Things are never what they seem.

This will be a short post. It's not really music related, but it gave me such a lot to think about I had to talk about it.
In London, there is a massive contrast between the wealthy, upper class neighbourhoods, and rough, dodgy, not-so-well-off neighbourhoods. They're like two different worlds, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a different country.
I was driving past an area that happened to have a very, very bad reputation. It had many council housing estates, and was famous for it's association with drugs. Instead of flowers, injections crop up on the floor. If you walked alone there at night, you were guaranteed to be attacked. Gangs hung about everywhere, people often got shot.
But. It had been snowing recently. The gangs didn't feel like hanging about in the cold weather. It was much safer.
And...underneath all the snow, the boring, grey council estates were absolutely transformed. It didn't look  like the same neighbourhood.
But what inspired me enough to write this post was that...on the wall...written with snowballs...was "I Love You". Not a hasty, "I <3 a="" and="" bored="" bring="" but="" carefully="" cheesy="" couldn="" face="" for.="" had="" help="" i="" it="" just="" love="" made="" meaningful="" on="" or="" p="" partners="" proposal="" smile="" someone="" something="" t="" their="" they="" to="" u="" wanted="" was="" who="" wondering="" write="" written="" you="">
What surprised me the most, was that the sudden declaration of love on the wall, helped to utterly transform the neighbourhood. Suddenly, it was beautiful. Cheesy as it seems, love can bring change.

Reading through this post, it is the most utter crap I have ever written, so I'll just post it before I change my mind.

Look here at what I've found...

I discovered this band by accident. But now, I'm absolutely in love with them. And the strange thing is, their music is so different to the sort of 70s classic rock I usually listen to, but it's got a hypnotic quality that puts you in a dreamy state of mind. So...I'm asking you guys out there to listen for a second. You might not end up liking it, but you might.

The UK's always produced some of the best music out there, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen, and more recently bands like Muse and Kasabian. Now, in my very own city London, a new indie rock band has appeared out of the gloomy rainclouds, and something tells me they're gonna be big. I'm just going to enjoy their music for now before they get really famous and their music starts becoming manufactured and boring. Although I doubt that will happen, they say that they want to avoid being 'flash' and showy. They don't care about their appearance, and they don't appear on their album covers either.

This wonderful band is called The XX. And without further ado...I give you Crystallised.

Just listen till the end. If you don't like it, fair enough. But I won't pretend I don't. It may not be classic rock, but it's good rock.

But if you do like them...first of all, give me a virtual high five, and secondly, I think you might be interested in this article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/10/the-xx-interview