SONIC REVUE : Size isn't important

SONIC REVUE : Size isn't important.

This week Sonic Towers has been gleefully embracing the return of the EP and sneering at yet another bloated singles collection.

POLECAT

Babyshambles, The Blinding EP, The whole idea of releasing an EP is a little strange. They used to be a kind of stopgap between albums designed to sate twitching fans; or the first step for bands hoping to go on and record a first album proper. But what place do they have in 2007? These are, after all, the days of the demon download. It sometimes seems that if you are not in possession of a fancy computer and a wicked fast connection speed, you're not allowed to listen to new music.

When I was a kid (all this was fields, the policeman could cuff children around the ear and) the ultimate dream job was working in HMV. I think now it's being a software programmer or something. Rock 'n' roll, huh.

So, it's nice to have an EP to review. Especially one from Babyshambles, that squalid little band that Pete Doherty started to pass the time until the Libertines would let him back. A suitably hit-and-miss first album (Down in Albion) already under their belt, The Blinding EP sees the lads delivering more of the same, only a little more focussed and, possibly, a little better.

The opening title track nicely fuses a jaunty Foxy Lady riff with a slightly sinister undertow of jangly guitar mayhem. Meanwhile, the pasty fella's voice is on fine form, staying comfortably within the limitations of his signature drawl and selling portentous malevolence like a world-weary end-is-nigh merchant.

Love You But You're Green, inspired by Pinky from Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, is an old number slowed down and given a reworking. Dreamy and wistful, Pete reminds us that he was "a troubled teen" who was told that "it's only blood from broken hearts that writes the words for every song." Explains a lot, I reckon.

It all gets a bit ska on I Wish, probably the EP's strongest song. Think a chilled out Clash messing about before the London Calling tapes started rolling and you'll get the picture. It also includes one of the greatest refrains in recent pop memory: "I wish to God that I'd just been stabbed." Brilliant.

Beg, Steal or Borrow has Tweety sounding more like Joe Strummer than ever, although the song is forgettable: an upbeat, entirely predictable ramble that gets more annoying the longer the song goes on.

Luckily, the EP ends on a high. Or low, depending on which way you swing it, baby. Sedative marries a gloriously dumb singalong chorus to The Bends era Radiohead (i.e. when they had real songs) and is a superbly simple closer.

Babyshambles have such a spanking great dollop of je ne sais quoi that this EP will find plenty of loving homes. Whether it'll turn any cynics is debatable, although I had always counted myself in that particular gang before forcing myself to give this a proper listen.

He is a wretch though, Pete. A hangnail for tabloid twittering, a seemingly hopeless junky and, ergo, that most repugnant of things: a musician more famous for his personal life than his songs. Not that such a state of affairs precludes him from being a genius - although he's not. At least not yet. It just makes it more difficult for the casual listener to separate the man from the myth and listen to his songs without thinking "Ooh! That's the grubby smackhead who's playing doctors and nurses with Kate Moss."

Pity really, because the lad's obviously got a lot going for him. He can write songs, thrash a guitar, sing pretty well, wear silly hats and play doctors and nurses with Kate Moss. And anyone who doesn't want their rock stars to be messy mentalists really doesn't deserve ears.

U2

18 Singles

Loathe U2, do you? Fair enough, I suppose. They can be the most annoying set of puff-monkeys. Sometimes it's hard to know whether Boner is on Larry King Live, or vice versa. And what's with The Edge? Crazy name, crazy hats! Then there's that drummer, Larry Mullen Jr, who looks like Dolph Lundgren's sulky younger brother. And the bass player. Whatsisface.

But, for better or for worse, the chaps have been around for, er, ever and are allowed a singles collection if they want. Well, they would be, if a) they didn't already have two 'best of' collections, charting the years 1980-1990 and 1990-2000, and b) they had included all their biggest singles, including the ones they don't like any more (Discotheque, The Fly, Angel of Harlem etc).

Boy, October, Zooropa and Pop don't feature at all on this collection, glossed over as though they were not truly representative of the band. It's a pity because, in a way, they are completely representative. The first two, with their cod-religious, earnest-young-man pomposity and the latter pair striving to be hip but sounding a bit silly. In a way, the omissions mark the band's boundaries. The points where they overstretched and revealed themselves.

What is included is U2 at their very self-conscious best. Smash hit stadium anthems Sunday Bloody Sunday, With or Without You, One, Walk On et al all sit together very snugly. Like Donald Trump insisting everything he ever touched turned to gold.

The track listing is scattergun, with seemingly no effort made to illustrate the band's (shudder) journey. Maybe that's not important to U2. Maybe it's where they're, like, at. That would certainly explain the compilation leaning so heavily on All That You Can't Leave Behind, and giving the same weighting to 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and 1991's supposedly classic Achtung Baby - their only album releases since Best Of 1990-2000.

The extra tracks are pretty mundane. Recent Green Day collaboration The Saints are Coming, (a Skids cover) released to support of the Hurricane Katrina efforts, is diabolically dull, and Windows in the Skies bought a first class ticket from filler city.

This is a successful band revelling in what they've achieved. Not a band who seem to be trying. Perfect for your dad. Awful for anyone remotely interested in hearing this week's other band.

Bangkok Post
Friday January 12, 2007