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Obviously, it must be distressing for Kylie to believe someone else is cashing in on her arse, but the answer is in her own hands: release a photo of your butt without the airbrushing, love. Then you won't find people using it as something to aspire to. The knock on effect might be to stop a few women feeling inadequate, too.
From tonight's Newsnight mailout:
"I don't know about that, I'm a visionary"
[UPDATE: 15-11-07 We're sure this meant something at the time, but Billboard have since changed the page and five years on... we've got no idea who said it.]
Television is the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and spreading radiation. We take one of our infrequent hits:
MTV
Pink - Just Like A Pill - obviously, this is wonderful. Unfortunately, it’s over too quickly, and replaced by
Shania Twain - I’m Gonna Getcha Good - this video is just unfathomable. The song is standard Shania fayre - “ooh, a man would be quite nice” to a slightly souped-up country backing. So why is she dressed like a J-Lo from the future in what amounts to a remake of Tron? Is the aim really to try and befuddle a rock audience so much they won’t notice they’re buying a slightly louder Loretta Lynn B-side?
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MTV Hits
Kylie - Come Into My World - it’s fine that the street scene is packed full of Kylies, but we’re a bit surprised they’re all dressed identically. Surely Kylie only wears one-offs? Still, for the multiple Kylies, she’s wearing jeans. Can you imagine having to airbrush out the cellulite out of dozens of her?
Shakira - Objection (Tango) - Apparently, Shak’s decided to fight Holly Vallance back on the home front with this single. “Next to her cheap silicone, I’m minimal/ that’s why in front of you, I’m invisible” reckons Shakira, which is a bit like Nelson’s Column claiming that it’s not really all that tall because it’s not painted yellow. Another video which lapses into cartoonery action and back again, but at least in this one you get to see Shakira catfight a woman, so it’s not all wasted then.
That song that uses Bryan Adams comes on, so
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VH1
Roger Sanchez - Another Try - VH1 are counting down the “Number 1’s of the 00s”, apparently, which means we’re lucky to land on a track that’s half decent. This is the video where pretty girl wanders about with a big heart, which the city makes smaller and smaller, until she goes for a cup of coffee with, apparently, an earlier, less successful attempt at making Ewan McGregor. He restores her faith, engorges her heart again but then avoids seeing her the next time he’s in her street. We suspect this is because she doesn’t shag his brains out after the coffee.
Limp Bizkit - Rolling - How likely is it that anyone would mistake Fred Durst for a parking valet? What sort of place would offer someone to park your car, and then employ a forty-year old man who dresses like Dennis The Menace’s mate to fullfill the role? This is something that can only exist in Fred Durst’s mind, isn’t it? Curiously, when he’s given the car keys, Fred makes what appears to be the universal sign for ‘wanker’. This video is sadly hilarious is so many ways, but we think we have to make special mention of the girls dressed up as Fred constantly grabbing their butts. Jesus, no wonder Wes spent his time flicking through bus timetables.
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VH1 Classic Smooth
Who’s this in the distance? It looks like George Michael. Walking towards us. ‘Older.’ I have no idea how this song goes, and now isn’t a good time to find out...
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MTV2
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - The Zephyr Song - prior to this charting, the only hit song to use the word Zephyr had been Madonna’s Ray of Light, you know...
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MTV Base
Puff Daddy - Victory - A girl is in a cage, writhing in a slightly dull way. Someone sends a page. There’s a helicopter hovering overhead. Apparently this is in some way based on the Running Man, but with elements of Blade Runner and - ahem - Shaggy’s It wasn’t Me. Piff or Puff or whatever he calls himself these days seems to live a joyless existence. We abandon our post and watch this (the new potatoes video) instead, until Denis Hopper pops up. He’s meant to be the President, which we find stretches our credibility way too far - wouldn’t the fact he played a violent rapist in virtually every film made between 1962 and 1994 count against him in the Primaries?
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MTV Dance
advertising computer games?
