Sometime before Pixie Lott was the new Amy Winehouse, Gabriella Cilmi was the old new Amy Winehouse. Not that you’d guess from Cilmi’s sexpot space cadet re-invention in her latest video, On A Mission. And frankly, we’re not complaining. Turns out the lessons learned from Cilmi’s dull MOR debut (it was called Lessons To Be Learned, we just made a possibly too subtle pun, enjoy!) were that, come second album time, she’s discovered she has a stonking pair of pins that we never saw thanks to all that sitting-on-a-stool nonsense, she’s learnt the arts of a basic, if silly, dance routine and most importantly, she’s developed an inclination towards pop.
Sonically, Ten treads a similar path to Rachel Stevens’ much-lamented but never-forgotten Come & Get It – except this time, Cilmi has the vocal chops to sell the goods with more gusto than a drive-through employee asking if you’d like fries with that. Although nothing matches the brilliant Barbarella bolshiness of lead single, On A Mission, the rest of Ten is a silky, slinky, synth-laden electro take on mainstream pop that all washes down very nicely.
Last time, Xenomania produced the whole album; this time, it’s just the one song, Hearts Don’t Lie, and with it’s authentic 70s disco groove, irresistible ‘my heart keeps ticking’ motif and an almost Bee Gee worthy falsetto from Gabriella, we can almost imagine questionable-attired folk doing the hustle to this with disco-balls shimmering merrily in the background of Studio 54. Believe it or not, that’s intended to be a compliment.
Elsewhere, Robots is a breathy dreamy electro rush that wonders ‘what if kisses were made from ones and zeros’ (ah, the romance of binary code), Boys is classic Dallas Austin cool with a chorus that seems to grow from nowhere, What If You Knew is a bouncy uptempo that film producers are probably fighting over to provide the ‘girl realises she’s in love with best friend’ moment in countless romantic comedies and Love Me Cos You Want To is a sensuous sparkly surefire smash. Even when Cilmi finds herself slipping into old Winehouse-flavoured habits (Superman, Let Me Know), they’re actually surprisingly palatable. And those missing The Voice are directed to a strangely addictive ballad called Glue, so overblown and full of pomp, it must have come from an atrocious 80s flick. Somehow, it’s gorgeous.
A little generic perhaps but I’m enjoying myself far too much to look this sonic stun-gun-toting gift horse in the mouth. Whether Cilmi will still be trilling from the electro songbook come album three, when La Roux is just a quiff-shaped memory, remains to be seen. All the more reason to lap up the plastic-fantastic pleasures of Ten whilst they last then.
Apologies for the lack of posts but I have spent the last week struck down with gastroenteritis – a week of being bed-ridden and existing on nothing but congee and clutching at my stomach. So it’s only now I can tell you about the amazing thing that happened to me last Friday morning…
If there’s one thing I don’t mind being woken up early by, it’s this:
There can’t be many better starts to a working day than a Chinese courier bearing gifts. Let’s take a sneak peek inside:
So that’s a bag full of Bliss goodies for those of you not in the know. I regard Bliss as Benefit’s smarter yet stunning sister – the two companies share a sense of humour and playfulness that I adore (pun-writer’s dream Bliss product names: Fatgirl Slim, Love Handler, Quadruple Thighpass, whilst each box opens with the missive ‘You look spa-velous!’ on the flap) married with top quality product. Bliss majors in skincare and body treatments (it’s the scientific wizardry behind the skincare that makes them smarter than Benefit fyi!) in-line with where it all started, their delightful modern luxury spas. Founded by Marcia Kilgore (who now oversees the brilliant Soap & Glory range, available at Boots in UK), Bliss spas offer up not just luxury but a sense of cool, fun and free brownies. Yes, you read right, free brownies. No wonder Kate Hudson, Oprah Winfrey and Jessica Alba are fans.
Receiving this bag of Bliss bounty is possibly one of the best days of my life – apart from my day spent at Bliss Spa itself, of course (and yes, I filled up on the free brownies, no doubt undoing all the good work the Bliss beauty therapists had spent hours on). It comprises of the Bliss Triple Oxygen Trio – energizing face mask, cream and eye mask – plus a lovely handwritten card telling me to ‘stay beautiful’. Note to PR companies worldwide, *this* is how it’s done. This, rather than the daily irrelevant spammage I receive as music/style editor for Teentoday, is the way to ingratiate yourself to your customers. Any other HK-based PR agencies wishing to bestow me with samples, I’m only an e-mail away at rachelmread@gmail.com (and you’ve got a tough act to follow!).
I was recommended the Triple Oxygen face mask by my Bliss therapist after my treatment, and ever since, it’s been waiting in the Make-Up Miracles vaults for me to shout from the rooftops about how brilliant it is so expect to see that get the full glowing write-up soon; I’ll save proper reviews of the other products (and even my trip to Bliss Spa at W Hotel HK if you’re lucky) for later, once I’ve had a chance to try them out. This is just a post to say a big thank you to Bliss for just proving why they’re totally at the top of their game.
