Four Word Reviews: Dead Letters

Last time we met here in the Album Review Auditorium, I had just suffered the ordeal of To The Extreme by Vanilla Ice. This time I have been listening to Dead Letters, the 2003 album by the Finnish sort-of rock band The Rasmus, and I’m a bit concerned that this review is not going to be like the other Four Word Reviews for two reasons. The first is that this album is not quite in the same league of shameful horror as most of the albums that have landed on my doormat over the last year. The second is that, having listened to Vanilla Ice in the recent past, nothing I hear for a long time will seem particularly bad. I think that’s why I’m not particularly down on this album. I thought it was sort of OK.

I mean, let’s not go crazy here. I wouldn’t choose to listen to it again and I’m certainly not going to be singing along to it in the car. But with the likes of Vanilla Ice and Clock, I would seriously consider never listening to any music ever again if I thought it was the only way to avoid a second listen to those albums. This album is just a bit of a shrug by comparison.

Here’s what I didn’t know until I listened to the whole of this. I didn’t know The Rasmus are Finnish and I didn’t know they were still touring now. (I Googled them.) I didn’t realise – perhaps because, when I was used to hearing them on the radio back in 2004, I didn’t really know much about this kind of music – that their style is basically a sort of Europop version of emo. I didn’t know that I would remember their second single, Guilty, when I heard it. (I didn’t honestly remember they had a second single.)

Mostly this is power-pop emo with blasting guitars and tortured, needy lyrics. Some of them play on the band’s northern European origins – there’s definitely a mention of the Northern Lights in there for no especially good reason. Most of them have a delightful, endearing self-pity that suggests this lot came hot on the heels of nu-metal or whatever Lincoln Biscuit called themselves. There’s not a great deal to tell most of the songs apart.

I was lucky enough to be sent the extended album with three bonus tracks, so while most people only get ten songs on Dead Letters, ending in the festival of depression that is Funeral Song, I was able to enjoy a further three songs that were broadly the same as the first ten.

Track	Title	Word 1	Word 2	Word 3	Word 4
1	First Day of My Life	Remarkably	emotional	Scandinavian	rock
2	In the Shadows	Honestly	don’t	mind	this
3	Still Standing	Entering	needy	emo	territory
4	In My Life	Van	Halen	meets	Busted
5	Time to Burn	Attempts	metal.	Still	emo.
6	Guilty	Extensive	“woahs”	and	“yeahs”
7	Not Like the Other Girls	Kettle	boiling,	missed	this
8	The One I Love	Shouty	angst	and	guitars
9	Back in the Picture	It’s	more	power	emo
10	Funeral Song	Dreary	slow	overworked	pap
11	F-f-f-falling	More	of	the	s-s-s-same
12	If You Ever	Harmonies	glitter	this	turd
13	What Ever	Jiggy	tortured	emo	finale

I think in summary, I would describe this album as “not horrendous”. In the Shadows is an OK pop song that I don’t mind hearing every now and then if it happens to come on the radio. The rest of these songs are just songs I’m not very interested in. Like I say, my opinion may be skewed by To The Extreme and perhaps that means Vanilla Ice has ruined me as far as slagging off bad music goes. But for now I can’t lie about the fact that listening to this was reasonably tolerable.

My favourite thing about this album is the quote on the inside of the sleeve that explains at some length and in oddly academic language what a dead letter is. It’s in quotation marks but not attributed to anyone, so I choose to assume it’s just lifted from Wikipedia. My least favourite thing is that two of the tracks on this album have the same title as much better songs by other bands. One is “In My Life”, which goes without saying; the other is “If You Ever”, and the fact that I would rate a collaboration by Gabrielle and East 17 more highly than this says a lot about track 12.

I think we can all look forward with baited breath to Gary Wilmot, appearing in this slot next month. I for one have never heard of him.

2017 State of the Beans Address

Good afternoon. Delegates, please, sit down. Thank you.

My name is Professor Sir Elbert Louche, and it is a great honour to have been invited back to the Beans to deliver this third annual State of the Beans Address.

I and my colleagues at the University of the Internet have analysed the Beans carefully throughout 2016 and subjected our findings to a number of scientific tests, including (but not limited to) dipping them in sulphuric acid, growing samples of them in petri dishes, and of course pushing bits of magnesium into the holes and setting fire to it.

Our findings are not good. A total of 94 posts were made to the Beans in 2016, two fewer than the previous year, and the total number of comments was also down by about 50, standing at 1,383. It goes without saying that this is simply not good enough. For this reason, you will find that there are no complimentary beverages or nibbles at this year’s State of the Beans Address, and the mandatory seminar following this talk will be an actual seminar this year, and not held on a bouncy castle in the main courtyard as before.

Here is the performance of each individual member.

Ian

Ian made 41 posts this year, an improvement of six on his total for both 2014 and 2015. For this reason alone he is the winner of the Beans 2016, and will be the only member not fined a significant amount of money. He also will retain access to the biscuit cupboard in the staff room. Other members will have their keys to the cupboard taken off them.

