Posted on by Rob Jones

Adam & The Ants Play “Antmusic”

Adam&theAntsKingsoftheWildFrontierListen to this track by glam-pop new wave dandies and top ten selling merry-makers Adam & The Ants. It’s “Antmusic”, a smash hit single as taken from their second LP Kings Of The Wild Frontier.

This iteration of the band is actually the second of its life. The first version that was formed in 1977 had Adam Ant (nee Stuart Leslie Goddard) backed by a group who would later back away from him entirely at the behest of then-manager Malcolm McLaren. They would go on to form Bow Wow Wow without Adam, with many of the same musical textures guiding their approach. And what was that approach? Well, it was a classic move in post-punk strategy, which was to skip the blues and go right back to Africa. For Adam’s part, and Bow Wow Wow notwithstanding, it worked out very well for him indeed. He formed another version of Adam & The Ants around himself, including guitarist Marco Pirroni who would serve as his co-writer. They would craft a catalogue of hits that became staples on the pop charts in Britain in the early eighties.

This was one of them, and one that crossed the ocean as a herald of their arrival. “Antmusic” is an anthem to their sound, with a streak of rock star arrogance running through it that made it pretty compelling as pure pop music. Besides its echoey guitar, call-to-arms vocals, and insistant two-kit beat, another of the things that gave it such impact was an important understanding of a particular aspect when it came to pop music by the early eighties; tribalism. Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones

Haircut 100 Play “Fantastic Day”

Haircut 100 Pelican WestListen to this track by unabashed brassy British pop song poppists Haircut 100. It’s “Fantastic Day” as taken from their first and last record to feature frontman and chief songwriter Nick Heyward, that being Pelican West from 1982.

That record would yield three big hits, with this one included, charting at #9 in the UK.  Another would be “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)” that showed off their interests in funk-flavoured pop. They’d have another hit from that record, “Love Plus One” that made waves here in Canada, as well as scoring a top 40 placement in the US.

But, this song has always been my favourite from this short-lived band that made a big splash. Of course, they were very much of their time. This song straddles lines that would be tricky today. For one thing, the band employed a full-time saxophonist – Phil Smith. This was easy as pie in the 1980s, of course. Another thing is that they were not ironic in any demonstrative way. They had a happy-go-lucky sort of image that completely sold them to audiences.

That certainly comes through here. Just listen to this song that just crackles with optimism and joie de vivre. If you’ve seen the video for “Fantastic Day”, it’s pretty easy to take it all at face value, with all of the smiles, fake car trips, preppy nautical clothes, and caps worn at jaunty angles.

So if everything was so fantastic, what the heck happened with this band? Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 3 Comments

Nik Kershaw Sings “Radio Musicola”

Listen to this track by post-new wave British multi-instrumentalist and pop singer-songwriter Nik Kershaw. It’s his 1986 non-hit “Radio Musicola” as taken from the album of the same name.  This was a follow up to some very successful singles of over two years before in “Wouldn’t It Be Good” and “The Riddle”, although with far less impact on mainstream radio.

Perhaps this is of little surprise. This is not to say that the song itself isn’t as popstastic of those it followed, and not just a little funky too, pulling from Kershaw’s background as a jazz-fusion guitarist. But, this is also a classic ‘biting the hand that feeds’ tune, a song about the homogenous nature of radio that was developing at the time.

Perhaps more importantly, the song touches on the trend by the mid-80s that saw fewer and fewer political statements being made in pop songs on the radio. Additionally, other songs on the record attacked the underhanded  practices of the tabloids, expanding the themes of professional integrity (or lack thereof) in the media, yet couldn’t have won Kershaw many friends there.

The chart results of this song, and the album off of which it comes were perhaps predictable, too. The album spent a millisecond in the charts in the UK, and here in Canada, not breaking the top 40. Yet, in some ways, Kershaw’s point was proven, even if his star had fallen. Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 4 Comments

The Go-Go’s Perform “Vacation”

Listen to this track of a summer romance gone wrong from America’s Sweethearts, and the first ladies of 80s punk pop radio-friendliness The Go-Go’s. It’s their storming 1982 hit single “Vacation” as taken from the album of the same name, Vacation, a follow-up to their debut Beauty and the Beat, which is now celebrating its 30th (!) year. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to a bittersweet summer, then surely this is an essential addition, written by guitarists Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffrey, and bassist Kathy Valentine.

