Jukebox Junior: Playing records to a girl called Junior
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The Daily Planet
So long, suckers
Jukebox Junior has moved.
Scooch over to jukeboxjunior.com for more of the same, including same peculiar tastes, same erudition from a two-year-old, same bugbears, but perhaps a renewed application to actually posting stuff.
Old entries are slowly but surely being reformatted and moved over there. This is taking some time, but we’re keen.
Thanks 20six; it’s been, erm, haphazard.
See you at the lights.
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Good Shoes, 'Small Town Girl'
This endearing little skip through the adolescence of – it’s rumoured - Keira Knightley was never a noisy contender for single of 2007, but it stays with you. I’m helplessly reminded of Boo Radleys’ ‘Barney & Me’ and one or two of The Cure’s lighter distractions, and it pops into my head at the most haphazard times like a shy indie jolt on a train of thought. Not only that, but it makes a little girl shake a leg too. Hand claps and pauses before verses will do that.
Right, wakey wakey. I think tapes/lists still exist for 1986, 1994 and 2004, but we could do something else entirely – maybe a ‘60s one that I could start from scratch. Such vaulting ambition.
Suggestions/votes, please, if you’re there. I’ll close the ballot box on a whim.
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Kate Nash, 'Foundations'
Preaching to the converted here, with Junior - her mum has drummed this into her head like radio, TV and pretty much bloody everywhere else has with the rest of us. Does that make ‘Foundations’ one of 2007’s great singles? Well, yes, I think it does. That, and the undeniable fact it has an earworm of a tune and a lyric you could write out verbatim in your sleep. Altogether now: “You said I must eat so many lemons…”
But, by Christ, it irritates you, right? I don’t know: she’s just so loveable with her mockney show tunes and deft way with an audience. An effortless star who appears to crib all her lines off the back of a school exercise book.
And, yes, Junior’s there already. She bustles about in her highchair, nodding her head to and fro in exaggerated appreciation of the bouncing keys and frantic rhythm. Maybe Nash has found her true niche with the hyper toddlers – but that just means she has one long career ahead of her.
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Delays, 'Love Made Visible' EP
It’s a wonder this lot aren’t bigger than they are. They’ve produced some of the most gorgeous, crystalline pop of the last five years, with just a clutch of minor hits to show for it. Check out ‘Long Time Coming’, ‘Nearer Than Heaven’, ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘Valentine’, and wallow in the lush sonics and pure-bred melody.
Then there’s this. Actually, I can see part of the problem here – ‘Love Made Visible’, a brash, rash, heart-on-sleeve pearl, was released as a fans-only limited edition in the autumn. Is that any way to treat the curtain raiser for your first album (third overall) for a new label? I don’t think so. The Sun, of all rags, has tipped this spring’s album to finally push the band into the big time. Looks like a make-or-break to me.
And the omens aren’t great: Junior ejected the CD halfway through. She seemed to be enjoying it, then her patience snapped. Fingers crossed the public at large will give Delays just a little more leeway.
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Lightspeed Champion, 'Galaxy Of The Lost'
This month, or for as long as I can muster the will, we’ll be reappraising the records that didn’t make the 2007 Top 20 either because a) I didn’t deem them up to scratch at the time, b) I forgot about them, c) I hadn’t actually heard them or d) I was plain wrong. Messing up the categories straight away, Lightspeed Champion gets the first shout because I didn’t listen to this properly until mid-December.
Dev Hynes, pictured above in new multimedia Jukebox Junior stylee, comes hot from Test Icicles – the charmingly named nu-rave, shouty-punk, whatever-label-you-can-rustle-up outfit who never quite made it big. He’s taken a long, hard look at himself, declared himself happy with the outlandish hair and threads but changed tack completely for the music. Ticking personal boxes for me, he now sounds as if he’s transmitting direct from Postcard records in the early ‘80s, with some first-album Prefab Sprout chucked in for winning measure. It’s fiddly, beguiling, inventive, sensitive pop… about drinking gin and throwing up.
Now Junior thought this was pretty special and waltzed around with the smallest of the many toy babies filling up our living room. I could tell from her beam that she was delighted Dad had finally seen sense and given Dev his props; she promised to take a more integral role on Jukebox Junior’s steering committee in future, to avoid similar mishaps. As for Lightspeed Champion’s future, he’s our hot tip for 2008. Watch him plummet.
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www.jukeboxjunior.com
If anyone ever makes it onto this blog again, I recommend you bookmark this place.
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2007 Top 20: so near, yet so far
Jukebox Junior will launch the 2007 Top 20 Singles countdown today. Let us spare a thought for those artists that didn’t make it, that were still in the mix when the shortlist was cut to 38 before the long knives were drawn. Among others, we remember: Cherry Ghost, Delays, Kate Nash, The Go! Team, Ghosts, James Blunt – yes, James Blunt – GoodBooks and Bright Eyes.
I say we’ll launch it today, but this website is utterly banjaxed. If it ain’t working, you’ll find us at the half-finished JukeboxJunior.com.
Brace yourselves.
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