Chris

Chris made a solid start to 2016, but had a lot to live up to, having scored a bean for every month in 2015. The challenge proved too much for him, and he made only 45 posts, missing out on posting anything at all in December. His personal file has had the word “inadequate” stamped across it in red letters and he should expect to receive anonymous hate mail from myself and the rest of my team for most of the coming year.

Kev

In the early part of 2016 Kev wrote a long and emotional letter to the Beans management, explaining that he was about to spawn a miniature clone of himself and requesting paternity leave. Unfortunately there is no Beans management higher than Kev and the letter remained in the post tray in the office for most of the year. His paternity leave is therefore not considered to have been approved and his total of eight posts this year will not be forgiven lightly. A message has been sent to Changlet asking if he wishes to take over his father’s account.

In summary, then, 2016 was a disappointing year and everybody involved in the Beans has been in some way responsible for these disastrous results, but as Ian has been the least disappointing overall he has won this charming commemorative goblet.

Four Word Reviews: To The Extreme

Everybody knows “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. It’s a cheesy old 90s rap song with stupid lyrics. While we can all laugh at it and perhaps in some contexts even enjoy it, Vanilla Ice himself and his music were hated by an awful lot of people at the time. Genuine rap fans hated him because he was the product of a record company, just some guy who was recruited to become a white rap star. Queen and Bowie fans hated him because he changed the bassline to “Under Pressure” so that he didn’t have to pay them royalties for sampling it on his biggest hit. He had no credibility. For those reasons, and a whole lot more, I wasn’t looking forward to listening through the entirety of his debut album, 1990’s To The Extreme.

Let’s get straight to it, then: there’s nothing here to like. It’s just awful. This CD arrived in the post a while ago, a gift from a Beans member unknown, and I can safely say that this is the worst thing anyone has ever given to me. It is beyond worthless. The music itself is pretty poor, the lyrics are atrocious – you can tell they’re written by committee in a record company’s meeting room, ticking off a list of phrases young people and rappers say until they’ve all been shoehorned in one by one – but worst of all is the actual rapping. You can’t believe for a second that this nice middle class white guy wrote it or had ever lived the sort of life he’s talking about, and he would certainly never have said phrases like “you kno’ I’m sayin'” or “yo, you insane”.

Here are some phrases from the songs on this album:

“You can call me dad”
“Let me tell you how it is makin’ love on an inner tube”
“People under forty, yo, let’s get down”

Let’s see the damage, track by track.

Track	Title	Word 1	Word 2	Word 3	Word 4
1	Ice Ice Baby	Fake	gangsta	rap	classic
2	Yo Vanilla	Five	seconds	of	terrible
3	Stop That Train	Mysogyny	with	bee-bop	sample
4	Hooked	Synth	sax,	unconvincing	accent
5	Ice is Workin’ It	Unclear	what	Ice	worked
6	Life is a Fantasy	It	thinks	it’s	sexy
7	Play That Funky Music	About	race,	mentions	Nazis
8	Dancin’	Nauseating	use	of	stereo
9	Go Ill	Mostly	tuned	it	out
10	It’s a Party	Sampled	women	shouting	“yeah”
11	Juice to Get Loose Boy	Stupid	high	pitched	interlude
12	Ice Cold	Every	eighties	sample	ever
13	Rosta Man	Actually	offensive	Jamaican	accent
14	I Love You	Breathy,	creepy,	genuinely	distressing
15	Havin’ a Roni	Beatboxing	disaster,	mercifully	short

Almost all the songs on the album are really long – proper five minuters – and a lot of them drag it out with stupid samples and repeated choruses. Tracks 6 and 14 both think they’re sexy and seductive, but they’re both creepy and actually quite repulsive, like Vanilla Ice’s tongue is coming out of your speakers and trying to lick your ear. “I Love You” comes complete with a fake telephone call where he tells his girlfriend how much he loves her. Track 7 is all about how he’s a white man making black music – so there is some self-awareness to the whole project at least – that then finds a way to mention the Nazis. Track 13 picks up the theme of borderline racism with Mr. Ice adopting something like a Jamaican accent and claiming he is a “rosta man”. It’s like he didn’t think he’d stuck two fingers up to enough of black culture and decided to go after Caribbeans as well as rappers.

In short, my favourite thing about this album was that the CD was correctly manufactured, meaning that when I finally ejected it, it came straight out with no trouble and didn’t play for a second longer than was strictly necessary. My least favourite thing was the fact that such a thing is in my possession at all and that I actually listened to the whole thing, god help me.

It looks like the next Four Word Review will be a toss-up between “Dead Letters” by the Rasmus and “Love Situation” by Gary Wilmot, either of which will be an actual pleasure after this ordeal.

Logical Dreamscape: Bowie Flashback special

It’s a year since David Bowie himself – best known as a regular guest on daytime TV series Essex Highway, of course – passed away. To mark the anniversary, let’s look back now on one of the most poignant and touching parts of his life, which is when he appeared in my dream a few years ago.

(harp music, screen goes wibbly)

It all started when I was driving a caravan around a giant campsite. We were trying to find somewhere to set up camp for the night, but most places were full and everyone was sitting outside their tents and caravans having dinner. Eventually I ended up accidentally leaving by a back gate that wasn’t for public use. I drove under a very low railway bridge – which luckily the caravan fitted through – and then went the wrong way around a roundabout to turn around.

