Friday, December 30, 2011 

Best music of 2011 part 2 / 15 best albums.

Honourable mentions, in no particular order:

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
Sepalcure - Sepalcure
DJ Diamond - Flight Muzik
Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Zomby - Dedication
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l
Africa Hitech - 93 Million Miles
Surgeon - Breaking the Frame
Machinedrum - Room(s)
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX - We're New Here
Kryptic Minds - Can't Sleep

15. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

Annie Clark's third album as St. Vincent comes across not so much as a howl of anger about America both past and present as an expression of bitter disappointment. The lead single Cruel, with its incredibly effective take on the crushing realities of family life would be enough on its own, but backed with Cheerleader, Clark singing of how she's seen America naked, and Surgeon, apparently inspired by Marilyn Monroe's diaries, it forms a critique that is all the more powerful for its world-weariness, especially impressive coming from a 28-year-old. Making it all the more fierce is Clark's eye for almost other-worldly hooks and riffs: Cheerleader's final 40 seconds simply don't last long enough, while the solos on Northern Lights in their fuzzed beauty beguile in equal measure.

14. Pinch and Shackleton - Pinch and Shackleton

Coming slightly too late for inclusion on last year's list was Shackleton's Fabric 55 mix, containing only his own productions. While only drawing from yourself for a mix can be incredibly self-indulgent, when your tracks are as multi-layered and occasionally sinister as Shackleton's it almost feels obligatory. Combining with Bristol's Pinch for this album on the exceptionally curated Honest Jon's label, it feels like a riposte to where dubstep seems to have been going in 2011: nowhere.

13. Emika - Emika

The writing process of bass music is such that very few tracks are ever made with the express intention of later adding vocals, let alone having the lyrics written alongside or even before. This often results in the jarring effect successful instrumentals suffer from when it's felt, often by record companies, that a vocal has to be added to make it commercial enough to be played on radio. Not all of the productions Emika has vocalled have been expressly written for her, yet her nuanced, breathy vocals, compared to Portishead's Beth Gibbons', make it sound as if they were always made to co-exist. Count Backwards especially is a triumph on an album that is very much of the city she used to call home, Bristol, while also nodding towards her new residence in Berlin.

12. Martyn - Ghost People

Having received plaudits all round for last year's debut Great Lengths, it seems more than slightly strange that the Dutch producer hasn't received anywhere near the same accolades for his follow-up, Ghost People. Perhaps that's because it looks just as much backwards as it does forward, often wearing its early rave influences on its sleeve (it could also be something to do with being released the same week as the albums by both Rustie and Kuedo). This is a shame, as although many are pretending to have forgotten about the "new rave" trend that never was, Martyn has been around long enough to trim the excess flab off and deliver only the good parts. The album's last track, We Are You in the Future comes with the breaks, while Masks' effervescent synths and main riff rivals anything from the post-dubstep stable this year.

11. 2562 - Fever

As a concept alone, Fever by 2562 deserves applause: every single sound on the album is sampled in some way from disco records released between the mid-1970s and early 80s. Not that you'd necessarily realise it if you were given just the record without any additional information. If you were, what you'd find was an album that simply doesn't sound like anything else released this year: sure, the syncopation of dubstep/post-dubstep is there, as you'd expect, but it's the warmth that's so invigorating, as epitomised on the opener Winamp Melodrama, and which then continues throughout.

10. Rinse CD Mix Series
Rinse 14: Mixed by Youngsta
Rinse 15: Mixed by Roska
Rinse 16: Mixed by Ben UFO
Rinse 17: Mixed by Elijah and Skilliam

Rinse FM, having started off as a pirate way back in 94, continues to astound with just how far it's managed to come in those 17 years. It's not hyperbolic to describe it as the best music radio station in the world: which other station with a licence after all starts off the week with a heavily dub influenced show by Crises, and then ends it on a Sunday with the dancehall sounds of the Heatwave? Its this depth and variety which comes shining through in the compilation CDs the station has released this year: the dungeon, roots dubstep courtesy of Youngsta, the upstart UK funky played by Roska, the current post-dubstep mixed with old-school house and techno of Ben UFO, and the upfront grime showcased by Elijah and Skilliam. Its the latter mix which impresses the most and also best captures the essence of their actual show on Rinse, both in the dexterity of the mixing and the sheer number of tracks packed in, although it doesn't come close to the near 90 they managed to fit into their allotted 2 hours at the beginning of this month.

