Kaiser Chiefs - 'Never Miss A Beat'
Wait wait wait...this is all wrong. Where's the hip hop beat? Where's the authentic '60s soul feel? Where's the cover version of a well-loved indie classic? Where's Lily? Where's Amy? I mean, this is a Mark Ronson production, right? So, y'know, where are the HORNS, MAAN?
This isn't remotely horny. Not even the tiniest bit horny. If Mousse T did a song about this song, it would NOT have a refrain which goes "I'm horny, horny horny horny...". Deer are horny, rhinos are horny, horny-toads are horny, but this, a song which has been produced by Mark 'Trumpetty-Trump' Ronson is not.
What gives, crazy world?
AND, in a musical climate which (when the band first emerged) suggested that it's 1996 all over again and the Kaisers are basically Blur, isn't it funny that Oasis, of all people, have come out with a song which uses the same basic rhythm (only, if you play the songs back to back, slightly more slowly)?
Rock professors will tell you that this is known as the beat, as pioneered by the German groups Kraftwerk and Neu! in the 1970s. So that's another first for a Ronson product.
Why, it's almost as if the band have just got on with making another Kaiser Chiefs record, irrespective of the whims of their star producer. Fancy!
Sonically, not much has changed in Kaiser-world, except someone's been slipping steroids into their sound. It's all rippling and muscular now, hurtling along like 'Everything Is Average Nowadays' but with extra jagged guitar scree, sounding for all the world like that moment when you drive past a police siren and the tone changes downwards.
And the band's trademark smart-ass lyrics don't sound so eager to please suddenly. In fact, even though the band's references to "kids on the street" should ring totally false - like some uncle who can't let go of his fading youth, and so pretends he's in the Enemy or something - it's the verses which capture something of the blank-eyed inner monologue of you scary teenagers. Or at least, it captures what people THINK your blank-eyed inner monologue is like.
"Television's on the blink (there's nothin' on it)
I really wanna really big coat (with words on it)
What do you want for tea? (I want crisps)
Why didn't you join the team? (I just didn't)"
Quite what this means in the context of the chorus which claims that you kids on the street never miss a beat is left open to interpretation. Which is just a nice way of saying I'm not sure that they're really saying anything except that you can't write teenagers off even when they're being sullen and uncommunicative.
A nice thought. And certainly a less sweary way to put it than My Chemical Romance did. But could they not have squeezed even ONE little horn in there somewhere? Just for Ronno? No manners, some people...
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 6th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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