Music Review: Glasvegas - A Snowflake Fell (And It Fell Like A Kiss) EP

After their debut album put razors in the wrists of many depressed people across the country earlier this year, Glasvegas continue to (try to) rip off Phil Spector by doing a christmas album. Whilst the album failed on the fact that is a depressing, overhyped collection of cliques and overused melodies, this EP succeeds for exactly the same reasons. At a time when most christmas songs are overly sentimental and cheesy, this release succeeds in being the perfect anti-christmas relief.

Almost certainly unintentionally, Glasvegas have delivered a hilariously over-the-top, ridiculous mini album that made me burst out in laughter. From the ridiculously titled ‘Fuck You, It’s Over’ to the minor key choir laden version of ‘Silent Night’, this brings out the scrooge in us all. Good for a post-xmas dinner laugh over drinks and humbugs, and should be brought out again next year when Argos start blasting out ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ when they start advertising their xmas selection next august.

Dr Pepper's Pay Out

by Alex Allen

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It's taken fifteen years, and you can only wonder why, but Guns 'N' Roses (or least one of them) are finally releasing Chinese Democracy. Frankly, you might be wise to not completely believe it until it's wrapped in celophane and sitting on the shelves, but it's looking in severe danger of actually happening. This unpredicatble turn of events is particularly bad news for Dr Pepper, who promised to buy every American a Dr Pepper if there was a Guns 'N' Roses release in 2008. Fair play to them, they're actually going to honour that promise, but it's going to be done using a voucher system where you have to register online and blah blah blah etc. I think that sort of lavish, grandiose promise should be honoured in the same over the top fashion that it was conceived. There should be no vouchers, there should be double decker buses roaming the streets, decandently dispersing cans to passers by, or better yet, Dr Pepper water cannons. Sure, they'd have to turn down the pressue from what they use to disperse unruly crowds, but we have the technology!

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Personally, cinic that I am, I don't believe for a second that Dr Pepper were ever in any doubt that there would be an album release this year. Generally, massive companies don't make snap promises to dish out millions of units of their product for free on a whim. I suspect that this giant PR stunt could go all the way, perhaps even a stop the presses, last ditch album renaming, 'Chinese Democracy: What's the worst that can happen?' Perhaps a mass pay out from a giant beverage coporation was the only way Axel Rose thought the general public could take the idea of the new album actually being released seriously. Either way, a few million people will get a free drink out of it, can't complain about that.

Milkbar Halloween night, 29th October

Rooha authors will be DJing at the Milkbar Halloween night at Mojo's, Norwich, on October 29th. The launch of this night was fantastic the other week, so if you didn't manage to get down for that, then make sure you don't miss this. We're going to be spinning some 90's indie stuff for your listening pleasure, hope to see you there. It's £4 on the door before 11 and £5 after. If you've got an NUS card it's £4 all night long. Fosters and WKD are both £2, and I hear there's a brand new cocktail in the works, so come on down.

Comment: Shuffle Culture - Is iTunes killing off the album, and is anyone really bothered?

600,000,000 copies of iTunes distributed. 3 billion songs downloaded so far. The digital downloading phenomenon, which accounted for 32% of all music sales in the USA in 2006, continues to grow and grow. But how will the

But it isn't as if iTunes is actively and openly trying to make the album defunct. Apple are openly keen to reduce the amount of packaging that ships with their product line, and the reduction of physical media by buying digital downloads is something they see as a major environmental plus for their concept, so in the sense of renouncing the CD as a physical entity, their intentions are clear. However, their



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Apple are essentially providing customers with something they want, although they have their own motives - the new Genius feature is ultimately a way for iTunes to rack up more sales from its store. People may have listened to albums in their entirity thirty of forty years ago, but then nobody was giving customers the option of playlists and shuffling. Since the humble 80's mixtape, music listeners have chosen to mix up their music, and whilst nostalgic yurnings for some of the great albums says that shuffling will kill off the album altogether, the reality is that it provides quality control. For every What's the Story Morning Glory, there's an album with two singles surrounded by filler. Throughout its entire product line, even the Shuffle itself, Apple has never attempted to prevent customers listening to entire albums in the order the artist intended them to be listened in, we just don't.
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I suspect the future, and the very near future at that, will inevitably see the disposal of all physical media as a result of evironmental isses and sheer convenience. Without the constraints of a high data capacity disc, and the costs of manufacturing the packaging itself, labels will offer bands five of six song E.P download deals, simply because there's less risk for them, and obviously when customers have the option of buying tracks individually labels won't be able to effectively force customers to buy every track in the way they do presently. iTunes is ultimately an open platform for third parties. It is not dictating the way in which people listen to their music, the listeners are doing that themselves, all it is doing is giving people options. Apple can continue to promote themselves in this way by giving iTunes users the option of downloading albums in full, safe in the knowledge that by providing customers with the option of only having to pay for the songs they want, the generally will. The relationship between iTunes and the labels themselves is a complicated one, and both parties are guilty of greed by abusing their . For record labels who have rushed out an entire Michelle McManus album on the strength of one single, digital downloading will force them to up their game. But iTunes aren't the modern day Robin Hood, they may be offering