LANA DEL REY – BORN TO DIE?

Posted on February 21, 2012 by substance

“Self-styled ‘gangster Nancy Sinatra’” is the phrase you read in most interviews with it-girl Lana Del Ray. Self-styled seems a little forgiving if coverage around the 25 year-old singer is to be believed.

But what makes LDR so divisive? In spite of all the negative press around her, debut album Born To Die has sold shedloads, becoming the first ever album to sell over 50,000 UK download copies in a week.

Persona should not be problem for pop. After all Bowie, Madonna and Beyonce have all dabbled in reinvention (some more than others), and we love them for it. But don’t be fooled. LDR is not the output of an artist using an alter ego to express herself creatively. It is a persona created to satisfy market demands.

Every appearance and every interview-answer seemingly carefully structured to craft a personality to fill the void. If Del Ray dreams, she dreams in grey… she was a teen drinker, and she did charity work, and taught herself to play guitar and struggled as an artist in the big city, and she still lives on her ex-boyfriend’s couch; paint by numbers stuff to add a bit of colour.

But Del Rey’d come a long way. After signing to Polydor, all trace (aside from a few YouTube videos) of Lizzy Grant disappeared. Lizzy couldn’t sell a dollar for 50 cents, but Lana was a different product. Q named Del Ray the most promising artist of 2012, Pitchfork became the official champion for ‘Videogames,’ and NME provided the now tediously inevitable tabloid gossip.

But just six months later and Born to Die has been panned, and by some of the very people whose incessant LDR coverage put her on the public radar to begin with.

We can be forgiven for thinking LDR was so much more. In our disposable culture, with our fame in a fortnight mantra we have neglected the time needed for artists to develop. The short-term shelf-life of the recording artist and the consumer-need for wanting fully formed pop acts straight from the first release puts a huge amount of pressure on new acts, and a whirlwind of hype and buzz around the few with potential.

Born To Die was pushed for so vehemently that LDR reportedly only handed in the completed product a week before its release. The final product could have been 8 or 9 finely polished songs, but instead Born To Die delivers in disappointment with 12 tracks all lyrically patchy. In the end, nothing comes close to ‘Videogames.’

Until the consumer, reviewers and bloggers learn to accept that artists need time to grow and find their own sound, we’ll stay stuck in this love/hate cycle of manufactured pop.

In the meantime, the follow-up to Born To Die, if it happens, won’t garner the same anticipation or hype. She isn’t the first casualty of pop, but maybe Lana Del Rey was just born to die?

Jim Campbell

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STILL GOTCHA, FALKLANDS! The British-Argentinian dispute 30 years on

Posted on February 16, 2012 by substance

The fresh Falklands dispute has brought home some ugly truths from the South Atlantic.

250 British and 1,000 Argentinian soldiers died in the 1982 Falklands War. PM Margaret Thatcher turned a part of the world no British person really cared about at all into something of great national importance, and reversed her ailing government’s popularity at the same time.

This is the legacy we have now. David Cameron and Argentinian President Cristina de Kirchner have taken up the old rhetoric, and that great weapon of British diplomacy – Prince William – has recently been thrown into the mix. Boom!

Now, after celebrating the (illegal) sinking of the Belgrano (costing some 320 lives) with the infamous “GOTCHA!” front-page back in May 1982, The Sun has started tub-thumping again.

Yesterday the paper published an interview with Falklands resident and farmer Trudi McPhee, who guided British troops to the front with bright white mittens in wartime. She is the right-wing’s perfect British heroine, a real no-nonsense Blitz-era babe.

So she shares a fair bit in common with Margaret Thatcher (babe?), a woman she obviously respects. Meanwhile McPhee conjures a particularly unpleasant image: “Maggie Thatcher had balls.”

Compare that with British journalists’ responses to Cristina de Kirchner. She is “sexier than Evita, as tough as Thatcher” according to The Sun, but is more often regarded as some Latino imperialist-WAG-whore in the right-wing press. If nothing else, this Falklands dispute has shown the less attractive side of British attitudes to women.

Holding on to the Falklands is about money and mineral wealth. But it looks good for Cameron’s Tories, like it did Thatcher’s when the islands saved her leadership. You can unite a country around “stoic British resistance” and “invading, irrational Argies with hairbands” in wartime, and the Tories need that now more than anything.

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GRAMMYS 2012: Scary Monsters, Beautiful People and woman-hating domestic abuse

Posted on February 14, 2012 by substance

It was three years ago this weekend that Chris Brown beat up then girlfriend, Rihanna. After a pre-Grammys party in 2009, Brown punched her repeatedly in the face, and throttled her until she lost consciousness, before leaving her on the side of the road and driving away.

Brown has since said he grew up in an abusive household, which deserves empathy, but that doesn’t mean we should forgive him for the Rihanna incident. There’s enough flagrant misogyny in pop to excuse a male star beating up a female one.

So why did the Grammys think it was acceptable to not stand up to Brown, let alone invite him to perform the same night he hospitalised his girlfriend in 2009?

The singer’s career should have ended the moment the police were called. Instead he was welcomed back by a reprehensible, sycophantic Hollywood establishment and global fan-base.

Much more worrying than the fact the Grammys thought booking a big name act was more important than taking a stand, is the response of some of Chris Brown’s female fans.

Look at this list of Twitter and Facebook comments. “I’d let Chris Brown beat me up anytime,” one girl said. Another tweeted: “Everyone shut up about Chris brown being a woman beater…Shiiiit he can beat me up all night if he wants.”

It reminds me of Andy Levy’s brilliant “apology” to Chris Brown after initiating a Twitter storm with this retweet last year.

Thousands of “Team Breezy” – the rubbish name for Brown’s equally rubbish fans – turned on Levy. “In particular,” Levy said, “I’d like to thank the female members of Team Breezy who taught me that as long as you can sing, you can beat the living hell out of a woman, and other women will still love you.”

And they do. Look at the screams and cheers for Brown over the weekend, as he performed latest single ‘Turn Up the Music’ and Benny Benassi banger, ‘Beautiful People.’

Chris Brown’s career should be over; if not by women’s rights groups actively campaigning against his return, then by an industry refusing to book, promote and play him. This is exactly what the Grammys should have been doing, but I suppose they thought it would get people talking, and look at us now.

Meanwhile, more controversy as Nicky Minaj annoyed American Catholics, and worst of all, Skrillex managed to walk away with two awards, winning Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronica Album for debut album Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.

Mind boggles.

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THE PUBS GIVING WETHERSPOONS A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY ON THE RAILWAYS

Posted on February 7, 2012 by substance

The days of the scotch on the rocks steaming through the English countryside are definitely over.

Nonetheless it’s about time someone bucked the trend. And thanks to a new railway-pub franchise, the Ginsters pasty and warm tin of Fosters combo is not your only option.

Tucked away behind a row of frosted glass on Platform One at Sheffield Station is the Sheffield Tap. It might look unassuming, but it’s hiding one of the best beer lists and pub interiors in a city with no shortage of either.

The Tap opened in December 2009, after business-partners Jamie Hawksworth and Jon Holdsworth (and team) bought up the old Edwardian Refreshment Room and returned it to its former glory. It’s all brass rails, wooden panels and expansive mirrors; while you’re spoilt for choice at the bar with the longest list of world ales, and top British scrump, in all of aley, scrumpy Sheffield.

I love drinking there. Bar the (pipe) smoking ban and lack of woolen-trousers, it does feel like an Edwardian boozer, and I’m the hack sneaking a pint before heading back to the office up north. Maybe. You can afford the luxury of a ridiculous imagination when you’re waiting for a train to dear, dirty Darlington.

And never mind that. The Tap is so good it’s muscled its way onto the list of top pubs in Sheffield, not just a rail-side thirst-quencher – up there with Kelham Island Brewery’s award-winning Fat Cat down the road.

But the Sheffield Tap is not alone. As well as two sister-bars in York – the Czech-inspired Pivni and the York Tap – the Hawksworth-Holdsworth team recently brought the franchise down south. The two little buildings outside Euston Rail Station that look like mausoleums are in fact the Euston Tap and Cider Tap (the latter opening late last year). Along with the trademark selection of ale, lager and cider, you can order a New York-style pizza from nearby Famous Ray’s and they’ll deliver it to the pub.

This is the latest in the dual-front attack of funky real ale-ism on the Wetherspoons-and-co.’s monopoly of mediocrity in railway stations up and down the country. Celebrate them – try them out if you’re ever in Sheffield, York or Euston.

In the meantime, Substance recommends:

At the Cider Tap, try Sandford Organics Shaky Bridge (6%) – fresh, fruity as owt and with a nice kick, it’s the best cider to start your night with.

Also try Bernard lager – the Tap(s) are the UK representatives for this Czech lager (owned by the Pivovar Group) that comes as Pilsner, light or in a chocolate-brown dark. They’re all really good.

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BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU – AND GETTING EVEN BIGGER

Posted on February 7, 2012 by substance

Google knows who you are and now intends to share what they know of you with even more people thanks to their new ‘Privacy Policy’.

What it means is that by unifying all it’s company services it can share the info about you across the lot; everywhere you’ve been / google -mapped; everything you’ve You Tubed; everything you’ve searced for. You can’t opt out so they will continue to build your profile from your digital fingerprint to your digital footprint.

And if that’s not scary enough, google at these mouthwatering numbers:

$100,000,000,000 – the Facebook valuation after a successful flotation.

$10,000,000,000 – a staggering post-flotation cashpile for their war chest, all to be spent finding new ways of getting to know us as we get to know others.

Just think of what they could do now.

You better watch out.

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“BEWARE THE IRANIAN APOCALYPSE!”: No war in 2012

Posted on February 3, 2012 by substance

US presidential elections, the London Olympics, the coming of the bloody apocalypse, there’s no shortage of big stories on this year’s news agenda. But none of them will outsize this year’s whopper – Iran.

It seems increasingly likely – inevitable, maybe – that we will see military action against Iran this year.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Photo credit: eyair

And why not? If you believe the likes of Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, David Cameron and the majority of the Western “free” press, President Ahmadinejad is preparing to loose his very own Iranian Apocalypse on our civilised, philanthropic brand of democracy.

Not so. Iran is under his theocratic yoke and fist because of the West’s meddling over the years – namely on the back of 1979’s CIA-funded coup gone wrong. Iran can boast its nuclear programme (military or domestic) because the US, under President Eisenhower, introduced the (hilariously named) “Atoms for Peace” campaign in 1953. Not much highground there, then.

The bottom-line is: Iran will only attack if and when it is attacked. The country is supposedly developing nuclear “possible breakout capacity” – allowing it to build a nuclear weapon quickly in response to aggression. And yet last week Ahmadinejad invited IAEA (UN nuclear agency) inspectors to stay longer, hardly the behaviour we’d expect from a mad-bastard dictator sitting on some biblical nuclear capability – like Saddam, if you remember. So why attack Iran?

There are some clues in the neo-conservative bible-spiel, Project for the New American Century. In it the Americans call for “full spectrum dominance” – in other words, world domination – and you’ll find a list of countries “hostile” to the United States: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Iran, North Korea and China. Three down, three to go.

Have we really learned nothing from Iraq? Photo credit: The U.S. Army

So beware the Iranian Apocalypse! Don’t let your leaders ransack another Middle Eastern people in the name of freedom, democracy and national security.

Support the Stop the War Coalition’s National Don’t Attack Iran Day – Saturday, February 11.

Tom Rollins

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PETE McKEE’S “PUB SCRAWL” Sheffield art’s thriving

Posted on February 2, 2012 by substance

Sheffield is a city known for its strong industrial heritage, beautiful countryside, and for some, Henderson’s relish. So it may come as a surprise to learn that Sheffield has one of the most exciting art scenes outside of London. Cheap studio space coupled with a wealth of local talent has meant that the arts in Sheffield are thriving. Innovative exhibitions are becoming more and more popular, and none showcased the city’s talent more so than the recent “Pub Scrawl.”

Curated by Sheffield’s Pete McKee, famous for his brightly-coloured Sheffield-influenced illustrations, Pub Scrawl joined ten Sheffield artists with ten Sheffield pubs for the night. Each artist used their designated pub as a blank canvas, converting the venues into galleries, film sets and living comic strips.

Geo Law's bear-head

Geo Law's red bear-head

Among the ten artists exhibiting, Geo Law in the Great Gatsby stood out with his signature swirls and colourful animal heads, constructed from card and put together with some meticulous folding. Another highlight was Sarah Abbott’s beautiful yet simple ’50’s inspired illustrations, which brought a huge crowd into The Forum bar.

Nick Deakin's "Dick Neakin" animation

Illustrator Nick Deakin’s naughty alter-ego “Dick Neakin” also made many giggle into their pint of “Scrawl,” the night’s very own beer provided especially by Derbyshire brewery, Thornbridge.

The vibrancy of Sheffield’s art scene is a testament to the dedication and creativity of the area’s artists, who are working against a background of harsh spending cuts to Yorkshire’s arts funding. Museums Sheffield’s funding has been dramatically reduced, while 12% of Sheffield City Council’s arts funding has been cut. Not forgetting the advice to the UK film industry from David Cameron to make “commercially successful films,” instead of the bold and risky films that British filmmakers are known for.

Luckily Sheffield’s Warp Films haven’t listened. Responsible for brilliant British films such as Four Lions, Tyrannosaur and This is England, the boys at Warp joined the Scrawl and took over the Washington pub on Fitzwilliam Street. The pub was massively over capacity for the entire night, proof that innovative and risky filmmaking is still very much appreciated in Yorkshire (though the rumour that Shane Meadows was pulling pints at the bar may have helped).

Artists: Warp Films, Nick Deakin, Lord Bunn, Ian Anderson/tDR , Geo, Sarah Abbott, Tado, Faunagraphic, Fine and Dandy and Tom J Newell.

Jenny Greenwell

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