Mecury Music Prize 2010

So the nominations are in for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize. Now we could start bickering about who should have been on the list ‘cough Delphic cough’ but it is the lucky 12 on the list we have to listen to and debate.
No standout tracks, as it is about the whole album

The XX – XX
The Favourite horse to back
Time to listen= morning
Mood= waking up, docile
Sounds like= Fever Ray, The Whitest Boy Alive, Massive Attack

Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
A person who is younger, folksy and more talented then you
Time to listen= 10am
Mood= curling into a blanket, drinking coco mood
Sounds like = Nick Drake, Bright Eyes, Cat Power

Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea
Ally Mcbeal’s soundtrack to when she likes a guy but isn’t sure if he likes her.
Time to listen= midday
Mood= relationship worries
Sounds like= Norah Jones, Macy Gray, John Legend

Paul Weller – Wake Up The Nation
The MOD king is back
Time to listen= early afternoon
Mood= waking up, toe tapping
Sounds like= Elvis Costello, Graham Coxon, Stereophonics

Mumford And Sons – Sigh No More
Filling in that gap within the UK folk market
Time to listen= afternoon
Mood= feeling on the edge of great
Sounds like= Regina Spektor, Fleetwood Mac, Paolo Nutini

Villages – Becoming A Jackal
State this band if you want to seem heartfelt and acoustic
Time to listen= 3pm
Mood= kinda annoyed, sleepy
Sounds like= Turin Brakes, Simon & Garfunkel, Fleet Foxes

Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
A band that fan base is teenage girls and spotty blokes
Time to listen= straight after school
Mood= when the world sucks, your parents won’t listen, the acne is annoying
Sounds like= Incubus, My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds To Mars

Foals – Total Life Forever
One of those bands, whose name crops up everywhere.
Time to listen= early evening
Mood= waiting for something to happen
Sounds like= The Maccabees, Two Door Cinema Club, Bombay Bicycle Club

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Kate Bush after her sex change
Time to listen = sunset.
mood = feeling upbeat, but don’t want to exert any energy
Sounds like = Elbow, Kate Bush, Grizzly Bear

Dizzee Rascal – Tongue In Cheek
Even those kids that are all about the guitars love a bit of Dizzee
Time to listen= soon to head out at get drunk time
Mood= party
Sounds like= Jay-Z, Kele, Basement Jaxx

I am Kloot – Sky At Night
Home from pub, need some music
Time to listen = after closing time
Mood= tipsy, but meaningful
Sounds like= Stephen Fretwell, Embrace, Richard Ashcroft

Kit Downes Trio – Golden
Welcome to jazz club, Nice.
Time to listen= 4am
Mood= cultural
Sounds like= sorry I don’t know my jazz

So who will win, this very acoustic year?

Well even if Kit Downes Trio had Ron Burgundy on jazz flute, they wouldn’t win.
Dizzee Rascal is way to mainstream and the album isn’t that revolutionary.
Whilst Paul Weller could just get it for old times’ sake.

But the main contenders are The XX, Foals, Laura Marling and Wild Beasts – The rest of the artists are just pure stocking filler.

Though sods law Mumford and Sons will win it.

Who do you think will win?

Captain America Vs the World

I like Captain America.
Not because I’m a secret American patriot – I’m a proper British gent who likes tea and the word trousers. It is because out of all the superhero legends out there – he just cannot at all fit into the modern world

The main problem is his total persona of  ‘American’ patriotism.
Now they is nothing wrong with being patriotic – I just fit into the crowd of pure cynics who cannot comprehend Americans passion and who puts it on level par with dictator celebration just to annoy them.

            The Siamese quads have a nice day out

Back in the days of WWII he fitted in perfectly, he helped enlist American men, he made a nation believe they could win the war and he defeated the most evil Nazi of them all (Red Skull)

Comic book-writers though, could not let him lie down his shield and retire. He appears again and again woken up from cryogenic freezing in the following decades, having to face bigger distain towards American globalisation.

Ronald McDonald is the symbol of fast food, Captain America is the symbol of Americanisation and we know how popular there are these days! 

This distain may go a little bit unnoticed within the USA, however with a Captain America film on the horizon, then the following ‘The Avengers’ movie- producers might have to account for how the world feels.

They can either stick to their guns, and have it 100% patriotic, leading to huge profit within the good ole’ USA but a $0.00 profit around the rest of the world.
Or they could (unlikely) have the character realise he is a national gimmick laughed at internationally, a corporate brand just like Dr Manhattan, that the fact as he stands for 100% Americanism he could gain more enemies then the Bush administration. 

Either way it will be a huge political film – debated among patriots, cynics, communist, capitalists, terrorists, geeks and it will have explosions!