Favourite Five*… Modern Classics of Swedish Pop to Hear at Glastonbury This Summer

Indie pop goes the swedish librarian.

If like me you go weak at the knees for swedish girls singing catchy left of centre pop songs then you too will have rejoiced at the recently announced Glastonbury line-up. For this summer there will be (WARNING: lazy Swedish pun approaching) a smorgasbord of swedish pop sirens (BAM!) performing. A relatively small smorgasboard perhaps, one with only enough room for three different catchy melody infused dishes but for the interests of tacky Scandinavian wordplay in this post, a smorgasbord none the less. In honour of this here’s our favourite five* swedish pop songs to sing along with at the world’s greatest festival.

* It’s five plus one fave songs because we love each of these three artists equally so gave them two songs each.

1. THOSE DANCING DAYS – Hitten

Sweetness songified. But not sickly at all.

2. THOSE DANCING DAYS – Those Dancing Days

Can’t think what to call your jaunty new tune? Then just repeat your band name!

3. ROBYN – Dancing On My Own

I’ll dance with you Robyn.

4. ROBYN – Call Your Girlfriend

I haven’t got a girlfriend Robyn. Do you want to be my girlfriend?

5. LYYKE LI – Little Bit

I am more than a little bit in love with you Lykke Li.

(5 +1 =) 6. LYKKE LI – Tonight

Tonight, I’ve been given a restraining order for stalking swedish pop stars. Karin Andersson, watch out.

WE CAN BE HEROES

Short, dialogue-free film by Simon Hutchins (yes, this is blatant nepotism but it really is rather good) that subverts the ‘Apocalypse’ genre. It’s in two parts so you can watch part 1 above or click here to be redirected to vimeo for it, and here for part 2.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Unless you have a particular aversion to fuzzy, anthropomorphised puppet creatures or anything associated with the festive season makes your skin crawl, then you will surely agree that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film ever made. It is impossible to improve on.  (If you are in the position of Christmas cultural poverty in which you’ve never seen the film, then you’ll just have to take my word for it.) However, it is much, much, more than just ‘the greatest Christmas film of all time’, it is also, one of the greatest films of all time of any kind and the greatest musical movie ever. FACT.*

Here are the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is The Greatest:

• Michael Caine as Scrooge is GREAT.
• The Muppets are GREAT.
• The songs are GREAT. (”You know wherever you find love it feels like Christmaaaasss” – aahh)
• The boundary-crossing narrative tool that uses Gonzo (claiming to be Charles Dickens) and Rizzo the Rat as on-screen story tellers who break the fourth wall, directly addressing the viewer whilst at the same time interacting with the characters on screen who are unaware of the viewer, brings an almost Brechtian element to the film. Which is GREAT.

That’s FOUR GREATS! The Muppet Christmas Carol then must be THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE…

Cultpops December I: BBC Sound of 2011 Special

Jai Paul. Front Page image – James Blake.

At this time of year for the last few years the BBC compiles a bullshit list of artists that silly music industry types have told them will be the next big thing of the coming 12 months. Worse than that, the organisers turn it into a knockout competition. Starting with fifteen, then counting down each day until one remains: the artist that will be the ‘Sound’ of the new year. It’s basically just a big promotion stunt by the music industry to promote their new acts. Those that get on the list are those that have the most promotion money and biggest marketing machine behind them. Last year, Ellie Goulding won. The year before, Little Boots. That says it all really. However, there are always a few interesting, and actually good smaller artists that manage to squeeze on the list- Gold Panda and Joy Orbison last year for example. This year there are a handful artists in the list who, although it’s meant to be about 2011, have actually already created some of the best songs of 2010.

See the complete Sound of 2011 list here.

BTSTU by Jai Paul

If music like this song by the definitely J-Dilla influenced londoner Jai Paul is what we can expect more of, then 2011 will be une belle année. We won’t be doing a ‘Best tracks of 2010′ list here on Les Flâneurs, but if we were this would be fighting for the top spot.

Limit To Your Love and CMYK by James Blake

If we are to take the ‘Sound of ‘ list at face value, then the solo male producer/singers making electronic soul and ‘post-dubstep’ (can music journalists please invent a more interesting title if you insist on forcing artists into your own fabricated genres) will dominate whatever it is that people on this list are meant to dominate in the world of music. Certainly not mainstream radio play. The living rooms of music industry and media types? Jai Paul, Daley, Jamie Woon and this guy all fall loosely into that category but Blake perhaps is the most rounded as these two songs prove. CMYK is a Kelis vocal sampling dubstep/house crossover in the vein of two of last year’s ‘Sound of’ artists- Gold Panda and Joy Orbison. Whereas, on Fiest cover Limit To Your Love Blake shows off his own tender vocal talent backed by minimalist piano and electronics to really heighten the lyrics of the song. The truthful idea that someone you love will only love and care for you to a certain point and that you are aware of this really hits home hard. His version is truly heart-wrenching.

