At night when I have nothing else to do

Best singer whose name sounds like slang for diabetes - Candie Payne
Worst joke of the year - the one above

Sorry, that was truly horrendous.

Anyway, Candie Payne's debut album 'I Wish I Could've Loved You More' came out in May and was a great summer record. With Mark Ronson involved behind the scenes, the record recalls classy vocalists of the past, like Dusty Springfield and frankly any time someone evokes Dusty, I'm bound to be hooked. The slower songs are ideal for smoky jazz rooms ('In the Morning' is sexier than Kathleen Turner!), and 'One More Chance' and the title track give the album some nice up tempo balance. You can stream the whole record through her site, and why wouldn't you do that?

[download Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More]


[Candie Payne myspace - also with a Christmas song!]
[Buy 'I Wish...' UK / US]

Burn your hands on the stupidity machine

• Fluxblog put up another snippet from The Best Show on WFMU, my latest obsession. When you're done listening to that, here's another - Tom's review of recent thriller Mr Brooks. It's both spoiler-heavy, and hilarious-heavy.
  [download The Best Show on WFMU - Tom Reviews Mr. Brooks]
• Jamie's doing his comprehensive-discography thing again, this time the focus is on Mansun. They're ok, I suppose, but even he acknowledges that sometimes their lyrics were "so bad that they're actually sublimely awful", so enjoy that.
• Hey Venus! made it into the album charts at #11 today, which isn't that bad, but Show Your Hand didn't even make the top 40? That's disappointing, innit? I know people don't really care about the charts much anymore, but still.
  
• Alex James has been writing a column for the Observer about cheese. I can't tell if this is more or less interesting than his recent autobiography, but it's probably more smug.
  
• There is a new series of The I.T. Crowd, and the first couple of episodes thereof have been funnier than most of the first series. Still running with Noel Fielding's "goth dude that hangs out in the office", though. Check out eps (if they're working) on tv-links.
  
• I saw Superbad recently. It was funny enough - always appreciate a good Orson Welles joke - but it didn't really have any heart. Jonah Hill's character was really unlikeable, and the whole "If we don't have sex before the end of high school, we will DIE" idea a) has been done before, and b) doesn't really resonate with me, maybe it's an American thing. There were plenty of funny moments, which I suppose is all you can ask for, but I've mostly forgotten about it already.
  
• Also caught The Bourne Ultimatum and it was every bit as bad-ass as you'd expect. I've talked about this summer's blockbusters already, so the fact that this one had a cohesive plot and wasn't just made for the money, and had Paddy Considine and David Strathairn makes it ace. Plus Paul Greengrass directs the shit out of it (This is praise).
  
• Candie Payne's new album is dead good, and I'm playing it quite a bit at the moment. Somewhere between good-period Concretes and Dusty Springfield, she's well worth a listen. Read an interview here, and watch her new video below.
  
• That's all! Enjoy the holiday tomorrow, Americans, and enjoy working tomorrow, rest of world.