Oxegen 2009: What’s Hot

Alright, I’m a little late but I’ll be brief. This years Oxegen line-up, while not as fresh or new as previous years, hosts some great acts. There’s a lot of cross over anyone who has been to Oxegen before will know that the stages are all quite close together meaning if you time it correctly you can catch 45 minutes of an act and move on to something else. Here’s my MUST-SEE list: (With MUST-MUST Sees highlighted in full) Friday 10th July 2009 14.00 - Dirty Epics -Heineken Green Spheres 15.00 - The Coronas - Main Stage 15.20 - God is an Astronaut - Heineken Green Spheres 18.05 - Lily Allen - The Main Stage 16.20 - Fight Like Apes - Heineken Green Spheres 18.40 - Duke Special - The O2 Stage 19.00 - The Hours - Hot Press New Sounds Stage 21.25 - Republic of Loose - Heineken Green … There’s more

Just What You Might ExSpektor

Regina Spektor’s new album, Far, was released online yesterday and should be on the shelves as of this morning. She took her time didn’t she? Her previous album Being to Hope dating back to 2006. Spektor, born in Russia to a Jewish family and raised in the Bronx trained as a classical pianist in Manhattan. She traveled extensively in her childhood which lends itself to her quirky misplaced singing accent. She is in my opinion, the original and the best of those “quirky” songstresses who play and instrument and sing with an accent ala Kate Nash, Lilly Allen, Duffy and Corinne Bailey Rae. While Far lacks something of what Begin to Hope had and doesn’t have anything in the same league of the beautiful Samson it is a lovely sweet enjoyable album and merited the third play this morning. Samson The stand out songs on the album are the a-typical … There’s more