Punching A Dream by The Naked And Famous

Ok, this band is nothing more than an Antipodean Passion Pit rip-off and this song certainly doesn’t push the boundaries of new music but hey, it’s lot of fun. And isn’t that the most important thing…

Traktor by Wretch 32

You can tell that the majority of people involved with compiling the ‘Sound of’ list every year are white and middle class as there will usually only be one token black British mc. Last year it was Giggs. This year it’s Wretch 32. Definite ‘cross over potential’ (a term always bandied around during these sort of things) but perhaps Dels would have been a more interesting choice.

Undertow by Warpaint

The all female group is one of only two US bands on the list and also the best guitar band.

Student Protests Photo Essay

Tomorrow, the commons vote on raising tuition fees in England to £9000. Will the result prove the student protests of the last few weeks in London and across the country to have been effective? Or will the vandalism of a few breakaway groups show itself to be harmful to their cause?

Thanks to Oliver Bamfylde at www.theshutterandeye.blogspot.com for the photos.

PEEP SHOW SERIES 7

On first viewing the last couple of series didn’t seem to quite come up to scratch against the irrefutable works of genius that were series 2, 3 and 4. Five and six felt like a bit of a let down in comparison. As if Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong had taken Jez and Mark to their comedy pinnacle and from there on in any further episodes would be following a downward gradient of haha. But on repeated viewings, just like a lot of the best songs, their brilliance shone through. So, there can be no worries about a dip in quality with the start of the seventh series. Can there?*

*If the first episode is anything to go on, the answer is most definitely ‘No’.

Any Human Heart

First things first, Any Human Heart is my favourite book ever. Through the  journals of fictional writer Logan Mountstuart, the reader is given a review of the whole of the twentieth century and shown that, no matter whether we experience extraordinary events in our lives or not, what matters most is the relationships we develop with others. So on hearing several months ago that it was being made into a television drama my heart dropped. I didn’t want the emotional connection that I have with it to be weakened in the future by memories of a lacklustre film representation. And a on a more snobbish level I didn’t want people to end up watching the TV series before they had read the book. Then I heard that Jim Broadbent and Matthew Mcfadden would be two of the three actors to play the protagonist Logan Mountstuart at different stages of his life and my hopes raised a little. And when I heard that William Boyd, the author, was writing the screenplay himself, my hopes raised a lot.

Obviously, as the novel is my favourite book it will be highly unlikely that I will enjoy the dramatisation as much but it’s not fair to judge the two by the same criteria, as I have written about recently (here). Film exists in a much narrower space than the novel and therefore cannot tell stories in the same way or with the same freedom. So I look forward to watching Any Human Heart as a drama and it will be interesting to see what Boyd has decided to focus on, and what he has decided to leave out.

Any Human Heart starts on Thursday at 9pm on Channel 4

Misfits v The Inbetweeners v Skins

In the past five years, television for UK teenagers about UK teenagers has existed with a quantity and quality like never before. This isn’t to say that alongside endless repeats of Come Dine With Me the schedules are now chock-a-block with comedies and dramas about modern British youths smoking, shagging, and stealing. But whereas there used to be no programmes that showed teenagers speaking and acting as they actually would, now there are three hugely popular shows that get somewhere close to doing that: the world conquering Skins; the slow-burner to monster hit comedy The Inbetweeners; and the sci-fi, ASBO melding Misfits. (Although that’s perhaps more ‘early twenties’ rather than ‘teenage’.) All three shows are on E4. That channel is the only place that has been able to produce programmes that portray the actions and language of British teenagers to any sort of realistic degree. Ever since the massive success of Skins launched this current TV trend BBC3 has made a few attempts to replicate it but their rather more sanitised versions have always proved ultimately crap and forgettable.

Yet that’s not to say Skins itself isn’t crap. Let’s not get carried away here with the praise. Skins is crap. Or at least the second-generation seasons are crap. Mainly because most of the characters and storylines were dull and tedious but also because the show turned into a thirteen year-old’s wet dream of what life at sixteen is like. It was as if they were going through an overloaded check-list of everything young adolescents think is cool about being an older teenager. But that’s fair enough, Skins is mainly for 13 to 15 year olds. They’re the only ones who watch the show and think it’s an utterly realistic depiction of teenage life. It’s not obviously. It’s an embellished and dramatised account. The original generation episodes were just better at the drama bit.

