Category Archives: Music

The new Vampire Weekend album is a classic

Peter Smith - May 11, 2013 4:06 PM | Categories: Music

Ahead of our normal end of month album review, I just wanted to let you know that: 1. The new Vampire Weekend album, Modern Vampires of the City is streaming on iTunes (free). Don’t know how long that will be available so go and listen now because.. 2. I will be amazed and very, very pleased if there is a better indie / rock / clever pop / uncategorizably genius album released this year. You may have heard the brilliant and catchy single Diane Young already, but there are at least five other tracks up to that high standard here. [...]

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Bank Holiday new music from Rilo Kiley, Temples and Laura Stevenson

Peter Smith - May 5, 2013 3:06 PM | Categories: Music

As it’s a public holiday weekend in the UK – and sunny with it – here are three musical treats for you. The first is a recommendation from a personal, professional and musical friend who saw this band supporting the Vaccines at the O2 last week and declared them “excellent”. The psychedelic revival continues with Temples, from Kettering not LA, but very fine they sound too on their new single, Shelter Song.   Then we have Laura Stevenson. Regular readers of our music reviews know I have a soft spot for female folk / country / Americana singer songwriters, and [...]

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April Music Review – James Blake, Caitlin Rose, Kacey Musgraves, and Uncle Acid!

Peter Smith - April 27, 2013 6:55 AM | Categories: Music

Kacey I loved James Blake’s first album, which was in my top 10 of 2011. He was positioned as a mainstream singer songwriter type, but like the eponymous first album, Overgrown is a complex and original work. It isn’t “difficult”, in the sense that there are tunes, and the overall vibe is pretty laid back – you can let it drift over you quite easily, so it’s not exactly Metal Machine Music. But it doesn’t fit neat pigeonholes, as we get influences including dubstep, folk, modern classical and electronica, blended by Blake. And there is some weirdness in there – as [...]

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An Easter Musical Treat – The Strypes and Beck Goldsmith

Peter Smith - April 1, 2013 10:47 AM | Categories: Music

Here’s an extra Easter holiday musical bonus for you. We try and keep you ahead of the mainstream here, so keep an eye on The Strypes, who may well be huge this time next year.  Ridiculously young (still just 15-17 years old) Irish kids, they’ve been getting attention for the last year or so, playing early Who and Beatles songs, R ‘n B (as we used to define it) but with real energy and flair. Now their first single is out – Blue Collar Jane. It’s a slab of energetic, punchy rhythm and blues, that wouldn’t have sounded out of [...]

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March Music Review – Bowie, Bastille, Suede and Stornoway

Peter Smith - March 30, 2013 8:26 AM | Categories: Music

Now the dust is settling from the genius launch campaign, just how good is the new Bowie album, The Next Day? Can we judge it in any sort of objective and independent manner, without being coloured by a previous 40 years career? No, is the answer, to be honest, particularly as it makes so many references to older material, some obvious, some more obscure.  From track one which has touches of the Ziggy-era sneer; then Dirty Boys with a white soul-boy period sax riff; then China Girl touches in The stars are out tonight (which comes with  a very odd [...]

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February Music Review – Foals, Frightened Rabbit, Tegan and Sara

Peter Smith - February 23, 2013 8:40 AM | Categories: Music

Three very strong albums today and yes, you will find out which album might have got our first ever 10 out of 10 review. And we’ll be announcing the winner of our competition (to guess that album). So, let’s start with Foals and their new album,  Holy Fire. After two good albums, this is Foals successfully banging down the door to major headlining status. They’ve had the ability to come out with the odd stroke of genius (Spanish Sahara for instance) but the two previous albums also had a few – well, boring bits, to be blunt. Most of Holy [...]

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Musical bites – and a competition!

Peter Smith - February 16, 2013 10:57 AM | Categories: Music

A couple of musical soundbites today, in advance of next weekend’s monthly music review. Talking of next week’s review…  I am still considering whether a certain new album will score my first ever 10 out of 10 rating in next week’s review.  Or do I chicken out and go for 9.5? Anyway, I mentioned this on Twitter the other day, and got some guesses as to what it might be – no, Mark Perera, it isn’t One Direction. So I thought it might be fun to turn that into a competition here. The first person to guess what it is [...]

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David Atkinson’s Vinyl Treasures

Peter Smith - February 2, 2013 10:05 AM | Categories: Music

David Atkinson had a successful career in procurement line management, sat on the CIPS Board and Council around the same time as me, and now works as a consultant / trainer / lecturer / adviser as well as writing very well. His Four Pillars blog is always well worth following, reflecting his enquiring mind and desire to really think about procurement issues. He is also an absolute music fanatic, with a collection of albums and CDs that makes me look like an amateur. He once told me he’d bought the complete works of Stravinsky – a 22 CD set – [...]

