I got my first drum kit aged 8 and, over the next 15 years, played it to the extent where I destroyed my ears, my parents' relationship with their neighbours, and my cat's nerves.

But since I moved to London in 1997, there hasn't been space for a drum kit in the series of poky little rooms I've called home. So, it was with great excitement that I purchased Guitar Hero: World Tour - a video game music simulator which comes with a six-piece set you can fold away and store in a cupboard.

The trailer for the game promised it would have "the most realistic drums" of any game on the current generation of games consoles. Not actually realistic, of course, but as close as you'd get. There are touch sensitive pads, so you can play a gentle shuffle or thump the living daylights out of the tom toms, depending on your mood. And, unlike rival game Rock Band, you get a pair of cymbals to smash.

It arrived at Discopop Towers on Saturday and, after a few days experimentation, I have discovered the awful truth: I am too good for this game.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a modern-day John Bonham or Cozy Powell, but every ounce of skill and instinct I've picked up over the last 30 years actually counts against me.

Take the opening song - Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger. Except on the puny easy setting (which recreates precisely the experience of banging sticks on a wooden block at nursery school) I invariably failed within ten seconds of the beat kicking in.

In exasperation, I turned to the game's practice mode and played the intro over and over again - to no avail. "There must be a bug," I decided after an hour of mounting frustration, during which my success rate never peaked higher than 60%.

After another thirty minutes, I was sadly convinced that all those years of flailing around garages with a pair of drumsticks had amounted to nothing. When set to a click track, I couldn't keep time to save my life.

Eventually, my wife asked to watch me playing to see if she could work out what I was doing wrong.

She got it in about five seconds. There is a subtle swing to the hi-hat pattern on Eye Of The Tiger, which I was playing instinctively. But the game wanted a strict 4/4 rhythm.

Once the error had been pointed out to me, I was easily able complete the song on the game's hardest setting, expert mode. But it was still a struggle - the drum pattern just felt wrong (it doesn't help that, when you hit the pads in the 'correct' sequence, the game plays back the drum track from the original recording - including that lilting hi-hat). As a result, I kept slipping back into the swing beat.

Understandably, the game has to be calibrated to make it playable for non-percussionists - but I wonder whether they will struggle with it, too? Neurologist Oliver Sacks (whose fascinating book, Musicophilia, looks at the effects of music on the brain) believes rhythm is an innate skill for humans. "We respond to rhythm by keeping in time, by moving our heads," he told science website Universe last year.

"One cannot not respond to music: even if you don't make any external movement, the motor parts of the brain respond to rhythm. This appears spontaneously in every child - but you cannot train a chimpanzee, or a bird, or a whale, or an elephant, to keep synchronized time to a rhythm."

Of course, anyone who's seen their dad dance at a wedding will realise that rhythmical ability varies from person to person. So maybe the syncopation issue will only affect people like me, who've "fine-tuned" their rhythmical abilities.

I got some consolation from rock legend Slash - who was interviewed for Guitar Hero's last iteration (in which he made a cameo appearance). In the video, the Velvet Revolver / GnR guitarist spoke of similar frustrations with the guitar mode:

"Guitar Hero is harder as a guitar player than if I'd never touched a guitar and all I knew I had to do was touch all these different colours on the neck," he said.

So, has anyone else experienced this exasperation with the Guitar Hero / Rock Band series? I'd be interested to know...

Labels: discopop, drums, Games

The latest in Stephen Fry's series of excellent, but all-too-irregular podcasts has got me thinking about the content of this website.

He's having a rant about journalism - and makes the very valid point that "the problem with a daily or weekly column is that emotion is so much more easily accessed than reason" when trying to construct a narrative against a deadline.

It's a concern that's been plaguing me for a while. In the rush to publish a story (or, let's be honest, to avoid being caught writing a story at work) it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making a snap judgment about typing it up as SOLID FACT.

