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There may be some artistic value hidden deep in the mix, but the prime concern with 99% of hip-hop collaborations is marketing ’synergy’.  Like fancy fashion houses developing perfumes, the important thing is establishing the logo, and then attaching it to as many different markets/products as possible. Naomi Klein’s ground-breaking  No Logo may have established its thesis examining big name brands like Nike and Tommy Hilfigger,  but the system it exposed is equally valid for the business empires of Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Beyonce etc.

The genesis of the Judgement Night soundtrack was presumably no different. Take a list of big name hip-hop artists and put them together with big name rock acts, and you’re bound to get a ‘crossover’ hit (the same principle behind the Jay-Z Linkin Park album Collision Course). 

The brand in this case, though, wasn’t sufficiently robust to do anyone any good. The movie sucked, and the soundtrack album while recieving decent reviews and a reasonable amount of airplay, hardly set the world on fire.

Marketing synergy is ironic when it comes to the collaboration between Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, fallin, that features on the album and is without doubt the best of these thrown together products (neither of the bands had met before the recording). The two bands are forever dismissed - with some reason - as slackers. Groups that should have been huge, but though filled with talent lacked the fire in the belly required for any world-class brand. 

The song breaks all the rules for this type of thing, and is all the better for it:

1) Since the days of Run DMC and Aerosmith the rule is that hip-hop goes with rock (the harder the better).  Even De La Soul seem in agreement, when recently they talked of doing another similar collaboration but with someone like Linkin Park or Korn

2) When two brands meet you have to push the bravado all the way. These slackers base a song not around bling, or pheremones, but about falling flat on your face -  a washed up rapper (’and the teenage fans are heat’). Both groups need a serious lesson in self-promotion from a guru like P.Diddy ( How about a drive-by for starters? There’s seven of you involved, so we can afford to lose one - and it’ll create great publicity)

The song is glorious though, based around laid back guitars, a Tom Petty sample, and De La Soul’s characteristically sloping light-hearted rhymes. It wins the Monkey Tunes award for laidbackness, even though all involved sound like they’re firing on all cylinders, particularly at the end when the groove takes off. 

How many albums have Oasis released since What’s the Story Morning Glory? The correct answer here is ‘ who cares? they’ve all been shit’. Alan McGee, founder of creation records and the man who pushed Oasis into the spotlight in the first place is convinced that their latest album is (finally) worth listening to - and more

“Musically, it’s a return to the grander ambitions and excess of before, with Noel stating: “But I kind of like fancy! I’d like to make an absolutely fucking colossal album. You know? Like literally two orchestras, stuff like that.” Dig Out Your Soul is Oasis at their most baroque and Noel’s pure pop ambition sits easily with his experimental side. The album oozes with confidence, and great songs.”

Maybe it is their the lucky seventh album? The Beatles and the Stones released Revolver and Beggar’s Banquet respectively, both were album number seven, and Dig Out Your Soul is on a par of with both in terms of classic songwriting. Or maybe it was his musical peer Paul Weller who inspired Noel to turn his back on Britpop and take a more eclectic direction after Weller’s own opus of 22 Dreams? Noel Gallagher has said that Shock of the Lightning was the only song that had “Oasis single status” as the rest is far removed from the sound of Oasis.

Utter shite, or simply pr-self-promoting bullshit (depending upon how charitable you feel) from a man who has long since lost what little ability he had to spot talent.  Stretching your artistic horizons to putting two orchestras on an album hardly constitutes ‘baroque’ (try listening to Elbow’s sumptuous new album if that’s what you’re after). If Gallagher is one of the masters of ‘classic songwriting’, Spinal Tap’s Nigel is presumably up there with Bob Dylan.

Elsewhere McGee handily tells the casual reader what music is o.k to like at the moment

 I understand that openly admitting to liking Oasis is inviting confrontation, but you know what? Being an Oasis fan is never having to say I’m sorry. And I’m not. Leave saying sorry to the Coldplay imitators as their era of bedwetter music is over. It’s only Glasvegas and Oasis for competition in this country. If you are in a band and are not artistically competing with the creative rock’n'roll genius of Oasis or Glasvegas, it’s time to just stop and get off the treadmill. This is how rock’n'roll should be done in the United Kingdom today.

He could have extended that end line to include ‘ , the same way it’s always been done’.

What’s peculiar about all of this is that McGee manages to mention, in passing, probably the most inventive, and exciting rock band that the UK has produced in years,  Biffy Clyro. Blinded by the quiffs of Glasgow’s latest trendsetters Glasvegas, he relegates the best Scottish band of the moment to mere drinking partners with Oasis.

I’ll be penning more about Biffy Clyro in the near future, but in the meantime enjoy the brilliance that is ‘Folding Stars’ from their latest album ‘Puzzle’ - it’ll help take your mind of McGee’s wickedness.