Class album by The Cardigans from 1998 — never saw the video for Erase/Rewind until 12 years later last night!

Everybody! Stay calm! Don’t panic! It’s really been 11 years since Mystical Machine Gun was released and it still sounds great.

A great cover of an old classic by Florence + The Machine, and a very distracting video, I must say.

The release of Screamadelica in 1991 brought decadence and hedonism crashing into the pop charts. With Andrew Weatherall (of Two Lone Swordsmen fame) at the controls, Primal Scream transformed from a bluesy rock band into sonic pioneers of beautiful noise that you could rock and dance to.

While “Come Together” and “Loaded” probably received the most air play, I’d rate “Higher Than The Sun” and the 13th Floor Elevators’ cover, “Slip Inside This House” as the best tracks on this album. I remember reading a review back in the day that said that this album was ‘of its time, and yet timeless’ — there’s probably no better way to describe this ’90s classic.

For more than four weeks, I have been listening non-stop to the new Kasabian album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. This, my friends, is my album of the year so far. Thick, fuzzy beats and dirty synths make this album a very addictive listen, despite the occasional aggro ‘ladrock’ lyric. This is like Primal Scream’s XTRMNTR with all the energy and production values but without the political leanings and manic intensity.

One major disappointment has to be the album cover photography and the inlay art. On a conceptual level, the photography works but dressing up the band and shooting them almost feels like an easy way out. The art direction on the inlay is nothing to write (or type) home about either. Not bad, but graphically not great enough for an outstanding album.

Assorted collection of undated photos of The Quarrymen on some non-English forum.

What an absolutely stunning game intro video! If you’re a Beatles fan or an animation fan, you’ll like this — if you’re a fan of both, you’ll be left speechless. The beginning minute or so of the animation is in a flat Manga-style (which I am no big fan of). It gets into mind-bending brilliance in the second half (just as the guys get on the escalator).

What a sweet video and what a sweet way to encapsulate the early and later (and better) Beatles’ discography; I can’t get over it. I just want to keep watching it again and again and again…

After Karen O and Co’s awesome Show Your Bones, you would do well not to be too overwhelmed with the new album, It’s Blitz. Throbbing, pulsing disco synths sugar coat the music to the point where you will get instant tooth decay (as if it were). Save for the unexpected transition from great guitar rock to synthesizer dependent sonority, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs completely bring the house down with great melodies and Karen O’s voice. One of the highlights has to be “Heads Will Roll“, an absolutely infectious song that’s destined for the dancefloor.

A couple of days ago, I did something which I hadn’t done since I was a 17 year old teenager — I went out and bought a new Guns N’ Roses album. Chinese Democracy went through 14 studios, burnt millions of dollars in production and was made over a total of 13 years.

Axl Rose’s voice is as piercing as ever and he sounds in stunning form throughout the album. The album sounds pretty polished and the production quality is just great.

But the album is a complete let-down. The album art is stunningly bland, despite the fact that Axl Rose had more than a decade to figure out how the cover could look like. The music sounds badly, badly dated: hair metal is dead, grunge has come and gone, nu metal/rap rock pushed some boundaries but Guns N’ Roses were probably in some kind of deep frozen stasis mode to even notice.

And for a hard rock album, the tempo is just horrid. There are just no fast-paced tracks to be found; just ballads and other pieces of cheesy, passable music that have minimal melody and are completely hook-free. After listening to the album almost 10 times, I still can’t remember enough to hum a damn tune from this album that was made by the band which brought us classics like Paradise City.

No, wait… the ‘band’ is now just Axl Rose and a bunch of contract musicians. This band should really have been called Hired Guns N’ Axl Rose. And they should have put this album out in 1996, not 2008.

This is only the second Coldplay record I have in my possession. Someone gifted me the sappy, moody but not-really-that-bad Parachutes album many years ago, and I bought Viva La Vida, Or Death and All His Friends because the cover invoked a bizarre feeling of optimism in me. Even more bizarrely, I also bought it, despite not really liking Coldplay, because I wanted to see if there was any new musical reason to like Chris Martin and Co.

Sadly, I have to say that they still sound like they want to be U2. The guitars sound like a homage to The Edge, and the epic atmospherics of the album sound very Joshua Tree-like. They have Brian Eno as a producer which probably doesn’t help. I’m sure there are definitely U2 fans out there who dig Coldplay but I obviously am not one of them.

My theory is that Coldplay figured that since they were incapable of rivaling the cutting edge Radiohead stuff, they might as well try and fill be the biggest stadium rock band mould created by U2.

As a consolation, thanks to Coldplay’s massive fan base, at least I know I can get a good price at Cash Converters for this CD next week.

Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It’s more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom?

›› Chuck Klosterman reviews Chinese Democracy

The weird, ridiculous lyrics and John McCrea’s lazy, deadpan delivery are why many people dislike Fashion Nugget, and CAKE’s music in general. The weird, ridiculous lyrics and John McCrea’s lazy, deadpan delivery are exactly why I absolutely love this album, on top of the excellent and wide ranging influences and ability this band has. This album spawned two radio hits (The Distance and the cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive) for this alternative rock band from Sacramento and it’s very high on my list of albums I hope to somehow have in my possession if I find myself marooned on a deserted island. (It goes without saying that I must have a CD player on hand if I find myself marooned on the said deserted island, but I digress…)

Mashups don’t come better than Danger Mouse’s 2004 effort, The Grey Album, which combined an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z’s Black Album with instrument samples from The Beatles’ White Album. Completely unauthorised and deemed illegal, very few people have the promo vinyls that were initially pressed. You will not find it on CD or on iTunes (or maybe you can) but you know for sure that it can be found floating around in the deep bowels of the interwebs.

Find The Grey Album at your own discretion/risk, but almost as good as the audio mashup is a video mashup done for one of the tracks. Not the most polished video in the world, but I guess the idea was good.

[The] last time AC/DC made No 1 in Britain, the country was on the brink of recession. Back In Black, the album that marked their commercial breakthrough and went on to become the second biggest-selling of all time, was released in 1980, just as inflation had reached 20% and unemployment inched towards 2 million.

›› The Guardian analyses the timings of AC/DC’s chart successes

Realising their miserable failure as indie rockers, the now defunct Simian branched out sideways into the dance side of the indie spectrum as Simian Mobile Disco. Their 2007 release Attack Decay Sustain Release is a collection of mostly punchy, light and hook-laden dance tracks. Given their rock roots, this is admittedly rather effete dance music fare but you won’t really care or notice once you get into it.

Simian Mobile Disco are actually in town and will be playing at Zouk tonight. It’s probably going to be an awesome set and, unless you are pregnant or otherwise limited in mobility, you really have no excuse not to be there tonight.