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The Box
Some dodgy CCTV footage of people on a sofa gives way to what might be J-Lo in cargo pants. Yes, it is J-Lo - Jenny From the Block. “What you get is what you see” she says, which would be virtually everything, then. “I’m still Jenny from the block” she pleads, which is scary - if fame hasn’t changed her at all, then she must have been the most priggish kid since Violet Elisabeth Bott. “I know where I came from” apparently. More than Prince Harry can say, we guess.
Blue & Elton John - Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word. We had hoped this was just a piece of whimsy that escaped from Thrills into the world. Elton looks as dodgy as Gary Glitter at a Nativity audition - he’s wearing a cheap yellow tracky top and seems to have the sort of bulge that only long hours of inaction at a bar that does quid bottles could give you. This song is so utterly pointless and the video so empty of ideas I’m tempted to go back to the potatoes. “What can I say to make you love me?” pleads Elton, bashing the keyboard. ‘A shot at a Christmas number one’ would appear to be the answer, ‘but even then we’re not calling you Daddy.’
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Kiss
Destiny’s Child - Say Me Name - At last, some class. Although all that start-stop fidgeting always makes us think they’re trying not to piss themselves. The best bit is when Beyonce looks up and can’t stop her hard-baked icequeen crispiness breaking into a grin
Ashanti - happy. s’okay. But its not good enough to take the place of DC, so
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Smash Hits TV
Atomic Kitten - Be With You - “Poll winners is coming” explains the top right corner, ungramatically. Luckily, we just catch the end of this video, which appears to have been made while the Kittens were either in childbirth or trying to find straight members of Westlife to shag, so its just camera in a club.
We’re sure there never used to be so many commercials on SH...
Big Brovaz - sorry, we make a point of never watching anything with clowns in...
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Magic
Elvis v JXL - A little less conversation - are they still playing this? Lennon-shot, get over it. Oh, its Number 1’s week - this chart anniversary really has allowed the music stations to give their imagination a long weekend in Amsterdam, hasn’t it?
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Q
Luckily, we switch on just in time to see Robbie Williams fade out. It’s Madonna Week on Q - we’re sure the last time they did this, it was all Madonna all the time, but clearly that would be dangerous to do now that clawhands is back in celebrity plummet mode
Oasis - Little by Little. Blimey, I didn’t know they had Robert Carlyle in this. Does this mean that he’s so strapped for cash he’s going to seriously consider the guest role in The Chuckle Brothers now?
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Kerranng
Jesse James - Empty Tank. Brass on K! And a decent tune. They’re vaguely like the Neurotics. Is there a psychobilly revival on? It would be a pity to miss it.
Ramstein. You still going?
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Chart Show TV
Pulp - Help The Aged - Part of the DVD chart. And it’s appropriate that they’re playing something from the comedown album. Especially after an afternoon bouncing along the channels, it’s apparent just how gloomy the place will be without Pulp in it. Funny how it all slips away...
Oh, Rod Stewart knows how to have a laugh. Asked about Robbie Williams getting off with Rachel Hunter, Rod's not bitter. In fact, he wishes the pair well.
Of course, it's not a victimless crime, is it? Walls get all sticky. But you have to clear a small space on your desk, preferably one with a support strut underneath, and bring your skull repeatedly down onto it when you hear that Liverpool City Council are wasting money putting together a "hit squad" to target flyposters.
Now, in this city, the flyposters are pretty fair - they don't post in inappropriate places (normally), sticking to places where it usually adds to the bustle of the city. It helps develop small events, and small promoters, which you would have thought would be a key aim of a place bidding to be Capital of Culture with a straight face. But, no, for some reason they've decided to crack down.
Our favourite flyposting crackdown was when Leeds Council painted over any poster on the walls - thereby meaning instead of nice designed advertising, the city was covered with large black squares, making it like a three dimensional version of a porn mag in 60's Ireland.
