Bloc Party's Kele Okereke the New Album "10 People Knew About"

You have to give Bloc Party this much: they can keep a secret. Just days after finishing a U.S. tour and releasing the apparently one-off single "Mercury," the London post punks have trumped the Raconteurs and Radiohead by springing their new album Intimacy on the world with just three days' notice. "There were lot of clandestine meetings in east London pubs," laughs frontman Kele Okereke on the phone from England. "We referred to it as Plan 'X.' It was a bit of a giggle. I don't think more than 10 people knew about the idea until the last few days. It was totally hush-hush but we didn't want to go the whole In Rainbows route and give away for free. We live in a capitalist world and I do want to get paid and I do want to eat."

If the release was unexpected, then the subject matter might prove to be even more so. Famously guarded about his private life, Okereke cagily admits that Intimacy finds the singer bearing his soul more than ever before, as its title implies. "I went through a breakup at the end of last year and I guess that's what the record's about really. I couldn't help thinking about it or talking about it or writing about it. I wouldn't want anyone to think it's the clichéd breakup record but I haven't written about true, personal experiences all that much in the past." Okereke adds his favorite song on the album is "Ion Square" "because it evokes a really great time in a relationship when everything was going right."

Fans that stump up $20 up front will be rewarded with the download and a physical release in October featuring extra material. But what? Even the band isn't sure. "The CD will have extra songs but we haven't decided on what they will be yet. We're kind of just making it up as we can go along. You can do that these days and it's pretty exciting I think."

More Bloc Party
• Bloc Party Surprise Fans With New Album Intimacy
• Bloc Party Live at Lollapalooza
• Johnny Rotten Scraps With Bloc Party Singer Kele Okereke

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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