They get a decidedly mixed response from some quarters in these parts, but I think Richard X's remix actually turns Belle and Sebastian into what Saint Etienne (or possibly The Human League) might have sounded like if they'd been from Glasgow.

Nice animation too, and is that a little reference to the video for Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video at the end?

Following Peter Gabriel's album of covers, there's been a monthly release of a single track with the b-side being whichever artist he's covered doing a Peter Gabriel song.

This month it's Peter's cover of "Mirrorball" whilst Elbow do "Mercy Street" and both are well worth a listen. (Links are to Real World Records' account on SoundCloud).

Bon Iver's version of "Come Talk to Me" was also very good, but I'm not sure about Lou Reed's version of "Solsbury Hill."

Music recommendations are always going to be a little dicey around here, and I know that some people may actively dislike this kind of thing but others may well love it.

Tara Busch's record label are currently selling her album for £4.99 which is something of a bargain. It was one of my favourite albums from last year and well worth a look/listen.

She produced the whole thing herself and musically it has shades of The Beach Boys, Goldfrapp, Kate Bush.

http://tummytouch.greedbag.com/buy/pilfershire-lane-0/

That person about 1 minute in looks familiar...

The fuss (well, a big poster) in Glasgow as it prepares to host the MOBO Awards made me wonder... how do you tell what is music of black origin these days?

How come Alesha Dixon qualifies but Girls Aloud don't?

According to The Herald "indie landfill" is now in the Collins English Dictionary.

"indie landfill, a derogatory term for indie music considered to be mediocre"

This one is actually computer generated. Yours for £115 (assuming you have a computer and the patience to programme the words and music).

Her version of Ring My Bell actually compares quite favourable to the recent vocal stylings of Britney Spears.

Some idiot journalist (from the Daily Star by the looks of things) has allowed his unopened pre-release copy of Imogen Heap's new album to be sold on eBay, and didn't apparently reckon that she might find out about it.

It's been fun to watch this little story break via Twitter and then leaking on to blogs, with even Thomas Dolby getting in on the action.

Story on StereoKill.net

Link to the item on eBay (which may well be taken down once the lawyers step in).

Part suggestion, part invitation to have this idea pulled apart by the Massive... How about a kind of searchable review index?

Sometimes I buy albums months after their initial release and having listened to it a few times it can be interesting to go back to the Word magazine where the album was reviewed and see what the reviewer thought. Only in these days when release dates are frequently moved around, or releases cancelled altogether, it's often difficult to find them and sometimes it might just be that the album wasn't reviewed at all.

So, my suggestion is some kind of searchable list of which albums were reviewed in which issue. I'm not suggesting that some poor sod has to upload all the reviews so that they can be read online (although that would be marvellous) - just the index.

Thoughts?

Seeing as it's been posted on a couple of sites and may well take off over the weekend...

What happens when someone with plenty of time on their hands takes a bunch of solo musicians jamming to themselves on YouTube, and manufactures a funk band.

I stumbled upon this earlier today at cracked.com.

Okay, so this blatantly isn't true of every single album (as the comic itself says), but I certainly recognised this as the formula for a couple of albums in my collection.

(Hope that the image isn't too big)

I saw him in Glasgow last night (he's there again tonight) and blooming heck he and the band were on top form. With no support act they went from 8.00pm until just after 11.00pm which would be value for money from an act half the age with half the back catalogue.

Also, I think it was probably the best sound I've ever heard at a concert - I've got albums (not live albums either) which didn't sound as good as that gig.

If you already have tickets for later dates you are in for a treat, and if not then it's worth trying to get some.

Today is apparently Vinyl Record Day, 131 years since the phonograph was invented. According to the web site it's partly a day to enjoy great music, and partly to increase awareness of a large amount of vinyl material that has not yet been transferred to CD for reasons of record company economy.

Of course, mere transfer to CD wouldn't please people like Neil Young but transfer to a digital format at good quality would be a fine start.

Anyway if you have the equipment and the time, it might be a fine day to replace the vacuum tubes and stylus, get out the oscilloscope to check that your turntable is running at the correct speed, and savour the analogue warmth.

Apparently there is a film coming called "Before the Music Dies" I stumbled upon it's promo site which has a number of excerpts from the film.

Whilst I know there have been various articles in The Word about the effect of Autotune and studio technology on pop, here it is demonstrated in no uncertain terms.

Last night the BBC were reporting that several "classic" (more than 10 years old) Christmas songs were charting thanks to sales through various download sites and the change in the rules regarding chart entry.

To what extent does this kill the record company concept of re-releasing the same songs every other year for the Christmas season?