Why are Liverpool pouring money into a problem that doesn't exist, when illegal parking - which is dangerous and causes wasted time and money for everyone - is rife, and when, frankly, the streets of the town are covered in shit and wrappers blowing in the wind?
More to the point, wannabe mayor Mike Storey believes:
We got a polite email from the people at Popjustice today, and we suddenly thought we should check to see if we'd ever sat and applauded their activities - we hadn't, which was the sort of gaping hole you don't normally see outside of Michael Jackson's cheek.
Go and apologise on our behalf.
When we were young, we dreamed of piss-ups in breweries. Now, Jackson Browne in a winery sounds quite an attractive proposition.
For some reason, BBC Choice's Liquid News is extended to an hour to promote a rival channel's awards - it being the MTV Europe awards. The useless bloke is by the red carpet when he spies Huey from the Fun Loving Criminals.
Even as the RIAA lumbers about demanding the right to hack through peer to peer networks on its own whim, the New Scientist reckons that the networks only need a tweak to stop them from doing so.
Is it just us, or does the EMI annual report betray the influence of rival Sony's act the Manic Street Preachers?
There's not much pattern on the cloth of EMI's plans to expand its online download offerings; even the official press release doesn't give any details of the how; the list of artists would read like a who's who of the rock world, if you managed to build a time machine and go back to 1985. Duran Duran! Anne Murray! Billy Idol! (Okay, fair enough - there are The Vines and Kylie in there.)
But it's got the makings of another botched job - first, its US only. Handy with the Internet stopping as soon as you get to the edge of the Atlantic. Then, it looks like they're not using MP3, which puts it on a par with attempting to counter VHS video piracy by ensuring swift release of films on the Video2000 format. Why, if people are paying for the download, are they limited to only a fixed number of copies of it? And, finally, its taking way too long. But apart from that...
Also in this week's Music Week is an opinion piece by Brian McPhail, who comes from Macrovision. Not the company that made the poor-quality alternative to Atari, but the people who make copy protection technology. What does he have to say?
Noel Gallagher popped up on 6Music a moment ago, speculating that because a few thousand sheep are traipsing out to see Oasis live, that somehow proves the critics wrong. "Now they'll have to wait until the next album to slag us off" he claimed.
No, Noel. We don't have to wait. Just because there are some people left who cling desperately to the memory of what you once promised to be, and won't admit that they've thrown away the best years of their lives on a band who treat them the way monkeys view peanut trees doesn't make you right, you know. Thousands of people persist in doing food combining diets - it doesn't make it any more scientific, does it?
As if those lifetime achievement awards don't already make you feel like the Grim Reaper has invited all your friends together for your last night on earth, how creeped out must Bernie Taupin have been when he and Elton won their Music Industry Trust award last week? Music Week reports that a pre-recorded video shown to mark the occasion featured Lonnie Donegan saying "Bernie, I haven't spent enough time with you. Do pop round and say hello." Donegan had died earlier that day. Music Week also reports that, by some sort of quirk that I can't follow, Westlife's new number one isn't a new entry, but the biggest leap in chart history, from 196 last week to number one this week...
anyway, nme, what do you have for me? the strokes on the cover. Is it just me, or does Nikolai look like a second string character from the early days of Grange Hill? Not Micahel Doyle, mind, one of the goody-goody sorts, like the one who was Joseph in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat they did?...
