Pop Will Eat Itself 2

And, as if to prove the point, in crash Keane.  Their new single sounds exactly like Ashes to Ashes in a blender at 56 rpm.  It's as if they'd taken the David Bowie original, chopped it into pieces, thrown the pieces in the air and then reassembled them.  I can almost imagine Tim Rice-Oxley (the guy with the none-more-rock 'n' roll name) grabbing Andre Previn by the lapels and grunting "I am playing the right notes....just not necessarily in the right order."

Pop Will Eat Itself

The return of Bat for Lashes has been greeted with hurrahs throughout the music and popular press, as well as on the radio- her new single Daniel has evoked Kate Bush, Kim Carnes, Stevie Nicks and a host of lesser talents.  However, no one (AFAIK) has mentioned the debt she owes to Donna Summer.  In a sure sign that we really have run out of tunes (there's only a finite number of notes, after all), the intro to Daniel (or at least the first six notes) is a direct steal from the intro to Donna's Hot Stuff. Compare and contrast above and below.

Zero de Conduite

Really loving the new single by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs .  Of note, though, is the fact that the fans are now making their own videos for singles (like the one above), while the groups themselves (or, rather, their labels) seemingly don't bother.  I can't decide whether this is a good thing (internet democracy and all that, innit...) or not (music industry in such a parlous state that even basic marketing is beyond them).  Discuss.

Concrete evidence

An early contender for headline of the year, and possibly the decade, from (bear with me) Concrete Quarterly, a freebie supplement that came with this week's Building Design magazine (it's a long story...).  It accompanies an article about the use of concrete in the work of Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza.  The headline?

RENDER UNTO SIZA

Genius.