Press Releases - Still Fun After All This Time...
It has been a delight to realise that shining a small, puny light into the dark, hidden caves where press releases are torn with bloodied fingers from the living rock (to borrow some of their dramatic language for a second) has in no way diminished the quality of lyrical nonsense which is produced. In fact, some people seem to be trying harder than ever to build exotic palaces and forbidding monoliths out of the purple prose they are asked to write in order to entice eager reviewers into liking a new record.
As ever, thanks to everyone whose work is displayed. I salute you all!
Lupe Fiasco - 'The Cool'
"Possessing head-spinning wordplay and a topical range more akin to the underground than the mainstream...
And these topics include: Increasing payments on your oyster card, how to cram up against a carriage full of people and not make eye-contact with any of them, how to get to Covent Garden when the exit is closed, and what to do if you get caught short on a northern line station platform.
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Flyleaf - 'Flyleaf'
"Flyleaf are getting ready to send rock pulsating through the veins of the masses..."
A: That doesn't actually sound very pleasant, medically speaking.
B: I'm sure "the masses" will be very pleased to hear you calling them that. Maybe they'll tell their friends the proles, and they'll tell the oiks, and the oiks will tell the chavs, and the chavs will tell the peasants, and the peasants will tell the pikeys, and the pikeys will tell the tinkers, and the tinkers will tell the commoners (and so on)...
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Korn - 'Hold On'
"Munky describes the song as 'the closest thing to an original Korn song' on the untitled album due to its rhythm."
Translation: Someone in the Korn camp has bought a metronome.
"In releasing an album with no title, singer Jonathan Davis commented, "We didn't want to label this album. It has no boundaries; it has no limits and why not just let our fans call it whatever they wanna call it?"
Because they're going to call it Korn.
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Echaskech - 'Every Touch'
"Echaskech are Dom Hoare and Andy Gillham, with visualist Mach V adding another live dimension to the mix."
Translation: Dom and Andy do the music, Mach waves a coloured hanky in their faces with the word 'EVOLVE' written on one side and 'CREATE' on the other, in silver ink...
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Jack Johnson - 'If I Had Eyes'
"Jack lists his musical influences as Nick Drake, the Beatles, Hendrix...Otis Redding, Neil Young, Bob Marley and so on."
AND SO ON?? What, we're expected to complete the list ourselves? Well alright then...
How about Otis Redding, Neil Young, Bob Marley, Chico, George Formby, the Tweenies, 2 Live Crew, 21st Century Girls, Snow Patrol, the Bobinogs, Wham!, Paper Lace, Freddie & the Dreamers, Nelson, Mr Blobby and Lisa Scott Lee. The End. Jack Johnson does not list any further influences. OK?
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Booty Luv - 'Some Kinda Rush'
"The UK's music press [is] affirming the song as THE example of unadulterated pop ecstacy"
This is to set it apart from all those other examples of unadulterated pop ecstacy that you read so much about. This is like those, only much better, OK?
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Morcheeba - 'Dive Deep'
"Morcheeba have become a vehicle for the thoughts and experiments of brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey, with no fixed singer but rather a series of vocalists who enhance the atmosphere of fluidity and free-form exploration."
Wet singers in a thought vehicle? And they're lost? Sounds like a barrel of laughs.
"'For me this album is already a success", says Paul, "When I was listening to it come together, I listened with my whole body."
Do you think he was checking for bum notes?
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Rascal Flatts - 'What Hurts The Most'
"They deal with the gamut of human emotion"
Oh, that's good of them. I mean SOMEONE has to deal with that pesky old gamut, right? Or else it'll just spill everywhere. Terrible messy, a gamut, especially if it's filled with human emotion. The gamuts which are full of vegetable or mineral emotion are tidier, but not as fluffy as the gamut of animal emotion. It's a minefield, I tell you!
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30 Seconds To Mars - 'From Yesterday'
The song demonstrated a longevity that recalled the band's previous smash, 'The Kill'.
Dictionarybreath! What they mean to say is "This song hung around the US charts for flipping ages, just like 'The Kill' did."
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Dave Armstrong & Redroche ft. H-Boogie - 'Love Has Gone'
Maybe she's picked up a few tips from her sister Estelle! With both girls releasing tracks around the same time, watch out, as it's literally going to be sisters out for themselves!"
I have no idea what "sisters out for themselves" means, or why we should watch out for it. It just sounds like two girls leaving the house and going in seperate directions, to me. I live on a fairly busy street. I can watch out for something like that every day of the week, if I feel like it.
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Airbourne - 'Runnin' Wild'
"Airbourne tears pages from the bible of anthemic rock of the '70s and '80s."
For it is written in the book of Leppard, that one day will come amongst us four men, dressed in colourful clothing. And lo, people will see the stretchy material that their trousers will be made of and they will ask "is that not spandex?", and the men shall reply "yes, it is spandex. See also my mighty bullet belt and basketball boots, plus an Iron Maiden T-shirt with the sleeves cut off". And the people shall be sore afraid.
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Comments
How do these people manage to use all those words and still say absolutely nothing?!? I have to admit, though, that they are very good at doing just that.
I especially love whoever wrote the Morcheeba release. It's like they're saying these brothers really don't like anyone else as evidenced by the fact that they cannot keep a lead singer! But they have to be able to say something nice about them anyway.
Thanks for sharing these, Fraser!
This is my favourite selection of press releases.
The best of this bunch has to be Jack Johnson's, and so on, lol!
"Translation: Dom and Andy do the music, Mach waves a coloured hanky in their faces with the word 'EVOLVE' written on one side and 'CREATE' on the other, in silver ink..."
two things:
1) The words are actually "Question" and "Eat at Joes"
2) It's a silk neckerchief, ftw!
we're thinking about moving the onto a white board and an over head projector but it's a bit fiddly to carry around.
;)
[Tsk! Part-timer... - Fraser]