news starts with eminem movie sales, which is somewhat stale, isn't it? Apparently eminem is being dubbed the 'hip-hop James Dean' - isn't that Daniel Beddingfeld?; there's three pages wrung out of going backstage at a Strokes gig - the justification for the cover as well. Imagine what the nme would be like if it got fucked by Meg White - the entire issue, Bring It On and a week on nme.com would probably be given over; the nme claims that the P-Cutta album was "eerily prescient" in the light of the shooting of Jam Master Jay, despite it, erm, not mentioning anything at all about Run DMC at all' the nme.com Nirvana top 20 placed Lithium as The Best Nirvana Track Ever amongst those who could be bothered to vote; Robbie Williams is going to be beaten to death by one-legged music fans using their own prosthetics - hundreds have applied, and a special competition is to be held to choose the lucky swinger-winners. Oh, sorry, that's "will play four nights at Knebworth." Fran Healy is fed up with the music industry and wants to get away from it. The extent to which we should be celebrating this news is determined by the way he's told the nme about how fed up he is with the whole music industry circus, which is like telling a prostitute how much you hate paying for sex; Pink is using back projections of dead musicians at her current live show - you wonder if she can't be persuaded to include Robbie in there; Sharon Osbourne may be "the new Jerry Springer" - the new Christine Hamilton, more like; the Libertines imitated Tracey Corkhill and had a tongue-tied and tactless meeting with Morrissey; America has gone Jackass crazy - don't worry, American readers who aren't brain dead, we're coming to save you; the next White Stripes album is going to be called Elephant. As in a big thing in a room that nobody will mention... no, we won't do another Meg bra joke here; Man Tits Meets Shrimp as Craig Nicholls meets up with Matt Bellamy in historic hook-up...
after years, nme has abandoned On and replaced it with Hot New Band, scattering "new bands through the magazine" - while we're a little disappointed that the paper once again feels the need to change a feature name for something a little more obvious, the decision to feature more than two new acts a week is to be welcomed with a small cocktail reception and a pianist. Disturbingly, though, the new format echoes the old Melody Maker Breakers slot. Anyway, Hot New Bands this week are Mercury Tilt Switch - dundee emo; Burning Brides - Suzi Quatro meets The Strokes. Oh, hang about, there's only two. Like there were in On. Oh.
Pete from the Libertines does choose ten tracks, and they include Billie Holiday, The Smiths, The Las and the Only Ones. Can we have him to tea?...
Jarvis Cocker talks "exclusively" to the nme - presumably the longer, more interesting piece in Snug didn't count for some reason. However, his perspective on This Is Hardcore is worth the hire of the room: "Commercial suicide. It still gives me the shivers. When I look back at the period, it was pretty intense and I wasn't feeling well mentally or physically. The fact we managed to get the song out of it doesn't make it worthwhile, but there's something special about the song because of that, a weird atmosphere."...
Tenacious D. Uh, guys - this is like having Bionic Santa in your magazine...
Following on from 50 Cool People, this week's snip-and-clip piece is 100 Greatest Singles of All Time voted for by NME staff and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the singles chart, which was an nme innovation - a phrase you don't hear much these days. Ironically, a lot of the pieces about the tracks are supported by the original nme reviews. Nearly all of the reviews are longer than the current appreciations. If you need to know: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division; Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana; Anarchy In The UK - Sex Pistols. Smiths in at 7 (This Charming Man); Bowie at 5 (Heroes, oddly) and Oasis? Oasis are at 8, but with Live Forever, which is at least understandable. 3D from Massive Attack (Unfinished Sympathy, 10) feels the need to point out that the video for Bittersweet Symphony was a pastiche of theirs - no shit, 3D? Hey, and the Major Tom in Ashes to Ashes (did not chart) is the same character as in Space Oddity (did not chart). From the 'are you sure?' corner - The Hives Get Free better than How Soon Is Now? and two Strokes singles. Mmmm, lucky the birthday of the chart wasn't a few weeks ago, otherwise Andrew WK would have been in there...
review: albums
missy elliott - under construction - "she's a work in progress", 8
robbie williams - escapology - "while eminem is the voice of a generation, robbie williams is just the voice of robbie williams", 3
the used - the used - "kelly osbourne's beau's band", 2
tlc - 3d - "a monster record in the Frankenstein sense", 4
singles: sotw is liam lynch - united states of whatever
suede - obsessions - "may be suede's last half-decent single"
les flames - wrong - "lets hear it for the daft punks"
live - bright eyes/desaparecidos at the cmj - "I think we're headed for somewhere even darker"
alternative 3 - hope & anchor - islington we mention this only because its got a "1st NME review" logo on it, which is another thing they've brought in from the Melody Maker. Were was that downward spiral heading again?