9. Fabriclive 57 - Mixed by Jackmaster

One of the problems with officially released mixes in 2011 is that with music so instantly available, it's difficult for the DJ to put together a selection that is still new when it's actually released, usually the 2 to 3 months after they recorded it. Jackmaster got around this trouble (at least almost, as it was touch and go whether they could licence the DJ Funk track) by mixing almost equal parts current tracks with classics and old school: seminal tunes like Big Fun by Inner City and Vamp by Outlander thus sit alongside the latest from Addison Groove and Hudson Mohawke. As with the Martyn album, it's evidence if it were needed that sometimes you have to go backwards to keep on going forward.

8. Silkie - City Limits Volume 2

If for nothing else, the wait for City Limits Volume 2 was worth it simply for the long-awaited release of Silkie's collaboration with Skream. Having been around on "dubplate" for at least two years, possibly longer, and with it still "Untitled" giving the game away, it melds Silkie's innate sense of melody with Skream's emphasis on rhythm, creating a monster of a track. While nothing else on here quite touches the heights reached by their pairing, the rest certainly isn't filler: Boogie Boy and Rock Da Funk are great examples of what Silkie does best, adding soul and depth to what can in certain hands be dubstep's difficult to penetrate harsh core.

7. Kromestar - Colourful Vibrations

Criminally overlooked on its release earlier in the year, Colourful Vibrations by Kromestar is one of those albums that will hopefully come to be appreciated more in time. Equally at home producing ear-shredding mid-range tunes as he is contributing to the more melodic side of the scene through his involvement in the Antisocial Entertainment grouping, Colourful Vibrations showcases the latter side of his output. The first release on the Dubstep for Deep Heads label, this is exactly that, although just as dancefloor friendly. If there is one criticism to be made, it's that it could have been better sequenced: the first five tracks are so exceptional, Disagree especially with its horn riffs, that what follows comes as a slight let down. That shouldn't distract though from what is one of the most impressive dubstep long players since the genre name was coined.

6. Author - Author

"I am a teacher and I am still a teacher". So goes the sample on the release preceding Author's self-titled debut, and also featured here as a hidden track. Consisting of Jack Sparrow and Ruckspin, two distinguished dubstep producers in their own right, their coming together as Author for this release on Pinch's Tectonic label saw them giving what ought to be a lesson to many of the new breed of producers: if there's no real feeling to your track, just the ticking of boxes, then it's not going to last long in the memory. Opener Turn, with lyrics from Ed Thomas, is as lush an intro as you're likely to hear, while the sax on Green and Blue, which can so easily turn out cheesy when done wrong is perfectly judged, all adding up to form the best straight-up dubstep album of the year.


5. Kuedo - Severant

As part of dubstep duo Vex'd, Jamie Teasdale had arguably a major hand in putting the mainstream part of the genre where it is now: the difference is that where his productions alongside Roly Porter had the harshness that has become the hallmark of the mid-range sound, their productions also had the technical skill which so often fails to underpin the either insipid or aggravating wobblers that have come afterwards. In his new guise as Kuedo he's left all that behind, imbibing influences as varied as the pioneering electronic soundtracks of the early 80s right up to the Chicagoan footwork which had such an impact on UK bass music last year. The overall result is dreamlike and an often overused description, cinematic, but which in this case is all too accurate. Best of all might be Scissors, sampling Carly Simon's Why, the riff coming in off-kilter as the jukin' backdrop kicks away.

