Merchandise: Listen Up! (7″, Cityscape CITY-S-009)

Okay okay, this single is available on CD as well, but the CD doesn’t come on white vinyl, now does it? Regardless of the technical implications of pressing a CD on vinyl, you just don’t get 7″ diameter CDs. Merchandise are like Baby Bird’s cheerier brother, like the Badly Drawn Boy knock-off act it’s okay to like because they’re about fifty times better. They do accomplished, layered pop music with one foot in the ‘literate, dour Northerners’ camp and the other in the one that says ‘we’ve got beards, but we’re fun and approachable’.

Simon Minter

Right, Listen Up! has now been released and is available to buy!

Click here for itunes

Click here to download buy vinyl and CD from Cityscape Records

Click here to buy vinyl and CD from Genepool

It is also available from Piccadilly Records in Manchester, HMV all over the place and Norman, Juno etc online.

You can get the download from itunes, rhapsody, napster etc – please do!

Here’s a pic of John finding us in our rightful place – the new releases rack of HMV in Oxford St, London!

This has been a very busy week! The single is out, we drove down to London to record a session for Q Music (Will do a piece on that when it’s broadcast) and then yesterday we headed back north and recorded this session which went out live on the lovely Caroline Boyd’s Drivetime show last night (24th Feb).

Here is the show and the three tracks we played cut out for you to download for free should you wish to! Enjoy:

The whole 20 minute interview with three live tracks and Listen Up! played from the CD:

http://www.merchandisetheband.co.uk/MERCHANDISE INTERVIEWALLFM1.mp3

Take Me

http://www.merchandisetheband.co.uk/Take-Me-by-Merchandise-ALL-FM-Session.mp3

Sometimes

http://www.merchandisetheband.co.uk/Sometimes-by-Merchandise-ALL-FM-Session.mp3

Best Idea

http://www.merchandisetheband.co.uk/Best-Idea-by-Merchandise-ALL-FM-Session.mp3

Merchandise’s new single arrived with me yesterday and seeing the cover, that familiar toon style of illustration and the brown/orange thang is really starting to stamp the Merchandise brand on all that they do. When a band starts to become a brand, things start to feel more cohesive and as a result things start to get a bit more exciting in some way. It should be avbout the music but if pop music was just about the music we’d be in a very different place.

Listen Up! is the follow-up to Sometimes – one of those catchy tunes from 2008 that still weaves its way into my head frequently. It’s a clever, confident track that doesn’t do very much. This makes it good… for me. Poppy to the hilt, it uses a lot of repetition (”You were my world wer – wer – wer world”), and has catchiness written all over it. It’s going to be another one of those naggers that keeps popping into my head in the spring of 2009.

http://www.minnellium.com/listen-up-by-merchandise

Looking forward to Merchandise’s album coming later this year – five years in the making.

Listen Up! is now out there in the big wide world and available to buy! Click on the image to go to it on itunes if you have that installed . . .

If you prefer, there are a good few sites and shops you can get the physical releases from – this one would be a good bet!

http://www.thegenepool.co.uk/labels/Cityscape.htm

The new single was on Radio One again the other night on 19th Feb and broadcast in Northern Ireland. Rory McConnell’s show went out in on both Radio One and in Northern Ireland while Hew Stevens is away and he kindly played the track and gave us a fascinating fact about Bolton (really – listen!)

Here’s the show on listen again should you wish . . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/rorymcconnell/