Hit or Miss?

Cat Power - Jukebox (Matador, 2008)

This might be the trickiest album I’ve had to review on these pages. I’ve been an admirer of Cat Power, in spite of, or perhaps even because of, her legendary waywardness. I fell rapturously in love with ‘The Greatest’, her collaboration with an outstanding group of Memphis soul musicians, for its languid and subtle combination of soul and sensitivity. Yet, since then, I’ve wondered if this remarkable and original singer-songwriter has begun to lose her individuality. Whilst many admire the Dirty Delta Blues group who have accompanied her on recent tours and on this record, I find them a little heavy-handed and blustery, lacking the nuances of the Hi musicians who performed on ‘The Greatest’. Whilst it’s clear that she’s gained confidence and lost most of her crippling stagefright, I still found her an uncomfortable and meandering live performer, unsure of exactly how to interpret her material and mostly failing to communicate any real feeling.

Some of that hesitancy is also evident here, on an album that seems slightly confused about its identity. Many have suggested that ‘Jukebox’, an album mostly consisting of interpretations, is some kind of sequel to 2000’s ‘The Covers Album’. It isn’t quite that simple, as ‘Jukebox’ contains original song and a reworking of her own ‘Metal Heart’, which appeared in much starker form on the ‘Moon Pix’ album. Also, whilst ‘The Covers Album’ gave a revealing tour through Chan Marshall’s formative influences, ‘Jukebox’ seems more of an attempt to cement her current repositioning as a soul singer. She can certainly be soulful, but I’m not sure she is a ‘soul singer’ in the traditional sense at all. She’s certainly not helped much by her band here, who plod fairly relentlessly, oblivious to any need for light or shade in either dynamic or texture. Occasionally, the songs build gradually, but these predictable crescendos often merely serve to swamp her vulnerable singing.

Marshall’s phrasing is deliberately vulnerable and conversational. In live performance, this often makes her seem insecure and uncertain, but on disc, it can completely redefine the mood of a song. Her handling of ‘New York, New York’ that opens this collection completely abandons the macho swagger that underpins Sinatra’s version and replaces it with a keening desperation and longing. It doesn’t just say ‘if I can make it there’, it says ‘I need to make it there, but how on earth do I get there, and what will happen to me if I fail?’. It’s a distinctive and powerful reading, but it surely deserves a less leaden accompaniment. Recording this, and ‘Don’t Explain’, are audacious moves, given the song’s inseparable associations with particular artists (Sinatra in the case of the former, Billie Holliday and Nina Simone in the case of the latter). Yet there’s no denying that Chan Marshall imbues each with distinctive personality.

Less successful is her inversion of James Brown’s ‘Lost Someone’, which attempts to replace the emotional excess of the original with something ambiguous and non-committal. Unfortunately, it just ends up sounding hazy and tentative, and it certainly doesn’t move this listener. Similarly, the version of Bob Dylan’s evangelical ‘I Believe In You’ is all bluster and no fervour, with Marshall’s vocal seeming oddly disconnected and dispassionate, bathed in far too much reverb. At times, she’s completely overshadowed by the basic and uninteresting backing, mumbling unintelligibly in the background. It’s also arguable that her take on ‘Aretha, Sing One For Me’ strays too far from the melody and loses its celebratory impact, although the band ironically handle this one with more control.

I can’t help feeling that Marshall fares much better on the more country-tinged material here, where the backing is delicate and simple and the band take a backseat. ‘Silver Stallion’ and ‘Lord, Help the Poor and Needy’ are particularly gripping. Her version of Dan Penn’s ‘Woman Left Lonely’ is also aching and touching, and finds that neat intersection between the American folk and soul traditions that Penn so skilfully mastered. Best of all is her own ‘Song To Bobby’, a fascinating personal tribute to Bob Dylan that suggests her enthusiasm may have been akin to romantic infatuation. It’s also the album’s musical highpoint, carefully arranged and performed.

At its best, ‘Jukebox’ is an intriguing and compelling proposition, with Marshall sounding sensuous and mesmerising. Yet her precise intentions are often frustratingly obfuscated by the contradictory impulses at work here. She obviously desires to completely reinvent these songs but it also occasionally sounds like a parallel attempt to capture some form of authenticity has left the music rooted too firmly in the conventional.

Let's Uke Them!

A short while ago, I made the contentious claim on this blog that I always try to avoid writing from a fan’s perspective. Well, bollocks to it, on this occasion I’m going to make an exception. I am an MJ Hibbett superfan. It doesn’t matter at all that Hibbett’s guitar playing skills are technically limited, for he knows as many chords as he needs. Nor does it matter that he has a tendency to forget his own words or begin singing his songs in completely the wrong key. This is all part of his endearing appeal. I like Hibbett’s songs because they are both insightful and great fun, mixing poignancy and genuine humour in equal measure.

This is the first of Hibbett’s ‘Totally Acoustic’ nights I’ve attended (although I’ve seen him many times in other contexts), but you can certainly make a decent bet that I will be back for more. Strangely, this most closely resembled Tim Whitehead’s birthday gig at the Ram Jam club just before Christmas in its ‘friendly gathering’ atmosphere, much as I suspect Mark would be baffled to be compared with a jazz musician. There was much merriment and mild inebriation, as well as a ton of fun with a veritable ensemble of ukuleles, but more of that later.

At last, this is an event where the phrase ‘Totally Acoustic’ should be taken at face value. Hibbett and his supporting cast perform completely unamplified with no amps and no microphones. This particularly interests me as I’ve recently been rehearsing unamplified with a singer-songwriter, with satisfying and interesting results. I also cast my mind back to one of the most intriguing gigs I’ve ever played, with the early line-up of Hot Chip at a Cambridge University Ball, which was rendered completely acoustic for legal reasons. I remember Alexis hating the experience, but I found it fascinating – and, at least for one night, it completely forced me to change the way I approach music. For Hibbett, it provides an opportunity to focus attention squarely on his witty and spirited words, and to amplify the fun factor rather than the volume. At last a gig where my ears can emerge unscathed!

Beginning with a brief set on the ukulele, Hibbett immediately announces himself as a man after my own heart with his opener, ‘The Drummer’s Lament’. It’s a litany of problems unique to drummers (from parking and driving difficulties to the lack of interest in our solo projects) set to a lilting and infectious folk melody. Hilariously, he follows it with a brilliantly ramshackle double-time skiffle rendition of Morrissey’s ‘First of the Gang to Die’, in honour of Moz’s current residency at the Roundhouse. He just about manages to squeeze the words in, in a modest triumph of vocal dexterity. The significance of this is heightened at the end of the evening, when Mark plays ‘The Lesson of The Smiths’, in which he admits that his initial revulsion at stereotypical Smiths fans meant he missed the group in action when they were performing. Clearly Hibbett is in the mood, because he then plays a version of ‘Ask’ as well, perceptively highlighting that younger Smiths fans no longer seem to appreciate the significance of ‘the bomb’. The set ends with Hibbett’s manifesto to revolutionise primary music education, ‘A Million Ukuleles’, which prompts a far from spontaneous piece of audience participation from what has been dubbed a ‘ukulele flashmob’. Superb! It’s also worth noting that the song has an incisive and serious message though – that musical snobbery and elitism is profoundly unhelpful when it comes to inspiring children.

We’re then treated to a thoroughly charming set from Andy of Pocketbooks and Sunny Intervals. I’m not familiar with his work, but if cute fey indie boys are your cup of tea, he could hardly be more cute and fey. He also has a particular enthusiasm for verbose lyrics – some of which work brilliantly, some of them less so. I particularly appreciated his Haringey romance. Luckily, he’s also blessed with an unassuming demeanour and light sense of humour that imbue his songs with real warmth.

After a short break for food and beer orders, Hibbett returns with another set, this time on the acoustic guitar. He delves deeper into his back catalogue, and treats us to an encore of ‘Billy Jones is Dead’, juxtaposed somewhat uncomfortably with a typically hysterical ‘Boom! Shake The Room’. It would also take a particularly misanthropic and churlish person not to be touched by 'It Only Works Because You're Here', his story of an office romance between a female office worker and an IT support technician. Apparently, he plans to record this song in a Bossa Nova style, demonstrating new levels of ambition. What strikes me most during this set is Hibbett’s vivacity and exuberance, his positivity and honest appreciation of all that life has to offer, especially the elements that many so obviously take for granted. He’s not one for moaning, that’s for sure and I’m pretty sure that, as a result, he has fulfilled his promise to never make a wack jam. I left this gig feeling a little bit more alive.

It's All Gone Hazy....

The Magnetic Fields – Distortion

Much critical consternation has been prompted by Stephin Merritt’s typically flippant comment that the raison d’etre of the new Magnetic Fields album was ‘to sound more like The Jesus and Mary Chain than the Jesus and Mary Chain’. So, is ‘Distortion’ a pointless cut and paste job or a worthy addition to the Magnetic Fields catalogue?

There are two things worth recognising at the outset. First, whilst Merritt has recently focussed on conceptual rather than sonic conceits, this is not the first time he’s devised an album around a particular style of music. ‘The Charm of The Highway Strip’ took the spirit and themes of country music, and reconstructed the genre using very non-country sounding instrumentation. It’s also immediately obvious that there is something here that prevents ‘Distortion’ from merely being an homage to The Jesus and Mary Chain. Whilst that band certainly patented a template of lo-fi, fuzzy psychedelic pop, they were always as remarkable for their dour and humourless demeanour. Merritt’s characteristic irony continues to run riot here, and the best songs have that great combination of biting wit and sympathetic insight that unites all his work under a variety of monikers.

