Keith Top of the Pops / Fuck You! I’m Keith Top of the Pops

Keith Top of the Pops and His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band
Fuck You! I'm Keith Top of the Pops
(Corporate Records)
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Meet Keith. Sometimes Keith's band consists of a drummer. Sometimes it consists of twenty or so B-list indie celebrities. Sometimes it consists of whoever's in the audience. Keith really does not give a rat's ass.

Formed at an Art Brut gig in New York, in which the support band had pulled out leading Keith to charm a couple of Brut members into playing backing on his songs, the creaky premise has continued onto his debut album, which features indie people… lots of indie people… We Are Scientists, Eddie, Jasper and Ian from Art Brut, Luke Haines from The Auteurs, Glam Chops, The Blood Arm… in fact, everyone knows Keith apart from me, it seems. Daddy! Get me a Keith!

The album is very funny. Songs like 'I Hate Your Band' and 'Two of The Beatles Are Dead' are self explanatory pop-rockers with catchy chant-a-long choruses. Keith is direct too, with 'Go Away' offering an amusing example of said directness; "It's not that I don't like you, it's just that I don't care, and I wish that you'd just go away."

Musically the songs edge towards 1970s glam rock, alternating tribute with satire - whichever one delivers the biggest kicks. Keith's big, huggable heart meanwhile emerges on the bittersweet finale 'Try Your Best', which sounds like affectionate advice to a kid brother; "It doesn't have to be better than the rest - you just have to try your best." Keith has certainly done that here - hats off to the man.