Maybe not so much.

I’m a little late on these selections, but one thing Counterforce should be doing and isn’t so far is talking about music. So, without further adieu, three selections from across the pond…

Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends.

Fuck you for making me type out that entire ultra pretentious album title, Coldplay. I think I’d rather have had to type out the entire title to Fiona Apple’s second album.

But, as for this album itself, this “masterpiece” of sound: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I rate this album, their fourth, about as highly as I’d rate their last album, X & Y (And don’t get me started on how egotistical and arrogant and annoying I find “Fix You” off their last album to be). Listenable, a few numbers that bring out some light toe tapping, but ultimately nothing of any substance. Nothing that sticks with you. No “Fuck yeah!”s. Nothing you’d go to a concert with your fingers crossed, desperately hoping you’ll hear. Nothing that made this album neccesary to record, even.

I used to like you, Chris Martin. I really did. Your first two albums with Coldplay were not that bad and had some real standouts floating around on them. You’re the current go to guy for hip hop and rap projects, having worked with The Streets and Jay-Z and even Timbaland and Nelly Furtado, and all of them decent collaborations (when their record labels would allow your contributions to make it through, that is) but lately? You’re boring me. I know you think you’re writing big, epic important song writing. There’s meanings and themes, you think. You’re referencing Douglas Adams and talking about love and war and peace, but the thing is, no one cares about that. Not when it’s coming from you. From you, we want to hear sad bastard music about you not losing your virginity til you were 24 and all the saucy English birds you stalked. And just like those ladies probably felt, you’re starting to bug the shit out of me. I’m starting to almost hate you. And you don’t want that. Cause once you go in that Rob Thomas box, you’ll never come out of it.

Actually, I think you’ve been in that box for a while now and I’m just being kind, which is rare for me. Let me put it this way, and I’ll quote the brilliant Molly Lambert here, only in reverse, when I say that if Chris Martin was a director, he’d be Cameron Crowe.

Bloc Party – Intimacy.

To paraphrase the first sentence of the Pitchfork review, I’ll just say this: There’s nothing intimate about this album, or Bloc Party in general. This new album, a combination of what wikipedia calls the “jittery art rock” of their first album and the “fuller soundscapes” of their second album mixed in with electronica, is one thing definitively: an overproduced mess that I’d hate to see road tested in a live show. Called a break up album and supposedly dealing with the falling apart of a relationship that singer Kele Okereke (part of me really wants to comment on his vague sexuality, which he compares to gay for show/androgynous for titillation-ers Brian Molko and David Bowie, but I won’t because it’s really not relevant) was in last year, but the lyrics are so intoverted and obtuse in parts, that it could be about just about anything. As for as break up albums go, I’d stick with Sea Change and Portions For Foxes. Hell, even Blood On The Tracks would work, which is saying a lot from me considering my love/HATE relationship with Bob Dylan.

Musically, there’s not much to talk about in Bloc Party’s third album. Their first album was good, feeling like a nice collection of singles rather than an album, and their second album was less good, feeling more cohesive as an album, but with only one or two songs you really wanted to listen to. This album feels more akin to the second album and no real progression and I personally find myself more drawn to the slower cuts on this offering rather than the more danceable or rockin’ ones (“Halo” being the only real straightfoward rock song). But they do get props in my eyes for their song “Ion Square,” which uses elements from E. E. Cumming‘s “I Carry Your Heart With Me” in the lyrics. Outright theft is the highest form of flattery, right?

What there is to talk about though is the way the album was released. A digital copy was released on Aug. 21 on their label’s site, having only been announced online the week before, and the physical copy comes out in late October. There was a set price, more following the Nine Inch Nails/Saul Williams model than the Radiohead one (or, from what I gather, the less successful Girl Talk one), so it’ll be curious to see how this trend continues. If I remember correctly, Radiohead said they don’t plan on doing a similar type of pay what you want release again but Trent Reznor’s method was so successful the first time that with his second release in this method, he just gave it to the fans for free to say thanks (and then did pretty well on the expensive limited edition physical release, I believe).

The last thing I’ll comment on for the new Bloc Party album is the cover. It’s just a rough version for the digital release, but it is striking in it’s simplistic eye catching Chip Kidd sort of way. But it’s almost too nice for this band deserves. You guys just aren’t Joy Division. Also, it upsets me to see a song called “Biko” on your tracklist that’s not a Peter Gabriel cover.

And last, but not least…

The Verve – Forth.

Richard Ashcroft, you still have the face of a hardened pedophile.

But as much as I hate to admit it, you make good albums. There’s not a ton that can be said about the “comeback” album by The Verve. It’s solid. Not a whole long in the singles department, but highly listenable. And it’s not shocking to find out that the band that wrote “The Drugs Dont’ Work” would now have a song called “Valium Skies.” What is shocking is to find psuedo-shoegaze on this album with a song like “Noise Epic” (what a title, man), or how much I actually find myself liking the single, “Love Is Noise,” which opens with what could be outtakes from the recording of a Gorillaz track.

Lyrically there isn’t much happening here. Maybe as much as on the Bloc Party album, maybe less. Probably more. And at least it’s not shooting for ridiculous heights a la Coldplay. No, this is just sweet beautiful brit pop roaring back to life, ten years after it was shoveled into the ground. Welcome back, you wankers.

This is the video for “Love Is Noise,” the first single off The Verve’s album.

This is the video for “Mercury,” the first single off Bloc Party’s album.

This is the video for “Flux,” the previous Bloc Party album, which is better than a majority of this new album.

If you really want the video for the first Coldplay single off their album, you should probably just go turn on VH1 or something.

And this is a video of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty on drugs.

Sufjan Stevens is scoring the short film Natalie Portman directed.

Two words: Truck balls.

Save the house Superman was born in!

Don LaFontaine is dead. Or, rather, “In a world…”

Irish cops hard at work.

Pitchfork’s review of the Black Kids’ debut album, Partie Traumatic.

Can you believe that it’s been ten fucking years since The Big Lebowski came out? Can you also believe that…

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!

We are the music-makers, and the dreamers of deams.

U2 and the bands that pretend to be them.

Incubus? More like succubus.

Bloc Party? More like Suck Party!

The brilliant Phonogram would like to talk to you about the return of brit pop.

Sadly, the above picture of Sarah Palin is not real. This is the real picture. Even sadder, this isn’t real either. But those Joe Biden bikini photos? All too real.

Oh, and baby Trig’s blog…