Kate Nash - The Verdict!

So, the Kate Nash album.

Apart from being one of the most unexpectedly-underwhelming pop events of the year, the release of her album finally gives us a chance to properly address the question that’s been on our lips since January: is Kate Nash amazing or a complete idiot?


The case for the prosecution (ie. she‘s an idiot):

:: At times the air of pretension threatens to destroy the album completely. You get the feeling that Kate Nash thinks she is very clever and would like everyone to know how clever Kate Nash is. Hence bizarre moments like the r-rolling on ‘Mariella’, which would be a much better song were it not for annoyances such as that.

:: ‘Dickhead’ (the song, not Kate). FUCKING HELL.

:: She hasn’t got the business sense to sell songs which obviously don’t suit her style, like ‘Pumpkin Song’, to other artists, preferring instead to stick them on a rushed album.

:: Clearly, she hasn’t learnt any lessons from the awful ‘Caroline Is A Victim’. Album opener and second worst musical moment of the year (after that aforementioned monstrosity) ‘Play’ is evidence of this, and will make you want to kick your speakers in.


The case for the defence (ie. she‘s amazing):

:: She is at least very talented.

:: Album highlight ‘Foundations’ is one of the best songs of the year, by any artist, full stop. A masterpiece of 21st relationship drama, the lyrics are only criticised by people who’ve always been too old, single and boring to understand them. A massive pop moment.

:: She’s got a thousand opinions.

:: In contrast to the decidedly-dubious Remi Nicole, who thinks a reference to Topshop and some bollocks about fighting in pubs makes you ‘real’, Kate Nash writes heartfelt songs that, pretentious or not, have obviously come from the mind of someone who’s lived a little. You’d pretty much have to be a murderer or something not to have a little weep over ‘Birds’.

The Verdict:

When posing our original question, we raised the possibility that Kate Nash was both amazing AND an idiot, and it looks like, ultimately, we got it right. Which means we’re going to have to say she’s amazing, because what proper pop star isn’t slightly idiotic too?

With ‘Made of Bricks’ it is a case of Nash being very good when she’s good and very bad when she’s bad. Which is forgivable on a debut, even in the make or break climate we live in. In songs like ’Foundations’, ’Mouthwash’, ’Birds’ and ’Merry Happy’ she has written some of the most beautiful, heartfelt and endearing tunes likely to emerge this year. Now if we can have more of that, and less of the silly voices, we’ll be on to a winner.

In praise of... Remixes

Remixes, depending on your point of view, are either a complete waste of time, or a brilliant way of giving old and/or rubbish songs a new lease of life.

We’re not talking about cash-in-hand, rentabeat remixes here: where faceless producers try to sell their awful attempts at dance music by slapping random snippets of someone else’s vocal over the top - the musical equivalent of offering to paint someone’s portrait, only to then stick bits of their photo on top of a painting you’ve already done. We’re referring to the type of remix that takes elements of the original and mercilessly plays around with them, distorting, twisting and generally fucking about with things until a whole new interpretation of the song becomes apparent.

This is closer in spirit to a director re-shooting someone else’s film, but with their own vision, than the cheap ‘cash-for-bpm' view of remixes that some people hold.

Take the CSS remix of the latest Cribs single, for example. A fairly average indie tune that at best could hope to inspire limited outbreaks of foot-shuffling becomes a thrusting, colourful dancefloor banger, just because some people from Brazil thought it would sound better that way. How did CSS pull it off? Not by ripping the original to pieces and sewing it back together with Generic Trance thread, but by tweaking the original so delicately that it sounds like it always did - except completely different.

A similar ethos is employed by Mr. Oizo, on his remix of Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’. Here, the Gallic Flat Eric-botherer has rejuvenated one of the most tired songs of all time, literally by ‘re-producing’ the original. It follows exactly the same structure: all the same riffs are in place, the iconic bass-and-tin-pot intro intact, yet Oizo has applied a sort of punk, fuck-you tweak to the track, adding artificial vocals and screeching guitar stabs left right and, indeed, centre. The seditious, glitchy retake ends in appropriate fashion, skipping to halt like a broken CD. The overall result being that ’Killing In The Name’ sounds more alive, more vital, and more likely to elicit a ’WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?’ reaction than at any point during the past 14 years.

More intrusive to structure, but no less playful, are To My Boy’s tamperings with Klaxons’ track ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. Here, the quirky Scouse duo rip steaming chunks out of the original and weld them back together so furiously you’d think they were reclaiming it as their own lost demo. The tune is given a gigantic, menacing electro tune-up, so that “I’ll always be there for you, my future love” ends up sounding more like an ominous threat than a declaration of devotion, but crucially, the joyful rave-ish spirit of the original remains intact.

This is in contrast to Erol Alkan’s take on ‘Golden Skans’: the Trash man simply attached a vocal sample and some token riffery to a sparse electro track that probably took him all of five minutes to knock out in exchange for his Klaxons dollar.

Ultimately, remixes needn’t necessarily stick to the original’s template in order to remain worthwhile. It is still possible to ditch wholesale chunks and replace them with your own musical witterings and not become part of the ‘Max Von Rustpumper’s Rustpumper Dub’ crowd. Look at Modernaire’s remix of The Holloways’ ‘Generator’. This is basically more of a cover version than a remix, replacing forced north London jauntiness with a cerebral, layered and, at times, sinister-sounding take that is nonetheless surprisingly danceable.

Also closer to a cover than a remix is Metronomy’s stunning re-working of Kate Nash’s ‘Foundations’. Currently kicking the fuck out of clued-up clubland, the mix takes Nash’s already-iconic vocal and teams it with lurching electro basslines, synths and an inspired falsetto backing to create a fitting accompaniment to the feelgood/bad hit of the summer. The dreamy “ooooooh” vocal during the bridge is truly brain-bending, and has already been held responsible for the melted hearts, heads and legs recently suffered by several hundred overexuberant club kids. Much like the best remixes usually are.

Everything's fine, except...

You may remember that previously we’ve posed the question: is Kate Nash brilliant or just completely ridiculous?



We were hoping that the release of her second single would clear things up slightly, but with ‘Foundations’ looming over the horizon we’re still no closer to the answer.

The track shows that Kate certainly knows her way around a breezy-but-miffed summer diss track better than most; and the lyrical content, about a relationship that stopped being a relationship a long time ago and should probably stop pretending but doesn’t, is absolutely spot on and brilliant and all good things like that.

But.

THE VOICE! If Ms. Nash opened her mouth a bit less and sang a bit more during her songs, she would be at least two and half times better than she is. As it is, the ‘I’m young and from London, don’t you know?’ over-enunciation of each line deals a crushing blow to her brilliance.

On the plus side, she’s learnt how to act and she does still have that adorable pixie face.

We’ll probably end up loving her by the time her album comes out.

Carra! Lion!!

Is Kate Nash brilliant or just completely ridiculous? It is hard to say. On the one hand, she has done some very nice songs and has a nice face. On the other, she is capable of making videos like this. A lesson in acting like an idiot and pronouncing words in the most annoying way imaginable. Oh dear.

There is a third possibility, that she’s brilliant and ridiculous, but we’re not so sure. Let’s just say the jury’s still out on this one.