Vinyl Vanity

The best chill out album
in the world ever

· Groove Armada: Air, Zero 7, The Orb and all the usual standards put into different order

· Patronising Images: of a really messy YP couple who have been out drinking rather than pillin'

· Something From The 60s: to convince the punters we've been doing our homework. And maybe some Eno too

· Chill Out: Ministry's brand CDs sold 500,000 a go - even though they're a dance club

· Jump Onto: a genre and squeeze the life out of it by the end of the summer

· Crap Stock Photos: of a mediterranean sun like this one

· Completely Plundered: genre, so it's time to move onto a new one. Old-skool Junglist mania anyone?

· Ibiza: Remind the lackey to mention the White Island at some stage

· £20: from Telstar at petrol stations, though you might as well wait for The Best Chill Out 2

· Look Just Hunt Down: the original Real Ibiza and Cafe Del Mar comps as these are far much better than these barely-generic cash-ins

Sit back and experience the Ultimate Chill, Easy Consumer

VINYL VANITY

Trite Ladder

Mark Edwards in The Times' Vulture section recently said this on Travis: "purveyors of quality sing-along tunes to the masses". Umm. Of all the current wave of acts using traditional instruments, song structures and strained vocals as an obvious way of making the inherent emptiness of their songs sound emotional, Fran Healy's accommodating four-piece are the worst. Nice boys. Willing to be ripped apart on Ali G. Never a bad word to say. Fran's fin the only alternative element of their act. It was a great day in their record company's offices when the executives huddled around, thinking that Travis' lyrics were so emotional, so heartfelt, "wouldn't it be great if they could just SING"? And the Davis obliged, writing 'Sing' with some Gaelic lilt underneath that is outrageously facile in its execution. Never mind the dumbness; they thought they had it covered with the gently mocking irony of their own facelessness in their album The Invisible Band. These tossers are fit only for the enthusiastic girl on her boyfriend's shoulders at the rock festival (probably the Virgin-sponsored ones in Chelmsford, from where Coldplay hail), who has no musical knowledge at all, and given the fact that she hardly listens to actual songs, chooses this strain of David Gray-piss as it's the quick route to a cuddle with Ben.

Likes
Mr Scruff: Heavyweight Rib Ticklers, lots of reggae for Tru Thoughts offshoot Unfold when he was supposed to be doing beats. That said, the Brighton's label's own When Shapes Join Together ain't bad
Lots of other compilations: Zero7's Another Late Night, David Holmes' Come Get It, I Got It and Solid Steel Presents: DJ Food vs DK spring to mind
A promo-only Trevor Jackson compilation: computer-mixing of the best 30 bars or so of probably hundreds of your favourite hip-hop, electro and early dance classics. Unlicensable, but mesmerising
New product from Dillinja, Certificate 18, Marcus Intalex - the rough with the smooth with the moody is going down well in d&b at the moment
Lots of old rock: Mudhoney's first two albums, Jesus & Mary Chain, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Led Zeppelin, etc.
Lots of new rock: Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, while Reading's roundaboutia and bland Berkshirism has finally managed to produce something in reaction in the form of Cooper Temple Clause. And isn't it swell to see Iggy Pop promoting Virgin Airlines?

Pete Tong discaire; know your roots darling
No this is not Gatecrasher, Ministry, Cream or a thousand other clubs, bars and pubs; this was New York, 1970. From Edmund White's Farewell Symphony on the genesis of today's DJs:

I was led to a huge disco in a warehouse in the meat-packing district. There hundred of guys were dancing under black light, which turned their city-pale torsos tan, their white T-shirts radioactive blue, a false tooth black, a trail of eye drops snaking down a cheek light green, a shock of peroxided hair a weird white. At the old Stonewall, the music had been pumped out of a jukebox with intervals of silence between each selection, but at the Zoo a discaire, important as a broadcasting engineer in a glassed-in booth, blended the music seamlessly from one turntable to a second, the transaction almost unnoticeable. Back then no single song was long enough to sustain our drug-induced frenzy so the disc-jockey often went from one record to an identical cut in another copy of the same record, thereby doubling our pleasure. The discaires themselves were prominent members of the gay community, known for their ability to build a mood and take it even higher.

>>Whore Cull's Sonic Truth blog