01 Nico - These Days
02 Sugababes - Overload
03  Schoolboy Q - Hands On The Wheel (feat. A$AP Rocky)
04 Childish Gambino - You See Me
05 Lana Del Rey - Dt. Mtn Dew
06 Outkast - B.O.B
07 CocoRosie - Werewolf
08 Jedi Mind Tricks - Walk With Me
09 Big Sean - Dance (A$$) Remix (feat. Nicki Minaj)
10 Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love
11 Villagers - Becoming A Jackal
12 Broken Social Scene - Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl
13 Local Natives - Eyes Wide (Fool’s Gold remix)
14 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion
15 Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man
16 WHY? - Song of the Sad Assassin
17 Feist - My Moon My Man (Boys Noize remix)
18 Justin Timberlake – What Goes Around Comes Around
19 Nightmares On Wax - Da Feelin
20 Songs: Ohia - I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost
21 Das Racist - Michael Jackson
22 Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker
23 First Aid Kit - Winter Is All Over You
24 Wale - Mirrors
25 MIA - Bad Girls
26 Simple Minds - Don’t You (Forget About Me)

Now, the upkeep of a simple blog has proven to be just too much of a commitment for the pair of us fly-by-nights, so I’m done making promises on the internet that I can’t keep, which is – incidentally – one of my new year’s resolutions and can be found right underneath: “get over eating so much bread”.
In terms of music, however, the output this year has been consistently top drawer and exciting so I’ve managed to put together my favourite 40 (50 felt like I was over-indulging) songs of 2011 with relative ease.

Click on the (incredible) image below to listen, then feel free to share it with the world:

01 TV On The Radio – Second Song
02 My Brightest Diamond – We Added It Up
03 Jhené Aiko – Stranger
04 Elle Varner (ft. J.Cole) – Only Wanna Give It To You
05 Peaking Lights – All The Sun That Shines
06 Childish Gambino – Bonfire
07 Nicki Minaj – Super Bass
08 Sleep ∞ Over – Romantic Streams
09 Beyoncé – Countdown
10 Toro Y Moi – Still Sound
11 Lana Del Rey – Video Games
12 Active Child – Hanging On
13 Wild Beasts – Lion’s Share
14 Real Estate – It’s Real
15 Radiohead – Lotus Flower
16 Kreayshawn – Gucci Gucci
17 Destroyer – Chinatown
18 Justice – Civilization
19 Neon Indian – Polish Girl
20 Metronomy – The Bay
21 SBTRKT (ft. Little Dragon) – Wildfire
22 Purity Ring – Lofticries
23 Chris Brown (ft. Drake, Kanye West & André 3000) – Deuces (RMX)
24 Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks – Tigers
25 Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx – NY Is Killing Me
26 Azealia Banks – 212
27  tUnE-yArDs – Bizness
28  Jay-Z & Kanye West – Niggas In Paris
29 Beirut – East Harlem
30 The Weeknd – The Zone
31 Adele – Rolling In The Deep
32 Frank Ocean – Novacane
33 Benoit & Sergio – Boy Trouble
34 Beastie Boys – Make Some Noise
35 Kelly Rowland (ft. Lil Wayne) – Motivation
36 M83 – Midnight City
37 Washed Out – You And I
38 Drake – Marvins R0om
39 A$AP Rocky – Peso
40 Britney Spears (ft. Nicki Minaj & Ke$ha) – Till The World Ends (Femme Fatale RMX)

Happy New Year,
Jen xo

Brucie already looks really old here and this picture was taken about 50 years ago.

I was starting to get edgy ’cause I thought Jack and I had pledged to take it in turns to post a mix on here monthly.   As a result, I’ve been bugging Jack about finishing his every other day since about August, which has been really great for him.  However, upon looking over past posts I realised that we promised NOTHING OF THE SORT, so anything you lot receive from here on in is a Brucie Bonus, I suppose.
So, on my day off, in between catching up on episodes of Young Apprentice (amazing) & Misfits (alright) and with Jack’s blessing (“do whatever you want”) I’ve put together a nice mix for November and if neither of us manages to make one for December then we don’t deserve any Christmas presents at all.