the electric soft parade - newcastle uni - "a crutch for those who remain hungover from britpop"
and finally: from enmail - "Gareth Gates tops the charts, but is he more important than the White Stripes?" asks Jarvis 2.0 from Polygon. Sadly, yeah, he is to most people, Jarvis 2.0
Some useful facts to have to hand in the Counting The Notes [pdf] report, produced by the National Music Council.
Most significantly, if confirms our belief that the fall in total sales of albums is as much caused by a drop in per unit retail price as people not buying records - in 1999, the average cost of a CD was £11.99. In 2001, it was £10.77. Losing an average £1.22 off retail price would knock a third of a million quid off the take of a platinum selling album. You don't have to be Michael Maths to see that is going to have a major impact on the total value of sales.
In other numeric data, the BPI have announced that UK music sales increased in the third quarter of the year - oddly, this hasn't picked up much comment; certainly nothing like as much as the storm last quarter when sales fell. (You might remember the press reporting that Music Downloads Threaten To Kill Artists With Hunger; Satanic MP3 Spells End For Record Shops, and so on). Now it turns out things weren't actually that bad at all, and compared with same period last year, an extra three million albums were being put in the wrong places in the racks of record stores around the nation.
Singles fell sharply compared with the same time last year, but we suspect that's got more to do with Hear'Say last time round than anything.
It's the trial of the century - not counting the Butler one - Michael Jackson is being sued for not playing millennium eve gigs.
I don't think anyone can view the news from Australia that some CDs are going to be made illegal for under 18 year olds with anything but concern. Ever since Tipper Gore and her befuddled perm-headed cohorts brought in the ridiculous concept of rating records for content, it's been on the cards that someone, somewhere would take the censorship to its logical conclusions and start to make tricky artists illegal. The Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA - anagram of, and analagous to, the RIAA) have introduced new levels of 'bad' record, to go with their existing Level 1 (Moderate Impact - coarse language or themes) and Level 2 (Strong Impact - coarse language or themes). Level 3 and 4 are the new "restricted" levels which covers High Impact themes.
But what does it mean? Aria explains:
Level 2
Last night's Frank Skinner Show. The now-beyond-self-parody righteous fleck that is Moby trots through his usual playground-level attack on Eminem (he must be a poofter, etc). Next guest Elton John comes on, and won't even let Frank get a word in before he's taken Moby to verbal pieces.
Elton may be an awful social climber, but anyone who's declared war on the Sun and Moby is alright by us.
Having endured the jibes about being kept at the back of the videos and being "the fat one out of Wilson Phillips", Carnie Wilson has had gastric bypass surgery. There's a rare chance to see a popstar's stomach. On the same site Ann Wilson of Heart talks about her Lap Band surgery - believe me, you don't want to know. Personally, we think she looked better before.
Sony and Pepsi are linking up to formalise the artist-by-artist fizzy drink endorsement arrangements in the US. Now, Sony artists are hooked to Pepsi, and Pepsi are hooked to Sony Artists.
Now, this wouldn't be so much of a major leap forward if it wasn't for the way Tommy "Put some clothes on, Celine" Mottola is choosing to see this as going beyond the usual - picture of artist on multipack boxes; semi-naked artist in Pepsi poster; small 'Pepsi sponsors' logo on tour ads; artist photographed swigging Coca-Cola; awkward press conference.
Mottola claims:
We've always had a softy spot for Tara Palmer Tompkinson; her skittish performance on Frank Skinner (okay, she was coked off her head, but) is a TV classic moment. But when we hear that she's going to launch a singing career, we find ourselves suddenly recalling that we're meant to be exhibiting class hatred here.