Those first seasons were of a higher quality than what followed. (Though obviously that’s not saying much.) Especially the second as the young actors who were fairly useless at the very start improved with practice, and overall the writing in both season one and two was decent to strong, and most importantly of all, very British. Plus, Nicolas Hoult’s Tony was a multi-layered, malevolent individual that you would never expect to be the central character in an American teenage drama. Which makes you wonder how MTV have handled the remake.

It would be very hard to imagine The Inbetweeners being remade in the US. That really is very, very British and ironically, even though it’s a straight-up comedy and the language is exaggerated for laughs, the characters speak in a more realistic way than those in Skins. Plus, adolescents who lead relatively drama-free lives that try to sneak into house parties that they haven’t been invited to and lie about all the sex they’ve had when they haven’t had any, are probably more recognisable to the majority of teens watching these shows than that drug-fuelled, over-sexed, crisis-engulfed group of young’uns from Bristol. Yet, that’s not to say that The Inbetweeners is any less entertaining. In fact, it’s more entertaining because the detailing of teenage idiosyncrasies and failures is so bang-on, which is what makes the show just so goddamn funny. Except the third season, where the writers got lost in their own success and forced the extremities of the language too far for it to work in the hilariously realistic way it originally did.

Misfits is in the stronger position than the other two series by being only one and a bit seasons old, so has not yet stagnated. Commonly referred to as ‘Skins meets Heroes’ it was the surprise but deserved winner of the television BAFTA for best drama last year. Critical recognition of the type that you imagine the producers of Skins, in the words of Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan, ‘would literally stab a baby’ for. They would never get anywhere near it though whilst the brilliant writing, stylish direction and photography, and most of all, far superior acting of Misfits is around. The series’ effortless coolness makes the desperate-to-be-trendy Skins look like it’s trying too hard. It is ironic that a show about youths with super powers paints a far more true to life and in depth picture of young people in Britain today than the supposedly reality based sixth-form drama. However, to be fair to the other two shows, the characters in Misfits are slightly older which allows the series to have a darker tone.

Even if Misfits is the best programme of the three, what if characters from each of these shows found themselves together at that most teenage of situations, a house party, then who would win in a teenage-off?

Get the biggest reaction to a party-trick in the kitchen: Young people often get over-excited when they start drinking and taking drugs at house parties. There’s always someone who thinks they’re a bit of a joker and constantly tries to win the acceptance of their peers through their crazy-ass japes. At a house party, the kitchen is the perfect place to perform such show-off pranks. There’s no music and before the party has got going people go in there to cluster in little groups before the alcohol and drugs start kicking in. A kitchen party trick then is the best way to break the ice and get the party started.

Who’s up: Nathan Misfit v Neil Inbetweener v Chris Skins

Chris is one of those guys who think that focusing their personality around being more fucked than everyone else all the time makes them ridiculously entertaining. But gurning in people’s faces isn’t much of a party trick and people are just ignoring him in the hope he’ll go away. It is only half past nine and the rest of the party are still pretty sober. No win for Skins here then. Neil’s party trick is obviously the robot dance. It is obviously shit and not at all funny. The crowd in the kitchen politely give him a couple of seconds then turn their attention to Nathan who is wielding a large kitchen knife. He stabs himself with it repeatedly, splattering the kitchen in blood. Everyone screams like they never have or will before and are traumatised for life. After dying for a few moments Nathan shocks everyone by coming back to life. Everyone screams again. Louder. Easily the biggest reaction. The power of immortality is perhaps an unfair advantage in this contest.

Verdict: Nathan Misfit wins!

Score: Misfits 1; The Inbetweeners 0; Skins 0

Have sex in parents’ bedroom: Kids get drunk. Kids get horny. Some lucky kids hook up and awkwardly lose their virginity in the bedroom of parents who misguidedly didn’t lock their door because they mistakenly believed their daughter went along a more ‘genteel’ crowd and was too nice to have a house party when the went away for the weekend. Other kids go home and have a lonely wank, wondering when it’ll be their turn.

