Keeping on the Beat

In which I protest that “I’ve been super busy, honest”…

…Because, frankly, I have been. I’m currently on work experience at NME (writing stuff like this). which was preceded by a week at Q and a fortnight at musicradar.com (creating clicky things, such as this). I’ve been rocketing from one side of the UK to the other: flitting between Cardiff or Oxford and Bath or London. Right now, I’m staying at a hostel in Piccadilly which has, as a result of its super-speedy commute down the Jubilee line, has taken on a feeling almost approaching permanence.

All of this is, in essence, a long way of me saying, “please don’t think I’m a slacker for having not given much TLC to Keeping on the Beat as of late.” I still care, promise.

Anyway, I don’t have time for a full-scale update – but I figured that checking in briefly was the least I could do – so I thought I’d leave you with a handful of music videos which I’m currently rather taken with.

Plan B – ‘She Said’

Every fibre of my being fights against me liking Plan B. I don’t particularly like high-pitched male vocals; I don’t particularly like R&B; I really don’t like tracks being rammed down my throat by the radio at every given opportunity. Except, this is brilliant – all hooks and perfectly-placed horns and strings, with a magnificent, Zutons-referencing rap section. Even better is the video, presenting a stylised courtroom in which a spate of dancing is never far away. I’d like to think this is what a faux-urban musical would be like.

Slow Club – ‘Giving Up on Love’

I always find Mackenzie Crook deceptive: he’s so firmly ingrained within my psyche as Gareth from The Office (no bad thing, mind) that I always tend to forget that he’s capable of so much more – like this, for example. I’m not sure how he manages to imbue the figure of a man who gets onto a ferris wheel and rides it for a spins while mouthing along to Slow Club and smoking a cigarette with a sense of gentle pathos, but somehow he does. Maybe it’s the soundtrack, a sped-up rattle through the pros and cons of, well, giving up on love. Cute.

The Pipettes – ‘Stop the Music’

If I could choose to be in any band (I know: dream on, yeah?) it would be The Pipettes. The matching outfits! (Even if they have, sadly, ditched the polka-dot dresses along with a whole host of band members) The syncronised hand-dancing! The unashamedly retro girl-group sound! They’re fun; they’ve always kind of struck me as the musical equivalent of dressing up in your mum’s lipstick and high heels. This kitschy video explores all this with – literally – an almost childlike sense of wonder. If I tumbled through the wardrobe and ended up in this version of Narnia, I’d be a very happy girl indeed.

And there you go. Lazy update? Possibly. I’ll be better next time, I swear.