Some football-related one-liners are just too off-sided to score a goal. New post time!

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Good Morning to you! It’s Jacob Braybrooke here, and it’s time for me to get typing up for your daily track on the blog, just like always, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! I’ve got music to share with you which is being pitched very much as an alternative anthem to a large football tournament that is taking over our television guides at the moment – Euro 2020. It comes from the Manchester melodic Post-Punk 4-piece Loose Articles, who I hadn’t heard of before. ‘Kick Like A Girl’ was released as a single on June 10th to coincide with the beginning of the football competition. The all-female group have drawn comparisons to Wire and The Slits, and they have made NME’s 100 list for 2021. Describing themselves as “feminime and threatening, working and class”, Loose Articles have previously recorded tracks tackling club culture and public transport, releasing the ‘Orchid Lounge’ EP in 2019 and the double single ‘Up The Disco/Buses’ earlier in the year. Their latest offering confronts social issues surrounding their beloved sport, as fans of non-league club FC United Of Manchester and players of the interest themselves, and misogyny on-and-off the pitch. Let’s give it a free kick below.

“It’s a misogynistic slur which is said in football to a male’s player who’s not performing as well”, Loose Articles’ vocalist Natalie Wardie spoke of the single’s title of ‘Kick Like A Girl’, adding, “It suggests that women can’t play football, but we’re reclaiming that slur and throwing it back in people’s faces. We want to take these stereotypes within football and turn them on their head”, to the press release for the track, which has been selected for decent airplay by Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 6 Music and released by the local indie label Dipped In Gold. A strident alternative to New Order’s ‘World In Motion’ or The Lightning Seeds ‘Three Lions’, Loose Articles’ anthemic ‘Kick Like A Girl’ uses discord and repetition to strong effect, mimicking the middle finger to gender-dominated sports attitudes. The lyrics mix edgy comedy with bellowing Post-Punk liberation after a punchy Spoken Word intro, with Wardie urging listeners to “Down ya Stella, and cop off with a fella, it’s football” and making jabs at Gary Linneker advertising Walkers Crisps with a raw, bellowing force. The chorus, in particular, is a ‘slide tackle’ of the narrow-mindedness of some men towards women in the culture created by football, with sharp lyrics like “You kick like a girl/Down pints like a girl” that exploit laddishness, and urge female supporters to engage in more gender-inclusive conversations around the sport. Musically, we’ve got sarcastic vocal remarks blending with aggressive guitar work to ‘kick off’ the intended aims of welcoming all people to the tribal joys of what football has to offer. This is simply delivered in a spiked, easily consumable package of forceful riffs and a frantic time signature, with references ranging from Beckham’s Mohican to Duncan Ferguson. The ending scorecard is a fun, enjoyable jolt of mood. More songs should have this mood.

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It’s time to blow the final whistle for today! Thank you for joining me – and I’ll be back tomorrow to share some more brand new music with you. This time, it’s coming to you from a brand new, interesting indie Soul duo from Hackney releasing mellow singles on the Moshi Moshi Music label, and they’re the perfect duo to celebrate LGBT Pride month with. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/