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Flaunting the spirit of this blog, I don't have anything to hate today. I've been sick and ornery, but today the virus skedaddled, so I actually spaced out in the shower and tried to come up with something. No dice. Although this morning someone asked me whether I watched the Grammys or not the other day, and that reminds me of a whole cauldron of hatefulness and inflamed mediocrity that waits for me in the dark of my deepest fears, right between the smell of Drakkar and snakebites to the groin. Luckily, I despise the Grammys so much that I can't even remember to dislike them.
Meanwhile, The Long Blondes are bent on torturing me with their lack of an album, and I don't have import dough anymore, or time to dig up their wax singles. They do have a myspace page, along with some tracks for download on their UK website, and some scattered downloads selling here and there.
I do believe extra-mad-real street cred goes out to Dreams of Horses, one of the crispiest blogs out there, for getting all lathered up, rightly so, about the Long Blondes before most anyone.
As for the LBs' Stuff, what's not to like? If John Peel didn't catch the Long Blondes before he died, there's less justice in this world than I thought. Hand claps, sputtering hi-hat vs. snare beats, carefully placed spastic synths introducing the bridge, call and response with a catty backing chorus, and a singer, Kate Jackson, whose sexiness depends on her smart use of her considerable alto range, something few singers do or can do, none better than prime-career Chryssie Hyde, although Jackson's got a higher range when she wants. And more on that bridge: as the cliche goes, wait for it -- a pause, the synths, a blissful key change, and then a spoken, hurt, deep voiced verse about jealousy. She's got the other pop chanteuses beat - she doesn't sound crazy -- she sounds smart and crazy, a much more potent mix than the descent into shrieking that stateside undergound popsters deem necessary. The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres And live, it sounds like they simply bust the joint to pieces. Boogie like it was 1980. The Long Blondes - Appropriation by Any Other Name
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