The logic of chance

The full version of my review of the stunningly awful new Dan Le Sac/Scroobius Pip album...



Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip – The Logic of Chance

Remember Legz Akimbo? They were a theatre troupe from The League of Gentlemen. All they wanted was to help The Kids by putting on plays about topical issues. Unfortunately, they were rubbish. See that, Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip? That’s you that is.

Sac and Pip, you may recall, are the duo behind ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’, the late noughties semi-hit which poked fun at hipsters, gangster-wannabes, musos and just about everyone else. It was a novelty record, sure, but a witty and sonically interesting one.

And now here’s their second album. It’s not good. In fact, The Logic of Chance may be the most patronising, tedious and curiously reactionary record you hear this year. It’s like being hectored by someone who gets all their news from Comment Is Free, but in the form of really bad rap. Imagine Chumbawamba recording a hip-hop album and you’re close to how piss poor this really is.

So ‘Get Better’ is a lame attempt at euphoric disco. It imagines a song that provides helpful criticism for youngsters. But if such a song exists, it isn’t this. Despite it’s ear-wormy chant of “get better”, over and over again, the centrepiece is a rant about the shortness of girls skirts and predatory teenage boys.

‘Great Britain’ is worse, ending as it does with Sac - Enraged of Tunbridge Wells - reading out knife crime statistics. It’s fist-in-mouth embarrassing, even on headphones. Other subjects include political apathy and, er, being a music snob.

This is hip-hop for people who hate hip-hop. They’ve stripped away the violence and the bullshit, sure, but also all the passion, grit, sex and fun. There’s nothing wrong with mixing politics and music, but give us some decent tunes too please.

Rating: 2/10

Hang along!

Currently in the throes of another bout of Ghost Box obsession this week with the arrival of the new Roj album, The Focus Group's collaboration with Broadcast, and my purchase of their '07 album We Are All Pan's People. In the words of our Prod Ed, I am Ghost Box's bitch. But that's because they're the best label in the whole wide world. Don't believe me? Check the website below.

http://www.ghostbox.co.uk

You can find my Clash mag review of the new Bernard Fevre album here...

http://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/black-devil-disco-club-presents-the-strange-new-world-of-bernard-fevre

Last week I started an episode-by-episode review of the new series of Dollhouse for SFX. See the link below this for episode one,'Vows'. Part two should be up Tuesday/Wednesday, certainly before I head off to Whitby to see my dear ol' mum for her birthday.

THE DAY OF THE BEATLES

THE DAY OF THE BEATLES

It got to the point a few years back where I just couldn’t listen to The Beatles any more. Ubiquity, the Anthology TV show, Oasis and the horrible legacy of Britpop rather soured the music for me. It took a good few years of scouring my ears clean with Coil, Liars and horrible twenty minute long avant-jazz epics before I could bare to go back again.

I’m glad I did. Never trust a man who claims that the Rolling Stones were better, for that man is foolish, wrong, showing off and probably lists his albums alphabetically. Still, I was sceptical about the new remasters. But, with some birthday vouchers going spare, I picked up Please, Please Me and The White Album.

Please Please Me is dandy, but it's The White Album I was particularly interested in. It's long been my favourite Beatles record (and indeed the favourite of all well-minded folk). It’s really quite peculiar listening to some of these songs again, songs that I’ve known for years, and spotting all the detail that was hidden there all along, buried in the weak 1987 editions. There’s a shrill ‘aaaaaahhhhhhhh’ on ‘Dear Prudence’; background noise on the earlier editions, here it’s really quite unnerving. Likewise, backing vocals I previously thought to be solo efforts are suddenly revealed to be the rest of the band joining in the fun.

But the thing that’s jumping out most from The White Album is Ringo. Poor old Ringo, his stick skills the butt of many a joke. Weird, given that at worst he was still perfectly competent. Here and now he sounds like an iron-clad percussionist Terminator. Rarely showy, but heavy, and exactly the backbone that this band needed.

I don’t normally go in for remasters – I’m reviewing the Kraftwerk box set for Clash at the moment and the difference between the old and new versions is fairly neglible. In the case of the new Beatles editions it really is comparable to the leap from blurry old VHS to a pin-sharp Blu-Ray. Good stuff.

PAST IT?

A short review by me of the latest Mary Anne Hobbs dubstep compilation after the link.

http://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/mary-anne-hobbs-presentswild-angels

Must admit, I’m not too happy with this one. It was written last minute, after a couple of weeks struggling to decide whether the fact that I don’t like wonky very much meant I was too old and past it, or that it was just an inferior compilation, compared to its peerless big brother, Warrior Dubz. I settled on the latter. But then I would, wouldn’t I?