I've been guilty of this a couple of times recently - I slagged off Pink's So What weeks before it became lodged in my head and was upgraded from "utter shit" to "basically tolerable". On the opposite end of the scale, I waxed lyrical about Los Campesinos! before it occurred to me that shouting teenagers hitting a glockenspiel with a hammer is actually the noise they play you in hell's waiting room.

I'm not alone, of course. Music blogs are full of posts that basically declare "OMG HERE IZ TEH FIRST SONG I HEARD THIS MORNING AND IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE". How many times have you read someone bang on about a paradigm-shifting Radiohead remix, or the totally amazing new EP by Botson cryo-funk combo TitBishop, and thought to yourself "have they even heard this bilge?"

Because, I admit, there are occasions when I get 30 seconds into a song and think "this is so good, I have to write something about it" - without noticing that the rest of the song is a turgid droning dirge.

Not that an immediate emotional response is a bad thing. Pop music should be in-your-face, upfront, instantaneous, accessible and obvious. But, at the same time, some of my favourite records have revealed themselves over many, many plays. Indeed, The Cardigans' Long Gone Before Daylight - probably one of my top 10 albums of all time - only really displayed its ethereal beauty after two years in my CD collection.

So I have resolved to try to mention more of those slow-burning masterpieces on the website, starting today with Laura Marling - the 18-year-old singer-songwriter who was nominated for a Mercury Prize earlier this year for the dark folk of her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim.

It's usually the sort of music that'd make me run a mile - lilting acoustic ballads with added Irish fiddle - but I was given a copy back in July and it has slowly assimilated itself into my weekly "most listened to" playlist. There is something captivating about Marling's gutsy vocals - so full of youthful tenderness, yet haunted and troubled beyond their years.

Here's her latest video, Night Terror. Give it a couple of goes before you dismiss it. It's what Stephen Fry would have wanted.

Labels: discopop, laura marling, Music, stephen fry, video

Discopop Directory will be moving over to a new server on Friday, so it might disappear from the internet for an hour or two. But don't worry, I'll be back as soon as the boffins have pressed all the right switches.

See ya!
Mark

Labels: discopop

So, who was the beatboxing pop star I mentioned yesterday?

Why, it was none other than Sugababe Amelle Barberadicksonererah!



Amazing.

Labels: discopop, Music, sugababes

I am going on holiday tomorrow, so...

1) There will be nothing posted on this blog 'til Tuesday, 24th September. Sorry about that.

2) Please don't burgle my house. There is a panther hiding in the bedroom and you will get very badly hurt.

3) Girls Aloud's new single "The Promise" will be premiered on Radio One this Sunday at around 7pm. If you could find it within your heart to send an MP3 to savage-at-discopop-dot-co-dot-uk, I will love you forever*

That is all. You're all amazing.
Byeeeee,
mrdiscopop

* Love you forever = Buy you a Kit Kat

Labels: discopop, Girls Aloud, Music

Thanks to me (and 30 other drunkards) Cheryl, Nadine, Nicola, Sarah and Kimberley are each £4.00 richer. Literally amazing.

:: Girls Aloud win £20 music prize [BBC News]
:: Twenty Quid Music Prize: Congratulations, once again, to Girls Aloud [Popjustice]

Labels: discopop, Girls Aloud, Music

In case you're interested...

Arnaud Clement

Benjamin Becker

James Blake

The scores on the doors

The knoll formerly known as Henman Hill (aka "Murray Mound")

Some not-very-well-camouflaged BBC cameramen

Labels: discopop, wimbledon

10:30 The grounds are officially open. Out here in Wimbledon Park, meanwhile, we've been given a 40-page guide to queueing. "You are in the queue if you join it at the end and remain in it until you have acquired a ticket," it advises. It is good to have that cleared up, as I was beginning to get confused and disorientated.
Current music: Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor

1055 Our section of the queue has been ushered forward from the holding area to the ticket line. Maybe 30 mins to go!
Current music: Flight of the Conchords - Ladies of the World

11:50 and I'm in! Only £20 to get access to all the outlying courts - and I have the option of (another) queue for returns to Centre Court and Court No. 1. Not that I'll need one, Boris Becker's due on Court 17 when play commences at noon, and that's where I've stationed myself for now.