The album opens brilliantly, with the mischievous, semi-instrumental ‘Three-Way’ actually more closely resembling the late-60s garage rock explosion than anything the Mary Chain produced. Then there’s ‘California Girls’, a subversion of The Beach Boys’ surf-aesthetic that is as dry as a desert (‘They ain’t broke, so they put on airs/The faux folk sans derrieres/They breathe coke and they have affairs/With each passing rock star…’). It’s perhaps too easy a target for Merritt’s gleeful wrath, but it’s still an enjoyably savage indictment. Particularly amusing is the decidedly American pronunciation of ‘sans’ and the butchering of ‘squirrels’ to sound like ‘squirls’, purely so it rhymes with the song’s title! Then there’s the more languid, melancholy and drowsy ‘Old Fools’, which is more typical of the rest of the album. It features some very clever phrasing in Merritt’s vocal which suggests that critics arguing that Merritt has abandoned his preoccupation for musical theatre in favour of a return to basic indie-rock simply aren’t looking hard enough for the common threads in his work.

All these songs are characterised not just by the distortion of the album’s title, but also by rudimentary, pounding drums and thin, intentionally under-developed production values. There’s a spell in the middle of the album where this sound is put to particularly effective use. ‘Distortion’ reunites Merritt with vocalist Shirley Simms, who last appeared on his magnum opus ’69 Love Songs’, and it benefits from the vocal contrast. She’s especially impressive on ‘Drive On, Driver’, which seems to relocate Loretta Lynn in 1980s Glasgow, all its edges fuzzy and blurred. Simms also relishes the prospect of singing the album’s sublimely ridiculous highlight – ‘The Nun’s Litany’. Juiced with heavy irony, the song pokes fun at the selling of bodies, whilst also capturing a thinly-veiled melancholy (‘I should be good at spin the bottle, while I’ve still got something left to sell’).

Of the songs which Merritt himself sings, best of all is the delightful ‘Too Drunk To Dream’. Merritt’s exercises his brilliant mind by making this song actually sound drunk. This is Merritt at his very best, combining a poignancy to which anyone who has ever endured unrequited love or a break-up can easily relate with the kind of self-mocking hilarity which renders such situations absurd.

If there’s a problem with ‘Distortion’, it’s that this more playful element of Merritt’s song-craft is sometimes obscured by the album’s murky atmosphere and mostly leaden pace. Songs like ‘Xavier Says’ and ‘Till The Bitter End’, whilst having pretty enough melodies, actually sound rather apathetic and nondescript. I’m also a little agnostic about the repetitive, somewhat undeveloped ‘Please Stop Dancing’. The approach is more apposite when the languid, ponderous nature of the songs is exaggerated for comic effect, such as the marvellous ‘Mr. Mistletoe’ or ‘I’ll Dream Alone’.

There’s no doubt that the preoccupation with ragged, undefined noise inevitably makes ‘Distortion’ more one-dimensional than any of its predecessors. Listening to it, I can’t help yearning for slightly more variety. Yet within the background squall, there’s a vivid attention to detail which is entirely characteristic of Merritt. There’s also plenty of inspiration beyond the world of grubby indie, suggesting that Merritt is quite capable of filtering his love of camp pop and musical theatre through increasingly unexpected methods.

Heavyweight Innovators

David Torn’s Prezens, The Vortex, Sun 13th January 2008

The first great gig of 2008 also happens to be the first in a long list of splendid shows in The Vortex jazz club’s finest two month run since moving to its current Dalston home. There are performances from Phil Robson and Dave Liebman, with Liebman returning to collaborate with Vortex resident Evan Parker, plus appearances from Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear and the prodigious Gwilym Simcock amongst other highlights.

Torn’s appearance promotes his ‘Prezens’ album, his first group recording for the ECM label in over 20 years, and one of the most creative and exciting albums of 2007. The guest list tonight is like a who’s who of contemporary British jazz – with Robin Fincker and Dave Smith from Outhouse and Ingrid Laubrock amongst others present in the audience.

Torn is a chameleonic musical figure – gaining what must be a substantial income from soundtrack, production and session projects (he’s played with artists as diverse as King Crimson and Madonna). Tonight he performs on one of those rather nasty 1980s guitars that it’s easy to imagine being played by Satriani or Vai, but he’s far less interested in technical virtuosity than he is in the thrall of sound. Sometimes it’s thick and cacophonous, sometimes it’s blissful and atmospheric.

For this free improvisation project he has formed a superb group, featuring unconventional keyboardist Craig Taborn, saxophone colossus Tim Berne and Tom Rainey, one of the most inventive drummers in the world. The music they concoct tonight is somewhat less fiery than the apocalyptic and terrifying recordings – perhaps as a result of the more limited use of elecronics. Taborn crafts a world of intriguing noises, but Rainey’s drums are left spare and acoustic, rather than heavily treated as they often are on the disc.

This doesn’t mean it’s less interesting though. In the first set, Berne’s playing is more considered and mellifluous than usual, proving he has as much tonal control as predilection for the upper register of his instrument. He even starts out playing languid and stately chord tones. Torn creates vast sheets of sound, huge chords emboldened by considerable distortion and sustain, only rarely venturing into more fluid and intricate passages. The music is at its best when most stripped back – when Taborn plays simple synth bass patterns against Rainey’s supremely groovy backings (many of which appear to be in 6/4, drawing whole worlds of possibilities from time and rhythm).

The music in the second set veers further into abstraction, with Rainey more interested in the varieties of sound he can craft from the drum kit, and with the group as a whole leaving more space and silence. I felt this was more consistent and inspired than the Tim Berne multimedia performance at the Vortex last year, with Torn arguably having the clearer, stronger vision, drawing out the very best in his fine players.

Human Nature

Into The Wild (Sean Penn, 2007)

With ‘Into The Wild’, Sean Penn has made a beautiful film that captures the awe and wonder of the natural world in a way that many directors have attempted but where few have succeeded. The film is adapted from a book chronicling the existential wandering of Christopher McCandless, a wealthy young man in his early 20s who abandoned plans to study law at Harvard, donated his $24,000 savings to Oxfam, and ventured out into the wilderness, eventually reaching the remarkable frozen wilds of Alaska. As such, it is certainly a picture with rather heavy literary pretentions. The somewhat forced poetry of its voiceover, along with the film’s spectacular imagery, suggests a certain kinship with Terrence Malick’s ‘The Thin Red Line’, although it by no means scales that film’s considerable heights.

The central performance is a triumph of extreme method acting from Emile Hirsch, in whom Penn has certainly unearthed a major new talent. In the flashback sequences, he is handsome, charismatic and charming, but with the sequences in Alaska that bookend the film, he is pale, gaunt and monstrous, physically weakened beyond anything the audience could imagine. Throughout, he is remarkably resourceful, but also deeply reckless. He takes a number of uncalculated risks, any of which could have resulted in disaster. Travelling with as few possessions as possible, we see him brazenly making a fire from his remaining dollar bills

The film is intelligently structured, initially affording us only limited glimpses of McCandless’ background. As he pompously renames himself Alexander Supertramp and sets out across America to convene with nature, he initially seems both excessive and naïve. His quest is essentially a selfish one – and seems to stem from a desire to reject all forms of human relationships (something he inevitably does not achieve) in favour of pursuing a love of untamed nature and unrestricted freedom from the bland conventions of society. Hirsch is careful to bring out McCandless’ considerable charm as much as his disconnection and vanity, but as we are presented with gradually greater glimpses of his family background, we begin to learn how much of his actions stem from frustration, resentment and rage.

As a result of this, it is a shame that his family, completely unaware of his condition or whereabouts, are afforded such limited screen time. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden both give convincing, dramatic performances worthy of their talent – but are not allowed much space to develop as characters. We see brief hints of the darker elements of their relationship, and get a palpable sense of their grief, but our understanding of them is limited by Jena Malone’s clunky voiceover. Seeing them purely through this and McCandless’ own actions prevents us from appreciating them as complete human beings and from fully comprehending the devastating impact their son’s actions must have exerted on them.

I could also have done without some of Penn’s more messianic touches. There are too many shorts of Hirsch in grandiose poses. One example that lingers in the mind is a desperately cloying ‘Jesus on a mountaintop’ image, with Hirsch’s arms outstretched and Eddie Vedder wailing unpleasantly in the background. That being said, some of the accusations of pretension that have been levelled against Penn can be mitigated by the fact that the film relies heavily on McCandless’ own journals. Whilst these demonstrate his love of literature (books would appear to be permissible worldly possessions), they also betray his own self-aggrandising streak and unsuccessful lunges at poetry.

What really makes ‘Into The Wild’ both immersing and affecting is the wonderful cast of people that McCandless meets on his journey. There’s Vince Vaughan, performing splendidly against type as a hard drinking but good natured farmer whose criminal activities get him into trouble. There’s also a couple of ageing hippies who have refused to abandon their chosen lifestyle. McCandless’ unexpected entry into their lives restores spirit, vitality and honesty to their relationship. The hilarious young Scandinavian couple he meets whilst illegally canoeing down the Colorado river offer unexpected and welcome respite from the film’s serious tone by blasting out MC Hammer’s ‘U Can’t Touch This’ from a rather ugly boombox. There’s a teenage singer-songwriter with whom McCandless becomes emotionally, but not physically intimate. Best of all is a truly moving performance from veteran character actor Hal Holbrook, as a solitary old man who offers to adopt McCandless as his grandson. Having long ago lost his wife and children in an accident, he accepts McCandless’ presence as an opportunity to embrace life once more. The dialogue in all these scenes is spare and utterly convincing – at times the film seems to assume an almost documentary style, and it very much feels like we are observing very real, very touching conversations, filled with insight and mystery. Some critics have emphasised only the more selfish elements of McCandless’ behaviour (his refusal to stay in one place too long, and his ultimate rejection of the relationships) without observing the changes and benefits his presence brought to these people.

The film ends on an almost unbearably poignant note, with McCandless alone, poisoned, freezing and starving in his ‘magic bus’ in Alaska. He endures his final days by reading Tolstoy and Pasternak, scrawling the epitaph ‘happiness is only real when shared’ into his well-worn copy of ‘Dr. Zhivago’. It is the ultimate paradox that, in one sense, McCandless died having reached his desired destination and lived the life that he wanted to live. Yet the lingering sadness of these words suggest that he did this at a massive cost to his own personal fulfilment. There’s enough ambiguity here for audiences to make their own judgements about McCandless’ choices and behaviour – Penn sustains an admirably detached vantage throughout, and his lead actor is nuanced in giving a convincing portrait of a complex and driven young man.

