Singles reviewed by Patrick Wolf (for Guardian)
The singles, reviewed by...
Patrick Wolf
Paul MacInnes
Friday October 27, 2006
He may play the harp, harpsichord, organ, theremin, ukulele, viola and violin but if he hadn't become a musician Patrick Wolf could have been employed as a safety inspector. Surely few other pop stars could sniff out dangerous situations as readily as this pink-haired polymath.
He claims to have cracked his head open three times before the age of ten and been burgled three times in the past 12 months. As for inspiration for his new single - Accident and Emergency - he found it in the time he fell out of a speeding coach.
"The song is, first of all, based around two chords", says Wolf.
"It was originally called A and E. And the two chords it's based on are A and E," But he was saved from having to call the song Apples and Edelweiss by a well-timed tour of Belgium. "It reminded me of a time when I was 11", he says.
"I was a choir boy and we were on tour. We were on the motorway in a double decker coach and I was on the bottom deck - it went over a bump and I fell out of the emergency exit. I was in a coma for a week.
"
Wolf soon become known at school as "the boy who survived falling out of a coach", not that this gained him any respect. "I actually became the freak of the school you know. So I started making lots more music.
" And so it comes to pass that Accident and Emergency, a furious mashing of techno stylings, Sumneresque vocals and, well, trombones is the first single from the third solo album of a man yet to see his 24th birthday. And that's not counting the many collaborations (including one with pop art collective Minty) that dotted his teenage years.
After years of making "almost totally unlistenable music for ten people", Wolf is now hungry to crack a "Britney Spears level of pop music.
" Which by the sounds of this single, he might just do; if he doesn't fall down a manhole in the meantime.
While he was talking to us, we asked him to review the best of this week's other releases and give them his unique Wolf rating (at least that's what we call it). Which will come out on top?
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Jack White and Brendan Benson's supergroup (if you discount the other two) doesn't shake the wolf's tail much. "I felt like I was looking for an AM radio station and not finding anything". Apparently this blend of powerchords, rumbling bass and characteristic White squawling is only good if "you're on loads of acid and in California", which at this point - Wolf isn't.
Score out of 10: -3 (a record low, but seeing as it's the first song ever reviewed on the site, it would have been anyway)
Girls Aloud - Something kind of Ooh
Imagine if it was Hear'say who got the long career and critical adulation. What a different world it would be. But they didn't and Girls Aloud continue to shake their sexpop till it bursts.
"I really like it", howls Wolf. "They're the total opposite to a band like Oasis and all that fake rock and roll posturing. Though this is beat is a bit Primark for me, and I'd like to see a more avant garde girl group - I'm glad they exist.
"
Score: 7.5 (to the top with a bullet)
Long Blondes - Once and never again
An 'art-rock' band who have interesting hair, will they be to Wolf's liking? No.
After confessing to drifting off he blames it all on the guitars. I just keeping focussing on that guitar sound. It's like the Libertines, and it drove me crazy when they came out.
I'm just not really a fan of that rambling plasticky sound." And that's his right.
Score: 6 (though, despite the guitar-loathing, he says it might go up with a few listens)
Magic Numbers - Take a chance
Most of the time allocated to reviewing this song is taken up with debating the geographic origin of the band whose first album saw them lauded and mauled in equal measure.
After resolving that they were in fact from Africa, America and the UK talk briefly passed onto the actual comeback single. "It's not my thing but it has a nice energy to it", concludes Wolf.
Score: 6 (with equal potential for growth as the Long Blondes)
Shitdisco - Reactor Party
Whether they like it or not, this band are part of a movement.
A nu-rave movement. Except, as far as Wolf is concerned, there's not much rave involved. "If this was really to be new rave I would like there to be much more electronics", he says of the band who instead offer up plenty driving post-punk basslines.
"There needs to be a whole throbbing technological core to it." That said, Wolf decides that he would have loved this lot if he were 16 and so gives them: Score: 7
Spank Rock - Bump
Wolf does not know this group. But after a cursory explanation as to the origins of the Baltimore electro hip hop 'crew', he digs.
"It reminds me of like Stereolab, but with Lil Kim rapping on top of it", he says, deciding that a guest rap by female MC Amanda Blank is "totally a 10 out of 10 performance". Score: 10
Verdict: So Baltimore beats Sheffield, not to mention Africa in this week's phonic faceoff. But who knows which location will triumph next time?