I have to say the whole queueing process was a peculiarly British delight - amiable, polite and well ordered. So much so that people gladly accepted stickers proudly proclaiming they'd been in line for one of the 25,000 tickets.

You wouldn't get that at Heathrow.
Current music: please God, anything but an 'impromptu' performance from Cliff Richard.

12:10 Oh, so it's Benjamin Becker. Just goes to show how much I know about tennis! In any case, I have to turn the iPhone off during the day's play, so you'll be spared my hopeless sports commentary (queues are more my thing). So that, dear readers, is that. Byeeee!

Labels: discopop, wimbledon

09:15 Hello! I thought I'd try something a little different today, and update the blog as I queue to get into day 4 of the 2008 Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon. I've arrived at the specially designated waiting area (a big field opposite the hallowed grass courts) and been handed a "queue card" by the boater-wearing, none-more-English stewards. Clearly, however, I didn't arrive early enough - my ticket number is 6002 :(
Current music: The Ting Tings - Shut Up And Let Me Go

09:45 There's a pitched battle going on between the two rival gangs of newspaper vendors prowling the queue. Currently trailing in second place is The Guardian (left wing, sneery attitude, free sun cream) which is selling roughly one copy for every three shifted by the Daily Mail (racist, homophobic, free binoculars). There is also one forlorn Daily Telegraph seller (free DVD???) but I think this may just be a practical joke.
Current music: Timbaland: Give It To Me

10:05 I'm passing the time by reading US music magazine Blender, in which Coldplay's new effort is dispatched with concise brilliance. "Coldplay making a record about not pleasing everyone," writes Jon Dolan, "is like James Brown making a record about not being so damn funky all the time."
Current music: Neil Young: Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Labels: discopop, wimbledon

Crivvens! This is officially the 1,000th post on Discopop Directory. The majority of the content has, if I'm honest, mostly been flim, flam and piffle. But that's what the internet was invented for, surely?

To celebrate our first millennium, here is a Muxtape with the top 12 tracks from the first three-and-a-half years of the blog's lifespan (click on the picture or go to discopop.muxtape.com to load it up).



And for those of you who don't "do" the whole Muxtape thing, here's the whole lot in MP3 format. Don't tell the record labels, though. They'll cut me up and spread me on their toast.

TRACKLISTING
1) Nelly Furtado - Maneater
2) Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
3) Girls Aloud - Biology
4) Dragonette - Competition
5) CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above
6) Amerie - Gotta Work
7) Goldfrapp - Number 1
8) Annie - Heartbeat
9) Robyn - With Every Heartbeat (acoustic)
10) The Cardigans - I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer
11) Regina Spektor - Samson
12) Radiohead - Nude


And, with that, I'm off on holiday for a week. See you again on 23rd June!

Labels: cats, discopop, links, MP3, Music

G'day Kylie,

We would like to wish you a very happy 40th birthday. Try not to panic, this does not mean the end of your life. Look at Madonna: She's a full ten years older than you but she's still able to flash her gusset at the entire world every five minutes. You might need to spend some more time on the pelvic floor exercises, but it's good to be flexible as you advance in years. Maybe try some berocca, too. And support pants.

In the meantime, enjoy all the things that being 40 has to offer. You will be able to afford and enjoy bottles of wine that cost more than £10. You no longer need to listen to new music because you already know plenty of music, and it's way better than The Pigeon Detectives. You can spend more time on the toilet and nobody will complain.

And if it all gets too much, remember that age ain't nothin' but the last three letters of sausage.

Best birthday wishes,
All at Discopop Towers^TM

PS It's not all bad. You could be 20 again.

Kylie - Look My Way (TV appearance, 1988

Labels: discopop, kylie, Music, video

Hello!