Click the image (thighs, not Forsyth) to listen and subscribe.
This one goes out to the overweight lovers in the house, RIP Heavy D.

01 Dave Brubeck – My Favorite Things
02 Beastie Boys (ft. Santigold) – Don’t Play No Game I Can’t Win
03 Heavy D & The Boyz – The Overweight Lovers In The House
04 LCD Soundsystem – Disco Infiltrator
05 50 Cent (ft. Justin Timberlake) – Ayo Technology
06 Sole – Bottle Of Humans
07 Caribou – Melody Day (Four Tet RMX)
08 Iggy & The Stooges – Gimme Danger
09 The Avalanches –  Frontier Psychiatrist
10 Cyndi Lauper – The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough
11 Trophy Wife – Microlite
12 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – The Tears Of A Clown
13 DJ Shadow – Six Days (Mos Def RMX)
14 Elle Varner (ft. J. Cole) – Only Wanna Give It To You
15 Joni Mitchell – Help Me
16 Salt-N-Pepa – Push It
17 SBTRKT (ft. Sampha) – Trials Of The Past
18 DANGERDOOM –  Sofa King
19 Blouse – Into Black
20 Wild Beasts – Loop The Loop
21 Toro Y Moi – Before I’m Done
22 Radiohead – Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene RMX)
23 Mark Owen – Four Minute Warning

Good afternoon!  Now, we at bellyache have been away for over a month, which, as you’re aware, on the internet is like Amelia Earharting into obscurity but we’re BACK and seriously committed to sharing our half-formed, barely important opinions with you lot. Well, for a couple of weeks, at least.
Where have we been, you ask? Literally nowhere. On the sofa. In bed. In the bath.
For my part, I can tell you that the post-uni blues hit me hard so I’ve been sporting a perma-sulk since about July, but I think my graduation weekend has offered a sense of closure, as it rightly should, and I’m ready to nut up and indeed shut up.

Right, now where were we?

Name one essential item of clothing, and one obnoxious item of clothing.

As for obnoxious  – a lot of people hate on those thick-rimmed fake glasses but I LIKE ‘EM and so did this guy:

He’s now tragically dead so have some respect, and let me use this as another opportunity to voice my opinion on TOMs.  They’re fucking shit.

I reckon you can tell a lot about a boy from his shoe of choice and I’ve known guys that will go to a considerable amount of effort to source a nice, ‘spensive pair that’ll not only say “this is what I’m like, what do you think?” but that also comply with their sense of self, all without singling them out in front of their buddies as “the one with the mad shoes”.  These are the guys usually the most DTF. Lace-up Vans used to be a fairly strong indicator of a guy that had the potential to make it all the way to boob-town, but they’ve since started to seep into the mainstream a little, cropping up on all sorts of clueless d-bags, so let me be the one to announce to suggestible women everywhere that these shoes are NOT TO BE TRUSTED ANYMORE. Whack ‘em in the same league as Cons – generic “alt” footwear for the guy that likes to think he’s big on his music but doesn’t wanna talk about it. Ever.

Now in terms of shit shoe offenders, Lesboots (partic. when tucked into ‘orrible faded/ripped jeans) are top of the list, yes, but they’re dying off and they’re not as downright offensive. However, we’re still slap-bang in the middle of TOMs.

Check this lot out.  Now I dunno who they are, but 3 out of 5 of ‘em are wearing TOMs and they’re the 3 that I wouldn’t sleep with, coincidence?Apparently these GODAWFUL shoes are for a good cause which is really super but it’s to your own detriment, because I’m sure you’re losing a considerable amount of your market, sex-wise, just by having those old man lookin’ bits of shit on yr feet. Just pop the £40 in an envelope and send it directly to the cause if you care that much, don’t even bother with the shoes.  You look like a lazy Aladdin. They look like free slippers you’d get from a spa. I don’t wanna see any part of your fleshy little foot peeking over the uncomfortable-looking bandage fabric. Are the bottoms made from wood?  Please, please, stop it.

The Hour. Not a 50s Countdown pilot.

