Bratz: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

It's safe to say that your reviewer doesn't particularly fall into the classic Bratz target audience, being not a girl nor 12 years old, but you've got to treat every album on its merits, regardless of whether it is the soundtrack to a horrifying-looking tween movie about 'letting your spirit soar high' and 'releasing what's inside' as well as wearing cool clothes and, you know, stuff like that. So, what's Bratz: Motion Picture Soundtrack actually like? Well, for one thing it's remarkably long with 21 tracks and a running time of well over an hour, which seems odd when its marketed at an audience with a famously-short attention span. Heck, the film itself is only about half an hour longer than the CD. Another slight surprise, given the ubiquity of the Bratz brand, is that there are so few big names involved in this soundtrack, with only Black Eyed Peas and Ashlee Simpson qualifying as internationally-famous pop acts. The lead single from it is Rock Star (a misnomer if ever there was one) by Prima J, two Latin-American girls who are being launched by this song and film. That's the overriding theme with most of the acts on here, so many of whom are young female acts who are getting their big break from this kind of exposure to their potential audience, and names like Slumber Party Girls and Clique Girlz seem to have been thought up precisely to attract girls who have slumber parties and care about cliques (a major theme of the movie it seems). Actress Chelsea Staub has a couple of songs from the film on here, sung in character, so you can expect her to probably go on to have a pretty good career as they are both spunky enough to stand out even with horrific lyrics. Men do get a bit of a look-in at times with the po-faced likes of Lifehouse and Alex Band (lead singer from The Calling, as if you didn't know that) coming up with lifeless ballads, while Jibbs provides some safe hip-hop attitude. Unsurprisingly, the Black Eyed Peas still managed to outclassed, but that isn't saying too much for the competition on an album that will appeal only to those who go to watch the film and actually like it.

Architecture In Helsinki - Places Like This

An avant-garde indie pop music collective from Australia might not sound like everyone's cup of tea, but Architecture In Helsinki are certainly a band worth investigating. Their last album In Case We Die was an indie classic, full of quirky little tunes and delightfully offbeat noises, and follow-up Places Like This is certainly no disappointment. The most important change in between has been the loss of Isobel Knowles and Tara Shackell from the line-up and their loss is noticeable as the male-female balance on vocals has shifted slightly towards frontman Cameron Bird and the general feel is a bit spikier and less twee, which is at first slightly jarring. However, they've lost none of their inventiveness or willingness to throw everything and then the kitchen sink into the production values of their music, with Heart It Races and Hold Music two perfect examples of their sound. Bird's vocals are occasionally irritating, which is a definite shame and makes tracks like Feather In A Baseball Cap - where he takes the lead - less fun than they otherwise should be, but while Places Like This (which has an awesome album cover) is not an absolute classic, it's still one of the most interesting and entertaining releases of the year so far and when it's good, it's very good.

Laurent Garnier - Public Outburst

Best known in these parts as a Hacienda DJ, French producer Laurent Garnier released a retrospective album last year of all of his best mixes and releases, but you can't imagine that too much of Public Outburst would have made it on there as it's not exactly pounding with big catchy beats. Instead, it's a jazzy collection of very laidback tunes performed by Garnier and his 'friends' keyboardists Bugge Wesseltoft and Benjamin Rippert and saxophonist Philippe Nadaud. It's jazz improv with a slightly clubby feel at times, basically, with Garnier summing it up as: "We don't really know where we are going. It's always some kind of experiment so we usually start slowly and build it up." It doesn't make for thrilling listening much of the time, with the pace rarely rising beyond a stroll and a lot of potential listeners might be put off by the opening track 63 alone, which lasts over 12 minutes and is a very low-key affair. At its most commercial and obvious, Public Outburst is a good chill-out album for post-club parties, but much of it is too quiet and experimental even for that. Jazz purists might baulk at the idea of someone like a DJ recording an album like this, but live and improvised jazz is the category it most often falls into despite the electronic touches that you might expect from Garnier. It doesn't always work, but if you have the patience to listen to it, this album is very rewarding at times so you have to give the man and his friends credit even if you don't actually want to listen to it very often.