No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Back with the grown ups edition:
There's been a sudden discovery in Farringdon Road, as both the Guardian and Observer ran the picture of Polly Harvey in the pink cat suit this weekend - the Guardian to illustrate a standard late spring piece about how Grate Glastonbury is, the Observer in the Music Magazine, nominating it as one of the Top Ten Most Mind Boggling Makeovers (Kiss at one, ABC's sudden reinvention as cartoon characters only scraping in at 9).

OMM's Record Doctor is in for Simon Armitage, who sniffs that the Avalanches are "interesting", but really took to Daft Punk.

There's the disturbing news that Norman Cook is working his way up to running a half-marathon (he's already done a 10k). Apparently, much of his embrace of (or at least claims to) the healthy life has come because he's tabloid fodder. So, that would be the answer to the obesity problem that's puzzling John Prescott these days: shove us all into the light of the paparazzi, and we'll cut back the chips and Carlsberg.

Kitty Empire's sound of the future this month is Jentina, "hip hop from Surrey." There's no need to go any further, is there?

Charlotte Williamson goes round shops recording the music they're playing - which is interesting, although was significantly more interesting when Alex Is Peter Dish did it for the Guardian review not so long back; there's also a big feature on Grime, which I suppose we should just be thankful isn't about Shroomadellica, although I fear that might be next month's focus.

The review sections nominates The Corr's album as the worst of the lot, which is actually quite shocking: not that it's shit, but that they're still releasing records at all.

Peter Robinson's Backbeat dissects Britney's toxic video. Especially the bit where the paps peer at her corpse, like they did with Princess Diana, when you come to think of it. And then Peter Blake interviews Danny Goffey, which just feels the wrong way round, however you stare at it.

The NME has got the Pixies on the cover, for the first time since… well, ages ago.

The big picture is of the Hives new video shoot, where Pelle appears to dance on the ceiling, something that will amaze anyone who hasn't seen Lionel Ritchie's dancing on the ceiling video.

Unfortunately, Pete Libertine came out of the Priory - pleading a previous engagement with the FA Cup Final - before the NME did, but it's still interesting to see the Priory desperately insisting that it's not a spa, you know.

If we didn't know better, we'd say that the "news story" Napster is Here is little more than a piece of unflagged advertising puff - certainly, there seems to be no downside to the wonders of the service, which seems to be at least curious.

Peter Robinson takes on Rufus wainwright - shockingly, Rufus shows himself not to know what a haiku is. We're starting to wonder just how gay he actually is.

Radar band is TV On The Radio, who claim to be writing the rules for their own religion - sadly, nobody asks them if they're aware their band name was Tommy 'storming out of Hells Kitchen' Vance's catch phrase in the 80s. Bet Tommy Vance wouldn't like them, too. Amongst the free downloads Radar have is Deerhoof, who, as you know, are wonderful. Vit zeez free downloads you are spoiling, etc, etc…

Oh, yeah, 1991. There was a really shit front page for that one, Black Francis with some globe on his shoulder - we think it might have come with a postcard of the Mozzer drinking Ecover on it; the cover, and the Roger Morton piece, is rerun. There's also the results of an NME reader's poll (from this year) which claims Where Is My Mind is the world's favourite Pixies track.

Astonishing pop facts: Alex from Franz Ferdinand is a year older than Ash are. There's a lesson to be drawn, but we're buggered if we know what.

Peter Robinson (again) is given the job of welcoming the new countries in the EU y giving us a taste of their music - apparently Phats and Small are topping the charts in Slovenia right now.

It turns out Ananova had completely misunderstood the meaning of "Fit but you know it" when they reported that the paper had nominated Carl Barat as fittest man in pop - the full list, getting a poster each, is: Carl, Alex Kapranos, Favrizio Moretti, Meg White; Jack White; Karen O; Brody Dalle and, perhaps more surprisingly, Marcie Bolen.

Reviews
Live
The streets - Manchester Apollo - "in losing the charm of the new lp, skinner comes across more convincing than ever"
Beastie boys - ICA - "the beats still jump, although the beatmasters seem Jurassic"

Albums
Hope of the states - the lost riots - "look at the messages as Jimmi Lawrence's legacy", 9
Pj Harvey - uh huh her - "let's face it, she should never have split up with Duncan", 5

Singles
Sotw
Beastie boys - Ch-Check it out - "the g-guvnors are back"
Emma bunton - crickets sing for anamaria - "sick and wrong"

And, finally, Ben Gautrey of Cooper Temple Clause loves Sonic Youth. Yup, us too.