Following on from the success of blindyouth.com in bringing early human league releases back to the stores, Nightporter, an equally wonderful Japan fansite, look to be making headway in their campaign to get Sylvian stuff rereleased. They deserve your support.
[Via remember the 80s.]
We've had Kylie II in Holly Valance. Now, prepare yourself for Delta Goodrem - the not-quite-as-good Natalie Imbruglia.
We don't have any MP3s to download, much less Liam Lynch MP3s. If you're really that desperate, popEx >> PopEx has a sample of the song in Real Audio.
Or you could try listening to 6Music, they seem to be playing it every ten minutes.
By the way: the novelty wears off on the sixth hearing.
We don't often bring you the joy of Ms Becky Bamboo's film reviews - we're not that sort of blog - but we're able to bend the rules when its 8 Mile, aren't we?
so, 8 mile was really fucking good. sure, the story is yer typical rocky, rah-rah underdog plot (amy said it was just coyote ugly with rap), but the performances are great (eminem is very good. really restrained and intense with these manic blasts of violence), the music rocks (the final rap battle was awesome - funny and witty), and it looks all grey and grimy. loved it. I thought kim basinger was a little out of place, but then I saw a picture of em's mom and she is a total glamour queen, so I guess that casting wasn't too far off.
Doom and debt-laden dinosaur Vivendi-Universal has released its figures for third-quarter sales, and what's most interesting from our perspective is that revenues at Universal Music Group dropped nine per cent, but they still managed to studd EUR1.3bn into their sack. And this is while they're pleading sickliness...
With Mariah reduced to snuffling around Trevor Mc, the New York Times reports on the supposedly humiliating reduction of Whitney Houston from coasting star to the Norma Desmond of the Malls.
We're not psychologists, but we can't help but feel that even if the new record bombs - and it deserves to, it's rubbish - the healthy dose of reality and being made to work for what she gets may do Whitters the power of good.
Like a bunch of Gibraltarians using the democratic process to say what they think people want to hear, once again the British People have voted Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of a poll.
This time, it's Radio 2's Number 1 Chart, celebrating fifty years of the Top 10. But once you get past the stinkingly obvious top three - Bo Rap, Imagine, Hey Jude, the chart gets a little more interesting. Bridge Over Troubled Water is at four, and while dying this year accounts for My Sweet Lord and George Harrison at five, the rest of the ten is made up with A Whiter Shade of Pale, House of the Rising Sun, Dancing Queen, Good Vibrations and Under Pressure. Kate Bush is at 11 with Wuthering Heights; joint 22nd is Steve Harley (Make Me Smile) and Rod Stewart (Maggie May). Ian Dury's Rhythm Stick is at fifty.
There's been some comment that there isn't very much recent in the chart, but then - its Radio 2 listeners, so you'd expect a certain level of rear-view mirror voting. Oddly, the most recent record in the list is by Elvis, who makes thirty-nine with A Little Less Conversation. Newest track is Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie.
On the whole, it's a pretty impressive list - some of the songs may be so over-familiar now they stink, but at least only having 960-odd songs to choose from seems to have focused the voter's minds a bit more than usual in these matters.
More interesting is the celebrities choices. Tori Amos has plumped for Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones; Alison Moyet has chosen Wuthering Heights. Damon Gough selects You're The One That I Want. Most amusing of all is Tony Robinson, not because he chose Doris Day but, because no matter how long he's a member of the Labour Party NEC, he'll always be Tony Robinson (Baldrick).
The chart on the Radio 2 website doesn't look permanent, so there's a copy of the listing here and the celebs choices can be found here.
HBO are putting together a history of hiphop told through fictional characters long, interweaving lives. Sounds like the sort of idea that might just work, to us; certainly got to work better than rush-filming The Jam Master Jay Story and selling it straight to Channel Five.
Although the EU Court decision rejecting a street trader's claim that the unofficial merchandise he sold was a "sign of alleigance" rather than a breach of trademark refers to the sale of unofficial Arsenal stuff, it's significant for the music industry, too.
