What the pop papers say: Part one

"I think she did a pretty good job. She researched it well" admits Louis Walsh, talking about Kathy Foley's book on his life. So, does this mean that the story lifted from it for the current Private Eye - that, during a bout of pout from the Westlife boys, he screamed "I'll show you your fucking fans", marching them out to a carpark and showing them the boot of his partner's car, full of copies of their CDs - is true, and that Westlife's bemusing run of number ones has been helped by Louis' enthusiastic purchase of their stuff?...

Moby pops up in Q's Cash For Questions segment - asked who the most unlikely people to try and licence one of his tracks are, he says "apparently the pro-fox hunting lobby tried... I don't think they would have been so keen to do that if they'd known I was an animal rights activist and a vegan." Really? Only that car manufacturer didn't mind that you were meant to be a serious environmentalist, did they? There's claims on Groupie Central that the little bald fella is "sexually transmitted disease on legs", which Moby reckons is down to a friend he'd fallen out with - "I still haven't figured out why he was so angry." Maybe you gave him the clap? Best of all, though, Moby - a man who posted a notice on his website denying he was in any way a pervert because he'd been talking on TV about porn the night before - preambled that when Badly Drawn Boy had been interviewed by Q "Damon Gough took himself so seriously, I was stunned..."

Craig Nicholls believes England can win the Ashes. Thats okay, Craig, there's some English cricketers who believe that The Vines will have a number one single...

Q has some exclusive pages from Kurt Cobain's journals. Is there anywhere that doesn't? Even Country Life has got a spread (two pages of him doodling a woman with a perm while on the telephone, a letter to the milkman asking for "three strawberry yoghurts and a pint of gold top" - never sent, we can only speculate why and a fourteen page review of a Mudhoney album)...

David Quantick and Lemmy team up to investigate how rock and roll Busted are. This is a little bit like sending Benjamin Franklin and Ernie Wise to examine the intellectual rigour of Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror, but those are the days we're living in. Busted offer their credentials - they've thrown a TV out a window. Frankly, these days that's not rock and roll at all - it's somewhat music hall. Back in the 60's, TVs represented hugely expensive items and the pinacle of technological achievement, and destroying one was quite a statement to make. In 2002, it's the equivalent of Led Zep having screwed up a copy of Titbits, or perhaps having pencilled moustaches on the pictures in the West Sussex Gazette...

It takes two thirds of a page to explain how the Q reviews "work", you know, which suggests the readership who they hadn't made up ("overstated") can't be the sharpest, although extra points for comparing Robbie William's Escapology to George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice - Volume 1. So, duff with pretentions; the album that people buy and shudder 'he's had his chance', then...

It's the end of the year, and so the first Best Albums of 2002 has appeared. Amongst q's choices are Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Idlewild, Electric Soft Parade and Pete Yorn...

Plus, it's poll time. Ian McCulloch pops up to claim a Long Time Dead Award - "I'd love to meet myself" - and Dave Gahan collects something similar for Depeche Mode, offering "we really need people like Casey Spooner in the music business" - proof, if it be needed, that heroin really does fuck you up beyond repair. Best act are Radiohead ('act' is always a funny term, suggesting they've gone head to head with Lenny Henry and Archie's Educated Chickens) and Best Album is, predictably, A Rush of Blood To The Head. Coldplay's Chris Martin talks porn - "I don't like pornography. It's not a moral objection but I don't... it's the blokes. I don't like the idea of watching men having sex." Chris Martin shies away from the paranoid bedwetting virgin tag, but he's a grown man who's never heard of Lesbian Spank Inferno...

Pink wins a prize for best video. For Get The Party Started. Which is giving the right person the wrong award, and then giving it for the wrong song anyway. "I'm glad I'm your favourite queer" she says, by video link "- we can't think what else Q stands for." I now don't feel so bad I never worked out it was a pun on Cue, which they didn't want to use in case people thought it was a snooker magazine...

PInk is also on the front of The Face. And all over the insides. Now, this is, of course, good, because it means there's lots of Pink. But it's also a bit of a pity - The Face should have been the herald of New Pink, running the "it's not just another R&B singer" stuff at least last spring, rather than clattering to catch up in the winter. Wanna know why we love her? Because when she first signed, she burned through her advance, and you know what she did? She got a job in a petrol station. LA Reid's son saw her, told his dad, and his dad went down and bawled at her. She said "Pay me what I get in my pay cheque, or I'm not quitting." Do you *really* need us to prove any more why Alecia Moore isn't just another J-Lo? Can you imagine Samantha Mumba, say, throwing a strop over not being allowed to work in a BP Select?.

Sheryl Garret's piece on Pink is good, but fundamentally flawed - she misses the vital difference between yer Pinks and your Gareths, your Dannis, your -insert name of hundred other pop stars here- "Pink always knew she'd be famous" she starts, but that's not quite right. As Garret says, when she was at school, she'd tell teachers she'd get them concert tickets and so on. Pink didn't want to be famous, she wanted to be a rock star. She didn't want to be on magazine covers, she wanted to be on Rolling Stone. She didn't want to be famous at any price - she wanted to be famous for singing...

Pink's in the nme, too. Or rather, she should be. We don't know, as the free covermount CD seems to have fucked up the distribution and it wasn't in the shop when we went this morning - kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you want to put on readers, isn't it? So, we'll pick this up when the paper arrives...