4. SBTRKT - SBTRKT

One of the most remarkable things about SBTRKT's debut is what isn't on the album: Nervous, which came out on Numbers last year either couldn't be licensed to Young Turks or was felt to be too old for inclusion. What does feature is utterly immaculate pop, albeit with all the sheen and heft of bass music in 2011. While it features a number of guest vocalists, it's Sampha's contributions which are far and away the best, album closer Living Like I Do showing off his range to its fullest extent. Rumoured to have made the Mercury shortlist, its subsequent exclusion was all the more bewildering when efforts by both Tinie Tempah and Ghostpoet were deemed to be better. SBTRKT, in a different way to Jessie J, will hopefully get the last laugh.

3. Rustie - Glass Swords

Listening to the first three tracks on Glass Swords having already read the forum hype and reviews, many of which were either lauding it or eulogising about Rustie's debut, I was just a little non-plussed. Sure, they're better than average, but they weren't worth the effusive praise the whole was receiving. Then Hover Traps dropped, and so did my jaw. Once it does, the pace simply doesn't let up: to call it a sugar rush, or even a surge of serotonin doesn't really do Glass Swords justice. Put simply, it's the most outrageously loved-up, euphoric album of the year, whether you pigeonhole it as being of the post-dubstep movement or pure rave music. Ultra Thizz on its own would be worthy of this placing; accompanied as it is by twelve other tracks in a similar vein, it makes for the most exhilarating listen of the year.

2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

If the critics have agreed on one thing, it's that Let England Shake is either very close to being or is the album of the year. Backlash duly prompted, the main criticism seems to be that Polly Jean Harvey's eighth studio record is slightly too worthy, a little too broadsheet to truly become a classic album. To which I say: bollocks. Rather than being too worthy, Let England Shake is vital, a corrective to the happy image currently being shoved down our collective throat of the military, or at least the wives of soldiers as embodying the best of British resolve, their husbands away "protecting Queen and country". We should be shaking at the continuing pointlessness of war in Afghanistan, a war our politicians tell us the most miserable of lies about. Let England Shake might deal mainly with the first world war, a conflict even more unnecessary than the current one in Afghanistan, but the message still resonates: the opening lines of The Words That Maketh Murder, "I have seen and done things I want to forget / I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat" ought and must retain the power to shock and to frighten. The Glorious Land's main refrain has it completely right, still: "Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet, feet marching".

1. James Blake - James Blake

"There's a limit to your love. Your love your love your love." To make a cover version the centrepiece of your debut album would normally be suggestive of a lack of confidence in the original material. With James Blake it was the opposite: his wonderfully simple yet brilliant cover of Feist, piano, vocals, rippling sub-bass and woodblock hits was there to show he could do almost anything he put his mind to. As Pitchfork put it, no one expected him to turner singer / songwriter when his dubstep productions were of such imperious quality. That he did, with material he apparently wrote while he was at university before putting together the likes of CMYK, and that it was so ahead of everything else this year was the surprise which has kept on giving. Might as well fall in.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

Thursday, December 29, 2011 

Best music of 2011 part 1.

Best Song / Track
Julio Bashmore - Battle for Middle You

In a very strong year for albums, there hasn't really been a track that's truly crossed over in the way Wut by Girl Unit did last year. One positive is that despite Blackdown's wondering about how much mileage there was left in "dark 140bpm halfstep beats", the end of this year has shown there's still plenty of life in that formula. J:Kenzo on his own made a mockery of the notion, releasing a series of fantastic 12"s, with The Roteks / Protected followed this month by Ruffhouse / Therapy. Along with fellow Youngsta favourites such as Compa, TMSV, Benton, Commodo and Killawatt, as well as SP:MC and LX One, whose endlessly thrilling Hunted was definitely one of the tracks of the year, there's still plenty to look forward to. Joker's My Trance Girl from his otherwise disappointing album was also a highlight, as have been all of Kahn's releases, especially Way Mi Defend, praised by Boomkat as being up there with the classics from 2006. Oh, and there was also a new release from Burial.

