THIS IS WHAT SHE COULD HAVE BEEN

Top three film soundtracks ever (Clear Distortion isn't quite as good as NME who managed to think up something like 30)

Juno

The basic acoustic sound of the Mouldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson somehow manages to perfectly capture so many aspects of the film, from the quiet American town to the relationship between Juno and Paulie. And the songs are great. Clear Distortion has wasted many hours strumming along to their two chord genius.

School of Rock

Nearly all the best classic rock in one film? How is that possible? ACDC, Led Zep, Black Sabbath, The Clash, The Doors, Cream, The Ramones... you get the point.

Good Morning Vietnam

James Brown, Louis Armstrong, The Beach Boys... yeah basically the soundtrack is American '60s music in a nutshell and if you get the CD you have entertainingly satire dialogue breaks between songs.

Leave Black Veil Brides Alone!

Honestly just because their look slightly plagurises Kiss all the indie types are being so mean about this band! Focus on the music for once jeez! This band are a hundred times more exciting than your boring emotionless skinny jean clad lot, and their music is good!

Oh help it's X Factor season again

Lock all doors and windows. Stay away from the magazine rack at the newsagent (of course being non conformist you would never go near it anyway). Don't even flick past ITV 1 on a Saturday evening. You may add yourself to the millions of mainstream types conforming to what Simon Cowell wants and watching THE X FACTOR
Saying this I did find myself curious as to who the finalists would be, so Clear Distortion took a little trip to the X Factor homepage. The whole thing was quite badly designed as the names of the poor souls having to be humiliated every Saturday were written in the same colour as the talktalk adverts in the background so they were quite hard to read. Clearly there have been budget cuts to ITV's marketing. Clear Distortion then investigated on Youtube, then decided that as in the future at least one of them will be poisoning the mainstream, some verdict should be decided on them before they become totally X Factorified.

The Girls (with Kelly Rowland. What happened to Destiny's Child???)

Misha B (apparently her surname is Bryan)

Has quite a good singing voice but will predictably be "the soul singing one" and will be paired with someone like Alexandra Burke if she gets that far. If she wins, I can already see the horrible David Guetta collabaration.

Sophie Habibis

Just a bit boring. Is giving the stink eye in the picture. Wouldn't like to meet her on a dark night.

Amelia Lily

 Her musical inspiration is Pink and her party trick is headbanging. Sorry Amelia but there is little difficulty to headbanging. Surely your party trick should be something a bit more skillful? Will probably be the "rocky" one judging by this, and her "alternative" looks and voice. Oh dear.

Janet Devlin

No. NO NO NO NO NO. WHY? WHY WHY? JANET DEVLIN IS ACTUALLY A GENUINELY TALENTED SINGER. WHAT IS SHE DOING? The fact is, Janet, that by taking part in this crap you are outruling any chances of anyone taking you seriously. Even if they don't commercialise and plasticise and mediaise and Xfactorify you, and you come out still being your amazing self, you will have no future on the music side where you belong. You could have been so fantastic. People like you break my heart.

Stay tuned for more on the X Factor and it's victims...

Ah such a beautiful song

Genre crossover: is it the way forward?

Anyone will tell you that there is no music around to day that can truly be called "revolutionary". This is simply because since Nirvana there have really been no new movements, no new genres. New bands pop up with "new and exciting sound" that is actually "new and exciting sound that sounds exactly like some band from the '80s that sounds pretty similar to some band from the '70s". Rock and pop are genres obsessed with their own past. Experimenting is no longer an option what with the uniform mainstream where everything sounds the same and is ruled by a song structure bible (verse + chorus +  verse + chorus + bridge + chorus x2 + autotune + a video involving a party and some skantily clad dumb looking models), and on the alternative side everything can be traced back at least 20 years. Even a genre as strange and interesting as dubstep sounds horribly similar to some of the rave music from the '90s and other experimental stuff from the '80s. The question is, how do you create a completely new sound when you have over 50 years of rock and pop installed in your brain? There is possibly one answer to this... genre crossover! Take Sleigh Bells for example. Their music is a slightly messed up combination of barbie style vocals, heavily distorted metal guitar, and even some really odd synths that just make it that little bit wierder. Even their album cover (cheerleaders with their faces blotted out) seems to say it all. This band's sound is a combination of contrasting genres that have created something that sounds pretty much like nothing else ever done before. And it's pretty multifunctional -  you can headbang to it, robo dance to it, what more could you want? Please music industry, don't let the beautifully unoriginal sound of American alternative rock die out, but make way for Sleigh Bells and others like them. We may have a combination of jazz and dubstep anytime now.

Insanely long songs

Is there a small group on songs on you iPod you have frankly never listened to, purely due to the fact that they are over "normal song length" (in my mind over 6 minutes)? Songs by artists like Led Zeppelin that seem to mostly be taken up by beautiful yet lengthly guitar and drum solos, and Vaccines and Yuck who seem to feel the need to include a 7 minute long song with few lyrics and seemingly no tune at the end of their albums, are common examples of songs with the main purpose seemingly being for the guitarist to demonstrate their supreme skill. However there are some ridiculously long songs that are special in the way they can well over 7 minutes be listened to all the way through, mainly because they have lyrics that compell you, the same way a good book does, to keep listening. Stairway to Heaven is an example of beautiful and engaging poetry within a song, but frankly the best person at this is Bob Dylan. Desolation Row is over 10 minutes long, and doesn't follow any particularly catchy riff or contain any real bridges or solos. It just contains poetry that could easily be read from paper, poetry that is, in a nutshell, fascinating. There is no other way to describe it. Dylan's unique voice combined with a relatively happy guitar part weaves a surreal and twisted image of society and life in 1960s America, using figures from history, fiction, and some made up all together. I could type an essay on this song, and every other lengthly Bob Dylan composition (Hurricane is just a great story, it's worth every minute), so just listen to it. All of it.