More song lyric language research

There's a pretty definite "north/south" divide apparent amongst some rock musicians. Following the research project I did for my OU module, I'm interested in seeing whether this is reflected linguistically in the lyrics. But I'd like some help ....

What I'm looking for are singers, and albums, that represent definitive "north" or "south" music. That is, music that self-consciously identifies itself as belonging to either "north" or "south". My plan would be then to create a language corpus from the lyrics of these songs, and carry out the sort of corpus analysis that is hinted about in my posts below about language stuff.

In a sense, I suspect that by "south" I may really mean London. The list I've been drawing up so far consists of:

• South - Lily Allen, Madness, Blur, The Kinks
• North - Oasis, The Housemartins/Beautiful South, The Smiths

Other ideas? And if you could pick one archetypal album from each band, which would it be? Your thoughts, please.

Jack McManus

A cracking debut album. Here's my Amazon review.

I enjoyed this. It's silly labelling somebody as "the next big thing" - because by next week, they'll be "the last big thing". But McManus is an old-school musician, who has put a lot of work into the songs on this album to give them an "artlessly simple" feel, when in fact there's quite a lot going on. If he can continue to work as hard, then he should be able to build a willing audience for his songs.

His songs are a bit like Robbie Williams, but without so much "whine" - so much of Williams' desperation to be liked. Lyrically, they are clever; the melodies are catchy, and do unexpected things with rhythm and harmony enough to make him sound unique, but not so much that it sounds contrived. The range of expression is pretty good. The arrangements and instrumentation are conservative - reminiscent of 70's bands - but imaginative within that framework. This is an excellent, workmanlike product, and one which I'll come back to regularly.

I gave it four stars - but it's grown on me, and it's heading towards five stars. I listened to the first part of the CD in the car this afternoon, and every one of the first seven tracks is quality music.

This will please Jane

Critical acclaim for New Zealand's fourth most popular folk-parody band.

The World is Changed

A review of "The Elements", by Second Person, posted on Amazon.

I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the ... metal.

Once mighty men in high towers with vaults of gold and armies of assistants ruled the music industry. In many cases they were only obliquely concerned with the quality of the music, and more interested in whether it would ultimately add to their gold. Their cynicism grew, culminating in the mental laziness of reality TV shows and an increasingly rapid turnover of people who they could exploit as “the next big thing”. Through all these years, the really significant artists were those who controlled their own destiny, independent of the record companies.

But with the rise of the new media came a new breed of artist. It is possible to take work directly to the small people – people without vaults of gold, but people in their millions. Sellaband is an agency which seeks to link new artists and “believers” who are prepared to back them with anything from $10 upwards. If a band can raise $50,000 from believers, then the CD can be produced.

Second Person is one such band. Concepts albums are themselves as old as the industry, of course, and “The Elements” is one such. There are five tracks, each named after one of the ancient Chinese elements, with bonus video content. The music is well crafted and easy to listen to. Julia Johnson's voice reminds me of Leigh Nash's – but the musical style is more a gentle version of Fauxliage than Sixpence None The Richer. It is categorised as “trip hop”, though also somewhat confusingly as “post trip hop”. Perhaps that means the sort of thing that you'd listen to the morning after an “intense” party. Whatever, it is fairly mellow music that you can either play loud and enjoy, or have in the background.

Lily Allen - LDN and family games

One recent Saturday morning, we were brought downstairs by a caterwauling, which sounded like all three children singing "Oh wah-leeoh wah-leeoh wah-lee...". What we saw when we arrived in the living room was even more bizarre. The children were sitting in a circle (well, triangle), playing lugubrious air guitar and pulling grotesque faces as they sang the same words to each other over and over again.

It turned out that the objective was to make the other two laugh. It certainly made us laugh, and it made a change for the three of them to find something to do together which didn't involve them trying to assassinate one another....

Anyway, what they were singing was a seriously mutated version of the chorus of the following Lily Allen song ....

Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star (Live 2004)

Various songs capture times in my life in a tear-inducing way. One of which is this one, which takes me back to the very first school discos I ever went to. Somehow, lots of the girls seemed to know it, and it was only about seven years later when I bought the album (on cassette!) that I really had a chance to listen to it.

I knew that Buggles was pretty much a manufactured studio band. However, lest anyone doubt their actual musicianship, here they perform it live at the Prince's Trust concert in 2004.

Talking Heads - Life During Wartime

I don't often talk about bands other than U2 and Sixpence None the Richer. However, there are other bands I like. The name of one of them is Talking Heads.

"Stop Making Sense" was way ahead of its time - I'd consider U2's concerts pretty innovative shows today, but a lot of the way was paved for them by Talking Heads about 25 years earlier.

Rhapsody in Blue on Channel 4

Many, many years ago, when Channel 4 was still young, they ran a series of programmes which were pieces of "classical" music which had been given "pop" videos. I think they did the last movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, amongst other things. But more significantly, they did Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue".

No, it wasn't that one ....

The back story for the video was that a band were playing "Rhapsody in Blue" in a bar, whilst the barman was trying to close it for the night. It was shot in black and white, and it was excellent - both musically and as a piece of video.

Does anyone know where I can find it? Before you suggest, if it's on YouTube, it's not listed under anything terribly obvious.

"Superfast Rock n' Roll ...

... Played Slow" is the title of the new album from Tess Wiley, one of my favourite singers. She is American, but lives in Germany, and will be touring there in May and June - details are on her MySpace page, along with a couple of the tracks from the album for free listen.

I'll be getting it. Will you?

"Blue on Blue", Leigh Nash

I got this for Christmas, and I am a little disappointed.

Leigh's voice (Sixpence None the Richer) has lost none of its gorgeousness. It's a well produced, musically pleasant CD. You could put it on and nobody - not even great-grandma - would be in the least offended by any of the songs on it. But frankly, it's too nice. Too many of the songs are about the fact that Leigh is now happily married and deeply in love. Wonderful. But the poetry and struggles that were conveyed in the songs Matt Slocum wrote for Sixpence are just not there.

I see Windows Media Player classes it as "Religious". Integrity Music (I think!) also slapped a sticker on the front of the CD bought in the UK that took some soaking off. I suspect that this is a marketing ploy, because unless I'm missing something, the strongest religious content here is saying that being with somebody is "my idea of heaven", or that the somebody is "my angel tonight". Or "In heaven, love is everywhere." Oh please, Leigh. Perhaps the songs are really Christian devotional taking pop as their idiom - but when they become indistinguishable from saccharine pop, they have lost too much of their edge.

Some of the songs are a step above. "Nervous in the Light of Dawn" (for which Slocum had a writing credit) and "Ocean Size Love" are the two I guess I like most of all. The words of "Just a Little" have good poetry about them.

But I bought this on the back of having worked my way through the Sixpence catalogue. I really don't think that people would start here and be inspired to go back and find out what else Leigh had done. If you think you might want to buy this, then please listen first to the outstanding "Divine Discontent" or "This Beautiful Mess".

How Music Works with Howard Goodall

This was an excellent programme. Now where can I get a DVD of it? Channel 4 say it's not going to be made available for sale, and there will only be one repeat on More4 sometime next month. Did anybody video it?