Student Activist Diary

WEEKLY ROUND-UP 17/6/11: Patrick Wolf, Liam Finn, LMFAO, Weird Al Yankovic

Patrick Wolf, Lupercalia
Our score: 6/10

Patrick Wolf has long since divided opinion: a decidedly odd figure in a scene which isn’t exactly known for following the norm. This album, his fifth, is – in subject matter at least – by far his most conventional; it’s a collection of songs about love, inspired by Wolf’s own recent engagement.
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So, gone are the dark, twisted songs like ‘The Childcatcher’ (from 2003’s Lycanthropy), replaced by plenty of yearning paeans to “breathless devotion” (‘Slow Motion’) and love which “makes a house a home” (‘House’, although personally I thought that was supposed to be Homebase).
The problem, you see, is that although Wolf’s getting musically better and better – he’s also replaced his affection for wailing violin passages with a new love, this time for soaring piano chords – this album is so po-faced that you can’t help but laugh at it. We’ve all got a friend who fell in love and stopped being any fun, and that’s exactly what Patrick Wolf has become.

‘Lupercalia’ is released on 20/6/11.

Liam Finn, FOMO
Our score: 8/10

Fact of the day this week is that ‘FOMO’ apparently stands for ‘Fear of Missing Out’, rather than being the comedy mis-spelling of ‘mofo’ I’d feared. It also stands for ‘Friends of Mulanje Orphans’, ‘Former Mormon’ and ‘Fleet Operations and Maintenance Officer’, but  Liam Finn’s second solo offering isn’t named after any of those – that would be silly.
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And silly is one thing FOMO definitely isn’t; ‘sweet’ or ‘beautiful’, but not silly. It’s a collection of gentle, dreamy acoustic-tinged indie-pop that owes much to Liam’s musical progenitor Neil Finn (of Crowded House/Split Enz fame). Dad might not be the coolest influence to namecheck, but his musical sensibilities certainly work, although the best tracks – like album highlight ‘Real Late’ – are those where Liam’s piano-led musings are given free rein.
There’s no ‘Weather With You’ on this album, thank God, and FOMO is well worth your time. Try it – or risk missing out. And nobody likes missing out, right Liam?

‘FOMO’ is released on the 21/6/11

LMFAO , Sorry For Party Rocking
Our score: 6/10

Put your hand up if you were expecting LMFAO’s second album, Sorry For Party Rocking, to be full of deep and meaningful singles, perhaps about whales or orphans.
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No? Nobody? What a surprise.
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Just looking at the tracklist of this offering from the Californian ‘party rockers’ reveals exactly what you’re in for: it features not only single ‘Party Rock Anthem’, but also songs entitled ‘Sexy and I Know It’, ‘Best Night’ and ‘We Came Here to Party’. There is the eponymous ‘Sorry For Party Rocking’, too, but honestly, readers – and keep this to yourselves, OK? – I don’t think that song constitutes a sincere apology.
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So, listening to this album is exactly the sort of experience  you’d expect. It’s a bit like how I’d imagine a night out with Charlie Sheen: it starts off absolutely brilliant, like all the fun you’d ever wanted, but half-way through you realise it’s already nine o’clock on Monday morning and Charlie’s just bought another set of cocaine-flavoured hookers and really all you want to do is just go to bed, please, and maybe drink some orange juice. But you can’t.

‘Sorry for Party Rocking’ is released on 21/6/11.

Weird Al Yankovic, Alpocalypse
Our score: 7/10

Like drawing comedy penises on other people’s things and saying ‘That’s what she said’, Weird Al is supposed to be mostly the province of nerdy twelve year old boys. His songs range between carefully-constructed parodies of popular singers (see ‘TMZ’, which takes on Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong With Me’ to spoof not only the pop singer but also the terrible TV station) and the just-plain-ridiculous (‘Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me’).
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And, like comedy penises and ‘That’s what she said’, it’s still funny. Weird Al has an ear for a rhyme that borders on the sublime (and he can have that one for free): ‘Skipper Dan’, the bathetic tale of a would-be actor, pairs “don’t bother trying to IMDB me” with “the only place you might possibly see me”.
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That said, there’s nothing on this album with the sheer laugh-out-loud calibre of parts of his back catalogue – his best remains 1999’s Running With Scissors – and parts of it sound downright tired. But if you’re after a cheap laugh, it’s worth a listen – and if you don’t giggle at ‘Party in the CIA’, you are a stronger person than I.

‘Alpocalypse’ is released on the 21/6/11.