The Go-Go’s were a formidable radio singles act by the time this song hit the airwaves. They were signed to Miles Copeland’s I.R.S Records, with this single in particular making its mark not only on the charts as one of the first ‘cassette singles’ on the market, but also on pop culture as a whole many years after its chart action had ended. The song appeared in Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911, on The Simpsons, and covered by American Idol’s Kelly Clarkson, among many other examples.

Yet, before they made their cultural impact, they had a rough grind getting there. The pop industry even in 1982 was a pretty rough grist mill. And the pressures of success were not easy to bear, least of all for a group of women in their early 20s. Read more

Posted on by Geoff Moore

Pop Culture Apocalypse: Gimme Shelter

It seems that a storm may well be threatening our very (quality music-consuming) lives today, good people.In this month’s guest post here at the Delete Bin, pop culture vulture and writer Geoff Moore gazes out on the plain once again, this time with a belief in democracy and in pop greatness held under pressure. Does the age of social media, social sharing, and the democratization of content mean the death of pop artistry too? Is it the end of the world as we know it where pop music chart action that’s unfettered by crossover marketing is concerned?

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According to the whack-jobs and nut cases whose URLs constitute the last few dusty pages of the Internet, the Mayan Long Count calendar dictates December 21, 2012 as the end of the world as we know it. Fortunately we’ve some months yet to get our affairs in order and due diligence is the order of the day as the lunatic fringe may be right this time. If you’re not as jittery as the ruler of an Arab police state, you should be. Signs of a pop culture apocalypse are all around us.

Following Mick Jagger’s Solomon Burke tribute on the 53rd edition of the Grammy Awards the Washington Post was compelled to report that the voice of the Stones is not dead, contrary to tweets trending globally. The paper described the social media phenomenon as a hoax.

It wasn’t; because a hoax involves some forethought and planning. It’s simply that twits are unable to express themselves clearly in 140 characters and their twitterpated followers lack the attention spans to read, interpret and comprehend said 140 characters which alluded to Jagger being past his prime, hence a sardonic R.I.P. from a media personality trailed by illiterate electronic acolytes.

Another reason we are no longer able to communicate is because we are deaf. The cast of the television show Glee has racked up 113 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 in less than two execrable years. Elvis Presley slides down to number two with 108. Pour yourself a stiff one and contemplate this state of affairs. Make it a double. Neat. How did it all come to this? The sales of digital music actually declined for the first time ever last year and that’s despite iTunes launching the Beatles catalogue online. Yet people are still purchasing ersatz show tunes by teenage actors. And, dear God, they must be listening to them too.

Who are these people?

We must assume they are subversive agents of the counterculture because after all, the cast of Glee has been featured on the cover Rolling Stone magazine, the Little Red Book of the left. And the people will not be denied.

Rolling Stone, partnering with a shampoo, whose PR flak maintains that music is one of the brand’s core equities(!?), recently announced a contest in which readers will get to vote on whom the publication features on an upcoming cover. Sixteen unsigned bands (including one called the Sheepdogs from Saskatoon, SK) are vying for the honour. RS publisher Matt Mastrangelo told the New York Times that the rag’s staged battle of the bands is “the antithesis of what American Idol is.”

Sure smells like a cheesy talent contest from here.

Perhaps the magazine should return to its area of expertise, like asking Democratic presidents what their favourite Dylan songs are.

When the end comes you just want it to be sudden, over and done with in an incomprehensible, blinding, incinerating flash. But the Four Wild Horsemen seem to be content just cantering along and dragging us behind them through the popular muck of these times.

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Geoff Moore lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. His basement is loaded with canned goods, and 45’s.

Posted on by Rob Jones · 5 Comments

Interview with Hushdrops, Who Play ‘Divine’

hushdrops-vol-1Listen to this track by Midwestern psyche-pop masters Hushdrops, made up of John San Juan, Joe Camarillo, and Jim Shapiro. It’s “Divine” a sumptuous Brian Wilsonesque tune featured on the group’s 2003 album, Volume 1. The song reveals the band’s love for the Beatles and the Beach Boys,  along with heavy dollops of late ’60s chamber pop, so much so that the Webb Brothers (sons of Jimmy) covered one of the songs (“Summer People”).

