I was lucky to get a sneaky listen to a few new tracks from Paloma Faith, which are from her forthcoming album, Fall To Grace. One thing you always notice from Paloma Faith is her songwriting and it is on top pop form in these new tracks. I heard three tracks called Thirty Minute Love Affair, Picking Up The Pieces and Just Be.

Thirty Minute Love Affair for some odd reason made me think of Cher! Hopefully you don’t take that as an insult, but it was the style of song mixed with the backing vocals that really made me think of her. It is a piano based song with a nice raw feel, it definitely isn’t too over produced, which is nice to see in the pop world at the moment.

Picking Up The Pieces (which I believe is being played for the first time on Radio 1 today) is a nice track that shows off her vocal style quite nicely. I heard a little bit of Emeli Sande in the drum style, vocals and production – I wonder if the same producer worked on it?

Just Be is a melancholy piano based ballad and a little similar to Thirty Minute Love Affair with less going on. However, the track I heard was a demo, so they could end up making this track into something more epic.

Listening to the tracks above I get a sense that Paloma Faith is changing her direction a bit from the last record, which was very produced with lots of horns and extras sprinkled on top. This seems a much more natural and raw set of tracks. Do you reckon the rest of the album will be the same or completely different?

Review by Sophie Bastow-Dorman

I’ve been to what feels like hundreds gigs in a range of venues from dirty, gritty underground clubs to bold and beautiful stadiums. Each venue offers a unique experience but nothing quite compares to watching a band play through the windows of a recording studio to you, a couple of technicians, the camera crew and their management team.

I was lucky enough to sit alongside the On Track… with SEAT crew and Metropolis studio technicians to watch upcoming British rap/hip-hop act Rizzle Kicks. They nervously recorded four tracks (including a cover) directly to vinyl in one take for the second series of the Channel 4 programme. On Track returned to screens on Wednesday (28th) at half past midnight with an episode focused around London-born singer Example.

Whether they have been fully recorded, mixed or mastered, the most incredible artists and producers have created many famous albums at Metropolis Studios. The list is massive and includes classics like: The Verve’s Urban Hymns, The Stone Roses’ The Second Coming, Queen’s Made In Heaven & Innuendo, The Libertines’ second self-titled album, and the wonderful Grammy Award winning Back To Black by Amy Winehouse.

Rizzle Kicks joined these legendary acts and left their sound echoing through the halls of Metropolis. I didn’t really know what to expect from the act, who shot to stardom earlier this year with their second single Down with the Trumpets, but they were an absolute blast. Oozing all of the courage of a well-established act whilst still having the humble attitude of kids who are new to the scene. They bounced in front of the cameras, performing their songs with confidence before shooting back into the mixing room asking their manager if “that was alright boss”. The only difference with this recording is it *had* to be alright, as they were recording directly to vinyl in one 17-minute session, all imperfections included.

Their music is inspired by a mish-mash of different styles, which makes it stand out from the many other British rap acts dominating the charts at the moment. The blare of trumpets in some of their songs makes it feel almost like a jazz record, with elements of blues creeping in alongside funk-inspired bass lines.

Catch their episode on 12th October at half past midnight on Channel 4 – the tracks and videos will be available to watch and download for free from the SEAT Music Facebook page as of 13th October, but for now you can download and watch all of the latest episodes. To keep up with the On Track and discover the other acts taking part, follow their Facebook page.

Vinyl

It might not be an age-old debate but it is one that is worth having now that mp3s are so easily accessible and vinyl seems to be making a comeback. It’s not just the hipsters who are opting for vinyl anymore either, people like myself have started to prefer the idea of buying vinyl albums rather than downloading a digital version.

Working on a music blog I get heaps of mp3s, soundcloud links, myspace links *shudder* and CDs sent through the post. This is ideal for me to quickly browse through them and decide what I like or don’t like, however I still want to be able to enjoy listening to music without skipping through the song to get to the main part.

Hence why I have gravitated towards buying the albums that I love to listen to in full on vinyl; it means the music is no longer background music and I feel like buying it on vinyl makes it worth more. I like to get an album that is tangible with an album sleeve that I can browse through and it is vinyl that does this so well. Plus it sounds much cooler than an mp3 let’s face it!

MP3

Having said that, there is no way I could live without mp3s and ipods. Aside from the point I made about my job as a blogger, I also like to go on bike rides and travel around the world… I’m quite sure I’m not likely to see anyone with a record player attached to themselves in these situations. So for home comfort, raw sound quality and aesthetics I would opt for vinyl and a record player. For ease of use, low cost and availability then mp3s are the clear winner. Apple has now made it even harder to resist using digital music with the new ipod nano which offers 16GB capacity for storing music, photos and video. It also now has touch screen, a video camera, FM radio and a pedometer, all packed into a 1.5” LCD screen!

It is quite obvious that technology will continue to evolve at a fast pace and I can see a time where our ipods will be the size of a pinhead and will play music based on our moods… whether that is a good idea or not I don’t know!

So…

Much like the way digital books will never fully replace paper books, I don’t think vinyl will ever disappear, as it is still far too popular with artists and fans. Don’t worry, the luxury is you don’t have to choose between vinyl and mp3! But for those who really struggle with the decision how about this for a happy medium?

Now that the dust has settled what with Beyonce being pregnant and Lady Gaga changing sex I thought we could discuss the some of the performances at the MTV VMAs this year. Join me?

Someone who made an entrance and got everyone talking before the actual awards was Beyonce when she turned up revealing she is preggers, but moving on from that she also did an awesome performance of Love On Top. With a ‘revealing’ ending… in case you didn’t get the news.

Then there was Lady Gaga… as a man… or an alter ego, I’m not entirely sure what it was all about. I will say that it was weirder than the time she turned up in an egg. One amazing part of her performance was the appearance of Brian May part way through her song, Dave Grohl can also be seen enjoying this too!

Adele represented the British with a performance of Someone Like You, but I have to say I think her similar performance at the Brit Awards was much better – what did you think?

I enjoyed seeing Young The Giant perform at the awards, they did a great performance especially the front person. If you want to check out the interview I did with them you can do so here.

Then there was Bruno Mars performing Valerie as part of a tribute to the late Amy Winehouse, I quite liked his version but I feel they could have found someone more linked to Amy to do a performance… maybe.

All in all it was a decent VMAs this year but nothing spectacular!

It is a very common thing to see a musician take a song and do a cover of it in their own style and these are the types of cover songs I prefer. Unfortunately the world is saturated with cover songs and it can be hard to find the good ones. I’m sure you have heard Birdy’s cover of the Bon Iver song, Skinny Love. I won’t get into the fact that she is only 14 and is already in the music charts with this song… but the success of the cover is definitely giving her a boost into the music industry. Maybe this is the way forward for artists now… release a really good cover song first then release your original songs and hope the public like them as much!

Which version of the song do you prefer?