pro was my introduction and I’ll always have a soft spot for it. In these Covid times, I’d give anything to see it played live again and join in the sing-a-long.

You can listen to E-Pro by Beck here.