Playlouder - Music is the Network

I vote 2005 the year of the brain. We've got Germaine Greer dumbing up Celebrity Big Brother, philosophers like Alain de Botton and A C Grayling translating big ideas into crystalline nuggets for those who never got round to reading books written before 1985, and, er, the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer throwing their toys out of the pram about what they did or did not say over swordfish steak in a posh caff in Islington in 1994.

No, you're right. We're fucked, and it's getting worse. Apart from Germaine, who wins my vote for introducing Bez and Caprice to the word 'mucosa', and the News of the World tipping Joanna Newsom as one to watch this weekend. (Have they got a better view down her top than we have?*)

I mean, Mclusky just split up, and they had the biggest brain-to-guitar ratio in the whole of Kerrangshire; Sontag and Derrida have snuffed it and it doesn't look like God has advertised the vacancies, and the United States of Combative Christendom continues annexing the world's oily marshlands apace. All in the name of our dear lord Jeebus, who many children confuse with Father Christmas. And a very poorly, indeed dead man, is at number one in the crackling pop charts. But at least we have Darius. Ahahahah. Cackle. Splat. Darius.

Darius is the frigging worst of these offenders, because he's one of the intelligent people who is pretending to be stupid, just so he can slide up the greasy rod of fame and oil Satan's arse with his tongue. You should hear him on this week's single 'Live Twice', (released by Mercury), delving his voice into a little space to one side of his tonsils that his voice coach said would sound genuine, adding an affected breathiness over the top, because that makes intimate, and a little trembling quiver on the final notes, because that's how you do vulnerable.

Darius is endowed with a good strong voice, so these twitches are clearly intentional embellishments, coolly calculated to appeal to the lowest common housewife denominator. It's patronising. "I'd give up everything I own for just one more day with you, how could I let it pass me by, I'd make every sacrfice to bring me back your love." Whoever you are, if you're out there, take the man back into your arms. Please. He's willing to give up his music career and everything! Do it for the team!

All is not lost though, as we have Erasure bringing a subtle thoughtfulness to glossy pop with the single 'Breathe' coming from their new album Nightbird, which is out on Mute at the end of this month. Good old Mute. Good old Erasure: not stupid, not pretending to be stupid, somehow finding that middle ground of dream pop that endures. Enduring dreams. This one has a gentle pulse, unmistakeable Andy Bell vocals, and classic orchestral synths. Lovely stuff.

Now Interpol are quite into being clever. Their cultural references make you want to look things up, like, who was Leif Erikson, you wondered when you heard that track, and then your friend Google will tell you that, why, he was the Viking who landed in America five hundred years before Columbus. It is nice to learn from songs. Jeres and I confessed this week that we had both originally learnt the word tsunami from the Manics song of the same name (a ditty that we suspect they won't be playing at their Asian disaster concert in Cardiff later this month). But with their latest song, 'Evil' (released by Matador), well we're not quite clever enough to distinguish the tune from that of the aforementioned Leif Erikson, which was on the previous album, and we'd get further with lyrical interpretation if we could decide if the Rosemary they discuss was a person or a thing you put in pasta sauce.

Perhaps it's both, although that would make you something of a killer, and there's some other Killers with a single out this week. "You look like a girlfriend I had in February of last year." Yes, and you sound like a record we had in March of last year. Oh right, you are. The Killers are re-releasing *(on Lizard King), but it's been all messed up by Mylo and The Glimmer Twins, which should make us feel better about liking it, because those boys have spiced up many a dancefloor that we've been on with grace, energy and glee. So what have they done to these silly rock boys? "I said Heaven aint close in a place like this," sing the Las Vegans, but neither's the tune - it takes three whole minutes to arrive at it in the Mylo mix, and 2 mins 40 in the Glimmer Twins' offering. Nice enough tiwddling until you get there, with a sexier punch behind the Mylo one, as he is the reigning monarch of build-up, and both versions benefit from some clicking percussion, but neither is life-changing. There's also a 'King Unique Vocal Mix'. They're annoyingly catchy though.

I played them on my computer with the swirly effects button switched on and fell into a rather enjoyable trance just looking at it, I must say. What is happening to my standards? I am a forsaken person, forsooth, but help is at hand, in the shape of Kissogram* and their 'Forsaken People Come To Me'. Berlin has got itself another interesting record label, in the shape of Louisville, who are behind this recording. On first listen it's easy to write it off as playing a little too close to the electroclash field, with the stilted Germanic-accented vocals and the jarring and high-pitched Korg FX. But play it a few times and there's a nagging charm to the song and also a sense of authority in the man's voice. "For-sa-ken-peo-ple-come-to-me," he roboticises, but I reckon he really does sing like that Perhaps he's a touch self-conscious. With a remix that turned down the vocals a touch, this one could be another club crossover. On the brainy scale, Kissogram win the benefit of the doubt by sounding German.