Unsatisfactory Overview

Morrissey - Greatest Hits

The Press Release for this compilation (the first release under Morrissey’s new contract with Decca) boldly states that ‘Greatest Hits spans Morrissey’s twenty year career as a solo artist’. In a sense, it’s not a lie – there are two tracks from solo debut ‘Viva Hate’ and plenty from his most recent album ‘Ringleader of The Tormentors’, in addition to the obligatory two brand new tracks. What this doesn’t quite reveal though is the album’s considerable bias in favour of recent material – all the singles from ‘You Are The Quarry’ and ‘Ringleader…’ are present, the bulk of them sequenced next to each other in the first half of the album. The ‘Ringleader…’ singles particularly emphasise the more generic, plodding rock into which Morrissey’s group can sometimes lapse. With only one disc, and just fifteen tracks, this leaves very little space to explore the rest of Morrissey’s patchy, but frequently inspired solo catalogue.

Perhaps it’s arguable that his earlier career has been compiled and collected before – with World of Morrissey and The Best of Morrissey, although neither of these compilations were entirely comprehensive either. I suspect that the real reasons for the poor selection are rather more prosaic – it’s likely that Decca got a good deal from Sanctuary on the licensing for the recent singles, but buying up the bulk of the back catalogue from a variety of other labels would have proved too costly. The early tracks they have opted for seem to have been chosen purely on the basis of chart position – how else to explain the inclusion of ‘Last Of The Famous International Playboys’ over ‘Piccadilly Palare’ or ‘November Spawned A Monster’?

What a tremendous shame this is – as this was a golden opportunity for a two disc, comprehensive overview of Morrissey’s solo work. Most disappointing is the compilation’s total failure to rehabilitate the reputation of the more than adequate albums Morrissey released during his supposed ‘wilderness years’. There is nothing at all from either ‘Southpaw Grammar’ or ‘Maladjusted’ – both ‘The Boy Racer’ and ‘Satan Rejected My Soul’ were punchy, infectious singles worthy of reappraisal. ‘Maladjusted’ also contained the quite wonderful ‘Trouble Loves Me’, a swooning ballad and favourite of recent live sets. That this selection also completely passes by ‘Your Arsenal’ and ‘Kill Uncle’ is more surprising – the latter is admittedly Moz’s least successful album, but the former was a critical and commercial success.

It doesn’t help that Moz has not always been entirely shrewd with his choice of singles. Many of the finest tracks on his best works (this is particularly true of 1994’s exquisite ‘Vauxhall and I’) have been album tracks. So, there’s no room for, say, ‘Now My Heart Is Full’, ‘Reader Meet Author’ or even ‘The National Front Disco’ (an excellent song which, unlike the nasty ‘Bengali In Platforms’, does withstand the allegations of racism). Similarly, who wouldn’t take the audacious and ambitious ‘Dear God, Please Help Me’ or ‘At Last I Am Born’ over any of the singles from ‘Ringleader…’ (with the exception of ‘You Have Killed Me’, which has one of his most memorable melodies).

On the plus side, ‘Suedehead’ and ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’ still sound fantastic in spite of their 80s production values, and the two new tracks return Morrissey to the punchy, muscular production of Jerry Finn. ‘All You Need Is Me’ is familiarly self-aggrandising, but the self-mocking ‘That’s How People Grow Up’ makes grim fun of a succession of unrequited love affairs and develops the more confessional side of Morrissey’s work..It’s also worth remembering that ‘…Quarry’ was a bold comeback statement – ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ and ‘The First of The Gang To Die’ are both insistent and pugnacious.

Anyone who already owns ‘…Quarry’ and ‘Ringleader…’ is unlikely to invest either time or money in this release, possibly downloading whatever they are missing in isolation. It’s hard to see what purpose this disc fulfils other than biding time before Decca drop the new Morrissey album in the Autumn, and giving him something to promote with his week of shows at London’s Roundhouse (not that mere self-promotion isn’t enough, as his belligerent litigation against the NME currently suggests). Hopefully the sets for these shows will venture further away from his most recent output.

Postscript

This report on the BBC website is more comprehensive and balanced:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7179834.stm

It's particularly good to see that the report highlights the lack of returns servives offered by promoters or agencies. When tickets used to be sold almost exlusively by venue box offices, it was once even possible for event-goers who suddenly found themselves unable to attend to be refunded, and for the tickets to be legitimately resold at face value to others. I can't think of a single major ticket agency that currently offers this service.

I suspect that a blanket ban on unofficial reselling would be impractical and unhelpful given the lack of suitable returns policies. The problem at the moment though is that the secondary market is completely unregulated - and there seems to be little hint of any attempt to try and cap the grotesque prices at which tickets are resold on auction sites. Nobody in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport seems to have recognised that these 'secondary' prices have the effect of legitimising huge increases, well above the rate of inflation, in the standard prices charged for 'event' gigs, enabling the likes of The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Neil Young, Barbra Streisand and Dolly Parton to charge absolutely outrageous prices. Yes, demand and willingness to pay fuels the market - but there will always be people wealthy or silly enough to part with huge sums for one night in the company of their favourite performers. What's more worrying is that the promoters/artists levy that is being suggested here will merely increase the 'secondary' prices further.

A 'voluntary' solution across the industry will not work as touts themselves will not be party to it. Does the government not recognise that many of them are professionals in the art of reselling tickets? Similarly, it's hardly in the interests of ticket auction sites to restrict this kind of activity in any way. Why do the interests of the consumer seem to be the lowest on the list of priorities in this report? Entertainment should not be the preserve of a wealthy elite.

No Solution

Does the department of Culture, Media and Sport really have such a limited understanding of the effects of ticket touting?

http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/33544

The idea that ticket touts are providing a 'good service' for fans is insulting to those fans who cannot afford to buy tickets at grossly inflated prices. These fans already have to contend with the excessive charges imposed by competing booking agents, and with an increasing tendency from promoters to charge a flat amount regardless of the quality of seats within a venue.

I'm hoping that it's imbalanced reporting from the NME that suggests that the profits of promoters seem to be the only issue the government is considering here! Promoters already make profit on the batches of tickets the touts buy out - their ability to make extra profit on resold tickets should not be a higher consideration than the ability of fans to obtain tickets legitimately in the first instance.

Behind Closed Doors

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)

The furore over the explicit sex scenes in Ang Lee’s latest film, which sees him returning to China but working with an American screenwriter, has obscured the real nature and impact of the piece. A great deal is revealed about attitudes to on-screen sex when Anthony Quinn in The Independent can describe the sex as ‘brutal, cruel and manipulative’ and Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian can describe it as ‘sizzlingly erotic’. Both writers seem to have almost casually missed the point – it is a complex amalgamation of both, and exactly which partner is doing the manipulating is somewhat ambiguous. That the plot keywords for searching for this movie on the Internet Movie Database include ‘vagina’ and ‘nipples’ suggests, somewhat sadly, that many people are unable to approach on-screen sex through anything other than an embarrassed schoolboy’s curious gaze. Those approaching this film looking for titillating action will be left disappointed – the sex scenes, whilst undoubtedly graphic, occupy perhaps ten minutes of the film’s two and a half hour running time.

This is a film at least in part about the psychology of sex, quite possibly a great film about this difficult and complex subject. Quite rightly, Lee refused to censor the film to avoid the commercially disastrous NC-17 rating in America (although the government have done that job for him in China simply to get the film released at all). It is essential to the film’s devastating impact that the physical nature of this relationship is depicted. ‘Lust, Caution’ (brilliantly if misleadingly titled as the progression actually works in reverse) is languid and meticulously controlled, but eventually snaps violently like a tightly coiled spring.

Its lengthy and detailed portrayal of its characters’ lives and choices, and the intricate intermingling of the personal and political, reminded me of great epics such as Edward Yang’s ‘A Brighter Summer Day’ or Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s ‘A City of Sadness’. Some have highlighted the plot resemblance to Hitchcock’s ‘Notorious’, although a more recent comparison (from which ‘Lust, Caution’ emerges very favourably indeed) is Paul Verhoeven’s ‘Black Book’, upon which Tartan Films foolishly relied for a success story last year. The transgression of Oshima’s ‘Ai No Corrida’ is another obvious reference point. Viewers should also heed another warning though – in addition to the sex, the film also includes one scene of particularly savage and protracted violence (a scene which I found far more uncomfortable than any of the bedroom athletics).

The film is set over a period of four years and moves between Japanese occupied Shanghai and Hong Kong. The period set design is evocative and extraordinary, and the film offers a vivid, if highly subjective, portrait of the period. We only see this world through the eyes of wealthy collaborators, the women complicit in turning a blind eye to concealed atrocities and occupying their time by playing endless games of Mahjong (itself neatly symbolic of the very real game playing at the heart of the film). This subjective viewpoint might be considered the film’s one significant flaw – the audience is not afforded much of a sense as to why Wong Chia Chi might be drawn into the resistance, or why patriotic fervour was so strong in occupied Shanghai. The whole piece therefore involves some degree of suspension of disbelief, a greater problem when the issues at the heart of the film are very real and powerful.

It compensates for this with masterful structuring and careful pacing, beginning at its conclusion (with coded and subtle hints of intrigue and covert operations), before veering into a flashback that lasts the best part of two hours, eventually returning to where we left off. Lee elicits superb performances from his cast – particularly the two main protagonists, Tony Leung playing the polar opposite of his equally superb performance in Wong Kar-Wei’s ‘In The Mood For Love’. Where that film was all about restraint, ‘Lust, Caution’ eventually becomes about reckless abandon, and the contrast between private freedom and palpable public threat. Leung’s Mr. Yee is cold, callous and detached and, whilst we never see him at work with the collaborating government, we know that he is capable of great cruelty and menace. Tang Wei is every bit his match though – beautiful and entrancing, she is a magnetic presence, making her seduction of Yee, leaving him vulnerable to assassination, convincing in spite of the film’s aforementioned flaw.