When it comes to “Divine”, this is one of those songs that you don’t so much hear, as be enfolded by, taken up to some sonic high place via strings and ah-ah backing vocals, along with drummer and co-writer Joe Camarillo’s plaintive lead vocal.

Yet, this isn’t the whole picture with the band, who regularly played shows that demonstrated their live rock chops. As such, the group seems to live quite comfortably in the ‘slash’ in pop/rock.

Well, I talked to the song’s co-writers, multi-instrumentalist John San Juan and with drummer and singer Joe Camarillo, via email about this song, about the record, about that slash between pop and rock, and about ‘making the listener feel loved’…

*** Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 4 Comments

Kori Pop Sings “Nowhere Near My Heart”

Here’s a clip from Maccaesque indie singer-songwriter Kori Pop (her real name, kids).  It’s the self-made video for her song “Nowhere Near My Heart”.  For the video, Kori used scrapbook materials and paper dolls which she also made herself.  You can get the full story on the making of the video when you click through.

The song is a single as featured on her debut record From The Outskirts. You can download the single FOR FREE!

Kori Pop writes pop songs that demonstrate an exceptional feel for nuance in tone and texture. Her influences that draw from a classic period of pop/rock songwriting don’t make her music sound like a cynical stylistic calculation.  Rather, her music sounds like a continuation that the self-same classic pop era hoped to inspire.

I spoke with Kori via email about  her song and video, about this sense of songwriterly inheritance from the heyday of singer-songwriters in the 60s and 70s, the DIY spirit needed to be an indie musician in the Twenty-First Century, and about  how earning a listener on one’s own steam is a far greater reward than being a part of a calculated hype machine.

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Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 2 Comments

See Green Featuring Courtenay Green Performs ‘Devil In the Details’

Here’s a clip of poptastic LA outfit See Green featuring frontwoman, multi-instrumentalist, co-producer, and principle songwriter Courtenay Green.It’s the Yellow Submarine-esque video for her 2010 tune “Devil in the Details”, a playful blend of the tastiest pop ingredients from several eras and styles, from 60s ‘It-Girl’ pop to 80s Euro-synth, to 90s power pop.  The song is taken from the digital EP Violet.

Making her stage debut as a drummer, Green continued to expand her skills as a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, and came to front her own band, Courtenay Green & the Red Scare. Later the name changed to simply See Green, now a vehicle for Green’s work as well as the name of the musicians Green works with in a live setting.

See Green the live band has played shows in LA’s famed The Viper Room, along with a mini-tour of the east coast. The group has recorded a cover version of LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change” , and is currently at work on a follow-up collection of new songs.

I talked to Courtenay about this song, and about making the video that accompanies it, about the value of aliases, cover versions,  and about how pop music can still be fun even when you’re marketing yourself without a label …

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The Delete Bin: This tune ‘Devil in the Details seems to borrow from nearly every decade of pop music since the 60s.  I’m hearing a bit of late-70s Blondie in with 60s Nancy Sinatra, with a bit of 80s Altered Images, and even some 90s power pop.  How much more liberated are you as a 21st Century songwriter to borrow from past eras, without being weighted down by any one of them?

Courtenay Green: I think I actually feel lucky more than liberated. Popular music, by nature, is a sort of cumulative experience in the sense that, like technology, new developments are rooted in older ones rather than pulled out of thin air. Even the earliest pop music came from something else, whether it was folk or blues or jazz. So by the time you get to artists like Blondie, who you mentioned, you’re getting rock mixed with reggae mixed with disco mixed with 60s girl group sounds.

I say I feel lucky because in 2010, I have so many decades of pop music to reference and draw from. Every year brings more and more potential influences, and that’s sort of my approach to music in general: the more diverse a collection you have in your mental library, the more ideas you can come up with, combine, and turn into something entirely new. It’s not how every artist operates, but for me, it’s the most rewarding and fun methodology.

I think past eras only weigh you down when you try too hard to stay wedded or pay homage to something specific. When you can pick and choose, the past only serves to enhance, kind of like genetics; someone might say you have your grandfather’s smile and your mother’s dimples and your aunt’s hair, but you’re still an entirely original being. Familiar, yet original.

DB:  The video to this song is very playful,  a lot of fun, and  reminds me a bit of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film. Tell me how you came to make it.  Did you have a specific idea as to how it should match the song?