I rarely watch scheduled television anymore. I mean like an hour a week, in total – tops. Thanks to the internet and digital TV recorders I pick and choose entirely what I watch. At least I thought I did. In reality, the absolute availability of practically any programme, at any time, has created an unavoidable pressure to be completely updated on what is fast becoming the Golden Age of television (can you call it a Golden Age if you’re living it?). There are enough superlative shows now for me to confidently state that, on the whole, I prefer a good TV series to a good film (yeah, that’s a huge sweeping statement – no I don’t mean all TV is better than all cinema – idiot). The Wire is a better crime saga than any Scorsese. One series of Community has more genuine lols than the (exceptional) Bridesmaids.

This character appears to be the attitude of Peggy Olson in the body of Joan Holloway (forever Holloway to me).

Of course it’s a question of length (isn’t it always?), but it’s the benefits that this increased length affords that presents television with a potential, only recently being realised: more natural character development; meandering story arcs; the possibility of greater scope. But the increased length presents an issue (doesn’t it always?) – there’s just so much to watch. What relief then that after the first episode of BBC’s new go at an HBO, The Hour, I don’t feel the need to sit through anymore.

That’s not to say it was bad. It was mostly well-made, mostly well-acted and the setting was, at least, mostly original. Undeniably aiming for a Mad Men audience (whether through design or interference),  it started, ever so slightly off target, with a hat-heavy cool Jazz soundtrack.

This character appears to be an economics student going to a fancy dress party as Dr Who.

The combination of any overlaid music (which has become painfully uncool of late) and the ridiculously obvious genre choice was jarring and put my back right up from the off. It continued, on it’s slightly wayward course, veering further off target throughout the course of the episode by introducing a completely unnecessary murder/mystery/conspiracy subplot, showing a total lack of faith in its subject matter of 50′s news,

After 60 alright minutes, The Hour had deviated far enough from its intended target of a Don Draper fan that through some simple mathematics I was able to extrapolate that, over the length of an entire series, like a wayward arrow from a longbow, it would be far closer to actually hitting an Inbetweeners fan. Here’s hoping.

So breathe a sigh of relief tele fans, and whether you take my word as gospel or as the weak excuse you needed to drop something from your personal viewing schedule, this is one fictional world you won’t have to commit to.

My little sister is approaching her teens and up until now I’ve never really understood my role as her “big sister”. As a kid she wasn’t into playing with Barbies or choreographing dance routines to Spice Girls songs, she didn’t want to cause trouble, or put together comedy sketches to perform for the family, or play-fight, and she never called upon me to help her spontaneously make (really shit) cushions out of old t-shirts. All of which I would have taken a great deal of pleasure in facilitating due to my well-honed expertise in each of ‘em.
No, as a kid she was dry, serious, Lisa Simpson. I mean, I’ve always loved her – obviously – I just didn’t get her.

This is changing.  Seemingly overnight she’s turned into a little lady and her interests have shifted drastically. She no longer practices the guitar, or spends hours creating comics at the kitchen table, instead she watches make-up tutorials on youtube in her room, all the time on skype with people that she’s spent the entire day at school with. Now, I can relate to that.
It was when I caught her busting a “wink, peace and pout” in front of her webcam, though, that I fully understood how my presence had been more influential than I’d perhaps given myself credit for:

Two outta three aint bad.

She’s got a few years until she writes me off for being too old/a boring bitch, so until then I’m gonna try and give her some guidance in fings wot r gud.
First up, essential teen movies for girls, some obviously more appropriate in a few years time because I’m not even sure she’d understand 80% of the dialogue in Superbad. Well, I’d hope not, at least.

Bring It On

Bring It On is brilliant. I first saw it when I was 12, learnt all of the cheers, and even some of the routines – that’s right. Jesse Bradford is a banging babe and even Kirsten Dunst is bearable in it –  imagine! I watched it again recently and enjoyed it even more than I did when I was younger.  This is probably ’cause I wasn’t full of so much jealous, bitter rage over their slender bods, worried about fitting in or getting a boyfriend that liked The Clash or whatever I was preoccupied with during those dark days. It’s so American which is exactly why I loved it and boy, did I wanna be a cheerleader. I still do.