Anthony Quinn may have a valid point about the ‘brutality’ at the centre of the film, as it’s possible that the film raises questions about the subjugation of women, sexually, personally and politically, that it doesn’t quite follow through. The sexual encounters between Yee and his seductress begin with intense violence and arguably retain a consistent element of masochism. Wong Chia Chi, in pretending to be a married woman by the name of Mak Tai Tai and dedicating her body and soul to a political cause, is subordinating herself to her male superiors. In order to play the married role convincingly, she is forced to lose her virginity to a womanising member of the resistance circle, in perfunctory and entirely unerotic scenes that contrast horribly with what is to come. The wives in Yee’s circle have little to do but play Mahjong, shielded from the brutal reality of war and politics, but not afforded independent voices.

Yet this kind of sexual politics is not Lee’s primary concern here, and may be a subject best left to another film. The film is about Wong and Yee’s transgression. Wong’s emotional involvement with Yee becomes as passionate as her initial hatred for him, and her final act of assertion breaks all the rules of her engagement, and can only have one possible outcome for her. Yee’s violent lust for Wong represents an escape from the guilt of his everyday work, and the knowledge that his position is may be doomed. Although the entry of the Americans into the war is not mentioned, it leaves him with a good deal less to lose. Their union involves violence, outlandish positions and contortions, and visibly intense passion. Through it, they reveal more of their essential natures than during any other scene in the film. The contrast between their private affair and their public personas is dramatic and effective.

Some have viewed the ending of the film as a botched anticlimax. Although it comes after a lengthy build-up, it eventually happens very swiftly and suddenly, but it is not without its own drama. Perhaps these critics would have preferred an ‘LA Confidential’ or ‘Heat’ style shoot-out, entirely out of keeping with the mood and themes of the rest of the film? Bizarre and uncomfortable as Yee’s gift of a ring to Wong seems, it cements their union, and finally renders Wong unable to complete her deadly mission. Her position is further compromised by her genuine but unconsummated love for the very handsome Kuang, ringleader of the naïve resistance circle by which she herself was seduced. In the end, moral assumptions are debunked, and it is difficult to assess who are the winners and losers. ‘Lust, Caution’ is a film brave enough to recognise that history, and life, cannot be reduced to such stark terms.

Anyone wishing to undermine Ang Lee might describe him as a ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’ due to his tendency to make what, on the surface, appear to be very different films. Yet he has consistently been interested in the stripping away of public masks to reveal the private realities beneath them, and ‘Lust, Caution’ is another masterful addition to this increasingly significant canon. In this country, it seems to have suffered critically in comparison with ‘Brokeback Mountain’ which, like this film, was adapted from a short story. I would venture against the critical grain here though – I came away from ‘Brokeback Mountain’ with a palpable sense of what it is like to live in fear from breaking society’s conventions, but little sense of why the two cowboys were in love, other than through mutual frustration. I wonder if the sense of tragedy at the heart of ‘Lust, Caution’ might be even greater – the film implies that a bond of physical intimacy is irreversible and can never be purely physical, both players left irrevocably changed or destroyed by the seduction. It is a sumptuous and triumphant piece of cinema.

The Not So Final Fantasy

So, here we go then – yet another fantasy film franchise adapted from some popular children’s books, released just in time for the festive season (although keenly alert readers will note my reluctance to join the Christmas rush and the concurrent lateness of this review). Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is a good deal more complex and intricate than the Harry Potter stories, and its carefully constructed parallel worlds ought to make for a sumptuous visual feast.

Yet watching ‘The Golden Compass’, it’s hard to escape the notion that the National Theatre’s fine theatrical adaptations achieved a lot more in creating a sense of spectacle and awe. Unfortunately, Chris Weitz’s film slavishly follows the precedent set by Peter Jackson’s ghastly Lord of the Rings trilogy for ugly CGI effects, which merely render most of the locations and settings completely unreal and implausible. The airships and cityscapes look particularly appalling and even when the film’s final third transports the action to the icy North, it’s nearly impossible to feel the chill and isolation that such an atmosphere should conjure in the imagination. That Weitz also follows Jackson’s tendency to deploy an overblown, badly written score doesn’t help – no doubt this one will follow Howard Shore’s awful music for the Lord of the Rings trilogy in winning many a poorly judged award.

Luckily, Weitz does not follow Jackson’s preponderance for icky dialogue and forced sentiment – much of the script for ‘The Golden Compass’ is surprisingly juicy. There are some fine performances – Dakota Blue Richards convincingly portraying Lyra’s natural intelligence, inquisitiveness and rebellious streak. She has several moments of real charm and charisma. Daniel Craig is stately and commanding as Lord Asriel, even if his part is a little underwritten here (much of the book’s build-up in Jordan College, Oxford is carefully pruned). Mercifully, this is one film that Nicole Kidman does not destroy, her icy elegance remarkably appropriate to the part of Mrs. Coulter, who is both sinister and tempting. Eva Green does not have to do much other than look suitably alluring as the ageless witch Serafina Pekkala – but my goodness that is something this woman could do whilst sleepwalking.

Much ludicrous furore has been caused by this film’s possible attack on the Catholic Church. In fairness, the role of the Magisterium as dictatorial authority attempting to withhold truth has possibly been amplified here, and the film is certainly less subtle than the book in this regard. In fact, the scenes with the great elder statesmen of British film and theatre (Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee) emphasising their desire to suppress the truth about Lord Asriel’s cosmic dust are clunky in the extreme, and perhaps belong in a different movie (The Da Vinci Code perhaps?). Pullman denies that the Magisterium was ever meant to be synonymous with Catholicism though, and it is, after all merely a good yarn. It’s also a story that sets out to defend free will, as much a Christian concept as anyone else’s. One needn’t view such a story as intrinsically anti-theist.

The film is perhaps a little overlong, particularly as much of the action seems to be explained only casually (I may well have been somewhat confused as to the constantly shifting purpose of Lyra’s expedition had I not read the book). It also occasionally lacked a sense of drama – I did not really feel the tension and fear during the poisoning attempt on Lord Asriel, whilst the final battle sequence was more comically grandiose than apocalyptic or terrifying. Some of the supporting characters are not all that well developed (particularly the gyptian child Billy Costa), so it’s hard to feel for them as much as we should when they suffer at the cruel hands of the General Oblation Board.

There are areas where the film succeeds in crafting a sense of the fantastic. Lyra’s calm acceptance of her immediate ease in reading her alethiometer makes her a convincing prophetic child, and there is a sense of preciousness and pricelessness surrounding the instrument itself. The single combat duel between the usurped Iorek Byrnison and the King of the Ice Bears (voiced by Ians McKellan and McShane respectively) was superb though – and one of the rare moments when the computer animation produced something exciting and electrifying. The animation also succeeds in bringing the characters’ daemons (accompanying animal forms – children’s daemons can change forms, those of adults have settled) to spirited life. Particularly superb is the nasty conflict between Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon and the appropriately nasty monkey that accompanies Mrs. Coulter.

It looks likely that the trilogy will be completed with two further films, and this was certainly enjoyable enough to make them bankable. A little more drama and a little less artificial and expensive computer effects would be welcome next time but even agnostic non-physicists like me can be entertained and amused by a film about ‘particle metaphysics’.

Whilst prospects for this franchise look reasonably encouraging, that is a lot more than can be said for forthcoming fantasy films in general. The trailers highlighted three fantasy films seemingly aimed at children, all of which seemed to be about magic books. The idea factory appears to be running out of original ideas!

The Method in the Madness

The Art of Dory Previn (Zonophone Compilation, 2007)

I’ll start with a small confession: I knew next to nothing about Dory Previn before I heard the marvellous Camera Obscura song that takes her name. She’s perhaps more famous for being Andre Previn’s psychologically troubled ex-wife than she is for her bizarre and fascinating songs. This excellent compilation gathers together material from her years with United Artists records in the early 70s, a period in which she underwent psychiatric treatment and was encouraged to write about her experiences in poems and songs.

These songs cover themes and subjects that most writers of the period would have considered taboo and her lyrics still sound fearless and audacious even today. Her voice has a deceptive lightness of touch (with an understatement and crisp phrasing totally absent among the current breed of reality-show tutored singers) which belies her subject matter. At times she is raucously comic, at others she is consumed by a dark sexuality and psychological trauma.

I don’t have enough contextual knowledge to assess how shrewd a selection this compilation contains – but it certainly includes some of her most nakedly personal works. Coming from a strict Catholic background and having a complicated relationship with her father, who suffered severe bouts of depression following a gas attack during the war, there’s an intricate undertow of guilt and rebellion in many of these songs. ‘Esther’s First Communion’ opens the set on an appropriate note then, making the profane sacred and the sacred profane, with a young girl instructed by her parents to ‘marry Jesus’, then fantasising about him sexually (to her parents’ unrestrained horror), before embarking on a sexual odyssey with numerous men when this proves unfulfilling. To many people, this would probably still prove breathtakingly offensive, as would the album’s closing track (‘Jesus Was A Androgyne’), which brings us neatly full circle after a world of confusion and pain in between.

There’s ‘Twenty Mile Zone’, which would resemble a children’s folk tune were it not for its self-mocking tone in dealing with insanity. Previn’s protagonist is approached by a policeman on a motorcycle having been witnessed screaming from the window of her car for no other reason than to let off steam. Eventually, they end up delightfully screaming in unison as he escorts her to a police station in convoy. ‘Mythical Kings and Iguanas’ is every bit as fantastical as its title suggests, but it’s a mesmerising and compelling fantasy.

