Chameleon Circuit - Blink
Chameleon Circuit (2009) on Itunes | MySpace



According to Wikipedia, Charlie McDonnell is “the most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom as of August 2010”. As part of the Doctor Who inspired band, Chameleon Circuit, Charlie wrote this song in response to the Steven Moffatt episode by the same name.

For those unfamiliar with Doctor Who, it is essentially a science fiction show (first aired in 1963!) about a man (or not quite a man but looking like a man) who travels through time and space. As a huge fan of the show, I was pleasantly surprised to find this genre (time lord rock, otherwise known as “trock”, as coined by Chameleon Circuit member, Alex Day) dedicated to all things Doctor Who.

Their self-titled album stays true to their rock genre. You don’t need to be a Doctor Who fan to enjoy this album (but you’ll definitely enjoy the references more if you do know about the show!). I do wish more of their songs followed the same style as Charlie’s treatment of Blink - it had the right mix of narrative and references (Sally Sparrow, 1969 reference, etc.), melody (guitar didn’t overpower vocals) and pacing (the flow is great, the placement of stops is just right and the rhythm effortlessly changes from one section to another).

Overall, the album is decent. It has some good songs like “Exterminate, Regenerate”, “K9’s Lament” and the previously mentioned “Blink”. However, there are some uneven songs that were repetitive in their melodies and pacing. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the album. It’s a hoot of fun and very nerdtastic! Who doesn’t want to hear about K9 or the Daleks?

Dispatch - The General
Bang Bang (1998) on Itunes | Official Website | Free Album Streaming



It’s too bad Dispatch dissolved in 2004 because listening to Bang Bang, with its great melodies and visual imagery, you can’t help but wonder where the band would have taken their sound had they continued. Compared to their last album (Silent Steeples, 1996), this album has more cohesion - which makes it an easier listen. More importantly though, it just seems like the band had more confidence (and felt more at ease) with who they were as artists.

Like Jack Johnson’s records, this album is pretty laid-back (with some really catchy riffs) to the extent that you can probably set it as ambiance music and you won’t get pumped or stressed. On the other hand though, if you start listening to the lyrics (most notably in The General), you start sensing there’s a deeper story.

In The General, there’s this one line (“I have seen the others and I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting…”) that’s constantly repeated and every time I hear it, it hits me.

It’s not that they’re as political as K’Naan but they are similar to him in that they handle the subjects of their songs with such grace and gentleness. There’s no overt message in their songs. Even if they did though, they handle it with so much subtlety that it simply becomes part of the verbal imagery that they weave so smoothly within their melodies.

On their 2004 farewell concert, 100,000 people attended. They were surprised but after listening to their album, I’m not surprised at all. With this album, they weren’t just musicians, they became storytellers. In the end, I felt like I had met some friendly faces who showed me - and allowed me to experience - what life was like as they saw it.

K’naan - Take a Minute
Troubadour (2009) on Itunes | Official Website



Out of all the songs in K’Naan’s 2009 album, Wavin’ Flag is probably the most famous. It stands out because of its haunting simplicity and honesty. Sometimes you hear a song and (stealing a line from James Cameron’s Avatar) you just ‘see’ the artist. Wavin’ Flag is one those songs.

With Wavin’ Flag setting such a high standard though, could the rest of his songs replicate that same vulnerability and humility? In a recent article, he says this: “…If I didn’t have “Take a minute,” or “Fatima,” or other songs that span years and years of my life. If I felt like I had nothing else except “Wavin’ Flag,” then I’d feel like I kind of cheated everybody, and I would be afraid of all the attention. But I think when people hear “Wavin Flag,” people are intelligent enough to know, if someone writes a song like that, there might be something more.”

And you know what, he’s right. Listening to the other songs in his album (especially the personal ones like Fatima, Take a Minute and People Like Me), he presents the same kind of honesty (with great beats to boot) as the flagship song, Wavin’ Flag. He lays and bares his soul without any bravado or even a pity-me attitude. He just says it as it is and does what most of us aspire to do in difficult situations; he survives and most of all, keeps his self intact.