Just returned from Cannes, which was utterly amazing. I saw Indy 4 (brilliant), partied with taTu (surreal) and walked past Harvey Weinstein without realising (doink).

The highlights were probably my interview with Dustin Hoffman - there's an excerpt on the BBC website - and chatting to Kelly Rowland on the BBC balcony.



Brilliantly, after two weeks of meeting and greeting some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, I was still so excited to see Benicio Del Toro on my flight home that I immediately phoned mrsdiscopop to tell her.

So, now that I'm back, let's get this whole blog thing going again...

Labels: discopop, dustin hoffman, film, kelly rowland

Hey there!

I'm not going to be checking into the blog much over the next 10 days or so, as I'm off at the Cannes Film Festival (oooh, get me).

You can follow my progress over at the BBC news website: The main page is here and my "diary" is here.

I'll be back in the UK next week - and off to see Girls Aloud in concert. You can be sure there'll be a slavering review not long after.

Cheers,
Mrdiscopop

Labels: discopop, film, links

There aren't many annual posts on Discopop Directory, but this is one of them... The ever-fabulous music swap extravaganza known as "Summer Burn" is back for 2008, and I encourage you to get involved.

In one sentence, this is what happens: You make two CDs, two strangers make two CDs, you and the strangers exchange each others CDs and discover great new music*

Sign up over at the Fun Junkie website, and they do all the hard work of collecting addresses and things. I've done it before, and you can rest assured that they don't use your personal details to buy nuclear processing plants in Turkmenistan.

That is all.

* or Belgian death metal

Labels: discopop, links, Music

For the last three weeks, I've been spending all of my spare time (well, the bits where I wasn't drinking, at least) fixing up my Janet Jackson remixology. For those of you who haven't ventured over to the links on the top right of the page, it's an obssessive-compulsive list of all the official remixes of Janet's 55 singles to date. Some of them are great. Others, particularly from the last couple of years, are awful...

Anyway, to celebrate Janet's belated return to form with Feedback, I rejigged the site to make it look a bit less like it came from the animated gif days of 1994. Inside you'll find details of about 450(!) remixes. Or, to put it another way, details of my wasted life and squandered money. There are also audio clips from each track and a list of fake and bootleg recordings for the completist in you.

The pages start over here. Please check them out and send me any feedback - particularly if I've messed up somewhere.

In the meantime, here's a video for one of Janet's best-ever remixes, the 12" R&B mix of Alright, from 1990.

Labels: discopop, Janet Jackson, Music, video

Bloggers all over the planet are wetting their knickers over a website called Muxtape, which lets you share music with the entire world and kill off the record industry as a handy byproduct.

It is, needless to say, excellent.

Anyone can sign on and upload a personal mix of 12 hand-picked gems from their dusty box of 7"s (mp3 folder). The mix can be played by any passing visitor direct from their web browser - just like real magic.

Obviously, the thing is replete with people showing off how cool they are by posting a bunch of Husker Du B-sides and epic krautrock wig-outs. I, on the other hand, have uploaded a bunch of pop bollocks from 1991 - the year I did my GCSEs and slept on a hospital floor to prove I was in love.

To have a listen, click on that tape at the top of the post (or this link right here).

And, obviously, put links to your muxtape page in the comments box.

Labels: discopop, links, Music

It's been a relatively busy week in those comment boxes you find under the stories here on Discopop Directory. Lots of people had valid points and interesting links to share, so I thought I'd give them a more prominent position.

First up is Emma, who says: "I find it quite unusual that you never feature any music other than american or brit singers". She must have missed the recent articles on Lykke Li, CSS, Camille and Namie Amuro - but, hey, I'm always up for having my musical horizons expanded. If you've got a passion for pop from Panama, or anywhere in the world, feel free to send a tip to tips@discopop.co.uk.

Emma herself suggests checking out Angolan hipsters Buraka Som Sistema (Buraka Sound System). They're not really my cup of tea, but their new single features MIA and comes across like a Bargain Basement Jaxx. It is up on that youtube (youtube) should you want to check it out.