Things get nastier with the deliciously vengeful ‘Beware of Young Girls’, presumably addressed to Mia Farrow, to whom Previn famously lost her husband. The lyrics are splendidly poetic, complete with alliteration and internal rhyming (‘I thought her motives were sincere/Oh yes I did/But this lass, it came to pass/Had a dark and different plan….She admired my own sweet man.’). The spindly melody helps to emphasise the song’s sinister tone. Even more disconcerting is the terrifying ‘Doppelganger’, a vivid portrait of an evil character lurking throughout history and across geographical locations. The final lines are devastating, hinting again at Previn’s own mental torment – having seen her character’s obscenities scrawled on her wall, Previn then notices ‘his handwriting was identical with mine’, the snarl in her voice on the final note emphasising the horrifying nature of this revelation.

Already we seem to be in entirely unique and unusual territory, and that’s before we’ve even mentioned the ‘dark attraction’ of ‘With My Daddy In The Attic’, or the spine-tingling ‘Angels and Devils The Following Day’. The latter is an absolute masterpiece with an uncomfortable and thought-provoking lyric. To a swirling and sensuous backing, Previn contrasts two lovers, one violent and brutal, the other sensitive and kind. Yet she concludes that the gentle man hurt her more because of the psychological impact of his constant guilt and uncertainty. It’s not an easy listen by any means. Similarly masterful is ‘Left Hand Lost’, which links depression to being retrained to write right-handed rather than with the devil’s left side.

The musical accompaniments are rich and varied, from the bare piano and acoustic guitar of ‘Perfect Man’, to the more elaborate strings of ‘Doppelganger’ Whatever the instrumentation or size of the ensemble, the music always seems to be meticulously arranged. Previn manages to juxtapose hints of show tunes, early jazz (with the occasional interjection of a Benny Goodman-inspired clarinet) and traditional folk music. It’s extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to categorise or pigeonhole her distinctive approach to songwriting. This compilation coheres chiefly through the stark and communicative qualities of her singing and the unrivalled candour of her words. One could perhaps find antecedents to Previn’s preoccupations with fantasy and sexuality in the work of Tori Amos or Kate Bush, but the former has been frustratingly wayward, whilst the latter often seems more mystical and estranged from reality. Previn really does stand alone in her unflinching confrontation of the darker aspects of human nature and the nuances of mental distress.

A Gender Divide?

Amidst all the usual venting of frustration on the MOJO letters page, one particular comment stands out this month. The appearance of Amy Winehouse on last month's end of year cover prompted one reader to highlight that she was the only woman to appear on the cover of the magazine in the whole of 2006-7. 24 months - and the editorial team could find no other female musician worthy of attention? If this means that the readership is predominantly male, as might reasonably be expected, why do men of a certain age not wish to read about female artistry?

I am not an avid fan of blind feminism, but then I am no patriarch either. Whilst neither gender has an innate claim to superiority, I have recently found myself increasingly drawn to the work of female songwriters. Indeed, the likes of Bjork, Feist, Marnie Stern, Susanna, Patricia Barber, Emmylou Harris, kd Lang, Bettye LaVette, Sharon Jones and Sylvie Lewis are among the most exciting singers and songwriters currently at work. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have been afforded next to no coverage in the UK press - even The Word magazine failing to follow the inclusion of one of her tracks on a covermount CD with anything more than a lukewarm review. She's playing at The Fly in London on Wednesday - and her songwriter meets stand-up comic routine is original and entertaining.

Surely the intuitive and sensitive qualities of a songwriter such as Leslie Feist are worthy of greater attention, particularly as she has now had a top ten hit in this country? Gazing into the past - Emmylou Harris is an artist in need of far greater appreciation in her own right - still she is constantly bombarded by questions about her relationship with Gram Parsons. There's recently been greater interest in the work of Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton. Also, an excellent compilation of the quite bizarre and unhinged work of Dory Previn is about to hit the stores - well worth a listen!

Perhaps a change will follow in 2008 - the most hyped 'breakthrough' artists this year would appear to be young women - Adele and Laura Marling. Whether or not they are the right examples remains to be seen.

Happy To Take The Bait

John Harris can be incredibly irritating sometimes. What exactly does he want to be? Political commentator with a diluted socialist angle? A cultural connoisseur? Or just a good old fashioned music hack?

He may have some good points in his lukewarm review of the new Magnetic Fields album for The Guardian (although his obvious contempt for Stephin Merritt's ironic approach to songwriting merely suggests that he lacks a sense of humour). Whilst I am an admirer of the group, my considered thoughts on that release will have to wait until I've heard the entire album. What has irked me more is the final paragraph: '...what might follow this? Merritt's next wheeze could find him mixing up any number of his previous releases - Sonny and Cher meets Randy Newman, perhaps, or maybe a fusion of Sinatra and Philip Glass. That would surely get him a load of five star internet reviews and drooling acclaim in the blogosphere.' Why does The Guardian, a paper with its very lifeblood currently dependant on its excellent website, still insist on printing this nonsense? Why can they not appreciate that a number of the people who read arts sections in newspapers are themselves bloggers? Why are all bloggers consistently tarred with the same brush, as if we're some kind of grand cult of ineptitude? Is it because the blogosphere has become something of which mainstream papers like The Guardian are increasingly wary - something that is undermining their supposedly untouchable position as the nation's arbiters of taste?

Whilst I am sometimes as guilty of lapsing into hyperbole as any writer, I try very hard to avoid writing purely as a fan. Indeed, I've written critically and honestly about artists whose work I really admire (wait for my hatchet job on Morrissey's forthcoming Greatest Hits for example, or see my thoughts on Prince at the 02 or my critical review of Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic', a good deal more honest than some of the slavish fanboy writing that appeared in print - 'the best album of his career' - do you really mean that?). Not every blogger drools slavishly without exercising critical judgement - indeed, such acumen is less and less the preserve of print journalists, many of whom seem to have a bewildering lack of knowledge of musical history or cultural context.

It's also worth remembering that musical appreciation is subjective - for every listener turned off by an artist like Stephin Merritt's reliance on conceits and wit, there will be another listener enticed by it. When writers discuss music, they ought to concentrate on trying to identify elements that could unite a group of listeners, even if that group might be a marginal minority (let's also not forget that, not least do the margins often become the mainstream in the long-term, but that minorities can exercise their own significant influence). At the most conservative interpretation - this might focus on a songwriter's grasp of melody, rhythm, metre, harmony or poetry. If they combine all of the above, they are probably on to something. If we're adopting a more adventurous standpoint, we might be wise to look at how successfully writers subvert expectations on these criteria and challenge their audiences, developing their wider tastes. Simply writing to assert your authority over other, mostly non-professional writers is too easy and serves as an unhelpful guide for readers.

The newspaper that pioneered internet content with Comment is Free ought to avoid alienating those people who most welcome the freedom and creativity afforded by the internet. Otherwise, their cultural commentators will simply render themselves irrelevant. For all the current media hype surrounding predictions for 2008, it's worth remembering that for every Mika, there's a Burial or Arcade Fire - acts now invading the mainstream whose unique and broad appeal developed initially from word of mouth over the internet. The 'blogosphere' has introduced me to a good deal of uncynical and positive, but also ultimately realistic writing about music. This comes from the people who actually consume music, rather than simply blagging their way through a PR-directed selection. Is there any reason why I should not be informed by these people every bit as much as by the journalists whose writing I also admire?

Write It Down and Set It To Music

Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007)

Interest in Gus Van Sant’s succession of dreamy, listless, and morally ambiguous films seems to have waned in this country since ‘Elephant’ deservedly won him the Palme D’Or at Cannes. How bizarre that this film was only afforded a release on Boxing Day, surely a time at which nobody attends the cinema, with particularly hopeless distribution (it’s rare that I relent and pay an extortionate £10 to see a film at the Curzon Soho).

‘Paranoid Park’ is, perhaps mercifully, a good deal closer to ‘Elephant’ than Van Sant’s previous film, the overrated ‘Last Days’. ‘Last Days’, inspired by the suicide of Kurt Cobain, seemed to suggest that that tragic event could be attributed purely to boredom and disaffection, as opposed to any more complex malaise or personal torment. ‘Paranoid Park’ is the most subjective of this trilogy of films. Given that his films hardly aspire to be anything else, it’s odd that the word ‘subjective’ has been brandished against Van Sant pejoratively. ‘Paranoid Park’ captures its central character (an uncertain and hesitant teenage boy named Alex) at a period of profound dislocation and discomfort, facing his parents’ awkward divorce and unable to accept responsibility for his role in the particularly gruesome death of a railway security guard. Much like his portrayal of the high school mass-murderers in ‘Elephant’, Van Sant offers no explicit moral judgement or condemnation of Alex here – this is simply not his concern. Van Sant simply portrays Alex’s troubled existence in a fragmentary, but matter-of-fact manner.

I found it rather affecting and convincing, its desolate mood appropriately conveying isolation and estrangement from reality. Alex is an endearing character – neither academic nor especially intelligent (his voiceover is deliberately hesitant and without flow), he speaks in naturalistic language and somehow achieves his own appealingly clumsy poetry. This chimes with the dependable visual poetry of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose photographic language is among the most eloquent in contemporary cinema. The more rough-hewn Super 8 footage of Skateboarders comes from Rain Kathy Li – neatly conveying Van Sant’s obvious affection and understanding of the disaffected teenagers that dominate the Skate Parks of Portland, Oregon.

Even more striking than the rich and rewarding cinematography is the film’s bold and disorientating sound design. The use of wildly contrasting music – from Nino Rota’s famous score for ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ to some thrashing hardcore punk – highlights Alex’s confusion and internal torment. Similarly, the amplification of usually meaningless background noise serves to emphasise a sense of strife and disorder.

That Alex seems blank and empty on the outside has provoked Van Sant’s harshest critics, but there are convincing elements to this, notably his drifting away during science classes, his constantly shifting explanation to a Police Detective, his lack of interest in sex with his energetic but unengaging girlfriend and his burgeoning friendship with another female schoolmate. Surely this is a more complex depiction of adolescent emotions than the usual angry, passive-aggressive, confrontational stereotype?