From the post-dubstep side of things, Joy O(rbison)'s tracks for Swamp 81 have been delighting all year. Sicko Cell, with its "I'm the information" sample was one of the surprise smashes, while the still to be released "Swims" with Boddika from Instra:mental is if anything even better. Almost all of Rustie's debut album could feature on a list of the best individual tracks of the year, Ultra Thizz and All Nite especially, while Mosca's Bax / Done Me Wrong release on Numbers took us back to the good days of garage, complete with rewinds. The stand out grime track of the year was easily Cherryade by Darq E Freaker, the kind of wonky rhythm that any DJ ought to be able to find room for in their set, while Trim added layers to instrumentals by both Last Japan and TRC.

Best of all was Julio Bashmore's magisterial Battle for Middle You, combining the low-end of UK bass with all that's still good about house, without heading off in the direction Swamp 81 has taken. A great vocal sample, the stomp of the bassline and the wobbling mids made the track of the summer, and indeed the year.


Best Remix
Pearson Sound - Deep Inside / Working With

In what seemed to be a generally poor year for officially sanctioned remixes, the whole Radiohead TKOL project aside, the best came in the shape of bootlegs from some of the scene's brightest stars. The newly emerged Jacques Greene served up a 10" white label which included his take on Kelly Rowland's Motivation, while Blawan has received track of the year accolades for his superb mashing of Brandy's I Wanna Be Down. Unbeatable for me at least were Pearson Sound's cheeky re-edits, coming on a white label from Night Slugs. Kudos must also go to Jamie XX, both for his Adele remix mentioned yesterday, and his work on the Gil Scott-Heron album, with I'll Take Care of U since being sadly abused by Drake and Rihanna.

Best Reissue(s)
Pink Floyd - Why Pink Floyd?

The one area the record companies seem to have identified as being profitable other than dross aimed at the kids is in reissuing classic albums in ever more lavish editions. Quite why anyone would ever buy any album by U2, even Achtung Baby, in an edition costing £75 is unclear, but there must be some daft enough out there. Pink Floyd also brought out "immersion" editions for both Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, yet it's the simple album reissues which we're celebrating here. All are packaged lovingly, sound fantastic and are available at a sensible price. On similar grounds, The Smiths - Complete, while not being quite as complete as claimed was also great value, while for completists the Joy Division singles box set is also worth the price. Also worth a mention is the reissue from Beggars Banquet of the Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace, which like last year's Weird and Wonderful was both cheap and had everything you would ever need or want. Unless you're the type who really needs 40 different versions of the same song.

Labels: , ,

Share |

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 

Worst music of 2011.

After a couple of years where it's seemed as though mainstream music was hurtling towards deserved ignominy, with the record companies seemingly welcoming their own demise, it's a relief to note that 2011 has seen a slight revival in general fortunes. Not that this, it should be noted, has been driven by their choices as to what should be the next big thing; rather, what we've seen if anything has been a uprising from the bottom. Powered increasingly by YouTube and backed up by the social networks, the sound of 2011 has been fired by clicks rather than decrees from above.

It's rather churlish then to deny that the year has belonged to Skrillex. Having for so long rejected European electronic dance music, it's been amazing to seen how what is ostensibly dubstep capture American youth culture, even if it is only a flash in the pan. To do so though, the sound has been bastardised. Where the music which emerged from Croydon in the early 2000s was dependent on sub-bass first and the "step" from UK garage second, this has been turned on its head by the main US adherents to the genre. True, the emphasis on mid-range can be traced back to Vex'd and indeed even the revered Digital Mystikz, but it wasn't until this was subsequently taken to new extremes by the likes of Caspa and Rusko and the "new wave" of producers such as Flux Pavilion, Doctor P and Borgore that it seemed to be getting out of control.

