Issue 1247 - The Courier

Th eCourier
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Preview: Above and Beyond
o2 Academy Newcastle, April 19th, £17.50
It’s a no-brainer. If we’re talking trance music then Above &
Beyond is the name on most people’s minds. Like you would associate
bread with butter, you would associate Above & Beyond
with the trance genre. If anyone was lucky enough to get close to their
sell out performance in Digital last year then you, like me, would have
been exposed to the full force of their magical mixing.
If you did miss out last year, don’t lose hope, you’ve been given a second
chance - but this time they’re filling the O2 Academy. Like us, they too
were mere students, way back in the year 2000. Twelve years on and Jono,
Tony and Paavo have been busy boys. Since beginning their DJ careers in
front of 8,000 people in Tokyo along side Tiësto and Ferry Corsten, their
music has since covered every continent. With an act that once hosted
the largest DJ gig ever in Rio de Janeiro, playing to one million people, it
would be madness to miss such an opportunity. That’s more than twice
the number that attended Woodstock in 1969 – just to put it in perspective.
The tour is named after their latest album Group Therapy featuring a
plethora of guest vocalists, including the seductive sound of Zoë Johnston.
Tickets are £17.50 and doors are at 8.00pm on Thursday 19 April.
For any fans of electronic music this is the gob-stopper of all gigs.
Rory Smith
The songs you
didn’t know
you knew
We’ve all experienced it; listening to a song for
what we think is the first time, but something’s
not right. You have heard it somewhere before,
it’s already been rooted somewhere in your brain
box by some prior experience. Then suddenly the
penny drops: you actually have heard
‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack hundreds of times
on the opening credits to House. Here are a load
of other tunes that may unexpectedly ring a bell
What?
‘Echoes’ - The Rapture
Where do I know it from?
The theme tune to Misfits.
That bit you always sing along to:
The lyrics are too screechy to easily
make out, but that funky bassline
will be ingrained into your subcon-
sciousness.
What?
‘Superman’ - Lazlo Bane
Where do I know it from?
The theme tune to Scrubs.
That bit you always sing along to:
“I’m no superman”. That’s it. It’s a
distinct possibility that no other
lyrics for this song exist.
What?
‘The Chain’ - Fleetwood Mac
Where do I know it from?
Currently the BBC’s theme music
for Formula 1 coverage
That bit you always sing along to:
You might not think you know any
Fleetwood Mac, but EVERYONE
knows that bass riff once it hits.
What?
‘Whole Lotta Love’ - Led Zeppelin
Where do I know it from?
The ‘countdown’ music on good old
Top of the Pops.
That bit you always sing along to:
Again, even if you think you don’t
know any Led Zep, you’ll definitely
know this.
What?
‘Welcome Home’ - Radical Face
Where do I know it from?
That song from the Nikon adverts,
with Robbie Williams being
blinded by millions of flash bulbs.
That bit you always sing along to:
The lyrics are “Welcome home”,
but you’ll probably have just gone
“woaaaah-oh-oh-oh”
featuresmusic.29
thecourieronline.co.uk/music
c2.music@ncl.ac.uk
On the
record
Classic album.
Fresh perspective.
Until last week, I had
never listened to Purple
Rain by Prince.
Over the years I have heard so many people
wax lyrical about the big man so I decided it
was about time I found out for myself – just
how fresh is Prince? In short: very.
To me, Prince sounds like the funky love
child of James Brown and Led Zeppelin who
was brought up by David Bowie as a boy. With
the strength of a future king, the young Prince
made it through and somehow drew on all
these contradictory influences to write and
produce a brilliant record. He really had it all:
in the last minute of opening track ‘Let’s Go
Crazy’ he busts out a mind blasting guitar solo,
on ‘I Would Die 4 You’ the guy shows that he’s
smoother than Beyonce’s bottom, and on ‘Purple
Rain’ – the timeless crescendo of the album
– Prince’s charming vocals are so tender they
could melt even the coldest hearts. How can
the modern man possibly compete with that?
Based solely on a single play of this album I am
sure the man got a lot of sex in the eighties.
Prince might well have been the
last pop-star with genuine funk
After a bit of research I discovered that
the Purple Rain album was produced as the
soundtrack to the film Purple Rain in which
Prince stars as the main character. The film
is supposedly inspired by his life, so I suppose
that means that the album is really his
soundtrack.
The front cover could therefore be considered
a graphic interpretation of his life at the time.
To set the scene: Prince poses in a dark back
street flooded with mystical smoke; the silhouette
of a beautiful woman watches him from a
doorway as he stands astride a custom Harley
Davidson that matches the ecclesiastical purple
of his crushed velvet suit, ready to speed off
into the night. His life looks seriously bad-ass.
To summarise: Prince might well have been
the last pop-star with genuine funk - before all
the prepubescent, talentless boy-band Biebers
and the sexist, soulless rappers that have polluted
the airways ever since.
That being said, I don’t think Purple Rain is
destined to feature too heavily in any of my future
iTunes playlists. Credit where credit’s due,
I can see how it made waves that still resonate
in the record industry today. The man is a living
legend; long live Prince.
Jamie Brown
What?
‘Flagpole Sitta’ - Harvey Danger
Where do I know it from?
The theme tune to Peep Show from
series two onwards
That bit you always sing along to:
“I’m not sick but I’m not well...”
What?
‘Trash’ - The Whip
Where do I know it from?
The Rude Tube music.
That bit you always sing along to:
“I wanna be trash”
What?
‘Paradise Circus’ - Massive Attack
Where do I know it from?
The theme tune to Luther
That bit you always sing along to:
“She will love you”