Van Sant is indulging his preoccupation with disaffected local youth in this film, and some may feel uncomfortable with his near-fetishisation of his lead actor’s angelic features. This does at least serve to contrast his outward innocence and inexperience with the weighty burden of his terrible secret though, and therefore arguably has a justified purpose. Another Van Sant fetish, the shower scene (this must be the only reason he remade Psycho shot for shot), recurs here, although in this instance it’s one of the most powerful and symbolic moments in his cinema, a baptismal moment of quite surprising intensity, again with astonishing sound.

Alex pays a high price for venturing into Paranoid Park itself, a slightly menacing and unfamiliar world in which only the very best skaters go, many of them seemingly from social backgrounds far less comfortable than Alex’s own. Eventually we find out that Alex’s voiceover represents a letter depicting the events that he is encouraged to write by his friend Macy, a remarkably warm and perceptive character. At the end, he appears to burn the pages rather than deliver it to her, but at least his innermost, most disconcerting thoughts have somehow been released.

'I Accept Chaos, I'm Just Not Sure That It Accepts Me...'

...So says Ben Whishaw as the poet Arthur Rimbaud, one of seven facets of the iconic singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (portrayed by six different actors) in 'I'm Not There', an appropriately slippery and enigmatic anti-biopic from Todd Haynes, a director so brimming with confidence he appears to be able to do whatever he wants. Indeed, it would be very tempting, as many critics have done, drawn in by the perceptiveness and appeal of Dylan's own words, to view 'I'm Not There' simply as a film about chaos and confusion in personal identity - a film without plot, structure or narrative. Haynes is indeed a master of uncovering 'what's not there' - be it the sexual or racial tensions simmering within the world of Douglas Sirk's 1950s melodramas in his masterpiece 'Far From Heaven', or the philosophical questions that lie not just at the heart of Bob Dylan's many personas, but also of his art.

The film may be at least partially non-chronological (and therefore closely resembles Dylan's own autobiography 'Chronicles' in its approach), but each segment of the film seems to represent the songwriter at a key stage in his evolution, but always attempting to escape the pigeonholing of others. The outstanding Marcus Carl Franklin plays a young boy called Woody Guthrie. The real Woody Guthrie was of course a prime influence on Dylan - but here we see the precociously talented youngster being told to approach songs from the point of view of his own time. Christian Bale plays the young rebellious, 'folk-singing' Dylan, offending the establishment and rampaging against injustice, uncannily capturing his mannerisms and quirks of performance. Cate Blanchett provides a similarly accurate imitation as Jude Quinn, with considerable style and even affection for the callow, nonchalant, nihilistic Dylan rejecting the 'folk' and 'protest' labels in the mid-60s. Perhaps the strangest segment features Richard Gere as an ageing version of Billy the Kid (neatly referencing Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which Dylan 'acted'), an ageing loner representing Dylan's rural retreat after his motorcycle accident (a pivotal event cleverly left until the film's conclusion). Most uncomfortable his Heath Ledger's macho movie star (ironically playing the same folk singer represented by Bale), representing Dylan at his least likeable. Bale re-appears to signify Dylan's conversion to Christianity and Whishaw delivers his whole performance as an interview to camera, perhaps representing Dylan's initial shift from the political to the personal (although any Dylan admirer would recognise that the latter had always been a significant aspect even of his earliest work). The various 'characters' seem to be grappling with ideas of identity and categorisation, trying to escape the lives in which they find themselves.

The film has its flaws. I completely disagree with some critics, including The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who have suggested that Blanchett's impression is so outstanding as to overshadow the rest of the piece. I found her section the most problematic, mainly because it so closely followed the template of D.A. Pennebaker's legendary documentary 'Don't Look Back' - a film that has already been very successfully made using expert footage of Dylan himself (although whether that was in fact 'the real' Dylan or a temporary persona is of course anyone's guess) - that it seemed somewhat pointless. Similarly, I found myself questioning the wisdom of portraying Bale's section as a documentary, complete with voiceover and interviews with folksinger Alice Fabian (essentially Julianne Moore as Joan Baez). Both these sections seemed to slightly lack drama, although the Blanchett scenes crackle with energy, much of it thanks to Dylan's own tremendous music of the period.

Whilst Blanchett's turn is perhaps the most thought-provoking (and perhaps also the least subtle in raising questions about identity and persona), the focus on it has missed the sheer exuberance of young Marcus Carl Franklin's performance as Woody (the film is worth the entrance fee alone for his performance of 'Tombstone Blues' with a quite brilliant Richie Havens, himself one of the great Dylan interpreters) and the barely suppressed rage and resentment captured by the simmering Heath Ledger. Charlotte Gainsbourg luckily gives a correspondingly sympathetic and engaging performance as the actor Robbie's wife, clearly representing Dylan's wife Sara. I also felt the more elusive and mysterious section involving Richard Gere was on to something too - although I was not entirely sure quite what - and I certainly found myself touched and moved by My Morning Jacket's Jim James delivering a solemn and funereal rendition of 'Goin' To Acapulco'.

The musical selections are sublime throughout - indeed, the film's title is taken from a rarely heard Dylan song officially released for the first time on the soundtrack. Whilst the film takes in some of the cornerstones of Dylan's career (a rampaging 'Maggie's Farm' at Newport, with Pete Seeger cutting the cables, 'Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' etc) it also goes for some curveball and affecting choices - 'Man In The Long Black Coat', 'Simple Twist of Fate' over 'Tangled Up In Blue' and 'Pressing On' from the Christian period stick in the mind particularly. Best of all is when Haynes deliberately plays music from the wrong period - having 1997's apocalyptic 'Cold Irons Bound' over a scene supposedly located in the mid-60s emphasises the continuity as much as the contradictions in Dylan's multiple personas.

The film is edited in a way that initially seems free and loose, chopping between time periods and personas, but eventually comes to reveal its own internal logic. Themes are stated and then developed through the different performances. This is a crucial point - some critics have suggested the film will hold little interest for those not ardent Dylan admirers. This point may have an element of validity given the strong emphasis on Dylan's own words and music in the film - but these critics have lacked the independence of mind to unpick the film's central theme.

Essentially, 'I'm Not There' struck me as a highly philosophical and, on the whole, largely successful meditation on the nature of personal freedom. In the Woody sequence, the young Guthrie is told 'boy, I think you've found your freedom before you've found your technique' - a simple and direct statement neatly summarising the untutored but convincing style of the young Dylan. Elsewhere, Coco Rivington suggests to Blanchett's Jude Quinn in a dreamlike sequence that he/she may not even know what freedom is, and nor indeed may anyone. Indeed, the film suggests that Blanchett's confrontational and agitational responses to accusations of insincerity and hypocrisy as much represent the singer's desire to be free from conventional categorisation as they do elements of a volatile personality. Gere represents the singer in isolated rural retreat, seeking freedom from outside pressures and worldly concerns, although perhaps failing to find it.

Even in its more sedate moments, the film has a vitality and intellectual vigour, although its supposedly unconventional style actually reminded me of another very specific, individualistic work - Francois Girard's remarkable and superior '32 Short Films About Glenn Gould'.

What 2008 Has In Store

I’m not sure the mainstream rock/pop landscape promises all that much in 2008. REM have a new album out in April, now rather blandly titled ‘Accelerate’, that promises to portray them as a reinvigorated ensemble. I worry that REM waste too much effort responding to criticism – most critics found ‘Up’ frustrating (although I felt it was by some distance their best record), so they reacted with the much more conservative, conventionally melodic and frequently wishy-washy ‘Reveal’. ‘Around The Sun’ bizarrely concentrated on the weaker aspects of the summery sound of ‘Reveal’, and was justifiably met with complete indifference both critically and commercially. Stipe is right that they had lost their dynamism as a group – but is employing the rather superficial production trickery of Jacknife Lee (the man behind recent efforts from Snow Patrol and Bloc Party) really the right answer? We shall see….

Yet another Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’ sounds much more promising – with Cave apparently retaining the self-parodying humour that made ‘Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’ so enjoyable. Morrissey plans to release both another greatest hits collection (will it be a shrewd enough selection?) and a new album. It’s a return to the mid-nineties trip hop sound with new albums finally from Portishead and Massive Attack. Their continuing relevance will no doubt be severely tested this year. A new Spirtualized album is always welcome, but again I doubt whether it can recapture the elemental power of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’. I’m hoping that ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, the upcoming fourth album from Elbow, will forge new paths for the group and fulfil my hunger for epic guitar music. They do this so much more convincingly than the likes of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, who can only grasp at the emotional depth Guy Garvey can muster when at his best. Gnarls Barkley release their second album ‘Atlantis’, which should be one of the pop records of the year, and I may be the only person in the world still excited about the apparent return of the B-52s! What about a new album and tour from AC/DC, seemingly now promised every year for the last five?!

There has been much rumour and gossip about potential albums from Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in 2008. Nothing anywhere near solid yet – but Dylan was rumoured to have been recording with Rick Rubin, and Springsteen had a whole batch of songs left over from the Magic sessions that may or may not see the light of day.

Elsewhere, there is of course much to look forward to. I’m expecting London’s Loop collective of jazz musicians to extend their influence and reputation in 2008 – particularly with albums expected from Outhouse and Dog Soup. Seb Rochford looks set to be as active as ever – with new Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland albums both due on V2. I’m particularly excited about the former. It’s early days, but Pat Metheny has a new trio set out on Nonesuch at the end of January which should at least be interesting. Another major guitar talent, Marc Ribot, also has a new album of his own due in 2008. The Bruford/Bortslap collaboration also looks highly promising.

If there are new albums from multi-faceted vocalist Jamie Lidell and Type records’ talented Khonnor, then they should be significant highlights of the year. I’d be happy with a new record from Xela too, although I’ve not yet seen anything scheduled. With new records from Boards of Canada, M83, Broadway Project, Fennesz and Autechre, it could be an exciting year for electronic music. I’m already acquainted with the bulk of Hot Chip’s ‘Made In The Dark’, which is oddly both their poppiest and most confusing record so far. I'm not sure whether it will fall more under the 'electronic' or 'rock' banner, but we might finally hear that new album from The Notwist too!