Having started off in the emo band From First to Last, Skrillex continues to claim that he doesn't set out to make dubstep. His first productions, including a remix for Lady Gaga, are bog standard electro-house. Referring to it simply as working at a different tempo, his argument doesn't really stand up: even if it lacks the bass, the beat patterns are the same as those of his contemporaries. What can't be debated is that his tracks are very well made; the problem is that they're so soul-crushingly formulaic, and that his tried and tested method has now become the essential blueprint for the "brostep" sound. Listen to almost any of the tracks posted on the UKFDubstep YouTube channel, and you'll find thing eerily similar: the intro lasts for until between 0:50 to 1:10, then comes the "drop", followed by a breakdown, then the drop again, which will almost certainly be exactly the same as the first. Where dubstep that followed similar standards before often had a different drop and a changed riff (see almost any Skream track, for instance), now laziness, copy and paste and a lack of imagination seems to have taken over.

Even more terrifying has been the latest development: the mixing of nu-metal with brostep. UK producers like Distance have long been combining heavy guitar riffs with their bone-crushing productions, but this is something else entirely: they never imagined throwing screaming vocals into the mix, for very good reasons. This hasn't however stopped KoRn, apparently desperate for any chance to remain even vaguely relevant. Narcissistic Cannibal with Skrillex is one of those songs that just doesn't seem real: not only for the god-awful title, which would be too good to be true on its own, but for how Jonathan Davies of the band then promoted it, telling the world that his band were dubstep before it existed.

If Davies can at least be admired for his chutzpah, then the comments of both Jessie J and Adele instead give you something of an insight into the bubble in which pop stars in this country live. Both emerged from the horror factory known as the BRIT school, the state-funded arts college that has given us Amy Winehouse, Katie Melua and now, most terrifying of all, the lamentable Rizzle Kicks, who seem to be trying to be a more credible Goldie Lookin' Chain. In Adele's case, this pampering by the taxpayer doesn't seem to have rubbed off, as she complained about her tax bill. "Trains are always late, most state schools are shit", while a possible improvement to some of her lyrics, aren't views guaranteed to engender sympathy among those who hand over what little they have to pay for their copies of 21.

You can at least somewhat see why Adele's album has been far and away the best selling of the year. Even if Someone Like You seems more than slightly creepy if you bother to examine the lyrics from the other way round, Rolling in the Deep is a fine song, and even better when remixed by Jamie XX. Very little however can be done to improve the oeuvre of the aforementioned Jessie J, just as you can't polish a turd. If Adele seems to lack a sense of awareness, then Jessica Cornish (it's unclear where the extra J comes from) appears to be permanently living somewhere other than Earth. It's not just her widely marvelled at remarks after she broke her foot ("I have a different respect now for people who don't have legs", "You give so much as an artist, you give, you give, you give. I break my foot and I've got fans going, 'I've got a tummy ache, can I get a re-tweet?' People think you go to a special hospital, get special casts and treatment. It's like, 'No, I'm the same as everyone else,' and that was the moment when I had a proper good cry."), it's the remarkable contradictions contained in her music itself. Price Tag, with its refrain of it she doesn't want your money and just wants to make the world dance simply invites the question then of why she charges so damn much for tickets to her concerts, or why her album got repackaged in a "platinum" edition six months after release.

Her real crowning glory though is "Who's Laughing Now", a song which revels in its unpleasantness. Meant as a riposte both to bullies and those who doubted her abilities, it instead comes off as someone who's risen to the top not turning the other cheek and letting go but shitting on those whom now most likely regret their past behaviour. There is little that hurts as much as past stupidity which later comes back to bite you, and rather than having sympathy or forgiving, Jessie wants everyone to know that she is literally laughing all the way to the bank. And while it's difficult to know just how badly she really was treated at school, it certainly doesn't come across as especially vicious in the song, although that could just be her wretched lyrics: being compared to an alien and having teeth like Bugs Bunny might hurt if you're under 10; once you're 22 you really should have got over it. Likewise, if your former so-called friends' crimes only amount to tagging photos of you with them on Facebook, you might be the one with the problem rather than them.