CG: You’re actually pretty spot-on with your reference; the original inspiration came from my mom’s Peter Max posters for Yellow Submarine. I found them in her closet, folded up, had them fixed up and framed, and now they hang in my den. I’ve always loved the color palette and the animated figures on them, and thought it would look great in a video for one of my songs. “Devil” is primarily about paranoia, and when I teamed up with SKINNY (the trio of directors who made the video with me), they thought it would be cool to take the concept of paranoia and combine it with the look and the colors from the posters…and the result was this sort of bright, trippy video with crazy little monsters crawling all over me and wreaking havoc.

DB: You’re the central figure in See Green, which is the name under which you put out songs, and doubles as the name of your touring band.  Why the name, and not just “Courtenay Green – solo artist with band”?

CG: I guess there are a couple of reasons, one involving other peoples’ perceptions, the other my own. As for the first: when people hear a name, especially a female name, they typically either think “pop star” (a la Katy Perry or Beyonce) or “singer-songwriter” (a la Colbie Caillat or Ingrid Michaelson)- often before they’ve even heard the songs. I felt that I didn’t want to be pigeonholed that way, and also that the music I was writing was becoming less and less of a good fit for the “solo artist” label and more and more appropriate for a band. Or at least the flexibility/lack of constraints that a band name brings, combined with the autonomy of still being (technically) on your own.

A lot of female artists have aliases, whether it’s Bat for Lashes or St. Vincent or A Fine Frenzy- and perhaps they do it for these similar reasons. The second factor involves my own mental state. Maybe this makes me sound slightly insane, but it’s nice to separate “Courtenay Green” from “See Green,” almost as two different personas. It makes me feel like, no matter what, my name is still mine and the music thing is something else. It’s oddly comforting, and liberating too.

DB:  You started out your musical life as a drummer, and then expanded to frontwoman/multi-instrumentalist.  Being both a drummer and a woman, which are arguably both disadvantages on the path to male / guitar dominated frontperson-dom in the world they call rock, how did you tread that path?

CG: I guess I should first make the distinction that I started my public musical life as a drummer, in that I played drums in bands before I ever sang or played guitar in one. But I played piano and guitar (and even trumpet) long before I played drums, and I started recording songs when I was about 15. Drumming was just the first thing I felt comfortable doing in front of crowds, which was a whole different ballgame from anything I did in my basement at home. And being a female drummer actually served as a big advantage for me, since there are so few of us out there. It was ridiculously fun, and people found it interesting and wanted to watch, which in turn, gave me the confidence to start fronting a band and playing the songs I’d been accumulating for years.

And now that I’m playing guitar and singing, I don’t even notice gender or male dominance in that field. It would be silly to focus on that anyway, since I can’t change it and can’t imagine it would play a role in whether or not I succeed. I guess it’s irritating sometimes when people feel the need to compare me only to other female artists instead of to other similar artists in general. But I think that’s  more from a cultural (and industry) need to classify and label everything. I’m an equal opportunity listener, and in this day and age, I assume other people are too, and as long as they like the music, they don’t mind if it’s being sung/played by a male, a female, an alien, or a sheep.

DB:  In addition to original songs, you’ve also done a great cover of LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change”.  What is it about the song that resonated with you enough to cover it?

CG: I can actually thank my band mate Nick for that one. He heard that song and immediately saw potential, and despite the slow tempo and length, felt that there was a pop song just dying to get out. And get out See Green style. When I heard it, I thought it was a really pretty song with relatable lyrics and a great musical foundation to build on, so I agreed that we should try to do something interesting with it. We rehearsed it for a couple of hours, brought it to a studio, and went from zero to fully mastered track in one day. And I love it!

DB: There’s a real sense of fun to your music; it is undoubtedly pop music.  Since you’re working hard promoting your own material as an unsigned indie act on your own, what are some of the ways that you keep it fun for yourself as well as you do for an audience?

CG: It’s true, there’s a lot of drudgery and frustration that comes along with the “business” side of things, whether it’s promotion, maintaining websites, dealing with rejection, booking, etc…but the sense of fun in the music is very genuine. And I keep it that way by just doing as much as I can of what I love, which is writing, recording and performing songs that make people tap their feet and want to sing along. Every new song is a challenge, and while the process of writing and arranging may be similar, the songs themselves aren’t.

