This week’s new tracks

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Mac Miller
Frick Park Market (Island/UMGI)

Now I’ve shaken my surprise that Frick Park Market is printable, let’s compare Mac to Eminem! They’re both white! They both have tattoos! Mac jigs about dressed as Professor Weeto! But similarities halt at the role Mac takes in his own video as a cheeky delicatessen barista – the real Slim Shady’s most glamorous foray into fictional catering was working at a Burger King, spitting in your onion rings. What’s that, you splutter through a mouthful of egg-white omelette: “Enough of this gentrification”? But what else is “I ain’t a hipster but girl, I’ll make your hips stir”, about, if not the thrill of artisan breadmaking?

Pitbull
Back In Time (RCA Records)

Sylvia Robinson out of Mickey & Sylvia died last year. I worried that her legacy would be confined to the bit when Johnny and Baby lip-sync to Love Is Strange in Dirty Dancing. But now it extends to a man with a patch of facial topiary best described as a “flavour saver” sampling its overbite-inducingly perfect riff over a happy hardcore-meets-polka instrumental. That’s not a dubstep breakdown, that’s Sylvia’s patience wearing thin.

Poppy & The Jezebels
Sign In, Dream On, Drop Out (Gumball)

Brummie-branded mockney caterwauls: “Sign in! Dream on! Drop out!” But what’s this political message, ladies? A comment on the futility of Second Life? A tirade against the decision to use purple decor to allay tensions in job centres? Or is it about spaffing your student loans on Haribo, Panda Pops and Starburst? It’s as uncouth to presume another’s blood sugar levels as it is to ask an acquaintance to explain what his T-shirt says. But I’m confident that Poppy and her Jezebels – self-releasing on a label called Gumball – must remain in the kettle, pending arrival of insulin guns.

Spector
Celestine (Polydor)

I don’t know Fred Macpherson. But If I did, we’d have met aged 16 in a park. He’d have pulled his cardigan around him to shield against gusts of swirling leaves. I’d have pulled my bobbly three-quarter leggings down over my pasty pegs. Who wouldn’t want to be close to a boy who could procure 20 B&H simply by dropping his voice to the pitch of a yawn? He’d eventually shun me, wondering why he wasn’t writing the best song of 2004 instead.

School Of Seven Bells
The Night (Vagrant Records)

It’s not just SOSB’s insistence on foisting tropical patterns on to men’s torsos that plopped Jim Carrey into my consciousness. When I listen to this, my brain spurts up the bit of the Dumb And Dumber road trip when Jim pretends the truck’s disappeared and he’s whooshing along the highway using leg-power alone. It evokes all the euphoria of a run that’s so freeing that it will undo every urge to shower pavements with searing hot spittle.

Pop and rockUrban musicElectronic musicSophie Wilkinsonguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


News from: Music: Pop and rock | guardian.co.uk

Original Post Link http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/19/this-weeks-new-tracks

What I see in the mirror: Dionne Warwick

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‘I have never had the desire for plastic surgery. All that I am is the way God planned it, and who am I to think I can improve on what he did?’

When I look in the mirror, I see a head full of beautiful, greying hair, a plump, healthy skin and bright eyes. I am still rather young-looking for my age – I’m 71 – and credit my mother’s gift of beautiful skin and family genes. As well as my mother, I see bits of my dad, and sometimes even traces of the twentysomething girl who sang Walk On By back in 1964.

At a very young age, I was influenced by the style of stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Lena Horne and Loretta Young – as soon as I saw them, I knew those were the looks I wanted to emulate.

I love the way I’ve started ageing; the process has a way of changing things inside as well as outside. My voice, for example, has changed somewhat; as I’ve matured, so has it – but in a good way, I think.

I don’t exercise, I drink and I eat what I want. I wish I had a stricter sleep regime but that’s virtually impossible. I am continually flying into various time zones and try to catch up by sleeping on flights.

 I have never had the desire for Botox or plastic surgery. I believe all that I am is the way God planned it, and who am I to think I can improve on what he did?

• To mark her 50th anniversary in the music business, Dionne Warwick will be performing across the UK this month and next, including a 28 May show at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of World Hunger Day.

Pop and rockBeautyguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


News from: Music: Pop and rock | guardian.co.uk

Original Post Link http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/may/18/dionne-warwick-what-see-in-mirror

What I see in the mirror: Dionne Warwick

Posted on by

‘I have never had the desire for plastic surgery. All that I am is the way God planned it, and who am I to think I can improve on what he did?’

When I look in the mirror, I see a head full of beautiful, greying hair, a plump, healthy skin and bright eyes. I am still rather young-looking for my age – I’m 71 – and credit my mother’s gift of beautiful skin and family genes. As well as my mother, I see bits of my dad, and sometimes even traces of the twentysomething girl who sang Walk On By back in 1964.

At a very young age, I was influenced by the style of stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Lena Horne and Loretta Young – as soon as I saw them, I knew those were the looks I wanted to emulate.

I love the way I’ve started ageing; the process has a way of changing things inside as well as outside. My voice, for example, has changed somewhat; as I’ve matured, so has it – but in a good way, I think.

I don’t exercise, I drink and I eat what I want. I wish I had a stricter sleep regime but that’s virtually impossible. I am continually flying into various time zones and try to catch up by sleeping on flights.

 I have never had the desire for Botox or plastic surgery. I believe all that I am is the way God planned it, and who am I to think I can improve on what he did?

• To mark her 50th anniversary in the music business, Dionne Warwick will be performing across the UK this month and next, including a 28 May show at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of World Hunger Day.

Pop and rockBeautyguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


News from: Music: Pop and rock | guardian.co.uk

Original Post Link http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/may/18/dionne-warwick-what-see-in-mirror