Originally, this was going to be a write-up for one of my fave restaurants in HK, Tapeo on Hollywood Road, Central. Alas, once the tapas arrived, I was simply too ravenous and dug in without a second thought to the camera kicking about in my bag (so until I visit again, let me just tell you their Squid a la Plancha is the most tender, flavoursome squid I’ve ever eaten and their platter of Manchego cheese, honey and toast is more divine than words, photos or thoughts can ever do justice to – we polished off two plates, one rather spuriously as ‘dessert’…).
Never fear though because the restaurant I am going to write about is pretty much the next best thing to a tapas joint, without actually being one. SML is one of those genius/ridiculous concepts that seems so head-smackingly obvious, you wonder why it hasn’t been done before (and yes, I’m expecting to be inundated with people telling me it has been). All dishes come in the eponymous ‘small, medium or large’ sizes, meaning complaints about portion sizes at least will not be gracing your end-of-meal comment cards. Cute concept, right?
The menu features dishes from nearly every cuisine you can think of; basically, an international tapas! I think you’ll get a fairly good idea of this from our selection (we ordered small everything), which basically reads like we threw a handful of pushpins over a culinary map of the world and ordered accordingly. I would describe the food as solidly good rather than great – true of the truffle prawn toast ($38) and lasagne ($43), with the creamy, meaty lasagne being the better of the two. The Jamaican coconut chicken curry ($48) was an aberration to nearly every element of its description though; there was very little Jamaican, or even coconut-y, about this ‘boil-in-the-bag’ curry and the chicken was distinctly unappetising, two huge hunks still on the bone and when cut open, revealed gristle, fat and disturbingly pink meat.
We tried to correct our mistake by going for the sizzling chicken fajitas ($67), a little pricey given you only got two wraps (although enough filling and dips for more!) but tasty nonetheless. The star of the mains was, in fact, a mere ‘bits n bobs’ player – the chips with sea salt, truffle and some sort of unidentifiable, probably very fattening but obviously therefore delicious dip. These were fresh and hot, soft yet crispy and guess what, the only things we ordered in medium ($26). You can take the girl out of Britain but you can’t take the Brit out of the girl… I swear that you could sprinkle that sea salt on paper and I’d probably lap it up though.
Desserts definitely require further exploration, as we only had room for the pot of chocolate ($27 – unremarkable and with two bricks of fudge on the top that we weren’t fans of) and the to-die-for profiteroles ($20). Well, in the small size, that should read profiterole singular but the pastry and cream was feather-light and it came bathed in a gorgeous butterscotch sauce, like melted Werther’s Originals floating to heaven. I’m not ashamed to say I practically licked the bowl clean. The drinks menu, with an extensive list of lip-licking cocktails, is also worth a look although I’ve heard the sizes for wines is a bit of a joke (one gulp max even at large, apparently).
The quirkiness of the concept is followed all the way through, from the décor to the small design details. So I loved the little messages on the crockery (‘scrumptious’, ‘more please!’, ‘still hungry?’) and the ingenious way the menu was split up – the mains divided into Land and Sea (for where the animal making up your dish roamed when it was alive), Liquids for soups, Bits n Bobs for sides, Raw & Green for salads and Happy Ending (keep those perverted sex jokes to yourself!) for desserts. The ambience was lovely and relaxed, with some interesting little features; pictured are the punked-up Lego ‘SML baby’ outside the restaurant, the cool light fittings and one of the sweet $10 Ikea cacti that are thrown about the place with artful abandon.
It’s the little things that are ultimately what make the big picture great (as is always the case with Press Room Group restaurants, like The Pawn and The Press Room itself), so I can safely say it is those small touches and quirky twists that will have me coming back to SML again. Well, that and the angelic butterscotch sauce of course.
SML, 11/F, Times Square, 1 Matheson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2577 3444; open 11.30am-11pm.
Terrible headline aside, the very serious news this post brings you is that Sephora is closing in Hong Kong.
As a VIP member of Sephora (i.e. I have a loyalty card), I received an oddly-worded email last week telling me Sephora was ceasing ‘operations in Hong Kong market for strategic reasons’. All my VIP points would expire on March 31 but in the meantime, there was a clearance sale with up to 70% off to be had. My boyfriend and I duly made the trek to Mong Kok this Saturday and the photo of crazed women screaming that accompanied the email (see below) turned out to be scarily accurate. The shop was literally teeming.
I duly deposited my boyfriend in the 40-minute long queue that snaked around the entire shop whilst I tried to grab some bargains. What became obvious was that half these bargain-hunters had never set foot in Sephora before – as they jostled over the near-empty concession of Sephora’s own range of make-up to grab one of the few horrible shades of eyeshadow that remained (who cares?! It’s only $10!!!), I simply darted downstairs where an identical counter stood, albeit much better-stocked and in a location where I was able to breathe without getting my face wedged up someone’s sweaty armpit.