The Breakfast Club

This one’ll show my sis that it doesn’t matter what you’re into or how you’re dressed, as long as you’ve all got dysfunctional families and someone’s got weed, you’ll all get along eventually. Plus, it’s got one of the essential teen movie staples: MAKEOVER!!! (Even though I think Ally Sheedy looked better when she was all weird and dandruff-y.)

Never Been Kissed

One of the most “rufus” teen movies ever. I used to watch this all the time with my best friend Helena and we could really relate to Josie “Grossie” Geller. Mainly because we were both given horrible nicknames by the cool kids and we’d never been kissed, waaaah. If nothing else, Never Been Kissed gave us hope that even if we were bullied, awkward loners throughout high school we could one day kiss someone like Michael Vartan on a baseball field… I’M STILL W8ING :’(

10 Things I Hate About You

I wanted to be Julia Stiles’ character in a big way.  She did the eloquent, sassy chick thing way before Juno shitted out that hamburger phone line, danced drunk on a table to Notorious B.I.G and got serenaded by a pre-death, pre-Brokeback Heath Ledger and she did it all with a centre parting, a cropped tank-top and baggy jeans. Rock on, girlfriend. (The poem bit is dead cheesy though.)

Mean Girls

I really love Mean Girls, the cast is spot on –  they’ve all got nice boobs (EVEN JANIS, SHE WAS IN TRUE BLOOD, GOOGLE IT, SHE’S GOT THE BEST RACK I’VE EVER SEEN, I WAS ASTONISHED!), Lindsay Lohan wasn’t all strung-out and slutty yet (still really annoying though) and Tiny Fey is just a goddess (but we all knew that already). It’s got everything you’d ever want from a teen movie: quotable dialogue, clearly defined stereotypes, a “red cup” house party, a dance routine, PROM NIGHT! and a big gay best friend. It’s just a swell movie, maybe one of my favourites ever, deal with that.

Heathers

Despite being an all-round wonder of a teen movie, I’d probably show my sister this one after all of the others, just so she doesn’t treat it as some kind of template for teen livin’. I was the only one out of all my school-pals to have seen this film so, personality-wise, I guess that’d make me the Veronica to their Heathers but I didn’t kill any of ‘em though, even when I reeeeally wanted to. The dialogue is brill and Jason Dean falls into another much coveted list: “Film psychopaths I would definitely bang” (Donnie Darko, Patrick Bateman, Jack Torrance, Bronson). Mmm, delicious mental-cases. Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.

Teen movies I also rate highly but couldn’t justify rambling on about/aren’t suitable until she’s at least 15:
American Pie 1&2 (3 can fuck right off), Scream, Clueless, Jawbreaker, Say Anything, Can’t Hardly Wait, Election, The Craft, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Cruel Intentions, Dazed & Confused, She’s All That, Almost Famous and The Faculty. 

Following this evening’s announcement that swollen headed soul singer, Cee Lo Green, would be playing Raekwon’s father in his upcoming biopic, I thought I’d share a few of my favourite hip-hop flicks with you all.

Forget “8 Mile” and “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’” these movies offer a more authentic and, importantly, more entertaining perspective on the culture crossover of cinema and rap music.

Documentaries

Rhyme & Reason is a late 90s documentary that aims to cover the history of hip-hop through exploration of it’s five pillars – MCing, turntablism, breaking, graffiti and beatboxing. Naturally, the emphasis is on rapping with a ridiculous number of talking head pieces from a who’s who of hip-hop (up to 1997). Ranging from A Tribe Called Quest to Biggy to Wu-Tang – no sub-genre is left unrepresented. I can’t recommend this film enough for anyone interested in the history of hip-hop, shit, the history of music even. With enough big names to keep even the most casual rap fan interested (Drake, I’m looking at you), there really is no better place to start with hip-hop films than Rhyme & Reason.

The Show takes the form of a documentary based around the eponymous concert featuring a far smaller, but still impressive cast of 90s hip-hop stars. Far less successful as a piece of cinema than Rhyme & Reason, The Show’s appeal is in its exclusives – likely meaningless to many viewers, gems such as Russell Simmons’ interview with an incarcerated Slick Rick, stripped of his ubiquitous gold and jewellery, or a teenage Warren G handling his business like a seasoned vet., are gifts from the gods to a hip-hop geek like myself.

