Things I watched, listened to and read this week #8
An album
I went on a run this morning and listened to three new guitar albums. This one, Music Fashion Film, Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl in Love and Lime Garden's Maybe Not Tonight, all released this year and all incredible.
It is especially encouraging to see artists like Charli XCX doing a pivot from high-grade processed pop to occasionally grungy guitars or, quite often, high-grade processed guitars. It’s good news for guitar fans and it’s also, frankly, good news for people like me who make a living teaching it.
The album came out this morning and is already being hailed as a masterpiece, which is funny, because that’s exactly what I was thinking as I was panting my way up a hill leading into Crystal Palace.
We'll be exploring some of these songs on the new improver courses launching this September.
Albums
It is bizarre to me that my favourite Rolling Stones album might be their 32nd studio album. Foreign Tongues is all the best bits of the Rolling Stones concentrated. All members are on peak performance and Some of Us, sung by Keith Richards, is the power ballad of the summer. I didn't know the old pirate had it in him.
Other new music out this week ...
Waylan Wyatt, Dustpiles
Waylan Wyatt is 19 years old, which shouldn’t matter, but in this instance it sort of does. There are many different types of country. There’s a sort of Disneyland country: “Tie a ribbon around the ol’ oak tree, honey – I’m coming home”, “You look pretty in that dress but even prettier when chugging a beer”. And I enjoy all of that.
But then there’s authentic country: beautiful songs, evocative lyrics, and that unmistakable collection of instrumentation — banjos, slide guitars and the sounds that have define the genre. This album is full of all the best bits of that sound.
It’s a mature album from a 19-year-old rising country star, and there’s not an oak tree in sight.
Luluc, Sweet Thief
A beautiful and delicate folk album from an Australian duo. Full of 1960s folk references. A gorgeous listen. Try it as the sun sets and you’re out walking.
and finally, one for the nepo babies
Violet Grohl, Be Sweet to Me
The daughter of everyone's former nicest man in showbusiness has released an album, and it's great. Very Hole, very '90s, a tight, brilliant rock album.
I'll be picking up the Charlie XCX and Rolling Stones albums from Casbah Records in Greenwich.
A film
There are around 30 cinema screens in the world capable of projecting IMAX 70mm film. The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s epic take on the epic poem, was shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film. This is how cinema fans have found themselves in the rarest of situations, unable to get a ticket to see a film in the format it was intended to be seen. BFI IMAX, one of the handful of screens capable of the right projection, is sold out way into the future. Like an Oasis tour or a Taylor Swift ticket drop, getting a seat has become an event in itself, with new dates being drip-fed as more tickets are released. We just need some dynamic pricing and we have enough to declare cinema the new rock and roll.
So, who saw this one coming? Nobody, although there have been a couple of similar situations this year. The excellent Obsession delivered sold-out screenings globally, as did Backrooms. It seems cinema isn’t dead after all.
I joined over 700 people at Cineworld IMAX Leicester Square at 11am on Thursday morning to see if the hype was deserved. I am here to tell you: yes, the hype is deserved. This film is staggering. I haven’t had an experience like that in a cinema ever. Being tenth in line at popcorn counter was actually a delight. I'll be seeing it again and with BFI IMAX out of the question, and because I’m out of London for some of next week, I have arranged to see it on a screen in Manchester. FYI, it will be a 90-minute drive to get to that screen, testament, I hope, to how good this movie is.
Go see it and consider Cineworld as your best option if you’re in London, or just go and find the biggest screen you can wherever you are.
Keep your eye on the BFI website for new tickets.
A book
A young boy appears to jump from the balcony of an ultra-high-end apartment in Pimlico. What brought him to that tragic end is the subject matter of this, the blockbuster true-crime non-fiction book of the year.
A version of London unseen unravels. One of gangsters, crime lords in the guise of respectable businessmen, and the ruthless and ultra-wealthy. At its heart is a lie, told by the young man on the balcony, that tore him from his comfortable and loving family home into the arms of those who only wished to exploit him.
Much has been written about this book, and the author is rightly well celebrated and, owing to his celebrity status, well interviewed. I found it fascinating, but as the pages went on, harder to read. It’s a bleak world we live in at times, and London Falling shines a pretty bright light on that fact.
It reminded me a lot of Caledonian Road, the impeccable 2024 fiction bestseller that peels back the onion layers of our great city from the more comfortable distance that fiction allows. So, if you enjoy this, as I am sure you will, also consider that.
I bought this book from Village Books . If you're ordering online, most independent books shops can order in.