Just when you thought that the hip-hop world, arguably the one with the prime responsibility of mixing politics with music, had gone silent in relation to the US Presidential election, Eminem enters the fray with this blunt, dark hymn to people power. With a spectacular video directed by the Guerilla News Network this is a polemic for the I-pod generation. The one question is why has he released it so late in the day??

 

Pure genius. The Beautiful South have, for too long, hidden their gifts at the edge of blandness (with considerable commercial success). This cover of the Grease classic is pure class, showing a subtle knack for subversion that is absolutely essential when approaching something as cheesey as this. If the idea sounds interesting to you then you’ll love it. If not, why not??

 

Taken from his posthumously released classic Skylarkin this song showcases many of the things that made Christopher such a unique songwriter. Rapid fire acoustic strumming, flowing lyrics and a killer tune all delivered in one of the most distinctive and original voices ever heard by Three Monkeys. Christopher was the leading light of The Mary Janes, a criminally underrated Dublin band through the 90s. Christopher, after the break up of The Mary Janes and a period away from the music biz, returned with a well received e.p Heyday in 2001. He was invited, personally by Mike Scott, to tour with the Waterboys in the autumn of 2001. After a show in Groningen, Holland, Christopher fell down a flight of stairs. He received serious head injuries and died a number of days later, at the age of 32.

 

Two (white) college dropouts from Ohio, playing gritty blues. Shed your cynicism and give it a try. Listening to this track gave me shivers. It’s a fine line to walk between nostalgia and exploiting the past, and creating something that has it’s own fire and energy. The sparseness of the recording along with the down and dirty guitar and vocals make this electric in every sense. How did people feel when they first heard Led Zeppelinand their take on the blues? I don’t know, as for me Led Zeppelincame to me with the legend already ascribed, but listening to the Black Keys I get an inkling of how it must have felt.

 

 

You just have to love them. There’s nobody out there ready and willing to mix it up in quite the same was as the Manics. Whether this will go down as a classic or not it’s probably to early to tell, but for the chorus “The love of Richard Nixon, death without assasination”, they deserve a place in the Monkey’s Jukebox. To this Monkey’s ear the drums are frighteningly close to some cheap Casio synthesizer pre-program, but what would I know. A welcome and intelligent return to the world.

 

With all due respect to Rice, who is a singer-songwriter of impeccable talent, Lisa Hannigan is the star of this show. The song starts with her haunting voice, recounting her memories of a first meeting. There’s something impossibly beautiful about her voice that is perfectly supported by the sparse backing of the song. There’s rhythm and emotion a plenty here, until Rice enters the scene. It’s an interesting concept, to have a song divided between singers, telling a story from different perspectives – but interesting concept doesn’t make a great song, and I have to confess that the ‘next’ button gets hit nine times out of ten before Rice’s somewhat competitive response enters. He realises that he’s been bettered. How long before Hannigan does the decent thing and releases her own material??

 

There’s probably a thesis waiting to be written about why there’s such a spate of covers albums being released in and around the same time (The Beautiful South, Twighlight Singers, and even, God Forbid, Mandy Moore). Could it be nostalgia? Fear of the Future? This particular cover manages, as you might expect from Maynard James Keenan, to turn Lennon’s original anthem on its head. In the hands of the Tool and Perfect Circle front man it becomes a sinister paranoid tune, highlighting the impossibility rather than the aspiration. It won’t go down well with hippies, but perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.