MacBook Air Song

You know that song on the MacBook Air advert (modelled by a bearded man with glasses, to the left)? Well, it's a Yael Naim song called "New Soul".

Here's a cover of the song featured in the MacBook Air advert, by Tristan Prettyman, and it's available to download free of charge here.

You can view the advert below, just in case you're thinking "what song?!?"

GTA IV

You’ll regularly hear throughout popular culture things like, “that song changed my life”, or, “that album changed my life”, or even, “that film/painting/book inspired me/changed my life” and so on and so on. However, it’s very rare that people say the same about a video game. Especially when it comes to a video game that involves shooting policeman, and beating prostitutes for money.

But that’s the thing you see, that’s just the image of the Grand Theft Auto series that is forced down your throat, isn’t it? The Daily Mail readership, the ITV News network and the people from the classification department who are stuck in the past, they’ve never actually played the game have they? They’ve seen screenshots and heard terrible things about it, and so the moral panic spreads.

Fair enough, a large part of the game involves crime, it involves fleeing from the police or inevitably killing them, it involves stealing cars and killing passer-bys, blowing up cars, killing rival gang members. But the real beauty of the GTA series lies in its open-endedness, its escapism, its black humour, and the fact that you can come in from a hard day of work, sit down for an hour and drive around to de-stress.

The world portrayed in GTA games may well be far detached from our reality, it may well be cartoon-ish and disrespectful in the way that it looks at life, but in truth, is it anymore fucked up than the world we do actually live in? In recent times, Iraq and illegal wars have been hot on the lips of the do-gooders, these are the same do-gooders who are quick to say, “Oh no, Grand Theft Auto, you kill the police, you kill prostitutes, it glorifies violence, it should be banned” etc. etc. etc. In all honesty though, the condescending voices are missing when first person shooter games are released almost every week involving conflicts against soldiers of a certain creed/race/religion. Games which do tend to be a whole lot more realistic than any GTA game.

Grand Theft Auto, historically, has been more of a homage to popular culture. It’s taken our favourite scenes from films, it’s used some of our favourite music and allowed us to create our own experience, allowed us, the protagonist, to become embroiled in a film of our own.

Grand Theft Auto III changed the way that I viewed video games. It made video games an important part of my life. Previously I used to maybe play a video game if I was bored, if I had an hour to kill, but GTA III (which is still my favourite of the series, maybe for sentimental reasons) made me cancel plans, as sad as it sounds, to sit in and lose myself in the story for 5-6 hours at a time. I began to know the streets of Liberty City like the back of my hand.

Similarly, Vice City and San Andreas had this effect. Although the games became bigger, I still favour Grand Theft Auto III as my favourite game ever. This is why I can’t wait for the arrival of Grand Theft Auto IV.

The game is out on April 29th, 2008. I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the fastest and best selling game of all time on its opening weekend. Rumours are abound that EA are trying to purchase Take Two, which would mean Rockstar as well, but hopefully the franchise won’t be taken over by a company who’ll precede to place any amount of advertising in the fictional cities of GTA. For me, it isn’t all about making the game seem more and more like reality, all it’s ever been is an escape from my otherwise shitty life, and that’s why I love it.



Here's a homage to GTA from Coca-Cola.........

The B-52's - Funplex

This single could well pave the way for one of the comebacks of 2008. This first single from their new album of the same name, is the first release in 16 years from the B-52’s.

The song is instantly recognisable as a B-52’s hit due to the duel vocals of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, with the trademark sneering nerdy voice of Fred Schneider, delivering his one-liners.

It’s a lot of fun, starting off sounding like the Dandy Warhol’s, before the B-52’s sound is rubber stamped all over your ears. The song is the bands take on consumerism and the mall culture in America, the Funplex being place that the B-52’s take diet pills, meet each other by the ATM machine and have their hearts broken.

This is an absolutely brilliant single, which puts a lot of their dance-rock contemporaries to shame. There’s no doubt that it’ll get the B-52’s music back on the dance floor where it truly belongs. Fantastic stuff.

The single is out on the 10th of March, buy it.


Originally published on the official NARC. website. You can also get more information on NARC. magazine, including outlets, at their MySpace.

Black Kids - Single Tracklisting

Very sorry, very sorry indeed. Yet another "further to the previous post". Much more delving deeper and deeper into the main frame and I've a bit more info.

What I've heard is definitely a remix by The Twelves, it will feature on an iTunes exclusive bundle, along with the Sophie B. Hawkins cover, and I've found out that the "You Turn Me On" track is a Beat Happening cover as opposed to a new Black Kids track.

It seems that the B-sides have been produced by Disco's and Dragon's, so no new song there either. Hopefully that will clear this all up, sorry again!

The Twelves

Further to the previous Black Kids post, and following lots of investigation, it seems that the track I heard on Saturday morning is very likely to be a remix by The Twelves.

I'm struggling to find any other information at the minute, other than a Wikipedia entry which has been erased but still seems to be in Google's data bank.

From the furious googling that I've done, it may have been originally suggested that the B-side's to the single would be The Twelves' remix and a Black Kids track called "Disco's & Dragon's". Whether this will be for the US only, or if the tracklisting has changed, or is subject to change, or if there'll be two versions of the single released, who knows?!

Very cloak and dagger/smoke and mirrors isn't it?

Well at least I can rest easy now that it seems that what I've heard is definitely a remix. And it is shite like.

That's that for now, I'm going to try and get a Grand Theft Auto IV feature type thing done in a few days.

Not Another Black Kids Post?

Alright, I've tried to ween myself away from constantly throwing accolades at Black Kids, I've tried to stop enthusing about them, I've tried to stop myself from writing another post about them, I've tried not to become one of those annoying cunts who says "I was listening to them before they were big", I've tried not to be the stereotypical blogger.

Unfortunately, I do need to write some more about Black Kids, but this time it's a little bit of negativity, rather than the cock-sucking you may have become accustomed to.

I've just heard a new version of "I'm Not Gonna Teach.." this morning, I presume that this is the single version that I've heard this morning. I hope to God that it isn't. Although it may grow on me, and I might change my mind within a couple of months, at this moment in time I'm absolutely appalled.

I'd like to think that what I've heard is just some remix, and not the official newly recorded single version.

The first time I heard the demo I was 18 again, I was full of energy, I was smiling. The guitar intro, and the drums and synths on 6 seconds, form one of the best introductions to any song I've heard in years. However, the version of the song that I've heard today seems to have removed the guitars, and seems to have got rid of the synths that form the foundation of the chorus and make the song so huge.

It does seem that what I've heard is the single version, though. The new recording has a change to the second verse, with the "1, 2, 3, 4" being replaced with a "dance, dance, dance, dance", and Reggie's second "ever since I was a little girl" in the second verse disappearing. The whole soul of the song has been ripped apart, leaving just another random electronic song with quirky lyrics. No charm, no energy, it no longer makes me feel like I'm a teenager and I can do anything again.

As mentioned above, I really hope that what I've heard is just a remix of the single and not the official single. It'd be an absolute tragedy if they, the label, Bernard Butler, or whoever else may be responsible, has destroyed what would potentially have been the biggest single of the year.

We'll just have to wait and see I suppose, but going on what I've heard this morning, things might well be fucked up before they even get started.