I must have eventually got the caravan parked up because the next thing I remember is being at some sort of communal dining table – a big, long, wooden table with people sitting down both sides of it. The atmosphere was like a cross between a picnic and a viking feast. The table was in a long wooden building and it was dark outside. To my surprise, I was sitting next to David Bowie.

There was a lot of food on the table and people were passing plates around and helping themselves to all the lovely food on offer. I served myself a modest plateful, as did most people, but to my surprise Bowie reached across me to a plate piled high with thick slices of ham and helped himself to almost all of it, heaping his plate with lots and lots of ham.

I thought it was very rude that he would selfishly take so much ham for himself, but obviously I didn’t say anything, because he was David Bowie.

(harp music again, screen goes wibbly)

It has to be one of the best dreams I’ve ever had, hands down. It had it all: the feeling of being on holiday, a musician I hold in high regard, and of course an opportunity to go the wrong way around a roundabout. I hope you’ve all enjoyed sharing in this experience as much as I have.

A taste of Scotland

Where’s this guy been? He’s been taking a month off, is the answer, choosing to suffer the ignominy of a nasty dried pea on the Bean Counter for the sake of enjoying a month free of the obligations of blogging and commenting. Those arduous tasks take their toll on a man, even one as handsome as me, and a few weeks away from it make all the difference. I’m back now, fully recharged and ready to write more glittering blog jewels.

If you want a more literal answer to the question “where’s this guy been?”, then the answer is Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a city in Scotland, famous for the coldness of the weather, the vivid orange of the Irn Bru, the fakeness of the tartan sold in tourist shops and the whisky. The other thing it’s famous for is its castle, an amazing fortress sitting high atop a rocky mountain in the centre of the city, and though few believed me when I told them, it is made entirely of whisky.

I tasted it, and it was delicious. Then I went home. #tastinghistory #edinburghmems

Advent calendar

Christmas is nearly upon us, and so it’s time we launched the Beans Advent Calendar.

Starting tomorrow you can open a flap every day and find a delicious treat in the shape of an instantly recognisable Pouring Beans Running Joke!

If you’re still not sure (and you should be sure, they’re only a fiver plus P&P), here’s what to expect behind each door:

A chocolate Bean Counter
A chocolate champagne flute just like Chris’s
A chocolate Character Hatch (TM)
A chocolate Loinsford Academy
A chocolate Chris’s Erotic Calendar
A chocolate knee window
A chocolate Kev’s House (under construction)
A chocolate It Is Though Isn’t It
A chocolate joke about Kev not being here
A chocolate lemons 🙁
A chocolate tumps
A chocolate bust of EEFY McJEEFY
A chocolate £10.10
A chocolate tap saga
A chocolate Week Of The Week
A chocolate Saint King jewel
A chocolate Wang Chung
A chocolate book warehouse inferno
A chocolate owl in a chocolate Costa Coffee
A chocolate Mackford Files
A chocolate Chop
A chocolate Smidge Manly
A chocolate park bench with an unusual name on it
A chocolate So What You’re Saying Is
A chocolate Beans Advent Calendar

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without a Beans Advent Calendar. Buy now and get one free! Delivery guaranteed by Easter! Order today!

Things On My Desk: 2016 edition

Over the years, the Beans Massive have been careful and diligent in keeping each other informed about items on their respective desks. In 2008, Kev produced an inventory of items on his desk, which was turned into an informative pie chart, and then in 2011 I itemised the objects on my work surface.

More than five years have elapsed since the last update, so it is high time we found out what is now on my desk.

As of 13:57 BST today, the following list is accurate:

Two phones and two mobile telephones
A massive old fashioned sellotape dispenser that weighs a ton
A desk tidy, containing seven biros, three orphaned biro lids, four pairs of scissors and a hoop of white rubber foam with no known purpose
A cafetière, with damp coffee grounds at the bottom
A dispensing tub of antibacterial Azowipes
A remote control with a bit of paper sellotaped to it that reads “RR”
A blue folder containing lots of disorganised bits of paper, open at a page with today’s date on and a note that says “TOMORROW aft ed no” and another one that says “Matt regions”.
A dirty sheet of paper with lots of small writing, titled “Thirteen years and not so unlucky”
A red whiteboard marker
A manual for a laminating machine
A roll of sticky paper tape
My sleeves

In memory of Dick the Brick

We all remember Bert Papps. What a guy he was – but we’ve talked about him enough.

It’s high time we looked back at the life of another modern hero, one who few of us remember but whose life is charted in a thousand minor local newspaper reports of the late twentieth century. I’m talking, of course, about Dick the Brick.

I have to admit that I had never heard of this remarkable chap until recently, but a search of the Sutton and Cheam Gazette archives tells me that on four occasions – in 1964, 1972, 1980 and 1991 – he was drafted in by the Metropolitan Police as a medium and successfully used spirit guides to help detectives prosecute people who had been dumping trolleys in the canal.

Did Dick the Brick ever turn up in your local paper? Let’s unearth some more of his incredible life.