Almost inevitably, having been around for 5 minutes and only written music which will be forgotten within 10 years, Jessie has been invited to be a coach and mentor on the BBC's latest doomed to failure attempt to outdo the X Factor. As a warning of what's to come in 2012, along it seems with the possible collapse of HMV, leaving essentially only supermarkets selling new physical music on the high street, it would be foolish to imagine that this year's up-turn will be repeated.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

Friday, December 23, 2011 

Don't walk away.



Merry time of the year to all visitors of this septic isle. I'll back at some point next week with my usual insipid ramblings on the state of music this year. Until then.

Labels: ,

Share |

Thursday, December 22, 2011 

The revolution betrayed.

Great piece on the takeover of Egypt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, via Paul Sagar.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 

As if things couldn't get any worse for Steve Kean...

Veterans of what used to be the terraces at football grounds are for the most part a tough, difficult to shock bunch. When even some of them then walk out during the first half of a game, not because of the performance of their team but because of the truly poisonous atmosphere their fellow fans have created, it's time to sit up and take notice. Regardless of how poor a manager Steve Kean, the former coach of Blackburn Rovers is, absolutely no one deserves the abuse he's been subjected to now for months. Yesterday this culminated not only in supporters engaged in running battles with stewards as they attempted to parade "KEAN OUT" banners during the match, he was also nearly confronted by a fan who got into the dug-out. At the final whistle, among the other objects thrown at Kean was a season ticket book.

In a way it's unfair to specifically pick on Blackburn and their fans, especially when it's difficult for them to properly project their rage at the incompetence of the club's owners, Venky's, who are making the Glazers look like philanthropists by comparison. It does though highlight what ought to be recognised as football's new problem after the almost eradication of hooliganism: the truly unacceptable behaviour of some fans, who seem to think that buying a ticket entitles them to subject players and managers to an endless torrent of verbal, the kind of which would result in a criminal charge should do they it on the street. As the Secret Footballer wrote earlier in the year, it isn't so much the culture among players which means there isn't a single openly gay footballer, it's the fans and the abuse they know they would receive should they decide to come out. Open racism might have been stamped out, at least among the fans, yet homophobia is still sadly all too common.

The only reason Kean is staying around in the face of such treatment is obvious. If he were to walk away, he wouldn't get anything in the way of compensation; stay until Venky's are forced to act and he'll at least have something for putting up with what would be regarded in any other walk of life as bullying. And who could possibly blame him when he's become the scapegoat?

Oh. Yes, of all the people that really ought to keep their mouths shut, up steps Jack Straw. One thing that perplexes me is how keen Newsnight seems to get Henry Kissinger on to comment on world affairs; last week, not content with one potential war criminal in the shape of the bloated frame of Kissinger, it also had on Jeremy Greenstock, our man at the UN during the failed attempts to get a second resolution authorising war in Iraq. At least there's a certain logic in getting someone responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people to comment on dictators murdering their own civilians; there is however no one less qualified than Straw to comment on when a football manager should leave his job. Having been intimately involved not only in the Iraq war, he then subsequently lied about the role of the UK in the United States' extraordinary rendition programme, back in 2005 notably claiming that anyone suggesting there was such a worldwide torture regime being run by the US was a conspiracy theorist. Perhaps that's one thing Kean should take comfort from: that at least he isn't a politician completely divorced from the concept of morality.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 

The fading memory of Piers Morgan.

There are many unfathomable things in life. Sandwich toasters spring to mind. Robbie Savage. Mariah Carey. Jack Whitehall. How Nick Clegg keeps managing to get up in the morning. None however are quite as inscrutable as the success of Piers Morgan. Imagine for a second that a newspaper editor in the United States had published photographs purporting to show US soldiers urinating on an Iraqi, images that anyone with the slightest nous would have been deeply suspicious about; how many detainees after all were likely to have been wearing a top with the Iraqi flag on it? One suspects that they would not then have gone on to be on the panel of a number of talent shows, or to take over from Larry King as the host of CNN's flagship nightly chat show.