Elsewhere, Duane points out the uncanny similarity between The Last Shadow Puppets' single The Age Of The Understatement and Muse's Knights Of Cydonia. He's not wrong, either.

And at the bottom of my "tribute" to Voice Of The Beehive, Chris C writes in to boast about his interview with Melissa and Tracy Beehive. You can find it on his rather superb blog/podcast Revenge Of The 80s Radio

Ta for all the feedback. Keep it coming!

Labels: discopop, Music

I have just discovered that this humble website is the number three search result on Google for the phrase "pictures of ladybits". I am also ranked sixth on Virgin Media's search engine when you search for "Betty Boo bedroom curtains".

That is all.

Labels: discopop

Hello! We're off to Australia for a month to sample the local culture, a few koalas and Justin Timberlake. I might make the odd update during the trip, but I'm not promising anything...



Thanks for stopping by. Normal service will be resumed around the 19th November.

Cheers,
mrdiscopop

PS Please don't rob our house.

Labels: discopop

If you have found your way here via the recommendation in today's Guardian ("chart clips, youtube clips and heated debate!") then you are most welcome.

Tea and biscuits are served around 3pm.

Labels: discopop

Hurrumph!

With the sort of reckless abandon not seen since the Los Angeles' DMV gave driving licences to Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie, the BBC has suddenly decided to stop making its slate of video podcasts. As of last week, these free, excellent, downloads are gone - evaporating into the ether without so much as a bye or leave (incidentally, what does this phrase even mean?).

According to the man in charge, some of the "vodcasts" may reappear later in the year, but others may not.

I don't really get it. Why spend a year courting your audience, only to dump them on your doorstep while secretly hoping they'll get back together with you in October? Why couldn't the "evaluation" of this trial have run simultaneously with the trial itself? It seems a particularly perverse way to carry out your business. But, hey, that's the BBC for you.

Chief among the losses is Storyfix - the corporation's sarcastic look at its own news coverage. I understand the weekly download was roundly hated by the very presenters it lampooned. For that reason alone it was a marvellous and excellent invention. The music wasn't bad, either. (I wonder which gifted genius of modern composition was responsible...)

But sources on the Storyfix team tell me that it won't be one of the shows making a return later in the year. Apparently, budgetary constraints mean it is finished, kaput, no more, the end, annihilated, broken, gorn, dead and buried. Fin.

If you want to see what in the name of heck you were missing, here is the excellent last episode: A compilation of the best bits of the last 12 months of news aimed at a viewer with the attention span of a goldfish raised on MTV and red bull.

Labels: bbc, discopop, storyfix, video

Labels: chemical brothers, discopop, Music, new young pony club, rihanna, video

Have you noticed that it's summer? Workers are neglecting their desks and eating lunch in the park, ice cream is melting slowly down children's fingers, and we're all wearing skinny T-shirts.

Except, of course, they aren't, it isn't and, no, we're not. Summer has officially gone missing, and the only thing to remind me it's here is an email from the funjunkies website, telling me to put my Summer Burn CD in the post.

That Summer Burn CD, if you remember my earlier post, is a compilation of songs that are actually guaranteed to make the sun shine. Through the magnificent benevolence of the funkjunie chaps, I send a copy to two people who send me their own compilation in return. It's like Noel Edmond's Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, but without the chunky knitwear. Or Keith Chegwin.

And, as a special treat for you, I've put an MP3 of it over here. Download it, listen to it, smell it, love it, cuddle it. All I ask in return is a white chocolate Magnum*.

