Oh, really?
We're a little surprised to hear that The Killers have already been asked to do the next Bond theme.
Surely they'd wait until the film had been, you know, scripted at least?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Girls Aloud at the dispatch box
As a spot of Christmas frippery, the New Statesman have spent some time seeking Girls Aloud for their political views.
Yes, it does turn out to be as much of an oxymoron as you'd expect:
"There should be adverts in the breaks during Coronation Street spelling it out in bullet points: This is what the Conservatives stand for. This is what Labour stands for," says Cheryl.
"You know that basically Labour is the working-class and the Conservatives are the really kind of upper-class, and then everything else is... I have no idea. I only vote Labour because me mam does."
Bandmate Nicola Roberts agrees that politics are a big turn-off for teenagers: "I know there are programmes on late at night when they have debates and stuff. But young people are not going to choose to watch them. It's boring.
"No 18-year-old wants to watch Gordon Brown doing his whole speech - turn it over!"
Is it just us, or is that ever-so-slightly about all 18 year-olds?
Sarah Harding chips in: "We need to make politics more user-friendly. It just isn't talked about in normal magazines and newspapers. We never get asked who we'd vote for. It could be a general question in an interview, but it isn't."
"Normal" magazines being, presumably, the sort that Girls Aloud feature in. You might wonder, though, what would be the point of asking a political question of a band who are so ignorant of the world that they want it boiled down into a bullet-pointed thirty seconds in the break of Corrie?
Putting the screws on Yoko
Police have apparently foiled an attempt to blackmail Yoko Ono by her driver.
Koral Karsan apparently demanded two million bucks, or he was going to send photos of Yoko in her nightwear to the press.
Never mind trying to get cash out of her, if the threat is "give me money or see Yoko in her jimjams", we'd happily put in a few quid.
Gene Simmons: career master
Gene Simmons reckons that if he and Mick Jagger hadn't made it in the charts, they'd both be caught in humdrum work:
The Channel 4 Rock School presenter added: "They'd probably now be asking you if you want fries with that.
"That includes Jagger and myself.
"Classical musicians are real musicians, the rest of us are lazy entertainers who never took time to learn how to play our instruments properly and can't read or write music."
You, Gene, might have been heading for a life behind the fryers, but Jagger? He went to the LSE on a scholarship and was taking a degree in accountancy. His music career wasn't to flee a life of hardship and poverty, it was to try and escape a middle-class future.
Mariah Carey leaving humps in the snow
In a bid to try and show what's at risk if Mariah Carey can't protect her image and stop the public confusing her with a glamour model, Mariah has been sharing her idea of a special, family Christmas:
“I like to get out of the hot tub and roll in the snow,” she told Aspen magazine.
“Somebody told me that it was a tradition in Aspen, but maybe they were lying to me.”
She continued: “It’s a tradition for us to have Santa Claus-looking bikinis, jump in the hot tub, and roll in the fresh snow.”
Well, at least there's an upside to global warming then.
By "Santa Claus-looking" we presume she means "red", by the way.
Pssst... wanna buy tickets to the Diana gig?
We're a little confused by eBay's statement as they attempted to block sales of tickets to see the Lovely Lovely Lady Diana Spencer Big Gig on their site:
A spokesman for eBay said: "In view of the unique and commemorative nature of the Concert for Diana event and as a mark of respect for the memory of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, eBay has decided to not allow the re-sale of tickets to this event on the site."
Eh? What sort of line is this? Back during the run-up to Glastonbury 2005, eBay pointed out there was nothing illegal about selling tickets online, and allowed auctions to go ahead. They did, however, put the cosh on Live8 tickets - presumably because that was "unique", like the Diana Concert is unique in, erm, exactly the same way.
Seriously, this gig isn't unique - it's a charity gig with a royal name attached, so on a par with the Princes Trust one or that thing where Brian May played on the roof of Buckingham Palace. And, well, yes, it might be commemorative, but then so were, say Diana memorial stamps, but eBay doesn't block sales of them.
What they mean, of course, is more "because, like eBay, people will kick up a stink over this one, we're trying our hardest to stop sales in a way that won't create a precedent."
Still, Arcade Fire were looking for a way to stop their tickets being sold by eBay - all they need to do is say the gig is in memory of, say, Peter Boyle and eBay will surely have no choice but to remove sales of entry to this "unique and commemorative event".
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
iTunes nosedive?
Can it really be true that iTunes sales dropped 65% year-on-year?
Possibly. Apple deny the figures, which have come from Forrester Research.
Forrester's claim is, in effect, a stab in the dark based on some rather vague figures:
Forrester said it got its figures by analysing 2,791 US iTunes debit and credit card purchases conducted by members of its consumer panel.
Apple claim to have sold one and a half billion tunes. We make that a sample of 0.0002% of all sales, which gives us the feeling this is somewhere between an semi-educated guess and a random suggestion.
Folding His Magazine
Just in passing: The American edition of FHM is to close. It was the biggest-selling of all 30 regional versions of the magazine, but was trading at a loss.
Bad news for popstar wannabes who have only their belly-buttons to offer by way of entertainment.
Rocksicklist: The Horrors
No noise tonight from the Horrors: Faris Rotter has lost his voice. They've pulled the Newcastle date of their tour - depending on your viewpoint, it's either lucky or otherwise that it was supposed to be the end of their dates.
Global warming? No problem
Showing the clear grasp of complex facts that makes him the greatest Prime Minister this nation never had, Noel Gallagher turns his attention to ecology:
“Greens are fucking hippies with no place in the world.
How do you suggest we get millions of Chinese not to have a fridge? Or get millions of Americans to stop using their big, stupid cars?”
He's right. Let's all give up now, shall we? But what of the future generations?
“Kids adapt. Our parents are horrified about the society we built for ourselves – drugs and sex and drink and rock ‘n’ roll and television."
Ah, that's it then. The inundation of low-laying land, the failure of global agriculture, millions of people starving, the methane frozen in the seas being released and raining fire down upon us all is akin to the introduction of jukeboxes.
Thank god we have Noel to put it all into context.
[Thanks to Gary White for the link]
