"I WANT THE BRITS BACK WHEN EVERYONE WAS PISSED.#BRITS2013" "Muse there winning the award yet again for "most desperate to do a Bond theme" #Brits2013#Brits"
"It's unlike Emelie Sande to turn up to something televised.#BRITs2013"
It's been an odd week for music, first of all we heard of the demise of HMV, yet another institution to leave our high street. To see it leave will be a great shame. Ironically in the same week that HMV, blaming digital music, has gone in to administration Myspace has relaunched. As someone who missed out on Myspace the first time round, (let's face it who would have wanted to see me listening to B*Witched online?) I was keen to give it a go and my verdict is that it is what my life has been lacking. These days the majority of my Facebook posts and comments end up being about music. I share videos I like, sum up my day with links to YouTube music videos and debate with friends over whether the new Destiny's Child song is actually any good. Now I can do this in a place where people aren't likely to get annoyed by my constant music posts and for that I am eternally grateful. Anyway onwards to the music of 2013. This is by no means the be all and end all for 2013. It is purely what I think I will be listening to in 2013 and what I think you should listen to too.
∆ (ALT-J)
Yes, they were around last year but 2013 is going to be the year for them. Coming off the back of winning the Mercury Music Prize last year. Apparently their official title of "∆" has something to do with a shortcut on an Apple Mac, neither owning a Mac or really caring about their name when it's pronounced Alt-J anyway that doesn't really matter, I just know that I really, really, really like their music.
LILY ALLEN
Is 2013 going to be the year that Lily Allen returns to music? We've had all those teasers on Twitter 'in the studio' so we know something is brewing but is it just a single track for a film or are the rumours about a full album to be believed? I certainly hope she'll be back. I want more music to run around East London to on a sunny Sunday.
HAIM
Finally a girl band that will hopefully fulfill the promises of the Veronicas from a few years ago (remember them?!) Haim are 3 sisters from California but don't expect daisy dukes bikinis on top a la K Perry. These girls mean business. They play guitars, kick ass and ride motorbikes. Shove that in your pipe and smoke it Katy, these are real California Girls.
LANA DEL REY
If you have read this blog before then you will know I love Lana Del Rey, and that love hasn't waned in 2013. There seems to be a new Del Rey song appearing on YouTube virtually every week and for that I love her. In this age of instagramming I think Lana is a musicgrammer. It is like she makes a song and then has an app on her phone (which is probably made to look like it's from the 70's) which applies a filter to her recording like 'Nashville' or just plain old 'Sutro'. If anyone has captured the whole vintage craze it's Lana. Still my favourite song of hers is National Anthem. I want more in 2013.
ST VINCENT
I first saw St Vincent on Later With Jools Holland and she was insanely good. This video wins the award for weirdest. It's amazing though, don't get me wrong. St Vincent comes from America, you know the one. Stars And Stripes, cool president, land of the free and not so free healthcare. The video is apparently about sex objectification, I just like the music and her hair.
That's the end of part 1. More about 2013's music soon.
Seriously, I love this woman and I think, if you got to know her (maybe not personally but musically) you would love her too. Lana Del Rey is an odd mix of intriguing beauty. Not in the new way beauty has come to be defined, tanned, blonde and plastic but in a mystical way that makes it seem like she is constantly being viewed through an Instagram filter. It's beauty in sepia. She is Audrey Hepburn with attitude, and I'm not talking about being able to hold her own with the men. Lana has had a strange series of life developments that have led her to become the musician she is today.
Del Rey was born the daughter of a domain investor in Lake Placid, New York. Critics have used this to suggest that her music that seems critical of American excess (National Anthem) is hypocritical. Del Rey's story however goes much deeper than the often cliched American love story with Upstate New York. At the age of 14 Del Rey was sent to boarding school in Connecticut to deal with an alcohol dependence that by anybody's standards had begun very early. She moved back to New York when she turned 18, studying metaphysics at Fordham University.
She has talked candidly in interviews that she used this time to experience New York fully. In a recent interview with GQ Del Rey professed her love for adventure in ways that most of us would consider simply downright insane. She would walk down dark alleys with the purpose of putting herself in danger,
and accept rides on the back of motorbikes with people she met down there.
For me her self styling as the 'Gangster Nancy Sinatra' is perfect. Her music harks back to the age of the Kennedy's in America, when Sinatra was king and Nancy the Queen of independent America, whilst still maintaining a modern view of the country she loves. The music is, to use the perpetually boring cliche, hauntingly beautiful, choosing odd chord combinations and a blurring between rap and singing that is surprisingly new and, quite frankly a breath of fresh air.
In my opinion Del Rey will go down as a game changer in the music industry and possibly even in modern social history. She has given everybody the right to express their distaste with things that are often percieved as the best. And by the best I mean money. As Lana Del Rey herself puts it "Money is the anthem of success, so before we go out what's your address?"
