Separating the sweet, juicy flesh from the stone and skin of the next fortnight’s major label releases.
Later this week, the American football (note, only one capital letter) team will shatter the dreams of 51 million English people, while simultaneously raising the spirits of eight million Scots and Welshes.
The response of Northern Irelanders we will leave well alone here, thank you.
So, how best to approach this monumental failure? Why, with your Mango. Guaranteed stone-free since sometime last year, we believe.
Firstly, Shout It Out, Hanson. As the internet says: WTF????!!!!!!!!!!!1
Hanson are still going? Those hideous little dwarven children who sang MmmBop a long time ago and then – the gods have mercy – vanished from our lives?
Wow.
So, err… what are they doing nowadays?
Thanks for asking: unutterably bland, write-by-numbers pop-rock. Good lord, this is really bad.
You know that guy who busks on your high street? The chap with one cheap guitar, three years of beard, and five decades of reckless alcohol enjoyment? Well, he puts approximately 7000% more passion into his pisspoor versions of Wonderwall than the Hanson boys do on this entire album.
They seem to have spent a couple of nights listening to Miley Cyrus or one of her replicants, another two writing lyrics and getting the chord progressions right, then wandered into a studio to record the beige results.
Good god, this is execrable. And the marketing department couldn’t even sustain internal consistency: how does a track called Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’, with its pair of artfully dropped letters, get all the way to the public without one of the soulless spods standing up and asking, “Hey. Err… just wonderin’. If we’re really gonna go with ‘Bout and Somethin’, shouldn’t it… I’m just throwin’ it out there, guys… but shouldn’t it be Thinkin’, too?”
Shout It Out by Hansen is just as terrible as you’d expect it to be, and is represented by the thought:
Woah, a new Hanson album. This is so retro, I will look totally awesome at next Wednesday’s 90s celebration night at the… oh. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That is genuinely terrible. Wonder if Ugly Kid Joe are still going?
My fires are still stoked by the Hanson boys. Plus, they’re all legal now; that’s a nice bonus. Take me to Shout It Out by Hanson, please.
Secondly, Destroyer Of The Void, Blitzen Trapper. Wow.
Look again at the band’s name, and the album’s cover art and title. If this isn’t the latest release by a German death-metal band, then we’re a monkey’s scrotum.
Well, fill us full of balls and stick some hairs on, because Blitzen Tripper are unapologetic 60s/70s soft-folk rockers.
Listen to Laughing Lover and hear The Beatles. Listen to The Man Who Would Speak True and you’re drowning in Simon And Garfunkel. Listen to the keyboards of Love And Hate, and mourn the loss of Caravan.
Oh, it’s a decent album. But it contains nothing which wasn’t done better 40 years ago. The thought for Destroyer Of The Void is:
I am 68 years old and find iPods,Walkmen and whatever else the youth have invented slightly disturbing. Thankfully, Blitzen Trapper keep me grounded in the 60s.
I am that 60s fool you mocked above, but I also have limited control over my internet page things. Would you be so kind as to push my free-floating web presence towards Destroyer Of The Void by Blitzen Trapper? Please?
Thirdly, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Soundtrack, Various Artists. It’s a little-known and closely-guarded secret, but hecklerspray isn’t fond of Twilight.
We don’t like the blind obedience to a derivative and contrived series of novels, we don’t like the filmic version of those books, and we most of all hate the terrible floaty hairstyle which Robert Pattinson wears even when he’s not filming.
Because that guy actually must enjoy having a head which is 25% skull and 75% posh-tosspot-public-schoolkid-called-Ollie-or-Jeremy-who-is-trying-to-pull-Victoria-from-the-girls’-Upper-Sixth hair.
That said, the films’ soundtrack people know what they’re doing. This album features bands we love (Muse, Band Of Horses, The Black Keys) and bands we somewhat like (Beck w/ Bat For Lashes, UNKLE, Vampire Weekend).
What it doesn’t feature is the money-spewing nightmare which would have been a Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart duet. We don’t know why the film’s producers didn’t demand this, but if any of them is ever in need of a kidney, a lung, or even a heart: you know who to ask.
The Twilight Saga Eclipse Soundtrack is like an unmined diamond: beauty encased in filth. Here’s its thought:
Great, that’s my whiteface/black eyebrow makeup done. Now to listen to the… oh shit, my cool brother has stolen the Twilight soundtrack CD to impress his cool friends with. Okay, back to my Deathly Crows Of Deathlike Death collection for now.
Like, I love Twilight and shit. But, like, where can I get the music? It’d, like, be kinda like, you know, sorta cool. Could you sorta take, like, me, to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Soundtrack?
And that is it for this week.
The net time you read your Mango we will doubtless be very sad because England are a not-quite-good-enough football team. But for now we are filled with the uplifting feeling of hope.
As always, if you are a record company PR type who would enjoy having their bands’ music directed towards an unholy number of listeners, then contact us here: thegibbo[at]gmail.com.
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