No Rock And Roll Fun

THE SIMPLE LIFE: Reading the reviews of Democrazy, we're struck suddenly by the similarity between Damon Albarn and Paris Hilton. Reports from those who've sat through the demo-noodling album state that at the end, Damon does a little piece along the lines of "that's Democrazy for you, all over, goodnight folks." Which - just as the final scenes of at least one of the Paris Hilton sex video clips does with its "smile for the camera," makes the claims that Paris had no idea these things were being taped seem a little hard to swallow - implies that rather than being some rough sketches that Damon decided to make available, Democrazy was, in fact, conceived as a project for release all along. With that name. And if that's the case, then it makes the whole scheme something different to that which we were lead to believe - because if the plan was to record a lo-fi album to be put on sale under a truly dreadful punning moniker, then rather than showing us the genesis of a musical project (which is what Damon loftily claimed), what we've got is the culmination of a plot to convert the lowliest of base metals - a half-drunk late night spot of musical masturbation - into limited edition gold. And, in turn, the spinnage that we're not getting a proper album but this daylight-onto-magic exploration of the process must have come with the sober realisation that even as a lo-fi album, it doesn't meet the expected quality standards.