TRACKLISTING
1) Camille Yarbrough - Take Yo Praise
2) Jackie Wilson - The Sweetest Feeling
3) Jamie Lidell - Multply
4) Lindy Stevens - Pennygold
5) Solomon Burke - Home In Your Heart
6) James Brown - I Got You (I Feel Good)
7) The JBs - The Grunt (Parts I &II)
8) Foster Sylvers - Misdemeanour
9) Jorge Ben - Take It Easy My Brother Charles
10) Al Green - Simply Beautiful
11) Aretha Franklin - Baby, I Love You
12) Jean Knight - Mr Big Stuff
13) Amerie - Gotta Work
14) Teddy Pendergrass - Love TKO
15) Freda Payne - Unhooked
16) The Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles
17) Diana Ross - Tenderness
18) Richie Havens - Going Back To My Roots
19) Prince - Let's Work (Extended Dance Mix)

Front cover
Back Cover

*That's the ice cream, not the firearm.**
**Actually, either would be fine.

Labels: discopop, MP3, Music

And why? Apparently, this site contains three instances of drugs, two of piss and one of shit.

It's hardly A Clockwork Orange, is it?

[via Back of the Cereal Box]

Labels: discopop

It's summer, so traditionally there isn't much new music around (although I've just got hold of a high quality MP3 of MIA's Boyz, which has led to the outbreak of a minor Brazilian carnival in my living room, feathered bra and all).

To keep me in new music, I've been scouting around for some Nina Simone and Isley Brothers albums, but I don't know where to begin. Which are the boring ballady ones and which are the funky war protest ones? Anyone who can help with this minor quandry will be rewarded with a banana and a slurpy kiss.

While I search for ways to waste my cash, here's a really terrible parody of Rihanna's Umbrella - which was broadcast on the Chris Moyles show last week. Any of our international readers who need a bit of context, click here.


Chris Moyles - Umbrella parody

Labels: discopop, mia, MP3, Music, rihanna

Oh dear, it has happened. I got myself a facebook account.

The shame.

If you want to be my friend click here or whatever it is you do. I'll really treasure your friendship and, if you're having trouble at home, you can sleep on our floor until it's all sorted out.

My only question is: was it wrong to put "I worship at the altar of cock" under religion in my profile?

Labels: discopop

So I've arrived in Finland for the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm currently in the press area at the Helsinki Hartwall Arena, where everyone else is working and I'm, em, updating my blog. None of the keys are in the right place on this keyboard, which should make the next couple of days a bit more challenging...

I got here at about 1200 local time today. The taxi driver who picked me up at the airport opened our conversation by saying: "You're from England? Your song is crap". He's not wrong, so I've suddenly 'remembered' my Irish heritage.

Anyway, my being out of the UK means continued sporadic updates of this here website which is probably more frustrating for me than it is for you. However, you can read about my Finn fun on the BBC website by pointing your webular browser over here.

Labels: discopop, eurovision

1) The Discopop Deities list on the right hand side of the page has been updated. Some people have gone missing (poor Rachel Stevens). Others make a debut appearance (coo-ee, The Arcade Fire).

2) My Myspace page has been given a facelift. Will you be my friend? Indeed, in the immortal and slightly tarnished words of Gareth Glitter: "Do you want to be in my gang?" (Answer: No, fuck off you old perv).

Labels: discopop

Shameless plug: There is a very good documentary on Channel 4 tonight directed by one of my best friends, and featuring music by yours truly in the background. Here's the bumpf Channel 4 have been sending out:

Boys To Men: Black British boys are failing at school and failing to get jobs. They get fewer GCSEs than any other ethnic group, and are three times more likely than white boys to end up in jail. Controversial academic Tony Sewell thinks he has found a way to save Britain's brightest black kids ... He's sending them off to an academic boot camp at a Jamaican university. But can this really turn them into future scientists and doctors?

NB: You can ignore all of the important social experiment stuff and tune in to hear my "hilarious" attempts to play reggae on the soundtrack.

You will laugh.
You will cry.
You will wish you had gone to bed after Desperate Housewives.

Labels: discopop, TV

Here it is, folks. An entirely "surprising" list of the best albums that have been troubling the Discopop Towers "ghettoblaster" over the last twelve months.




1) Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
I haven't written nearly enough about how much I love Regina Spektor on these here pages. Every single