What the court has just done is outlaw all non-licensed product, which means that those tshirt and poster sellers who do brisk trade outside gigs, for example, are now outside the law rather than in a grey area. Of course, while individual artists would probably think twice before hammering down on such sales, the way the new Robbie Williams contract hands much of his merchandising pie to EMI suggests that in the future, it'll be the labels who call the shots. And we know what they're like.
Still, cheer up - it's not like official, in-venue merchandise is chronically over-priced already, is it?
Paul McCartney is reaping the benefits of being the one who didn't die. After years of teeth-grating whenever people referred to the works of "Lennon and McCartney", the traditional way, he's altered the credits on his new live album to read "by Paul McCartney and John Lennon." Doubtless he'll be looking forward to joining the Bingley and Bradford, and enjoying a Wise and Morecambe repeat this Christmas.
Exclusive-ish to No Rock, our Munich correspondent Mr R reports back from the Manic Street Preacher's Munich gig:
it was fooking freezing out last night, i got to the venue at about 7pm, admittance was at 7:30, thought i was going to loose a toe or something, but just in the nick of time, we were let in.
the support were readymade, a band from wiesbaden that i had heard of, but not heard yet, but had been informed that i should probably like them. and it's odd that i lived in the city right across the river for 9 years and never knew that there was music of possible interest from so close.... oh well.
they weren't bad, really, a good opener for the manics. 4 piece guitar band, the drummer was absolutely wild. imagine animal in short black hair about 6 ft tall in all white with a red star on the t-shirt, and you've got him. hands flying everywhere, the muscles in the face constantly moving in all sorts of contortions. he would have fit into system of a down quite easily like that. the bassist had a sort of dirty blonde brad pitt look, and not in a good way. the lead had a white shirt and a thin black tie, like he was trying to be in a blues brothers type band, no hat though.
as i said, not bad, really heavy guitars, like thick molasses, and while the lyrics where in many cases rather melancholy, neither the style of music nor the voice gave it the needed melancholic touch... i wouldn't necessarily go to one of their own tours, but if they were supporting a band i wanted to see, i
wouldn't go "oh my god, not them again". this seems, to me at least, and i am trying to finds ways to disprove this, the state that german music is in. just not quite there yet, needs an extra kick or something, that little spice that makes a dish from bland to delicious is missing. but cheers to jonathan who last night gave me a list of german bands to check out! as it is, one of them just appeared on my amazon recommendation list today...
while the stage was being rearranged, a red hot chilli pepper mix was played. lots of people swaying while watching the stage.
nicky's mic stand was covered in turquise and neon-pink feathers. he wore a leopard print hat and a long white jacket for most of the show. at somepoint, the hat came off, and big grandmom sunglasses with red frames appeared and a scarf around the neck. he was so pale and with the black eyeliner, when the light hit him right, he looked like a ghost. and the way he moved about the stage, it looked like he was floating at times...
as you know, i've never been the wild manics follower, so i didn't know even half the songs that were played... but nevertheless, i enjoyed everything, they sang well, even though james appoligises for having a cold and not really reaching the high notes ("i sound a bit like joe cocker, eh?") but here's the set list:
Motorcycle Emptiness
You stole the sun from my heart
Everything Must Go
There by the grace of God
Found That Soul
Tsunami
Ocean Spray
Kevin Carter
Life becoming a Landslide
Slash and Burn
Stay Beautiful
Faster
Roses in the Hospital
Motown Junk
Little Baby Nothing
Suicide is Painless
The Everlasting
You Love Us
Design For Life
If you tolerate this ....
Sophie Ellis Bextor is taking time off from telling people not to smoke by telling them not to wear fur, either. FabSophie is shown in a new series of PETA ads holding up the gizzards of a dead fox. She still looks curiously sexy, too. SEB: The Moby that doesn't come across like a sanctimonious schmuck.