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“The Music of Business” – Peter Cook’s fun and stimulating book, out today

Peter Smith - January 31, 2013 10:29 AM | Categories: Music

Last week we started our review of Peter Cook’s book “The Music of Business”, and as we said, it’s a very good read, being both entertaining and with some genuine business insight and content. It is published today and I believe if you go to Amazon or Cook’s website, there is a special launch day discount offer. I promised to feature some further examples of the way he uses music to illustrate business principles. For instance, he uses the Spinal Tap “Stonehenge” incident (look it up on YouTube if you don’t know what I’m talking about) to discuss project management, [...]

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January Music Review – Dutch Uncles, Villagers, Joy Formidable, Milo Greene, Matthew E. White

Peter Smith - January 26, 2013 10:44 AM | Categories: Music

Yes, it’s our first music review of the year, and a promising start to 2013. Dutch Uncles, with their eponymous debut album, are already being called “this year’s Alt-J”, and tipped as potential Mercury Music Prize winners. It’s not hard to see why. Their music is complex, and hard to categorise – just like Alt-J. Reference points might be XTC and Talking Heads with even a touch of Prog Rock – they have a liking for 7/4 time signatures, tinckly key boards, xylophones and harmony vocals. Actually, there’s something about the harmonies that has a slight CSN&Y feel, although that’s [...]

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Bowie proves that less can be more, and great marketing can still pay off

Peter Smith - January 11, 2013 1:31 PM | Categories: Music

A friend of mine – or her parents to be precise – had invited the teenage German exchange visit pupils and their British hosts round for a welcome party. We were underage, so it was very well-behaved – lemonade and sandwiches. It was also rather formal; we’d just met our exchange partners, and whist their English was a whole lot better than our German, it still made for somewhat stilted conversation. And I was still recovering from the horror of realising that my designated partner, Carsten, who was a good six inches taller than me, was in fact the shortest [...]

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New Music Tips for 2013 – Haim, The 1975, Theme Park, Bastille… etc !

Peter Smith - January 5, 2013 1:44 PM | Categories: Music

I hope you enjoyed our top 20 albums of 2012 we ran between Christmas and New Year, and today I thought we’d look at some o the artists you may hear more about in 2013. Looking at the BBC “Sound of 2013” list of hotly tipped musical acts for 2013, I must admit I hadn’t heard of more than half of them. One I have been following however is Haim, who were announced as the winners this week. I downloaded their free (at the time) EP a few months ago and really enjoyed it. (In fact, I was sure I’d [...]

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Happy New Year from Spend Matters!

Peter Smith - January 1, 2013 12:01 AM | Categories: Music

Happy New Year to everyone from Spend Matters! After the excitement – in the UK at least – of 2012, with the Jubilee and particularly the Olympics and Paralympics, 2013 stretches ahead somewhat less invitingly.  But let’s hope we see the economy improving here and globally, more stability in European economies and Middle Eastern countries generally, and that the “fiscal cliff” turns out to be less scary than we thought in the USA. But whatever happens, all our very best wishes to our readers, family and friends for a good 2013. I hope you have a happy, healthy and successful [...]

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Albums of the Year – theTop Five!

Peter Smith - December 31, 2012 12:26 PM | Categories: Music

Here we are – the top 5 albums of the year in our humble Spend Matters opinion! Do tell us what you think of our choice…. No.5 Django Django with Django Django Amazing that this debut album emerged from nowhere (well, Edinburgh actually), with such a level of both maturity and uniqueness of sound – literally unique, as I can’t think of another band that sound like this, yet it is also a really “commercial” sound. The art-pop-dance foursome combine surf guitar, bongos, electronics, harmony Beach Boys type vocals with the odd chant thrown in, catchy tunes and incredibly toe-tapping [...]

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Albums of the Year 10 – 6: Frank Ocean, Anais Mitchell, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Maccabees, Dry the River

Peter Smith - December 29, 2012 4:53 AM | Categories: Music

We’re into our top 10 best albums of 2012 now – a very strong year for new music… No. 10 Frank Ocean with Channel Orange  Is there a touch of fashion and political correctness amongst music reviewers worldwide who have made this the overall consensus Best Album of 2012? After all, we’re talking about a black r’n b singer who writes intelligent lyrics, confesses to loving another man in the past, and sounds at times like other artists well-accepted by a white audience (Stevie Wonder, Prince and Outkast at their best). Well, maybe, and it’s not quite my album of [...]

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Albums of the Year 16-11: Fixers, Here We Go Magic, Tribes, Vaccines, King Charles and Dog is Dead

Peter Smith - December 28, 2012 12:31 PM | Categories: Music

Continuing our countdown of the best albums of 2012… No. 16 Fixers and We’ll Be The Moon  Arriving apparently from nowhere, (actually Oxford), heavily influenced by classic period Beach Boys, sprinkled with some  1980’s electro-pop glitter and filtered through a gauze of modern US indie bands like Animal Collective, this was another debut album that didn’t sound like a debut album. Gorgeous harmonies, some dance beats to keep the kids happy, clever, thrilling pop songs – perfect for the summer but still sounds good in the dark days of December.   No. 15 Here We Go Magic and A Different [...]

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