Bookmarks: Chvrches

I'm pleased that I've lived long enough to see Clive James write about Chrvches, but I'm delighted that he lived long enough to write about them:

Young pop stars now are born knowing how the web drives the cashflow. That, apparently, is why Chvrches spell their name with a “v” instead of a “u”: when you Google them, you won’t get anyone else. Originally they were two ordinary-looking young blokes, but they were lucky enough to be joined by an extraordinary-looking young lady who could sing. Lauren Mayberry has an enchanting voice with a face to fit, and millions of hormonally tormented young men all over the world think there has never been anything like her, while millions of envious young women think that this must be history’s first case of a rebel angel dressed as if she didn’t give a damn.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Tegan and Sara share their favourite tunes with the New York Times:

I’m in a snowshoe club in Montreal. “Welcome to the Night Sky” (Labwork Music/EMI) became the soundtrack to my snowshoeing. It’s very melancholy, very sad; the whole sentiment is disastrous with heart-wrenching lyrics. I interpreted it as a breakup record, as I was going through a breakup at the time. I would think about life and big-picture things and listen to this. I hate people who say you have to listen to upbeat music when you’re sad.

Clive James considers Amy Winehouse and Snoop Dogg:

We happened to be staying in the same hotel, and I passed her in the foyer. She looked so frail that my heart hurt again, but in a different way. When that young woman sings, it's the revelation of a divine gift. But when she behaves as if the gift were hers to destroy if she feels like it, you can't help thinking of divine wrath.

Can't the same force that made her so brilliant give her strength?

Which brings us to the aforementioned Snoop Dogg, who has all the strength in the world. Whether he is brilliant is another question, which I don't presume to answer. As a lyricist who has made no more than a few hundred pounds over the course of a whole career, I try not to speak ill of any lyricist who makes thousands of pounds a week, even when I can't understand what he is talking about.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the web

Clive James' Point of View on Plastic Surgery looks, appalled, at Pete Burns:

He'd had that thing done that people who want new mouths do. They don't want new mouths in the sense of a mouth like the old mouth, only young again. They want a new mouth in the sense of a different mouth, a mouth that has been seen nowhere on earth except below sea level.

Apparently the idea is that the top lip should be at least as big as the bottom lip, and the result, even done in moderation, always looks as if the original mouth has been removed, inflated like a small plastic paddling pool, and put back on upside down.

Pete Burns had the advanced version. I switched Big Brother on accidentally one night and there he was, so I switched it off immediately, but not before having my retinas seared with the image of one of those car-sized fish that lurk deep below the reef, waiting to ingest the brass boot of a deep sea diver.

The Onion reports on Justin Timberlake:

Performer Justin Timberlake, whose hit albums include Justified and FutureSex/LoveSounds, was crowned the de facto "King of Pop" Monday by recording-industry executives and millions of fans unable to think of anyone else to bestow the title upon. "It might as well be him," said occasional music consumer Sophie Grant, 23, of Lincoln, NE, who claimed to have purchased one of Timberlake's CDs within the last few years. "We haven't had a King of Pop since Michael Jackson went off the rails, so I suppose they had to pick somebody.

One 80s label boss to another: Alan McGee wishes Tony Wilson well:

Since the first day I met him in 1985, Tony Wilson showed me, more than any other Brit in the music business, that you could set up a record label on your own without being funded by the majors, and run it successfully on your own terms.