I think that’s why I enjoy blending so many styles and eras together; each time I start working on something new, it’s like starting fresh with a whole world of decisions to make. What kind of bass line will I write? What will it be about? Should I add another synth part? And that sense of endless possibility keeps music consistently fun for me, along with the simple joy of performing and rehearsing with a talented group of guys, who are also having a great time. As for an audience, all I can hope is that the fun is contagious!

DB: You’re currently working on your first full-length album as a follow-up to the Violet EP.  Besides more songs to collect and arrange, What have you learned by writing, touring, and promoting the EP that most informs your approach to the recording and touring of the new record?

CG: I think, funnily enough, that the biggest lesson I took away from the whole experience is that I DON’T need a full-length album at this stage in the game. I put a lot of thought into what direction I wanted to take after Violet, and realized that I’m probably much better off making another EP, getting my new material out there quickly, and doing it as cost-effectively as possible. When you’re self-financing these days, it seems to be more about the quality of the songs than the quantity, and also about just staying active and keeping your name out there. The concept of an “album” is getting (sadly) outdated anyway, and bands are routinely signed off of EPs or even demos.

So I think I’m going to keep my spending down, record a slightly more guerrilla-style EP as a follow-up to Violet, and devote more resources to playing shows in other cities and promoting in hopes of getting some interest from people who might want to help finance or distribute a full album, for which I’m already starting to stockpile material. I could be totally wrong about all this though.  The music industry works in mysterious ways. I guess only time will tell!

[UPDATE, Oct 2010: You can now BUY THE NEW SEE GREEN EP, Ultramarine at iTunes!]

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You can hear more from See Green on the See Green MySpace page.

Follow Courtenay Green on Twitter.

And you can drop by SeeGreenMusic.com for more news and features.

Read this other interview with Courtenay Green.   And check out this review of See Green’s Violet EP.

Enjoy!

Posted on by Rob Jones

Molony Performs ‘Northern Town’

Listen to this track embedded below by British singer songwriter Molony.  It’s an ode to the love-hate relationship to one’s hometown, “Northern Town” as taken from his eponymous album, Molony, an 11-track record you can download for FREE.

Getting out of a dead end town is a huge theme in pop music, and is a part of the Hero’s Quest as demonstrated in myth and literature, too.  It’s certainly been lived by some of our greatest musical acts, from any number of depressed towns and lifeless suburbs in the United States, to the industrial corners of Europe.

There is a certain inertia which can come about when one stays too long in one’s home town. The longer you stay, the harder it is to leave.  When it comes to the matter of hometowns, you don’t have to be a musician to appreciate that.  And that’s what this tune is about; succumbing to the familiar, while still experiencing a curiosity for the wider world at the same time.  But, when it comes to this theme, getting out of the place you’re from is often a tricky pursuit.  “I love you but I hate you” sums up the complexities of this quite nicely.

I spoke with Molony about this song, about hometowns, about singer-songwriters, and about making his record for the sheer joy of turning on new listeners.

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The Delete Bin: This song, “Northern Town” sounds like it could be autobiographical. But, it seems to me that you’re talking about a human tendency to stick to what’s familiar. What’s the ratio here between the personal and the observational in this song?

Molony:  Most of my songs have some relevance to my feelings or events in my life. I was born in Ashington, Northumberland. Ashington is a dying town in the North East of England. It only existed because of a [mining] pit, that was closed down in the late 1980s and now it has nothing to sustain it. It is a place of high unemployment and the social ills that come with deprivation.

At the time of writing ‘Northern Town’ (and it was written over a decade ago), I was teaching at a school in Ashington. As a result of going away and then coming back again, I was able to see it with a sense of perspective that had been missing during my childhood. The children in the school were restricted and blighted by unemployment, low expectations, and mental illness.  So, I was writing it for them as well.

The song also expresses my contradictory feelings about my home town. Ashington, like so many places in northern England, was laid low by the decimation of manufacturing in the 80s. It has never recovered, and I do feel anger that it probably never will.  I think it’s a song suitable for anyone who understands that small-town feeling and that’s why I wrote ‘the name escapes me/ It don’t matter anyhow’. I also think that working-class kids tend to lack the self-confidence of their middle-class peers.

DB:  You recorded this song, and the album on your own and made it available on your own, too.  In the light of the themes in the song, how much does the Internet change this need to leave one’s hometown, in an age of free uploads, and creating music in bedrooms, rather than in the Big City?