I can’t claim to be a true hip-hop head, but I’m salivating with anticipation at the prospect of new records from Madvillain and Cannibal Ox in 2008, but both were rumoured at the start of 2007 so don’t hold your breath. Solidly confirmed is a second album from the outstanding supergroup Subtle, who made one of my favourite albums of 2006.

Two of my favourite songwriters have new albums out in the early part of the year. Homegrown talent Chris T-T becomes more and more assured and literate with each new release – I’m expecting ‘Capital’, his first album with a band since ‘London is Sinking’ in 2004, to be a real gem. On the other side of the pond, the ever-prolific Stephin Merritt already has a new Magnetic Fields album in the can – ‘Distortion’ would appear to ape the sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain at the time of ‘Psychocandy’.

In other indie prospects – there’s a second album due from the wise and witty Long Blondes, the return of The Futureheads, Grizzly Bear, The Breeders and Clem Snide and a debut from the much-hyped Foals. I’d like to think we might get something new from The Hidden Cameras as well, although no news as yet.

Above all that though, the album I’m currently most anticipating is ‘The Mande Variations’ from the master Kora player Toumani Diabate (who recently guested on Bjork’s ‘Volta’). Reports suggest that it is tremendous. If it’s even half as good as his collaboration with Ali Farka Toure (which I managed to miss at the time of release), it will be set the standard for the whole year.

A Word of Thanks

It's really gratifying to have been canvassed for this blog poll over at Sweeping The Nation, without even having to make a noise or volunteer myself:

http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/2008/01/uk-blogger-albums-of-2007-poll-results.html

Thanks folks!

The Last Word...Honest....

A couple of things I missed out of my list the other week:

Pros:

Brian Wilson's That Lucky Old Sun - A little mawkish in places, but the very fact he's writing again is something to celebrate. He also seems to have rediscovered 'Today!' - one of the very best Beach Boys albums.

The Decemberists at the Royal Festival Hall. I knew this would be a good gig, but I hadn't expected it to be this fun! Amusing to sit sheepishly in a corner at the aftershow party too.

Cons:

Kate Nash - Sorry, but no. Elementary school harmony combined with embarrassing lyrics (merely revealing how dull the woman's life is), all delivered in a mock-cockney accent. What is there to enjoy here?

Mika - No, you are not the next Freddie Mercury. Next please!

Happy New Year to all readers!

The Last Words on 2007

Not only has The Wire magazine made the boldest choice of album of the year amongst the print media with Robert Wyatt's 'Comicopera', it also continues to publish rather neat personal summaries of the closing year from both writers and artists. I rather like this - so here's my subjective take on 2007, in a similar style albeit much less concise! All in no particular order, entirely personal and NOT WRITTEN IN A WORK CAPACITY.

Pros:

Love in various forms.

Turnpike Lane – especially the late-opening Melish Supermarket.

The Tiffin Tin in Hornsey - A fine Indian takeaway and occasional life-saver.

Facebook - It sounds completely pathetic, but joining it might well be the most significant thing I did all year. It has its drawbacks, and the privacy concerns are valid - but I'm rather convinced that the positives still outweigh the negatives.

Charity Shops - I've built a substantial library from them this year!

Secure, gainful employment - during daylight hours!!

Discovering that self-expression really isn't actually all that hard and having the audacity to ask of my friends only what they ask of me.

Rediscovering the hunger to write music and lyrics - and finding new approaches towards both.

The Space Race album 'You Are The Guest' - few have heard it, but it might just be the best recorded work I've been involved with so far.

Daniel Lambert and Fake Sheikh - now on hiatus, but some great songs, videos and gigs earlier in the year.

Performing at the Isle of Wight Jazz Festival, The Vortex and The Ram Jam Club, amongst other venues.

Finally finishing as a student and becoming a teacher at WAC Performing Arts and Media College - there's no doubt I'd stuck around too long and should have moved on, but it was gratifying to be recognised so warmly and genuinely at the end.

Seeing Win Butler letting a group of ticketless teenagers in through the stage door at the Arcade Fire’s show at Porchester Hall. The band’s encore – moving from the venue foyer back upstairs and into the centre of the crowd was something very special, and helps explain the unique appeal of this band.

Tim Whitehead's Jazz Summer School at Battisborough House on the coast of Devon: A wonderful, confidence-boosting week of music-making and merriment completely free from worldly concerns. It brought a few things into sharp relief - namely that, although I haven't achieved much commercial success through it so far, playing drums is what I do best and is worth persisting with until I die or become incapacitated. Secondly, although we've never played a proper public gig and have never really ‘rehearsed’, the Millar/Marle-Garcia/Paton set-up has a real chemistry.

The restraint, dignity and honesty of Alan Johnston’s speech to World Service staff on his release from captivity and the strangely moving experience of gathering outside Bush House to campaign for his release and then celebrate his return.

The World Service in its 75th Anniversary year.

Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony paired with Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto at the Proms. Wonderful!

Madrid - an invigorating quick stop in one of Europe's finest cities. The restaurant that claims to be the oldest in Europe produced some particularly fine cuisine.

Shanghai and Nanjing - Two amazing weeks observing Shanghai and its blisteringly intense pace of life. The distinctly odd experience of being a Westerner in the East, superb cuisine, basking in the company of good friends, tea-tasting, aimless walking proving the best way to discover a city’s secrets, the beautiful auburn coloured trees in the National Park in Nanjing (especially when viewed from the top floor of a pagoda), relative peace of mind and a whole raft of rare DVDs to boot!

Two wonderful weddings and the joy of observing the happiness and fulfilment of the first of my University friends to tie the knot.

Joe Lovano peforming Streams of Expression and much more at the Barbican.

The Loop Collective and their regular Monday gigs at The Oxford in Kentish Town - at last a jazz club with blood, enthusiasm, clever programming and a sensible promotional strategy.

Meeting Paul Clarvis, Seb Rochford, Ingrid Laubrock, Bill Frisell and Mike Gibbs.

The London Sinfonietta's 'Ligeti Remembered' concerts.

Mark-Antony Turnage's 'About Water' - not his best work, but his understanding of the interconnections between various forms of contemporary music remains refreshing. The performance also introduced me to Barb Jungr, a talented and charismatic performer, whose reinterpretations of Dylan are splendid.

Tom Millar's Swinging and Shiva Feshareki's Dancefloor Distortions - two 'student' compositions as vibrant, engaging and sophisticated as any other new music I heard in 2007. The two composers are younger than me in years but may have taught me more than anyone my senior during the course of the year.

Bob Dylan at Wembley Arena - so good I went back for the second night. Easily the best gigs I've seen him play and that cracked voice genuinely sounds fantastic when he bothers to enunciate. He is essentially a rapper now. Superb renditions of Spirit on the Water, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and John Brown stick in the mind particularly.

Adrian Roye, Beth Dariti and Astic Borders - Two outstanding songwriters and their consistently enjoyable collective. They deserve more attention.

The perceptive songwriting of Simon Lewis. Hopefully more prominent in 2008!

Three Trapped Tigers - The most adventurous new band in London (Supersilent meeting Battles with a twist of Keith Jarrett) and my big tip for 2008.

The winter blankets at that Young’s pub by Tate Modern.

Polar Bear at the Museum of Garden History - Just observing that alchemical connection between Rochford and Herbert was worth a thousand jam sessions or workshops.

Becoming a committed reader of yet more blogs - Audiversity, Raven Sings The Blues and Free Jazz in particular.

Rediscovering a love of language and literature: Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' (which I underestimated considerably at first and to which I had to return), Philip Roth's 'Exit Ghost' (a fine novel undersold by critics envious of Roth's undiminished prowess) and Colm Toibin's wonderful story collection 'Mothers and Sons'. Also plenty with which I was previously shamefully unfamiliar - Reinaldo Arenas, Jose Saramago, Joseph Conrad, F Scott Fitzgerald, Paul Bowles, Elizabeth Smart, Patrick White (why are almost all his works unavailable at the moment?), Thomas Bernhard....Rian Malan's 'My Traitor's Heart', a brave and excoriating examination of Apartheid-era South Africa.

The print journalism of Henry Porter and Jenni Russell

Discovering Prospect magazine - a better source of informed debate than many of the broadsheet newspapers.

Comment is Free on The Guardian website, where all manner of weirdos, geniuses and insane people appear to dwell.

The writing and email newsletters of Alex Stein.

The film criticism of Peter Bradshaw and Jonathan Romney, the music writing of John Mulvey (especially on the Wild Mercury Sound blog), Philip Sherburne, David Stubbs, Marcello Carlin and more.

John Kell’s new blog proving more edifying and cogently argued than almost anything in print.

Great covermount CDs with Jazzwise, The Wire, Mojo and even The Word.

Tim Berne at the Vortex, Tom Rainey's inspired drumming.

Catching Joe Zawinul’s last ever London performance at the Jazz Café and recognising both reverence and enthusiasm in Django Bates’ outstanding tribute at the Barbican to close the London Jazz Festival.

Some cinematic treats - All About Eve on the big screen (nobody writes scripts so consistently razor sharp anymore), Edward Yang’s colossal ‘A Brighter Summer Day’ at the same cinema.

Discovering the cinema of Terence Davies, Tsai Ming-Liang (especially the exquisite 'I Don't Want To Sleep Alone'), Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Peter Watkins, Mikio Naruse and Jan Svankmajer.

Watching Shortbus and In The Mood For Love on DVD - respectively the best films about sex and love made during my lifetime?

Finally getting round to watching Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ and finding that his appalling later films do indeed do their best to hide his talent.

Watching Derek Jarman’s ‘Blue’ for the first time – perhaps the most unfailingly honest self-portrait conceivable – a blue screen for 80 minutes and the most extraordinary soundtrack I can remember hearing. It combines to produce a profound, devastating but ultimately positive experience.

Quality new films a little thin on the ground this year - Climates, Syndromes and a Century, Zodiac, The Lives of Others, Knocked Up, Hot Fuzz, The Simpsons Movie, Control, Beyond Hatred, Ghosts, The Bourne Ultimatum but still more to see mercifully (Assassination of Jesse James, Into the Wild, Yella, Jindabyne, Silent Light, Paranoid Park, Lust Caution, I'm Not There).

