PICK OF JANUARY 2007

Pop Levi - Sugar Assault Me Now

There must be something in the water in Liverpool, maybe a trunkload of LSD toppled into the River Mersey in the late 50s - they always manage to produce pop acts tinged in a fruitful psychedelia. We had The Beatles, The Coral, Echo & The Bunnymen, Space... the list just goes on and on. And now, we have - the quite remarkable - Pop Levi.  

Pop Levi sound like they've resurrected the sound of - the now sadly defunct - Clor, combined it with the trippy production of Jody Wildgoose and taken it to it's inevitably arm-waving conclusion. If steam trains were powered by funky electronica, this one would successfully navigate a fiendish loop-the-loop. All hail, the new kings of pop. 9/10 UNABASHED BRILLIANCE

Future Of The Left - Fingers Become Friends

The Beginning: There once was a band called mclusky. They were great. They grew in cult status due to their vicious music and witty lyricism. They had good song names too. We all loved mclusky at Trash Hits. And beyond. The Middle: They split up. And gave us a 'Best Of and Rarities' album. Our sadness was not stemmed. Until now...

[I know, I've made them sound like the British version of Primus again. But who cares? Primus are great.]

As you may have surmised from the intro, The Future Of The Left contain ex-members of mclusky (lead singer, Falco, and drummer, Jack Egglestone), as well as two members of Jarcrew. How does the combination work out? Chaotically. And in chaos we all trust. The vocals are as incendiary as ever (very), the drums pound until your ears bleed and the riffs are suffocating. The End: We all live happily ever after. 9/10 THE FUTURE OF THE INDIE-PUNK SCENE

Hello, this is your editor speaking. Yes, I know this is highly irregular, not only do I normally not have time to write columns within this fine publication but we also usually just have single reviews on this page, not diligently written articles such as this one. Well, as it has been a rather quiet start to the year for single releases I have decided to step in - plus there is one news story dominating the music industry and, as luck may have it, it is especially relevant to these pages. Of course, I am speaking of the changes to the way that the singles chart is compiled, and what far-reaching changes they are already proving to be.

As of January 1st, the Official Singles Chart did what all respectable human beings did and announced some resolutions for the new year. Unlike the rest of us, it had nothing to do with dieting, in fact, quite the opposite - now the Chart will be made up of any song sold that week, regardless of release date. Just to recap, previous charts were only made up of songs that were officially intended to be eligible for the Chart. This meant that Gnarls Barkley - when they inexplicably tired of being at number 1 - could 'delete' Crazy from this list and, therefore, disappear from the Singles Chart. Nowadays, such a move may not prove quite so effective, as long as punters continue to download the song it will still be allowed to rattle around the top of the charts.

It would be fair to say that some people in the music industry are in the mythical State of Uproar, that place where people walk around spouting rubbish - and no, we don't mean Washington DC. One criticism aimed towards this radical move is that now the chart may find itself filling up with old songs, just because they're being featured on an advert or a film. They say that this would be unrepresentative of the current state of the music scene, but why? It might be true to say that it may not reflect what the 'current bands' are releasing, but it certainly represents what 'music fans' are listening to. And also, often these songs - when Mr Marketing realises how popular they are becoming - are released again anyway (e.g. Mad World). Why should the Chart have to wait until these songs are made official chart entrants? You could be missing out on thousands of download figures by doing this, just because of bureaucracy - something the music industry has a strong need to distance itself from as a viable art form.

Another concern voiced by the industry relates - in part - to the rumoured plans of EMI, who - some claim - are planning on making the Beatles back catalogue available for download, potentially leading to a top 10 dominated by The Beatles. Again, there are two sides to the metaphorical coin; whereas it may be fair to suggest that The Beatles are not the biggest band on the planet at the moment, you also must accept the fact that - according to industry figures - they represent the most popular choice of songs… for all ages. Surely, this is the crux of the matter; the Pop Music chart should be made up of the most 'popular' songs of that week, regardless of how much money PR have thrown at the act or how many interviews the singer has done.

In truth, this ruling makes the charts much more accessible for musicians and fans alike. We've already seen an unsigned band, Koopa, get to number 31 in the charts on download sales alone (though they did use clever tactics to do so) and why argue with a ruling that makes the Chart Show listenable again? Now the Charts are a fair representative of what we are all currently listening to, and thank fuck for that.

No.1 In January 2007:

Mika - Grace Kelly

Did you know that Kelly was the most popular name for girls born in 1981? And that, the name Grace, has seen it's popularity drop greatly since the nation came to hate Grace from Big Brother? Therefore, the name Grace Kelly - who was also a famous lady from the 1400s - is completely unambiguous to us; we should have no pre-conceived notions as to whether we'll like them. Sadly, the singer's name is not Grace Kelly, it is Mika... which kind of renders this opening paragraph completely pointless. Ho hum. We'll just have to judge him on his music then.

We won't lie to you, we at Trash Hits don't give a damn about looking cool - hell, have you ever seen what we wear on our nights out? We're dags, man. Dags. This is a good thing though, as we can say things like, "We really like Grace Kelly by Mika. It sounds like Robbie Williams spent his life trying to be Freddie Mercury [to be honest, he has - Ed] and then tried to reinvent himself upon hearing the Scissor Sisters". Yeah, we can say all that without fear. We don't have to be trendy, you see. In fact, we don't even know how 'trendy' it is to like Mika. We just think he's a vastly talented singer with a lovingly crafted single. And he looks like he's a lovely lad too. 8/10 MIKA SHOWS VERY GOOD GRACE

Go to December 2006 Singles