HKers are notoriously crazy for bargains – I’ve seen a line snake down an entire road in Causeway Bay for what turned out to be free mini-packs of Tic-Tacs, cordons set up at midnight for the Lane Crawford sale and when Happy Valley Racecourse gave away some free souvenir gift-sets, several elderly people were injured in the ensuing crush and commotion – so the crowds at Sephora did not surprise me. They certainly surprised the staff who looked on with an air of bewilderment and fear, like aliens shown the store to illustrate the concept of ‘crowd’ (or merely ‘crazy HK people’).
I might not know much about business (although according to Sir Alun Sugar, all it takes is an ability to not bull-shit or arse-lick, in which case I’m good to go) but I do know about make-up and Sephora’s demise is frustrating because they were doing so much right and had spotted a unique position in the sprawling HK cosmetics market. Unlike standalone stores selling just one brand (MAC, NARS, Clinique), Sephora housed several under one very spacious and luxurious roof. So do department stores like Lane Crawford, I hear you cry – but there, each concession is manned by an individual who takes the trouble to give you the hard sell for their brand alone. Other cosmetics stores in Hong Kong offering several brands certainly do not fall into the leisurely shopping experience category. Watsons and Mannings are more pharmacists, stocking standard drugstore cosmetics brands alongside cough medicines and condoms, whilst the likes of Sasa, Colormix and Bonjour are akin to cosmetics cash-and-carries – yes, their stuff is a little cheaper than the recommended retail price but that means stock supply is unpredictable (we couldn’t possibly speculate as to its ‘fallen off the back the van’ nature), any customer service above the likes of ‘That’ll be $20 please’ is out the window, and goods are stuffed into the shop with about as much care as a toddler cramming toys back into play-box.
Sephora’s staff were genuinely knowledgeable about all their ranges and offered relatively unbiased recommendations. The downstairs floor that so many of the bargain-hunters didn’t even know existed housed dressing tables where you could get free make-up consultations and apply different products to your heart’s content. The VIP card was not exactly a great deal (then again, what loyalty cards ever are?! but at least it was making an effort to give something back, with less strings attached than most VIP cards I’ve picked up along the way (ridiculously-high minimum spends are a perennial favourite).
And Sephora’s own range of make-up was brilliant. Their range of cosmetics was huge, covering every product under the sun, and married quality with reasonable prices. Their skincare range was equally dependable without costing the earth and their range of accessories (brushes, bags, tweezers etc) was extensive. This range was, of course, the most heavily discounted in the closing down sale and I stocked up on their eyeliner pencils (with a range of colours in such great quality bettered only by Urban Decay’s 24/7 pencils IMHO) and their cleansing water, a fantastic product that tackles eye make-up too whilst being gentle and not at all greasy. Basically, for someone that misses Boots and its brilliant Advantage Card as much as I miss anything from England, Sephora was the closest I could get.
That’s not to say they didn’t do anything wrong. The Mong Kok location raised expertly-plucked eyebrows from the start. Mong Kok may be a tourist hotspot for its Ladies Market (an open-air street market selling cheap tat souvenirs and designer fakes) but with its array of street food, pokey shops and hectic bustling streets, the atmosphere is very “local”. Sephora, with its feeling of quality, luxury and an airy ambience, would have fared better amongst the designer stores of Tsim Sha Tsui, the fashionable shopping mecca of Causeway Bay, or in gweilo central, the cunningly-named Central.
Elsewhere around the world, Sephora stores stock brands or items exclusive to their stores as prime draws to make-up mavens like myself. But Sephora HK was filled with brands that you could have procured easily at the same price in department shores or even in their own shops in malls without having to brave the Mong Kok masses (and potential acid attacks), whilst the few exclusives they did garner (excepting the BareMinerals range, for which there was a lot of positive press) did not have great brand recognition. Take just one look at the list of brands on either Sephora France or US to see how we’ve been short-changed here.
And, as the bargain brouhaha described above shows, a few more sales, promotions or freebies couldn’t have hurt – Sephora’s regular VIB promotions are the stuff of legend on beauty blogs worldwide. I hope somewhere out there a Sephora executive is reading this blog and making careful notes, as I’m sure Sephora will return soon enough (they already have 41 stores in China and over 1000 globally, though strangely none in the UK). And next time, Mr Sephora man, please bring Urban Decay with you.
Alphabeat’s Fascination may well be one of my favourite songs of the last decade. Essentially Footloose re-spun Scandi-style, ground-breaking stuff it certainly wasn’t, but sold with such a boundless joie de vivre that you couldn’t help but smile (and the ‘Word is on your lips… say the word!’ section is just shiny pop brilliance). Sadly but perhaps not unexpectedly, there is nothing to match Fascination, or even some of This Is Alphabeat’s lesser moments, on new record The Beat Is…
Whilst This Is Alphabeat saw the Danish band channelling the 80s in their inimitably feelgood fashion, The Beat Is… sees them mining the sounds of 90s dance acts (Black Box, Corona, Haddaway, Snap! et al) for inspiration. If you were frantically throwing shapes to Rhythm Is A Dancer whilst wearing shapeless clothes, perhaps you will fall for The Beat Is… but for me, the resulting marriage between house beats and sparkly Scandipop is far from successful. At times, some arrangements even seem to veer dangerously into pastiche.