Who’s up: Alisha Misfit v Will Inbetweener v Tony Skins

Will is out of this one straight away. He unbelievably gets up to the bedroom with the Charlotte, the lust of his life but then does something really straight laced, says something really geeky, then pulls a funny face. Oh my! How cringeworthingly hilarious he is! But no sex so no teenage points. The cast of Skins are just shagging each other all over the house cos they’re just really cool like that, yeah? Only, although they’re going for it in the conservatory, and in the hallway, and on the stairs, and under the stairs, and on top of the television, and in the kitchen sink etc., they’re not doing it in the parents’ bedroom. Sex in a bedroom?! No way grandma! They’re way too cool for that. However, pheromone excessive Alisha eyes ice-cool heartthrob Tony and intentionally brushes past him on the landing. Her super-power of ‘touch me then want to fuck me’ causes him to bundle her into the bedroom. Will stands outside the door asking, ‘Isn’t that a bit rapey?’

Verdict: Alisha Misfit and Tony Skins draw.

Score: Misfits 2; The Inbetweeners 0; Skins 1

Steal Stuff: It’s not big, it’s not clever, and it’s not nice. But before they’re old enough to know that the only stealing allowed at house parties is the sly sweeping of other people’s booze, teenagers always nick stuff. Normally at the end of the night, and normally either stupid stuff taken as prizes, like spatulas; stuff they sort of want, like CDs; or, most commonly of all, the holy grail for a teenage boy thief at a party – the dad of the household’s porn collection. (Though clearly this is a harder treasure to come by in the Internet age.)

Who’s up: Simon Misfit v Jay Inbetweener v Cook Skins

Jay gets off to a good start here, pocketing some ornaments from a shelf. Just little things that when he shows his mates once they leave will seem stupidly funny in that way that only can to very drunk people. However, the girl whose party it is catches him taking a pair of her knickers from the washing machine and then shouts to all her fit friends about what a ‘massive pervert’ and ‘fucking creep’ Jay is. Embarrassed, he silently scuttles off home. Cook meanwhile is too busy being all Liam Gallagher style northern and fighty in the living room to bother nicking anything. So it’s down to quiet Simon to try and grab a better loot than Jay. He’s not really one to steal but desperate to impress his fellow young offenders and egged on by Nathan he goes in search of funny shit. Using his power of invisibility he rifles through the dad’s study and…SCORE! Hidden in a suspiciously overtly dull and work-like folder is his porn collection! Ultimate treasure trove!

Verdict: Simon Misfit wins! (Bonus point for dad’s porn.)

Score: Misfits  4; The Inbetweeners  0; Skins 1

Throw up and pass-out in bathroom with the door locked causing a couple of drunk mates to overzealously kick it down while the girl whose party it is stands on the landing screaming, then get thrown out of the house, still unconscious, chin and t-shirt covered in sick: Always happens to some unlucky bastard.

Who’s up: Kelly Misfit v Simon Inbetweener v Anwar Skins

This one is a no-brainer. The Misfits are all too cool to be the laughing stock of a party and Anwar isn’t even there. He’s in Hollywood bending some element or other. This is classic Inbetweeners stuff. Showing the embarrassing side of teenage life. And that’s why we love ‘em.

Verdict: Simon Inbetweener wins!

Score: Misfits 4; The Inbetweeners 1; Skins 1

It’s too little too late from The Inbetweeners, so Misfits grab a resounding victory thanks to their superpowers. Unequivocal proof that theirs is the best teenage telly programme in the country. If not the best TV show of any sort in the whole world. For the next month or so anyway.

The second season of Misfits airs on e4 every Thursday at 10pm

We Can Live Our Misbehavior

Between the long absences and disparate article publications you may have asked yourself, where have Les Flâneurs gone? Here is a list of several hypothetical, metaphorical, metaphysical theories to answer your question.

We may have been:

. Performing the act of spinning thread into gold
. Bathing under waterfalls and surfing in South America
. Searching for new ways to keep reality in check
. Studying the notion of compensatory decorative exhilaration
. Waiting on a pair of Panasonic – RP-HTX7E that still have not arrived through the post.

Other possible factors:

. L’Officiel photo shoots
. London, Milan, and Paris Fashion weeks (and coordination of required attire)
. The release of Arcade Fire’s new album The Suburbs
. Existential crisis #1032
. Chance encounters
. Bad weather
. Samosas at La Chapelle
. The combination of whisky and wine
. Installation conceptualization with Halfslant for CHIC ART FAIR

C’est la ouate.

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Photography: Michael Stephens + Ana Lee-Karkar

This Is England ‘86

Lace up your Doc Martens, button up your Fred Perry, and pull on your Harrington. This Is England returns. The midlands maestro Shane Meadows picks up the story of Shaun, Woody, Milky et al. three years after the end of the film in a new four-part television series for Channel 4. Will surely be at least 100 times better than when they tried to make a TV series of Lock, Stock.

This Is England ‘86 starts Tuesday 10.00pm on Channel 4.