Beats, Rhyme’s and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest is, admittedly, the only film in this piece I have yet to see. Phoebe-banging-police-officer-turned-filmmaker, Michael Rapaport, followed darlings of the alternative hip-hop scene, Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Shaheed on a 2008 reunion tour. Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, plagued by controversy and reports of tension between everyone involved, I’ve been reading a lot about this film for the past year and may just have an aneurism if I don’t see it soon.

See also: This Is The Life Small, low budget film on the historic Good Life Cafe whose legendary open-mic nights were at the centre of the LA alternative scene in 90s. For a more focussed look at the role of the DJ in hip-hop history, check out Scratch it’s pretty dry stuff so only true heads need apply. Finally, for a look at hip-hop’s very own Romeo & Juliet (it’s all there, warring factions, poetic use of language, Uzis) try Biggie & Tupac, but unless you’ve got a vested interest in either, I wouldn’t bother.

Fiction

Boyz n the Hood Now, if you’ve not seen this film, or you have and you don’t know hip-hop it may seem, to the kind of soya-drinking, beard-stroking hipster I hope will read this blog, like a lazy assertion to class this as a “hip-hop film”. But I’m telling you it is. From the obvious – N.W.A. rapper, Ice Cube in a starring role – to the more subtle – the film is set in and around South Central L.A., an area synonymous with the G-Funk genre. Quite apart from all this, tough, it’s a fantastic film about fathers and violence and it’s got Cuba Gooding Jr before he got shit and Laurence Fishburne when he was still going by “Larry”. Nominated for a best director Oscar too, don’t you know?

Krush Groove is the dramatisation (with generous poetic licence) of the genesis of one of hip-hop’s most important and influential record labels; Def Jam. It’s so kitsch and couldn’t be further from the gritty violence of Boyz n the Hood, but Krush Groove holds a special place in my heart as it (sort of) tells the story of how my oldest hip-hop obsession (Run-D.M.C.) came to be. With support from (this) white kid favourite, Beastie Boys, it’s a movie that perfectly matched the tone of the music it’s prologuing.

Fight For Your Right Revisited In ’86 the Beastie Boys released party rap classic, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party), proving, not only that they love parenthesis as much as I do, but that they were a creative force to be reckoned with. This was arguably the genesis to 25 years of phenomenal Beastie Boys music videos. In 2011, quarter of a century on, they returned with MCA directed, Fight For Your Right Revisited. A surreal look at what happened when the Boys left ‘that’ party and chock full of celebrities, Jack Black, Will Ferrel, Elijah Wood(!) to name a few, it’s classic Beastie Boys; stylish, memorable and fucking hilarious. It comes with their latest (essential) album, Hot Sauce Committee Part 2. Or the Boys have uploaded it to their own YouTube, so there’s not excuse not to see it.

Bonus Viewing

The Boondocks Not a film, but a TV show and an animated one at that. The Boondocks is an Adult Swim cartoon that fuses hip-hop with civil activism, with anime, with comedy with so many other cultural, political and artistic forms. There is no truer representation of the current state (and, to some extent, the history) of hip-hop than Aaron McGruder’s award-winning sitcom. With a plethora of guest stars including Snoop-Dogg, Busta Rhymes and the guy who plays Dr Cox on Scrubs, it follows the lives of two pre-teen boys (both voiced by a middle-aged woman) growing up in the suburbs with their Grandpa. But, of course that over simplifies things. Go watch the first three seasons now before the fourth airs (hopefully) later this year.

Tougher Than Leather This film almost defies explanation. I don’t know where I found it, I don’t know who showed it to me and I’m not even sure I could find it again if I wanted to. Dubbed as a “Hip-Hop Western” it follows Run-D.M.C. on a tale of revenge and betrayal as they take on the evil record boss, played by Rick Rubin. It is utterly ridiculous and, at times, almost unwatchable but, remains to this day one of my favourite films of all time. Personal highlight; any scene with the Beastie Boys trying so hard to look like they party hard. According to Wikipedia, “According to The Washington Post, the film is “vile, vicious, despicable, stupid, sexist, racist and horrendously made.” ” Now tell me you don’t want to see it.