M: I love the fact that I can write and record a song and make it available for anyone interested within minutes. Geographical location is less important in that respect I suppose. I was always recording though, and I have dozens of 4-track tapes from the pre-Internet/digital recording era. They sound muddy and loose in comparison, but they retain a certain charm.

I write these songs primarily as diary entries or little ‘markers’ of a time and place. It is always great if someone shows an interest in listening to them, even if they dislike what they hear. There’s so much small-scale music on the Internet now that it’s hard to draw attention to what you’re doing.

DB: Your music seems to evoke a certain period in musical history that celebrated the singer-songwriter, the individual musical point of view, arguably more so than today.  Do you agree that there was a golden age when it comes to singer-songwriters?

M:  The music that I always return to is largely melancholy and melodic. I’m thinking The Beatles (and McCartney in particular), Leonard Cohen, Neil Finn. I have a sweet tooth, though, and I’m a sucker for well-written, catchy, lightweight pop.   In some respects, there probably was a ‘golden age’ when songwriters produced something fresh and new, but it’s harder to do something original in that form now. I don’t think that I can do anything massively original, but I hope that I can catch a moment in a melody or turn of phrase.

DB:  You learned to play guitar when you were 16, and started writing songs right away.  When did you start playing live?

M:  I don’t play live, but did do for a year or so in 2007/2008. Ultimately, I became disillusioned with the indifference that all musicians were getting in the places I was playing. I now write and play for myself.

DB: Tell Me about your other project, The Kessler Boy.

M:  The Kessler Boy is used for my experimental sounds. These are less conventional ‘songs’ based on loops and fragments. I created an album of these experimental tracks called Trees.   I do experiment with sounds under the name The Kessler Boy, but ultimately I look to express emotion and thoughts rather than produce music that is removed from personal experience.  Melody is important. Whatever the genre or structure of a song, I think that I look for a hook or melodic drift that resonates with me.

DB: You’ve written and recorded this song and the album just for the sheer joy of doing it. Have you ever considered selling your music?

M: I still buy CDs and records, and I belong to a generation used to a physical product. Perhaps one day I will package up my songs for posterity.  Right now, I just want people to listen to what I write. I understand the argument that putting a price on something gives it value, but the thrill for me lies in the thought that maybe someone will download these songs and one day when they press shuffle a Molony song will come up. I’d love it if one of my songs could prompt them to lift the iPod from their pocket to check who the artist is on the screen.

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For more information about, and to hear more music from, Molony, be sure to check out Molony on MySpace.

Also, investigate the Kessler Boy on MySpace.

And of course – download songs by Molony for free at Soundcloud.com.

Enjoy!

Posted on by Rob Jones · 1 Comment

Lily Allen Performs ‘LDN’

lily_allen_-_alright_stillHere’s a clip of chirpy Londoner with an eye for criticism for her surroundings, Lily Allen.  It’s “LDN” a calypso-infused pop tune about the Big Smoke as taken from her debut album  Alright, Still.

There is something to be said about duality in everyday life, and I think that’s what may have been on Lily Allen’s mind when she co-wrote this song for her debut, a song originally released as a single in September of 2006.  Her voice is absolutely and unabashedly ‘London’ on this track, which adds a layer of credibility to what is easily interpreted as something of a pessimistic outlook on living there.

The song is a series of vignettes, outlining the darker side of living in a place where so many are thrust together in close quarters in various states of desperation, not unlike Richard Thompson’s “The Sights and Sounds of London Town”, which covers similar thematic ground.

To me, this is the song of one who once had an idealized vision of her hometown which is embodied by the bouncy calypso style, soon to be let down by reality as reflected in the lyrics.  In some ways, it’s sad to hear this story sung by someone so young that is basically about the cruelty of the world, even if that cruelty has a distinctive London air about it.

But, in other ways this is an encouraging tale.  The song’s narrator is a young woman who is aware of her surroundings.  The tone of the song is disappointment (illustrated very well in the video at the end, when her plans are cancelled by the unknown party on the other end of her cellphone conversation). But, this is a song about someone being relieved of her illusions.  In this, it’s about a unique kind of liberation.

And to me, it’s encouraging that this song tells the story for so many young people in an otherwise numb state of being, not realizing that life can be so much better than it is.  When disappointment of this kind is expressed, the fight for change is often not far behind.

For more information, check out the legendary Lily Allen MySpace page, which was the hub of her success as a mainstream artist working outside of mainstream marketing channels.

Enjoy!