Turn up the radio ...

I'd like to think my music taste is rather diverse, but I guess there's like a small field of musical genre (what?) that I'm dancing around in really. I'm not quite sure if you get the picture with how I've described this, but I do and I felt I had to do an arty farty introduction into this mixtape:

http://ollieyaya.muxtape.com/

And yeah, basically here's a track-by-track analysis type thing of why I chose them:

1. Black Eyed Peas - Pump It

This isn't a pisstake, this is actually one of my favourite songs. With Pulp Fiction being one of my favourite films and with The Black Eyed Peas probably being the best kinda r'n'b supergroup out there this song's perfect, whether it be for starting a party or, in this case, a mixtape.

It just went so wrong after My Humps ...

2. Be Your Own Pet - Zombie Graveyard Party

For about a week this was actually the first song on the mixtape before I changed it pretty last-minute. It's probably one of the best songs on Get Awkward, and is pretty much a riot. I love it.

3. Sonic Youth - Sleepin' Around

When it comes to Sonic Youth I tend to like their later stuff such as the Rather Ripped album as opposed to a lot of their earlier stuff. I like the guitar stuff at 1:57 - 2:24 which leads into the rest of it.

Hello, I am obviously not a writer.

4. The Unicorns - Sea Ghost

I love the introduction to this with the pan flute (or at least that's what I interpret it to be) which doesn't really seem to be linked to the rest of the song. On Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, it pretty much just seperates this song from Ghost Mountain preceding it. I like the lyrics, and I also think it kinda gets you ready for the slower portion of the mixtape.

5. Blur - Country Sad Ballad Man

Blur's self-titled album is their best in my opinion and I wanted to include a track from it onto this mixtape but I was at a loss on what to pick uploading about eight different songs until I settled on this one. I think it's a good lead-in to track six too ...

6. Florence and the Machine - Hospital Beds

Florence Welch is the future, and it's pretty much a given that she'll be massive. All of her demos are pretty damn good, but this Cold War Kids cover is especially beautiful. She has such a good voice, and when the original version is such a monster of a song it's hard to make a good job of it - she does it flawlessly.

8. Death From Above 1979 - Go Home, Get Down

I love the rhythm of this track and yeah ... that's about it really? I wish these two would reform.

9. Les Savy Fav - Yawn, Yawn, Yawn

When it comes to Les Savy Fav, I can take them or leave them really. Some of their stuff is brilliant, and some of their other stuff doesn't even compare. This is one of their best, the opening chords of it are brilliant. It did however take me a while to realise that the lyric in the chorus is not "the late Dave Beckham".

7. 1990s - You're Supposed To Be My Friend

Bad teeth aside, 1990s are a pretty swell band. I pretty much listened to this non-stop when it was released, so it makes sense that I'd put it on here really. It pretty much gets the tempo back a bit faster

[The reason why this is under here is because it wasn't until I was writing this blog and listening at the same time that I switched them, and then Blogger wouldn't let me copy and paste. Bitches.]

10. Elle Milano - The Great Gulf (Live and Acoustic)

This was on an Elle Milano mixtape I randomly downloaded off another blog, and was just an enchanting discovery. Adam Crisp's voice is impeccable, as is everything by this band - but it's certainly one of Elle's rare reserved songs. It's beautiful.

11. Tubelord - Propeller

One of my most exciting and very recent finds, I think Tubelord are brilliant. This is my favourite song of theirs, and I await more. This is brilliant.

12. White Lies - Death

When it came to choosing the final song, I was pretty much going with at first Hit The Road Jack by Ray Charles until I realised that I'd already used Black Eyed Peas in my mixtape and I kinda wanted to stay as rocky as possible, and be taken seriously. Not that there's anything wrong with Ray Charles, he's a very talented musician. After going with No Doubt's cover of Come On Eileen for a while, I decided I wanted to end on a really kind of epic high - and that's certainly what pretty much everything White Lies are doing is, epic. Especially with this, I eagerly await everything this band do. I think it leaves the mixtape at an ending really. Well yes, cos there aren't any more songs obviously but yeah, ok whatever ...