As per Jen’s last post, here’s the first question she put to me.

I love a good list. Top five characters off the telly plz.

I read this question and thought I’d piss it. After all, I’ve spent a very large portion of the last three years watching the highest grade TV shows. DVD boxsets and full series downloads account for about 90% of my viewing activity these days. The temptation is to just pick the lead character from my five fav shows but I don’t think I could write a list that short. So to avoid a mental breakdown over the conundrum of  which character from Community to choose etc. I decided to come up with five categories. I hope you don’t mind Jen, but if I had to make a decision between Señor Chang and Dean Pelton, I’d probably kill myself to death.

1. The character I wish I had written.

Malcolm Tucker – The Thick of It I can’t believe there are still original and hilarious ways to swear. Tucker proves me wrong.

2. The character I would want to be ten years from now. 

Luke Danes – Gilmore Girls The archetypal American self-made man. Masculine, jaded and cynical, he’s a simple diner owner who shows his complex character and sensitivity through interactions with Lorelai, Rory and April. I <3 GG

3. The character I want to be right now.

Dan Ashcroft – Nathan Barley He’s the human embodiment of a sigh. Much of Ashcroft’s character seems cliched now but I think it’s fair to say that Morris and Brooker’s 2005 sitcom, if not caused the vast swathes of “aspiring writers” polluting Shoreditch, certainly predicted them.

4. The woman I would want to know.

Liz Lemon – 30 Rock Tina Fey is my dream wife and since it would appear Liz Lemon is essentially Tina Fey, it would follow that Liz Lemon is also my dream wife. As far as I’m concerned, Tina Fey can do no wrong. Not even Baby Mama. Ok, maybe Baby Mama.

5. The ultimate television character.

Don Draper – Mad Men It may seem like an obvious choice but I really do think Don Draper is the perfect TV character; one who’s intricacies and nuanced persona can only be fully explored in the long play format of a television series. He would never work fully as a film character. Plus he’s cool as fuck.

As a way of introducing ourselves to you lot, Jack & I decided to ask each other a series of questions that will hopefully shed a little light on what we’re like, things that get us going and give those tricky initial posts some much-needed direction.
So, Jack put seven killer questions forward and here is the first of my answers.
Thanks for stopping by!

“If you could only recommend one album to your future 16 year old daughter in order to ensure she starts on the right musical path, what would it be?”

In the spirit of getting better acquainted, Jack & I decided that the best way to introduce ourselves would be via a good, old-fashioned Q&A, which will be with you all as soon as I’ve stopped deliberating over my ideal celebrity husband. (THERE’S TOO MANY MEN)

In the meantime, here’s a little background information on us, as a pair, to whet your collective whistle:

We met at a fancy-dress party.  Jack was dressed as a viking, obnoxiously forcing a horn full of Jack Daniels down the throats of new-arrivals and managing to spill a great deal of it on one of my best dresses. I was dressed, ridiculously, as a Prom Queen. Being the buzz-kill that I am, I called him out for being unbearable with the horn and he gave it a rest.
Later, in the garden, feeling inspired by the 5 eps of Mad Men I’d watched prior to leaving for the party and sensing an opportunity to pretend to be miles cooler than I actually am around a stranger, I lit two cigarettes at once & handed him one. It worked, because he hasn’t shut the fuck up about it since.
The rest of the evening went like this: we got down to chatting about books or world cinema or something proper pretentious, started a minor gang war, pulled shapes, pissed-up, in the kitchen to M.I.A and generally got past the initial horn fiasco quickly enough to become what some might call “friends”.  As the party dispersed, we went our separate ways but were re-united, virtually, the morning-after via mutual friends. A fairly ordinary, very typical university encounter, really.

A month or so later we crossed paths at a similarly boozed-up affair and after wanking on about Godard films for half an hour I suggested that with our tastes differing and overlapping as they do, we’d be fools not to bash some kind of project together.

And here we are, we hope you enjoy it.