Cape Wrath, Skins and House on Channel 4, The Wire on FX, half of Dr. Who on BBC, The Mighty Boosh, Spooks even at its most absurd. I avoided Heroes completely.

Continuing to work through DVDs of Northern Exposure seasons 3 and 4 and Peep Show 1-3, rediscovering the sheer blinding genius of Seinfeld and I’m Alan Partridge.

Bill Fay appearing onstage with Wilco, reticent and masked by a gigantic beard, but definitely him! Can Jeff Tweedy coax him into recording new material now? The astounding guitar playing of Nels Cline and adventurous percussion of Glenn Kotche also impressed.

The Smoking Ban - I was ambivalent to start with, but I'm a fully fledged supporter now!

Alexis Taylor's press release for the Robert Wyatt album.

Aphex Twin as The Tuss – an accidental but criminal omission from my albums of the year.

Steely Dan at Hammersmith Apollo and Daniel Johnston at the Union Chapel – two very different concerts in the same week, both surprisingly moving.

Daft Punk in Hyde Park - perhaps the most profound and exciting communal dance music experience I can remember. That pyramid spacepod thing was just amazing.

Dirty Projectors in support of Beirut at Koko – possibly the best support set I’ve seen this decade.

LCD Soundsystem's 'All My Friends' perfectly encapsulating the sensation of still feeling young, accompanied by a stark awareness of growing older and its accompanying poignancy. I would play this song at the start of any wedding DJ set. Where are my friends tonight?

Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscombe (for the 15 minutes he was on stage).

Vincent Cable - Perhaps the only decent thing to have emerged from the Liberal Democrat implosion - a politician of skill, intelligence and integrity. What a shame he was only a temporary blip on an otherwise tediously predictable landscape.

The courage and conviction of the Burmese monks.

The Hype Machine, now cleverly redesigned - an easy route to new music online.

Radiohead subverting the music industry.

The rejuvenation, however temporary it proves to be, of Ronnie O' Sullivan's incomporable genius.

Bosh! club

Rufus Wainwright - he may be camp, but there's also something unrestrained and defiant about him that I really admire. Seeing him sing 'Get Happy' in drag at the Hammersmith Apollo was certainly an experience!

Beth Ditto – one cannot possibly object to her becoming a superstar this year.

Misty's Big Adventure and Chris T-T at Club Fandango - simply superb!

Tim Whitehead’s birthday concert at the Ram Jam club and seeing the great Ian Carr enjoying a glass of red wine.

Bruce Springteen and the E Street Band at the 02 Arena: No Surrender, Because The Night, Racing In The Streets, Jungleland – pretty close to a dream set list. Magic!

A belated discovery of technology - especially iTunes, Digital Photography and MOG.

Knitted scarves.

Older sounds: Brotherhood of Breath, Arthur Russell/Dinosaur L, Young Marble Giants, The Boo Radleys, Ace Records’ Girl pop compilations, The Shangri-Las, Best of Ethiopiques.


Cons:

Love in various forms.

Confusion and inertia in a number of areas and the frequent failure to convert opportunities into reality.

A feeling of ‘safety’ and a concurrent futile lust for danger.

Insomnia and persistent colds.

The transition to ‘real’ adulthood continuing to be marked by form-filling, multiple bank accounts and institutional inefficiencies. Tedium ad nauseum.

Floods, fires and pestilence – What exactly is all this portending?

Au Revoir Michael Brecker, Alice Coltrane, Luciano Pavarotti, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Joe Zawinul, Ousmane Sembene, Edward Yang, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Ahmet Ertegun, Karlheinz Stockhausen and many more - far too many legends to lose in one year.

The 'oh-so-conveniently' timed departure of Tony Blair and the spineless 'coronation' of Gordon Brown, a ‘leader’ who has transpired to be every bit as gormless and lacking in judgment as sensible people suspected.

The idea of Tony Blair as a Special Envoy to the Middle East was so laughable it was inevitable that it turned out to be true.

The unsurprising revelation that our personal data is rarely safer in government hands than in the hands of corporations. At least it *might* wake people up to the huge technical and administrative flaws in the terrible ID cards scheme.

The unfolding disaster in Iraq whilst little is done to alleviate the problems in Darfur or Zimbabwe.

The Northern Rock crisis revealing the terrible vulnerability of our seemingly unbreakable ties to the US and its economy. William Hague still seems to be more worried about Europe!

The continuation of New Labour's authoritarian programme and the curse of mutual exclusivity in politics and society: Should we have civil liberties or national security? Individual freedom or a managed economy? I remain astounded at the need for 'debate' here. We can, and should have both! We need a political party bold enough to argue that economic factors can be a big restriction on individual freedom and that the true centre ground in Britain is not the current form of cowardly Thatcherism masked by misleading 'progressive' language. Surely that should be the Liberal Democrats? Oh dear, look what they've done....

Polly Toynbee and her steadfast refusal to criticise Labour on anything.

'Short-termism' - surely one area where we all need some form of government intervention is in planning for our futures. Individuals can all play a part, but a wholesale cultural and social change requires some courage, impetus and direction! International farces like the recent Bali talks on climate change (where an agreement was made to reach an agreement) merely expose world leaders as spineless and incompetent.

The McCann saga and Diana inquest - two lows for the British media this year. The Diana affair has been surrounded by obsessive and tasteless morbidity ('her last smile', 'her dying moments' etc), with no element of her sorry life left private. Reporting on the McCann affair made too many casual assumptions before any due legal process had been instigated. I sympathise greatly with any parents in those circumstances, but making them celebrities did not help anyone, least of all Madeleine.

Bono - Can he please live up to his own ideals before imposing them on everybody else?

Free London newspapers. Can't you see I'm carrying a book?

Andy Murray having to pull out of Wimbledon.

The crisis gripping the media over ‘deception’.

The continuing lack of any truly decent new British literature.

Crowded House in Hyde Park - they brought entirely the wrong kind of weather with them, a freak downpour so heavy it rained through my umbrella. At least Peter Gabriel was good.

Prince at the 02 - Perhaps the most over-hyped and disappointing live music experience of the year, delivering entertainment but little more.

The 02 Arena in general - quite possibly the ghastliest environment in which to see live music.

Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscome (for the hours and hours of waiting and the 50 minutes of chronic unprofessionalism when his band was onstage but he wasn't).

Band Reunions - Too many, please stop now.

Overpriced concert tickets - £86 to see Neil Young? You must be joking! I accept that market forces dictate prices to a certain extent, but can promoters not see that live music in this country is fast becoming elitist - entirely unafforable for most people on average incomes?

Ticket touts - for inflating ticket prices and preventing ordinary fans from seeing their musical heroes. The failure of the government to tackle the ticketing black market is shameful.

Overpriced sporting event tickets - see above.

The F1 spying saga. I enjoy the politics and soap opera to some extent, but this was a step too far and Fernando Alonso's behaviour seemed particularly questionable. There is a worrying sense that FIA judgements are increasingly arbitrary and inconsistent.

The continuing torment that accompanies being a Spurs supporter.

The lack of political respect for the Arts in Britain - the impossibility of getting funding unless you play some kind of industry game, the lack of interest in contemporary composition outside the music colleges, the continuing patronising attitude towards jazz and popular art forms. Cinema distribution also continues to decline markedly - the recent takeover of Artificial Eye (with some concurrent barmy acquisitions that seem far removed from AE’s established aesthetic) and financial peril of Tartan Films do not hint at a rosy 2008. Funding for serious filmmakers is even worse – Terence Davies is celebrated with a retrospective reminding people of his sublime genius, yet is no longer able to make a film in this country. The Film Council prefers to fund nonsense like the St Trinians remake, which is hugely depressing.

The 'work' ethos – please work to live, not live to work. It's no wonder that the Arts suffer when most people seem to have no interest or energy for going out during the working week!

A whole string of unimaginative and interminably average indie-rock being shamefully presented as something new - Babyshambles, Pigeon Detectives, The Cribs, The Twang, The Kooks etc... (even the names are terrible).
Other overrated charlatans - Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and much of this tedious freak-folk brigade, Portico Quartet.

The lack of any informed young music writers in print - particularly at the NME - which continues to display breathtaking ignorance of musical history. An easy target for sure, but one that's still worth highlighting – Morrissey seemed to think so anyway.

Talking during gigs - To the two people who audaciously asked me to save their unreserved seats for them at Cat Power's Forum show while they went to the bar - if you're going to ask a stranger a favour, do him the courtesy of not talking through the entire performance! Why pay £20 for the privilege? Go to a pub! Also, to the two women sitting behind us at Bruce Springsteen – whilst I’m sure one telling the other that she should ‘respect her body more’ was excellent advice, there’s a time and a place, and it’s not during a lovely and very quiet rendition of ‘Magic’.

Egotism and indecision amongst musicians - just get on with the business of making original music!

David Lynch's 'Inland Empire' - The more I think about it, the more it seems like an entirely unnecessary companion piece to 'Mulholland Drive' with too many convolutions and indulgences. Why try and complement a masterpiece?

Michel Gondry’s ‘The Science of Sleep’ – whimsical, superficial and silly and the most disappointing film of the year.

Inadequate public services, especially in London. The only posited solutions appear to be more investment or the extension of the unhelpful ‘market’ in service provision. Neither seems particularly imaginative to me in 2007. What would help would be if British government actually expressed some enthusiasm for the service ethos and emphasised its value, instead of consistently undermining the services, then dismantling them because they are failing.

The continuing misuse of words such as ‘modernity’ and ‘reform’ in political discourse.

The classically trained violinist who opened for Jools Holland at the Albert Hall: ‘Entertaining’ an audience with frankly vulgar displays of meaningless virtuosity in a crass attempt to ‘popularise’ what doesn’t need popularising – possibly the worst piece of live music I’ve ever sat through!

A lack of planning for New Year’s Eve yet again.