"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT"

So, Lee McQueen is Sir Alan's new Apprentice.



OK it was fun watching Alex's charmed run end and he was a bit of a shit the whole season (and Helene wavered between non-existant and bitchy), but in my opinion they clearly launched the superior product in the final task. I would never even consider buying Roulette, whereas I could see Dual selling really well. I think it was nearly universally agreed upon that the Dual name, bottle, campaign, print ad, commercial, dodgy scent and overall presentation was superior to Roulette. However, it seems in SirAlan's world, a functional team trumps all that, despite the crap product they came up with.

I guess it's a matter of preference:
a) A discordant team that ends up pulling together a great product
b) A happy team that puts out a fairly crap product

I think SirAlan was in a bit of a bind because he was clearly expecting Claire and Lee to win; however, because Dual was so much better than Roulette, he had to magify the flaws on team Alex/Helene and diminish those on team Claire/Lee to make the decision credible. Fact is... Roulette was complete crap, and Dual was pretty damn great. I'm sure a simpler and cheaper bottle could have been manufactured that still had the removable piece. Making a little less profit due to higher production costs is far better than making no profit at all because your product won't sell.

Having said all that, I was glad to see Claire in the Final Two and was fully expecting her to win... and for the second year in a row, I completely disagree with the final decision. So that makes it.... three years in a row that the "tough woman" has made the Final Two and lost (for no real good reason). And in my opinion, SirAlan has made the wrong decision twice. Kristina and Claire all should have been the winners of their respective seasons (given the F2s SirAlan chose).

But SirAlan obviously made the wrong decision back when he fired Raef over smarmy Michael. Don't get me wrong, I did think Lee was an incredibly strong and skilled character - but whereas he's been consistent the whole time, Claire has been moulded into the perfect candidate only to be crushed at the last minute.

Regardless, I have nothing to do on a Wednesday night anymore.

oliver timothy launn, est. 1990

Blogging seems to be what everybody's doing, and why not? It's a good idea, to let people have a random insight into your own little world. The reason I haven't created a blog sooner is because I fear I'm not as interesting a person as I would like to think and I will probably end up writing "today I woke up, got out of the bed, went online, had a loo break, came back online, went to sleep, gained 10 stone" (rest assured, that's not a normal day. I do in fact have a life).

So I should probably write a little about myself, one which will be pernament seeing as my "About Me" section on MySpace does tend to change once a week. This is probably due to the fact that I feel like I'm constantly changing, or just because I think people are bored of reading the same old thing.

I'm currently seventeen years old, although I'll be turning 18 in two months time. Then I'll be on the floor of every club in town, seeing as I get drunk way too easily. I can't wait to actually not be turned away from 18+ gigs (it happened once for a Johnny Foreigner gig in March, and I never dared try again) and venture to New Slang (I've heard it's good). I'm gay, and I'd like to think I'm not camp, but I know how my voice sounds to me is different to the way other people hear it. I don't think I act camp though, I consider myself the same as everyone else. I'd like to think I have style, but even I have to admit I've really gone off those tight blue skinnies I bought from Urban Outfitters back in January.

Verdana Size 10 is my favourite font.

If you're going to a gig in Northampton, we may well run into each other at some point. Or we might not, but that's life really isn't it? I miss going to The Soundhaus already, but not so much that I could be arsed going on that Save The Soundhaus march thing that happened. Roadmender's alright I suppose. Not that I'm from Northampton, I reside about half an hour away in Milton Keynes but gigs at The Pitz are mostly terrible. And I'm originally Scottish, which I may well flaunt at you. I'm proud to be Scottish, and to still have the accent after almost living in this country for 10 years. In September I'll hopefully be going to study Public and Media Relations at Swansea University and I can't wait for this next chapter. I'm really interested in a career in the media, either in PR or in journalism. Competitive stuff though.

The journalism thing may well be a challenge, as I have difficulty in writing conclusions.