Nevertheless, lead single, The Spell, does come close to recapturing Fascination’s magic (spell… magic – see what I did there?!), helped in no small part by the vocals of sole female Stine Bramsen, which retain their glorious radiance – shame these are often computerised to oblivion elsewhere. The other delight that remains in tact from This Is Alphabeat is the interplay between Stine and male vocalist, Anders; in an age where mixed-sex pop groups are an endangered species (in the UK and US markets specifically), this is a joy to listen to and it’s no coincidence that this occurs on pretty much all of the album’s best songs.
DJ and second single Hole In My Heart manage to turn the old-school beats into something new and alluring whilst Heatwave makes the most of the album’s unexceptional lyrics (mostly about being really really into someone… like really) by perfectly capturing the dizzy delirium of being in lust, but after a while, the beats start to grate. This is compounded by what feels like the vitality being slowly sucked out of the group throughout the ten-track duration – at times, it feels like a somewhat lifeless Alphabeat are content to let the beats do all the talking, resulting in dirge like Chess and Q & A that I have about as much desire to revisit as I do 90s fashion.
Remember those ads that had the Duracell bunny hopping about ceaselessly in contrast to the other one powered by the nameless-for-legal-reasons battery that slowly winded down after an initial spout of energy? Well, This Is Alphabeat is the Duracell bunny, still exuberant, fun and packed to the brim with joie de vivre two years on; no prizes for guessing which rabbit I’m comparing The Beat Is… to. Alphabeat could probably be catchy in their sleep – shame they seem to have taken me a bit too literally on this occasion.
A while ago, I hastily-penned a short article expressing my disdain for the whole Sugababes v.27 thing. Just a few months later, in their eternal bid to prove that anything the Brits can do the Yanks can do better, the Pussycat Dolls are making the Sugababes incident seem like an event of ‘kid pushes over other kid’s sandcastle’ magnitude.
It currently looks as if Nicole Scherzinger is the last Doll standing – a mean feat considering she wasn’t even a Doll in the first place (she was added to give ‘vocal strength’ when the burlesque troupe became a band). Given that Scherzinger apparently manages to sing both lead and backing vocals on When I Grow Up (meaning should the post of PCD magician become vacant, Scherzinger is a dead cert), any other members are clearly dispensable and amidst tales of dressing rooms, drug tests, regulated screen-time in videos, non-sharing of vocals, broken ribs and even homelessness, Kimberly Wyatt, Jessica Sutta and Ashley Roberts have all confirmed their departures. The exit of Melody Thornton, the only other member even allowed within breathing space of a microphone and who had an outburst live on stage about not being ‘featured’ (a reference to the band’s new name of “Pussycat Dolls feat. Nicole Scherzinger” on their last singles), surely cannot be far off.
The fact that you’re probably scratching your heads trying to place these names – that’s if you’re even bothering attempting to place them at all (and no, none of them are the one who looked like a he-she – that was Carmit Bachar and she left 2 years ago) – illustrates the problem. These other members were little more than glorified back-up dancers for Scherzinger and in fact, salaried employees of the record company. This means they picked up pay cheques for a set amount just like you, me or any other average Joe flipping burgers at the local Machouse.
This already promoted the idea that members were interchangeable – in any corporation, no-one is irreplaceable – and this has led to a somewhat blasé attitude amongst some commentators regarding PCD’s (as we know them) demise. But this isn’t a corporation, it’s a pop band. You put these girls on every single record sleeve, you have an official website where each has a member profile, you send them out touring and you do this over the course of five whole years – of course, their job status is a little different to your average Joe flipping burgers and should be treated as such. It’s a little sad if we just shrug our shoulders and continue to lap up whatever material Scherzinger and her chorus line put out next.
The notion of modern pop fandom means having some connection with the individuals in the group, for better or for worse. Yes, yes, it should all be about the music blah blah blah but where would the fun be in that? People inevitably develop favourite members, bustling fansites and forums emerge and Thornton, Wyatt and Roberts have approximately 90,000 followers on Twitter between them; to the hardcore fans, the staple of pop groups who rely on such fans to religiously buy singles even when they’re at the tricky dodgy ballad stage, these women are not just interchangeable faces – whatever Robin Antin, the brains (and the botox) behind brand PCD, may believe.
Compare and contrast the videos for the lead single and last singles from the Doll Domination album campaign. By the end, the other members are lucky to get 20 seconds screen-time between them and aren’t even bothering to lip-sync to backing vocals. It shows disrespect to the fans, disrespect to real bands whose performances aren’t a total charade and disrespect to the girls themselves.
Line-up changes, bust-ups and messy splits are practically written into girl groups’ DNA and I daresay that if the Pussycat Dolls, in whatever Nicole-centric incarnation (lest we forget she had a prolonged crack at solo stardom and comprehensively flopped), continue to release highly-commercial material of a similar calibre to their work in the past, they will continue to sell decently. To lose one band member is bad luck, to lose two is carelessness… to lose four in one fell swoop hints at deeper problems. I hope the press give them a hard time because they genuinely deserve it. Come back Sugababes v.48, all is forgiven.
Ages ago, in a dim and distant millennia, Benefit’s Get Bent brush was my very first make-up miracle. I proclaimed it the only make-up brush worth having and that its prowess for applying eyeliner was unbeaten. Well, that hasn’t changed. But now, I have found the perfect eyeliner for it to apply. Step forward Clinique’s Brush-On Cream Eyeliner.
Having never mastered the art of liquid eyeliner without looking like a jellyfish inked in my eye and sick of pencil eyeliners sliding down my face and making me look like a panda practically before I put it on (especially in HK’s humidity), it was obvious some kind of middle ground was required. Cream/gel eyeliner, here we come.
Clinique’s is certainly not the only cream/gel eyeliner on the market yet in my opinion, it’s the best. Having sped through Mac’s, Bobbi Brown’s and even my beloved Benefit’s without getting a feel for them being ‘The One’, I turned to the ever-dependable Clinque for answers.
Clinique the brand is practically a make-up miracle for me in itself. It’s one of those reliable, safe and well-regarded companies whose make-up counters are not fronted by some Next Top Model also-ran trying to plaster every shade of her brand’s eyeshadow on at once, but by someone in a white coat. Oooh, science-y. All their stuff is allergy-tested (7200 times for each product fyi) and 100% fragrance-free, which is great if you have sensitive skin. Or in this case, sensitive eyes – like me.
Admittedly, Clinique’s Cream Eyeliner can’t compete with Mac in terms of colour – the four shades available (Black, Brown, Grey and Black Honey) are squint-and-they-all-look-the-same similar – but it beats them on every other front. It goes on like a dream, stays put all-day (pretty much the only eyeliner I’ve found that does so) and can be fiddled about with easily for either a low-key daytime look or a sultry and sexy night out.
My shade of choice is Smoke Grey – softer and less harsh than pure black for day but can still be layered on for proper darkness come the midnight hour. My appliance of choice, as you’ve established, is the Get Bent brush, which sweeps it on at precise angles to achieve the perfect flick. And my place of choice is perpetual residence in my make-up bag, where one tiny pot seems to take on Tardis-like levels of seeming bigger than it is by lasting forever; it genuinely is my ‘Can’t Live Without/Desert Island Essential’ product ever since I developed a deep-seated addiction to eyeliner in my teens. Thankfully, my look is a little more grown-up than the smudgy-eyed racoon style I sported in those days – and I’ve got Clinique to thank for it.
Clinique Brush-On Cream Eyeliner, $130 for 5g (doesn’t sound much but lasts well over a year!)
This was also originally published on Teentoday.co.uk, which has since fallen down a giant snarky-pop-writing consuming Internet manhole (RIP). So I wanted to post this here as I think it’s a pretty good interview if I do say so myself… and because Earth vs The Pipettes is holding up pretty well actually, as I listen to it whilst typing this very sentence!
They may not have the costumes of Gaga, the “Samson-esque lesbian haircut” of Bieber or the peen-grabbing devotees of Teentoday fave Fugative. Hell, they aren’t even part of our indie music exploration remit and were definitely not involved in the controversial Race for Life charity single. But they did talk to us. So behold, our interview with The Pipettes(or at least one of them…we’re thinking Gwenno) and here’s hoping it goes better than our Stop The Music shit or hit which you loved so much, it rapidly became a depository for Bananarama spam:
So are all the polka dot dresses burning on an incinerator somewhere?
Ha! No, quite the opposite really… I’d say they were on ice for a little while.
How is it working with your sister? Do you squabble over who gets the lead or are you over all that sibling rivalry?
It’s really great working with my sister; we’re quite hard on each other sometimes but it’s great knowing you can really rely on someone. The trust is there naturally and we both want what’s best for the other and for the band. There is more chance we squabble over who has to carry the dresses than anything else… I usually end up carrying them! Pah!
A couple of people are comparing you to Bananarama (partly their early sound, partly the line-up changes!). Is this a comparison you like/understand/are actively basing your sound on?
We don’t mind that comparison at all. We’ve frequently referenced Stock, Aitken & Waterman when discussing our love of British pop music and so Bananarama sit nicely in there. The new sound and image for our second album was something that was discussed a good while before the band finished touring the first album. It’s an evolution that would have inevitably happened regardless of line-up changes.
The Our Love Was Saved By Spacemen viral video was ermmm… interesting. What did you think of you with a moustache? Fanciable?
Better interesting than boring, eh? We just wanted to give something that was fun and a bit light-hearted to the fans that had hung in there while we got ourselves together over the past couple of years. It was our Valentine’s Day gift to them; we actually didn’t realise so many people would see it! A cheeky moustache now and again never hurt anyone… why not!
How would you describe the sound of Earth vs The Pipettes? Can you tell us about your favourite tracks?
The sound on our new album is a lot more dance-oriented, a lot of disco beats in there. It’s fuller, it’s bigger and it’s a lot louder; a bit of an obnoxious cousin to the first record, it’s demanding to be heard. My favourite tracks change daily. There are certain ones I like to listen to and others I love to sing so it really depends. I do love From Today today and everyday.
Who would win in a fight to the end in Earth vs The Pipettes then? Surely two girls taking on the whole planet is a bit much? What are your special moves?
The Pipettes will win hands down! We just plan to brainwash everyone with our songs, simples.
Since your single’s called Stop The Music, what music would you like to see stopped for good? Specifics please.
I love pop music; I don’t love most of what’s on the radio BUT what I would say is that any bad music out there makes the good music oh-so-much better. There are so many talented people out there but most of the pop music we hear on the radio is written and produced by the same people. That’s why we’re so proud of our album – RedOne didn’t get anywhere near it!
We’re pleased that even if you’ve dropped most of the influences from your first album, the Stop The Music vid sees you keep your propensity for the dance routine. Can we expect more classic Pipettes dances from the rest of the album? Will we get Youtube tutorials?
Of course! We will never stop dancing, that would be criminal! We wouldn’t know what to do! You can, of course, expect more classic Pipettes dances, some spacey shakes and some other-worldy twists… all in the name of POP!
The electro bandwagon – will The Pipettes be boarding or do you think the end for that sound is nigh?
The only thing we’ll be boarding is our spaceship. Since the band was formed six years ago, we’ve done exactly what we’ve wanted musically and we’ll keep doing just that. We’re still in search of the perfect pop song and we’ll keep writing songs until we make it, synth or no synth.
OK… we have to talk about the line-up changes (sorry!). Is Gwenno the scariest girl in pop since Keisha Buchanan or is she just misunderstood? Did you ever feel like jacking it all in? What made you decide to carry on?
Things are never as they seem; I can’t talk for Keisha but it’s really not easy being in a band. You can work really really really hard for a long time and it can seem that there is no reward – it’s at this point that a lot of people decide to give up. We thought again and again about throwing in the towel but the only thing that kept us going was the belief we had in the songs we had made together.
It’s obvious from some other interviews that you’re very clued up on the music scene. Can we have a few Pipettes views on:
– Will The Saturdays ever be good? I thought their first album was very very good.
– Will Girls Aloud get back together and if they don’t, will pop music that great ever be made again? I can’t really imagine them doing another album but it would be pretty incredible if they did, you never know. Xenomania are still churning out amazing British pop music and keeping the standard very high so there is a pretty good chance that we’ll have great pop music for a while to come.
– Should the Sugababes carry on? I don’t see why not? About You Now was an amazing song and they could still have more amazing songs.
– Would La Roux have been all-conquering if she hadn’t had “The Quiff”? Why of course. It’s a great and solid pop album but me oh my, that is one mighty quiff!
– Any other music recommendations? Music Go Music, Fun., Lucky Soul and always go back and listen to the early Madonna records, sooo good!
– Would you ever have auditioned for The X Factor? Could either of you have been Dorothy on Over The Rainbow? No no no to X Factor but I want to be Glinda or Toto please!
And finally… Pull Shapes is an amazing song. That’s all really. I just wanted to thank you for bringing it into existence.
Why thank you!
Earth vs The Pipettes (what a ‘disco in space’ where ‘all the genres and styles that have set the dance floor going for the last fifty years were loaded onto a rocket and fired into the stars’ would sound like – a soundbite too good to be confined to a press release, methinks) is out now.
This was originally published on Teentoday.co.uk, which has since been lost to the dark dusty recesses of the Internet’s store cupboard (RIP). So I wanted to share it on here as Nerina is not only an amazing singer-songwriter but also a very fun interviewee…
Here at Teentoday, we’ve been crossing our fingers for the day when Nerina Pallot makes it big so we can say we told you about her first. You know, like we did with Girls Can’t Catch, The Dolly Rockers and VV Brown… whadd’ya mean, who?!
Anyway, in celebration of the recent release of Nerina’s really-rather-good single, Put Your Hands Up (which has received regular-blasting-out-of-speakers status at Teentoday Towers) and its parent album, Year Of The Wolf (nothing to do with Twilight), we had a little chat with the woman herself about all sorts of important matters. You know, like Cheryl Cole’s hair, the probability of her doing grime, Arsenal’s goalkeeper and mistakenly insinuating that she’s an old lady. Oops. We let her talk about serious stuff too, promise!
We’re loving your new song Put Your Hands Up and the one-take dance-athon video… but how come you’re not busting out a few more dance moves here and there? We wanted to see your funky chicken!
Nobody needs to see my funky chicken, let me tell you.
Can you fill us in on what exactly was the ‘inappropriate content’ that got Put Your Hands Up taken off Youtube? Too much dancing?
That’s right, it was too much of my funky chicken…. Um, no, basically Chris Moyles tweeted the link to the video and it went from a few hundred views to a few thousand in a matter of minutes, so YouTube thought something weird was going on. But it was Moyles. He broke my vid! Ha.
Is it true that PYHU was originally written for Kylie?
I wrote it with my husband around the time we were writing tracks for her last album and there is a track called Put Your Hands Up on that too which is where the confusion has happened I think.
We love the PYHU Like It’s 1987 remix even more! Any chance of you giving some similarly poptastic remixes to some of your older stuff? Or doing the remixed version at live shows?
I’m very tempted. I’m very tempted to make a two-CD album where one is acoustic and the other is bubblegum pop versions of the same songs. [This sounds AMAZING. Make it happen Nerina. And then credit us for giving you the idea too!]
Can you tell us more about the sound of your forthcoming album, Year Of The Wolf? How does it compare to your previous releases?
It’s a little more reflective than my last album The Graduate, but also a bit more epic I think. Loads of strings, brass, all sorts.
Any particular favourite tracks you can tell us about?
I’m really pleased with the way Put Your Hands Up turned out, it was so much fun to record. There is another song on the album called Grace, which means a lot to me, and was recorded the night before my son was born.
You dressed up as a rabbit for your last album, The Graduate. Can we expect to see a wolf costume this time? Any howling/Shakira gyrating in a cage antics up your sleeve?
Everyone thought that I would be in a wolf costume on the cover. But no. It’s just me, with a hat on. Not very Shakira at all.
You sing your own material yet also write for other people like Kylie Minogue and Diana Vickers. Is it hard to give up your songs or do you enjoy hearing other people’s interpretations of your lyrics?
I feel really honoured when people choose to record my songs. I wrote them for as many people as possibly to hear them, so I never feel like I’m giving them up!
Any good gossip on Kylie or Diana?
My lips are sealed…
You write and produce with your husband. How’s that feed into the work/life balance? Any blazing rows over the speakers?
No, my other half Andy is the only person I can co-write with and not feel self-conscious.
I read that you “struggle with the co-writing process” and have discarded lots of co-written songs in the past. How come?
Because I felt like I wasn’t being honest or really myself with someone else in the room who I didn’t know really well. As a songwriter, you often go into a room with someone you barely know to do something that can be quite soul baring and emotional, and I seize up in those situations.
It feels like you’ve always been “on the cusp” of being the next big thing. How did you get over things like being dropped from your record contract and “disappointing” chart positions, and carry on?
I guess I’ve always done music for music’s sake – so I just keep making music regardless of whether it goes in the chart or not. That stuff has never motivated me – writing the best songs I possibly can does.
You take a lot of cover requests via Twitter for your live streams. Are there any songs that you deem un-coverable? Can we hope for Nerina’s take on rap or grime?
I wouldn’t know where to begin with Chipmunk. That kind of stuff just hurts my ears, it’s totally lost on me. And I like a lot of hip hop but it’s just nonsense to me. Nah. No grime covers from me any time soon.
You’ve been “in the industry” for a long time now; what are your thoughts on the whole X Factor/Idol breeding ground of pop stars? After the whole Cheryl Cole fiasco, would you ever be a judge on these panel shows?
I think it’s important that these shows exist. I think it’s unlikely we’re gonna get the next Prince or even Adele from one of them, but they’ve always existed. I just wish the music the artists released was a bit more creative and less predictable. Yeah, I can totally see myself as the new Cheryl Cole. I mean, come on, I’m worth it, aren’t I?!
How do you balance the demands of being a pop star with having a baby?
I don’t really think I’m a pop star and he comes first really, so it’s how do I fit everything in around him.
Your son is called Wolfgang Amadeus. Surely, with a name like that, a career in pop stardom beckons? Is he showing any musical inclinations yet?
Well, mad as it sounds, we just gave him that name ‘cos we loved it, not ‘cos we wanted him to be a musician, but… yes, he is already really into the music. It’s quite scary!
You’re a renowned Arsenal fan. As a girlfriend who is abandoned every weekend for the Arsenal game, can you give me any tips on how to improve my fandom? Are you also as stressed about Almunia [Arsenal’s crap goalkeeper who apparently ruins their chances every game] as my boyfriend is?
The problem is, this Almunia stress has been going on for YEARS, and it shows no sign of going away, so your boyfriend might be a bit stressed for a while longer. If you’re still not sure about whether to go to a game, think about this: if you get decent seats, you get to see hot fit young men running around all sweaty, and depending where you’re sitting, you get to see them bending over a lot and taking their tops off. Believe me, it can really cheer a girl up on a rainy Saturday afternoon….
You also recently completed a degree in English Lit. Why did you decide to go back to that? Were you ever bullied by any of the young and hip teens on your course? [There used to be an eighty year-old mature student on my English course called Eve and someone set up a Facebook Fan Page saying she was one of the original characters from Paradise Lost and may also have appeared in The Canterbury Tales… It got shut down.]
Are you saying I’m EIGHTY? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING?! I was actually not the oldest person on my course actually so no, no bullying went on. Even though I realised the other day that I am old enough to be Justin Bieber’s mother, and that made me want a little lie-down.
Finally, a few quick pop questions:
– Fave Spice Girl? Sporty – Mel C.
–Britney Spears: still got it or past it? Past it, which breaks my heart.
–Cheryl Cole: nation’s sweetheart or bored already? A bit bemused by it in the first place. I mean, she beats people up in toilets. But she has lovely hair.
–Fantasy X Factor judging line-up? Simon Cowell, Anne Robinson, Robbie Williams and Me.
–Favourite Kylie era (Aphrodite bias nonwithstanding)?Confide in Me and the whole Kylie Minogue album era. Amazing. She should start wearing specs again, she looked incredible.
– Lady Gaga: insanely awesome or getting a bit much? Aargh. Getting a bit much, but only just.
– Biggest pop star crush? George Michael. I still haven’t quite come to terms with the fact that we won’t be settling down and raising kids and small animals together.
– Tip for one to watch? Birdy, she’s got an amazing voice and is still about 8 years old or something.
– Greatest musical inspiration? Kate Bush. If I’m old, she’s like your granny or something.
Nerina’s latest album, Year Of The Wolf, is out now. It’s quite good.
Metaphors, similes, clichés – they’ve all been done before about Diana Vickers‘ “unique” voice and I really can’t be arsed to think of my own. Let’s just say that following her appearance on X Factor, I was firmly in the ‘strangled cat/baby in pain/nails down a blackboard/yodelling donkey’ camp and that was before I even noticed the crazed clutching action of The Claw™. So for me to be telling you that Diana Vickers’ album sampler (title: Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree) is blow-me-away brilliant is quite something, right?
Not even that bleating goat’s wail can keep material this good down. It’s everything Ellie Goulding’s marketing men wish she was – and more. Refreshing, breezy and hang on, genuinely quite exciting pop? From an X Factor also-ran loopy enough to find man-child Eggnog Quigg attractive? Sorry, I think I just saw Lazarus re-gaining his sight over there…
Once – If you love this, I can safely say you’ll probably enjoy the rest of the sampler. This synthy, bleepy, breathy triumph was masterminded by Cathy Dennis (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, Toxic, About You Now) and Eg White (Leave Right Now); the killer stomp of the chorus is proof that pop pedigree like that will always out.
Remake Me And You – This is basically Once with its finger pressed firmly on the fast forward button. Frenzied and fantastic, it speeds by quicker than a boy-racer in a souped-up Volkswagen. The final strangulated ‘Yaaaaaaaaooooooooowwwww’ (translation: you) does remind you that this is a Diana Vickers record though.
The Boy Who Murdered Love – This is basically Once with its finger idling on the slo-mo button. The chorus is insanely catchy (‘Shot shot shot shot shot like a bullet/Stop stop stop stop stop all your loving’), there’s a nice lyric about roses turning from red to black and a wonderful last ten seconds of pounding drums. The whole track has a nice heartbroken throb to it.
My Hip – This song made me wonder if Vickers could be the UK’s answer to Shakira. There’s an exotic-sounding zesty brass segment set against Speedy Gonzales attacking the drum and bass, plus quirky lyrics (‘Your hand is back where it belongs/On my hip, on my hip!’) and the distinctive warbling llama voice. Now we just need Vickers to start comparing herself to a coffee machine with humble breasts and gyrate in a cage for the video for the transformation to be complete. Shakira comparisons apart, this song is breathtakingly awesome. If I had a press release for this album, this would be the title I’d be fluorescently-highlighting and drawing asterisks around manically.
Put It Back Together Again – Nerina Pallot penned. Take one listen and that much is obvious. Pallot manages to break my heart like no other songwriter of the moment. Sweeping, swooshy and a full-on seven shades of gorgeous, it doesn’t just make Vickers’ voice seem relatively inoffensive yet actually turns it into a thing of beauty. Starts off slowly before becoming a crashing whirl of epic lush-ness and just when you think it’s done getting better, it proves you wrong by adding some haunting ‘ooohs’. A masterclass in clever construction, it expertly applies the brakes and then slams down again full-throttle for maximum emotional impact aided by simple yet devastating lyrics. ‘If you think you’re sinking, you probably are… I never said I loved you quite enough, I hope it’s not too late… I’m going to tell you I love you one more time, again and again… you’ve got to fall apart and put it back together again.’ Jesus Pallot, you do it to me every time. *Wipes away tear something in my eye*
I'm Rachel Read, a Hong Kong-based freelance writer and editor, make-up addict and general layabout. I'm powered by bacon, cupcakes, nail polish and the needs of two cute Yorkies.
All products/meals were paid for by me, unless otherwise stated.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material (including photos) without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rachel Read and Through The Looking Glass with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Through The Looking Glass 