As soon as Mark Goodier announces the number one this Sunday, he's off to Classic FM.
Kylie condemns TV talent shows making popstars - of course, that's the soap operas' job, isn't it, Kylie?
Good news for those of you who're interested in The Thrills and especially Santa Cruz - the official site has gone live, and its got streaming music coming out of its ears. Yippee.
Some good news, apparently Gordon Lightfoot who had been at death's door has chosen to turn round and come home. He's showing signs of improvement and been taken out of intensive care.
Having woken up to a queasy sense of deja-vu this morning, as Bob Geldof fretted over a forthcoming famine in Ethiopia, it's probably timely to mention www.thehungersite.com. I think a lot of their old regulars got out of the habit of doing a daily click when the site nearly blew away in the dotcom boom, and while it's spitting at the sea, every little bit helps.
If Billy Ocean deserves an honorary doctorate for writing Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My Car and the theme to that Michael Douglas movie from back when Michael Douglas was a fairly charming man and not so obsessed with a sense of his own greatness only someone as apparently blind to every nuance of their own surroundings as Catherine Zeta Jones could manage to spend any time in his presence, then what on that scale would, say, Costello or Clinton or, dammit, Haines deserve?
Wisdom Goof brings you last week's chart expressed in terms of Googlism.
Undoubtably, the hardest time in anyone's life is when you have to kill a loved one because they're the devil. A close second, of course, is when you have to sack your own mother because she's screwing you, as Charlotte Church will testify. You'd hate to imagine that scene, wouldn't you? "Mum, you must think I'm some kind of pussy. You've been screwing me. You're fired. Um... can I borrow the car at the weekend?"
Wise, holding off the announcement of their engagement until now. This way, the eight weeks we're giving them will see them into the new year.
and there's a station, we'll call it LBC. And they were together, but then... Why is it we only ever hear of Simon Bates when he's being sacked?.
The first rule of business is to have an idea that's blindingly obvious. The second rule is to consider why, if the idea is such a good one, why has nobody ever done it before, then? When Lou Reed came up with the plan to bring together Edgar Allen Poe, Bowie, Laurie Anderson and some of his own Poe-like poetry, he clearly didn't get as far as stage two, did he?
Apparently, Robbie's Christmas single is now coming out a week early "to satisfy public demand." Oh, yeah? Nothing to do with trying to avoid an embarrassing drubbing for the Man Who Holds The Hopes of EMI at the hands of Gareth Gates and Blue, whose singles shared the original date of release, then.
If public demand for Robbie singles is really insisting they come out earlier, why not today?
But, sometimes, the truth just has to be told. We believe that streaming albums before release over the web is a handy way of allowing people to sample the wares when deciding to buy, and can often turn a waverer into a purchaser. However, when Vinnie Jones does it with his new album, Respect, it's sole purpose is presumably to kill of any of the last interest that may reside in the project.
His voice is so weedy and rubbish, we can't start to work out how anyone actually decided that getting him to sing at all would be a good idea; much less why they decided to ask him to have a crack at such tricksy classics as Dock of the Bay and - oh, sweetgwen - Minnie The Moocher. By about halfway into the collection, Vinnie seems to twig that he's not going to hit any notes anyway, and so just makes do with rasping the words out as blandly as he can in the hope that it'll all be over soon.
At least with Christmas confections like the Eastenders cast singalong albums, the effect of many voices bellowing tunelessly suggests a party atmosphere someone's tried to recreate on record. With Jones effort, it's like listening to a neighbour singing while ironing his trousers prior to the golf club Christmas party, unaware he's serranding the entire block.
Hi Ho Silver Lining seems to last for the best part of fifteen minutes. And how did Jools Holland end up on the thing? And how, how, how, did it get released? The Queen's not wrong when she says there's forces we don't know about at work...
I think we're proud to be the number one response for sigur ros homosexual perverted on Google. I think...
