Keane The night sky review

Well, just like Lesley Gore sang “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to”, I’m going to say it’s my blog and I’ll review if I want to, if only a little (not that anyone's told me not but...). I just can’t resist. So, about Keane's The night sky, I'll keep it short, just a few silly notes: bad things first: what on earth is going on in the record’s cover? That semi-purpled spaghetti bolognese thing gone wallpaper… not good. Then: 1.Hugues, good, those first bomb-like sounding drums in the song bring an amazing atmosphere to it. 2. Rice-Oxley, those oohs at the end of the song, I bet that’s him, coool (if it's not, I'm not reviewing a thing in a month, deal!).; and the last seconds, The Frog prince touch, nice signature (by the way, those oohs sound a bit America- Johnny Borrell-ish, so it's funny with the frog prince touch thing) 3. Chaplin, doesn't fail, that disquieting, seemingly transparent tone…
And 4. I really like this song, it might be minor considering some of the stuff Keane have released before but it has a beautiful unpretentious simplicity about it and it scores great moments like "to stand at the bus stop...". It may be about war, to me it's about everybody's everyday's war to find peace of mind. And from a child's point of view...not necessarily; they just focus on a very particular aspect of war/life: its noises, its silences... R.-O.'s big, Chaplin just nails it.
One more thing, the commercial strategy, can’t see the point of not letting people buy the record until so much later, will see how that works but it doesn’t make much sense to me.
And not looking forward to the video, won´t probably watch it. C. Hardy already spoiled Bedshaped a bit by making such a raw, gaunt, grim piece (and with these adjectives I don't know if I'm saying the exact shades I want because it's in this type of descriptions where my English fails me the most, but I think you get the idea of what I mean). I don't want the same to happen to this one. That kind of video with such a strong visual impact sticks to the song in one's mind (at least in mine) so they should be cautious because it actually damages the song. And by that I don´t mean that all music videos should be pink cotton candy.
PS 24 oct 07: ok, video already on youtube, sort of what I expected (not so grim but maybe I didn't give it time) so after a minute or so I turned it off. What are you gonna do....something in black and white, very static, nocturnal, big ample settings but revolving around little tiny details might have been nice but whatever. Music's enough.
Back to Keane stuff

Art INDEX

* Angela Von Neumann
* Miquel Barceló
* L'Illustration
* Nick Veasey, "X-Ray"
* Klimt exhibition at the Neue Gallerie in NY - informal guide
* Edward Hopper exhibition, Boston MFA
* Pat Monk, Torpedo factory (VA)

Everybody is in the black mood today

That's what the lady in the fitting room said to me this morning (I was already aware that all the tops over my arm were pretty dark, well, as black as it gets actually). She said that was her mood yesterday but not today, she seemed disappointed, like we were all going to drag her back into it, all of us silly dark clothes try on-ers. Before, while browsing through the hangers, this song I had never heard before started playing, it didn't help matters. It's called "Other side of the world", by KT Turnstall (first song I really like from her, found the black horse one annoying, at first I thought it was Katie Melua), it's really moving, I memorized a few words an googled it, then found it on youtube . It really captures this thing so many people go through, one of the hardest things. Anyway, one could make a sandwich with that and Maria Taylor's "A good start".
Not that I should be unhappy about anything.

Hi, I haven't written in some time but hopefully I will go back to posting stuff one of these days. I was tempted to write about Keane's last week releases, but I didn't get any comment or anything on the sui generis post I wrote on their third album (though it attracted traffic), so it was a bit disappointing (hmm), or boring, or both. I had fun writing it, though. So, anyway, no more reviewing or pre-reviewing or "whatever-ing" in the near future, not even writing the title of those releases to prevent more google search results.
I have an idea or two, one of these days I'll go at it but autumn makes me a bit passive, sort of a stop and think attitude. Leaves falling and stuff... So I've just finished watching the whole Grey's anatomy third season in a week (had to catch up with the fourth on tv these days)...