Such though are the benefits of the friendships and deals you make while deciding who is and isn't making the news on any given day. Nor does there seem to be any limit to the number of full of themselves Brits our pals across the Atlantic can, if not exactly take to their hearts, then at least tolerate when their homegrown smarm merchants would be quickly shown the door.

Having transplanted himself into his new role as the man no one watches, you can't exactly blame Morgan for not being too keen to dredge over his past life at the News of the Screws and the Mirror before the Leveson inquiry. After all, there was that unpleasantness involving the shares he bought in Viglen before his City Slickers team at the Mirror tipped the company in their column, as well as the time Keith himself had to rebuke his young turk for printing photographs in the Screws of the then wife of Earl Spencer at a clinic where she was receiving treatment, let alone the hoax abuse pictures.

This doesn't however explain the memory loss he seems to have suffered since he left what used to be Fleet Street behind. In the introduction to his first witness statement to the inquiry he sets out just how little he now recalls, especially of his time at the Screws, where he can barely remember his day-to-day activities. His powers of recall must have been better a mere 6 years ago when his "diaries" in the form of The Insider were published, as he admits in his statement that rather than being a "historical record" they were collected together and written up "in a manner designed to entertain the reader" at the time, as has been long suspected. This is rather different to how the book was marketed, although Private Eye at the time pointed out a large number of glaring inaccuracies, including an entry in March of 1997 recording a visit to Downing Street where Tony Blair was holding court, a couple of months before Labour won the election.

Perhaps back then his memory was jogged along by his then partner Marina Hyde, "my best friend and unpaid but razor sharp proof reader" as he described her in his introduction to the book. Either way, sitting in a hotel at 5:30 am his time giving evidence via satellite link seemed to make his grasp of past events distinctly hazy. Having been one of the first to draw attention to phone hacking, as detailed in The Insider, he now couldn't remember who it was that had informed him of how to do it. Anyway, as he insisted, everyone seemingly knew about it and how to do it: apparently members of the public used to do it to their friends as a "bit of a lark". These members of the public most certainly didn't include hacks on the Mirror, and if if it did, then they most certainly never used these "dark arts" to obtain stories. At least he "doesn't believe so", as he said twice when asked.

Throughout it seemed as though Morgan had been exceptionally well schooled in deflecting the most uncomfortable questions concerning his knowledge of wrongdoing. This didn't seem as though it was the interviewer using his personal knowledge of the tactics of a interrogator to his advantage, rather that of a man deeply nervous of incriminating either himself or others. In the past he used bluster when confronted with such criticism, complaining of having to turn up to the parliamentary media committee's "ritual bollocking" back in 2003. His tactic of knowing nothing, having served the rest of News International so well when called before parliament, did for the most part pay off: his only really nervous moment came when quizzed on another time he put his foot in it, writing in the Daily Mail of how he listened to a voicemail left on Heather Mills's phone by Paul McCartney. Falling back on protecting a source, the implication seemed to be that Mills herself had played it to him; not inconceivable considering Mills' thirst for publicity, but doubtful when it's alleged he played it back at a party at the Mirror. Leveson suggested he might well call Mills to ask whether she did play it to him, which should be interesting if it happens.

And it's as an interviewer, even if hardly one on the Paxman level, that Morgan should be judged. He might only go as far as the celebrities he guides through their past on Life Stories allow him to, but if they started resorting to the evasions he displayed today then he would soon pick them up on it and inquire about the inconsistencies. He was joking when he said to Kate Winslet that you don't become the editor of the Daily Mirror without "being a fairly despicable human being", but you also don't become the editor of a tabloid selling millions of copies without being prepared to really scrape the ethical barrel. He might well have held his ground, with the inquiry team failing to land a killer blow, yet it'll be difficult for Lord Leveson to reach a conclusion other than that he was an "unreliable witness". CNN might yet have something to say should that happen.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates