SongPop: A love story

I have a confession to make. My name is lightupvirginmary and I am a SongPop addict. SongPop, for the poor souls who aren't already hooked like drug addict ghouls (like me), is a free app or the iPhone. You can also play it on Facebook. Probably other places, too. Find it. Seek it out. Play! Play me. I'm lightupvirginmary. Or Lightupvirginmary. It's all funny about caps like a pedantic teacher.
So it works like this, they play a little bit of a song and you have four choices to guess what song it is. But wait, you might say, isn't it all pop music? Well that's the good part. There are SO many categories. You have the crap I like; 90s alternative, 2000 rock, grunge, britpop. Then you have the categories I can't stand; jazz, motown, crooners, GLEE. Alternative COUNTRY. NEW AGE. There are some mental categories on there. I like busting out the house, trance and techno (all seemingly the same songs) as no one can remember the names of those songs, as they were all off their heads in the late 90s. Small problem; I can't either. Still, it's good revenge if someone picks the Pro Wrestling category against you.
SongPop used to be relatively simple in that you could play your friends off Facebook, or be randomly matched with some East Coast rap fan from Canada. That was kind of cool. Now they've changed it so you can only choose from 'three best matches' who all boringly have very similar taste to you. I want to try the East Coast rap. I want to try the West Coast rap. I don't want to try the 50s, 60s or 70s, but thems the breaks. It's more fun than playing 'ultimate 90s' each time. I like responding to someone who plays Christian Gospel against me with some Trip Hop.
So I went on the SongPop board and everyone was bitching about it. Why can't we have random matching AND best match? Cos they want to screw coins out of us, I think. BRUTAL. Why can't they let us play in peace? Luckily, you CAN play for free, and you earn coins to buy playlists. If you play 500 games, as I did last week, you can get quite a lot of playlists. And get really fat. I bought the premium app like a junkie cos you can play more games, but I think it was only £1.50 or something.
Anyhow, they've made some further 'improvements' now. At first they put people's location on and gave everyone the wrong location, which was interesting. I think they moved me to Lambeth. Since then they've added 'stats' so you can see who you're most compatible with. You can also see who else your friends are playing and play their friends, so it gets round this 'best match' bullshit a bit. I also joined a Facebook group 'Pop this' where people post their usernames so you can play random people that way. Beat the system! Fuck the police! Etc.
Weirdly, a lot of the strangers I'm playing seem to be playing other strangers I'm playing. And that was before you could see their friends. I think it must have just matched people close together.
The bad side of these new 'improvements' is you can now see who's online (you get a green light) so you get people bitching and moaning and 'nudging' you when you're trying to keep up with your other 75 games. I will take my turn, give me a fucking minute! Personally, I play people in the following order: people I know. People I've been playing for ages. People with cool profile pictures. People I know won't pick Glee. Then I try and even out the number of goes. I'm doing my best, OK? Get off my fucking back already or I'll keep busting out the Bon Jovi category on you, a category in which I have a 50% success rate as I went off them after three albums when I was 12.
Two categories I'm really shit at, if you're planning to play me, are UK TV themes and US TV themes. I'm ABSOLUTELY USELESS at them. I even got BIG BROTHER wrong. Big Brother! I just can't wrap my head around TV themes for some reason. I actually fare better on video games, God knows why.
The best part about SongPop, is there's a good 'cheat'. Basically, if the other person gets the first answer wrong, you can basically just copy their answers for the other four songs, and you win. So you always need to get the first song right. I kind of like the devilment of that. That they can know every other song, but messed up the first one, so HA! That's my tip for the top. Skulduggery.
And finally you can buy playlists from other regions, which is good if you know K-Pop or Spanish or something. That will really fuck up your competitors. Just like when I pick Eurovision! Ha! OMG I just remembered two other bastard categories; classical and National Anthems. Who knows National Anthems except their own? Just plain wrong. 
Anyway, I've been playing SongPop for between 30 minutes and an hour a day, which I think might be a little worrying. I play it in bed too, and end up staying up late... just one more game, just one more fix. Still. I suppose it's better than crack. Scores get totted up on Sundays, so it's important you kick everyone's arse on Sunday. People who are beating you by about 5 points? Don't touch them. Let them have their glory. Concentrate on those you're equal with, or close to. Destroy them.
Oh, the other good thing, is I have good chats on it. Only ONE person has ever come onto me on it (I deleted them immediately - creep). With Scrabble it used to be about one a day. It's really rare to find a game where you chat with strangers and they aren't all misogynistic perverts. On SongPop, it's just friendly chats about music and TV with men and women from all over the world and it's quite nice really. You can laugh at someone for getting something really obvious wrong or lament when you get five wrong in a row. It's all just chilled out and quite relaxing. I think that's the thing about it. It's just down time. And I'm also quite good at it. So I can show off.
I'll probably get fed up with it, like DrawSomething when they over-complicated it. But for the moment, I'm really enjoying it. Oh and if you're reading, developers, can I get a Morrissey and Bright Eyes playlist? And can you make your Brit Pop playlist a bit more relevant (who the fuck are Dawn of the Replicants? Have you heard of Shed Seven?) And can we delete playlists? There's a couple I definitely bought by accident and they need to begone.
And here concludes my first ever blog about an app. Next up: Hello Kitty Cafe. Not really, but it is bloody ace. Haha, I'm not joking! In fact, there's probably some customers that need serving, right now...  Hello Kitty really is a fucking slavedriver.

Album Review: The Killers- Day & Age

What is it with the 80s?! I'm sick of the 80s. The 80s were shit then, and they are still shit, and they are not far enough away to be glamourised so mercilessly. One single solitary good band came out of the 80s, and if you can't work out who that was, then you're demented. All the 80s means to me is shit clothes and wankers. Surely it must be time for a 90s revival? Grunge, Britpop, beef and onion crisps, THAT'S what I'm talking about.
It doesn't seem like that long ago that Sam's Town came out, so either we are quite spoilt, or standards are slipping. Maybe it's a bit of both? Let me say before I rip into this album, as I surely will, I think Hot Fuss AND Sams Town (and actually, Sawdust) are some of the finest albums of all time. I think The Killers are brilliant, amazing live, catchy, wonderful, mum-friendly. There are hardly ANY songs of theirs I don't like. OK. Here goes.
Firstly, I hate the title. Secondly, I'm not sure about 'Human'. The lyrics are silly, which is fine, but it's more that I thought it was a bit of a weak first single. But I heard a dance remix of it which leant itself nicely to the synths anyway.
Anyhow, the album opens with Losing Touch and some horrible 80's Cars-esque nonsense, but that song picks up halfway through (when it appears to turn into another song, handily). They did that one on Jules Holland, I seem to recall. Spaceman actually sounds nicer on the record, I like his breathy struggling-to-keep-up singing and the key change (not sure about the o-o-oh's, it's a bit Bon Jovi, innit).
Joy Ride has an offensive start and an annoying guitar (I'm not a teenage boy, so I can't tell you why, but it's some irritating effect on it) and then, horror of horrors, a saxophone. Fuck you Keane. Fuck you, the girl who lives two doors down. Saxophones are NEVER, I repeat, NEVER acceptable. Never. Ever. Bad Brandon.
A Dustland Fairytale, as you can tell from the title, is more evocative of Sam's Town. I very much liked Sam's Town, particularly the completely over the top ones, like Why Do I Keep Counting and The River is Wild. This is very similar, but I like less the lyric 'castles in the sky' but the song is so dramatic and overblown in a pleasing way, so I'll forgive them.
This is Your Life has a marching drumbeat but made very little impression. I Can't Stay has maracas and another fucking saxophone (or something of that offensive brass ilk) and a bit that sounds like the music on Mario Kart when you drive round the beach (i.e. fucking annoying).
Neon Tigers is another I've heard live that doesn't do much for me. I really feel like some of these songs (sans the 80s posturing) might be growers though, so don't hold me to these thoughts, they are merely passing fancies.
The World We Live In is an awful, clunky title and reminded me of a song off a computer game as well. I think its the 80s, they make me think of Spectrums. Does that make for good music?
Goodnight, Travel Well, the final track, is what's commonly known as dirgy, and a bit of a morose ending to the album. And I'm a fan of melancholy, just not... er, tunelessness.
But then there's two bonus tracks for good measure, which I think is only fair, ten tracks is a bit stingy, non? A Crippling Blow is a jaunty, horsey-hoof film soundtrack sounding song. I liked the squidgy, crunchy bit in the middle of it, it reminded me of Cartoon Blues by Bright Eyes. And finally Forget About What I Said which sounded very much like old-skool Killers to me, and was pretty good actually, in the vein of All The Pretty Faces or Smile Like You Mean It. In fact, this was my favourite song off the whole album on first listen, and it's not even on the proper album! Typical me.
Ultimately I think the album is a bit of a mess, trying to be a bit of this and a bit of that, whereas Hot Fuss and Sam's Town had a clear theme. This is like Hot Town 80s, and suffers as a result. I forgive them though, they can't be consistently good always, or they'd just be robots. I still think this will be on heavy rotation at mine. I don't hate it, I just think it's a bit of a muddle. But there are no songs I'd utterly disown, they all have redeeming features (apart from... you guessed it... the saxophones).
PS. Brandon. Thanks for shaving off the tash, now please get those veneers sawn off, they are fucking RIDICULOUS. Ta.

Sunday Afternoon Listening

So since TV is dead to me, I downloaded a couple of albums to listen to. Disclaimer: I'm not reviewing these properly, just giving vague, mildly offensive sweeping statements. Firstly, Jenny Lewis's album Acid Tongue. I was quite hopeful after the first song but then it went downhill rapidly. Don't get me wrong, it's not as bad as the last Rilo Kiley album (or was that her solo? I've forgotten and can't be arsed to check my facts if she can't be arsed to write good songs anymore). But does the world need another song called Fernando? Not this one they don't. I actually miss the country music. Weird. The song 'Godspeed' was alright, like a sub-par Rilo Kiley song. But that is faint praise indeed. The song 'carpetbagger' was particularly objectional; especially as I thought it was something rude and it turned out to be something boring (and that bloke's singing on it was dire). So yeah, don't bother with that.
Next I decided to have a go at The Streets new album Everything is Borrowed. Look's like Mike Skinner got a new Casio keyboard for Christmas! The lyrics seemed lazy, and the tempo seemed very similar from song to song. I only really like two Streets songs, Turn the Page & Blinded by the Light. I still only like those two. His videos can be quite funny though, but then so can any old shit. Pass!
PS: TV is not dead to me. We're just squabbling. In fact Eastenders was dead good the other night, with Bianca's husband and her daughter and stuff. I even got a laugh or two out of the X Factor.

Music: Conor Oberst- Conor Oberst

Well, I expected the worst, which paid off, as I really like this album. Yes, it is country. Yes it is dated, unoriginal, lyrically regressed. But there is something lovely about it. If you can just forget Bright Eyes for a minute.
This is easy-listening Conor, which is offensive, obviously, as the beauty of him has always been in the pain, the raw emotion. But it's not awful for him to be reflective, or mellow. It's just awful when he sounds like he's going to go 'yee-ha!'
Cape Canaveral is a soft, tender start to the album. I think I like the pared down ones the most. Get Well Cards could easily be on Cassadaga (it's quite Hot Knives-esque). He does sound like he's doing a Brandon Flowers impression on it, which is peculiar, but not entirely unpleasant. He almost shouts in parts, and he definitely goes out of tune a bit, which I like. I hate it when he's too polished but his voice does sound really strong on this album. Almost slick, but not inhuman like on 'Brakeman'.
Lenders Inside The Temple I love, I've been caning the live version of this for a while anyway. Lyrically it's Bright-Eyes strong, and very-anti country. It could be off Letting Off The Happiness. There's something really moving about it, I think it's probably the line 'I'd give a fortune to your infomercial if somebody would just take my call... take my call.' I like the wobble in his voice.
That's not to say I like ALL of this album. I think Danny Callahan and Souled Out! are both pretty average, so I was surprised they were the lead tracks from the album (this is why my hopes weren't high). They are reasonably catchy, but you wouldn't die if you'd never heard them. But Conor has always had a few throwaway tracks in his album like these (Train Under Water, for example).
The guitar/piano combination on I Don't Wanna Die in The Hospital should be highly offensive but actually the song is sooo damn catchy, it's totally forgivable. It makes me want to go to a ho-down. And he screams! Yay. NYC- Gone Gone also reminds me of this one, it's a catchy foot-stomper. If it was anyone other than Conor, I'd hate it. As it is, I love it.
Eagle on a Pole's lyrics; 'thought the kettle was a train, thought that monday was a door frame.' Has Conor been huffing too much of that magic dust again? Actually I really like that one, it's got passion.
Moab could easily be off I'm Wide Away it's Morning. Cos it's Conor, there's a stupid 50-second track which is an assault on your ears in the middle, but I couldn't cope without that these days.
Finally Milk Thistle finishes the album where Cape Canaveral started it, with understated emotion.
Do you know what, I think I like this album more than Cassadaga! There are songs I HAVE to skip on Cassadaga (Make a Plan to Love Me springs to mind- vomit), where I could happily put this on and just go for the ride. Shit, I never thought I'd say that!
Oh yeah, so here's the video for Souled Out! I was mega surprised to see Conor acting in it, normally he's soooo po-faced and not even in his videos, but here he is (with short hair again- yum) larking around (and he even has his top off at one point- oh yes!)
But you know, it's all about the music. I can't wait to go to Conor's solo gig later this month. He's back and I still love him. Always have, always will.