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A week on No Rock and Roll Fun

The ten crucial stories this week:
1. Beth Ditto, naked, unashamed, slightly confused for NME
2. R Kelly's sex video will get a court airing
3. RIP: Tony Thompson
4. Lily Allen's subaqua changes
5. Heather Mills, porn star
6. McFly GAY exhibitionism
7. Mr. Winehouse gets pushed into a hedge
8. RIP John Pike
9. Northern Lights, forgotten boyband act, spits bloke into Big Brother house
10. KT Tunstall's sexuality re-enters the top ten

Also this week: Live Earth was asked to not get people to switch their lights off by, erm, people who sell electricity; Jack White phoned up a DJ to scream and scream and scream at her; Victoria Newton took a break from predicting and dismissing the chances of a Spice Girls reunion to predict Blur would be back with Coxon by Christmas; Warners started selling un-DRMed music through Lala.com and Kill Rock Stars attempted to offload a load of tiny knickers.

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Five years ago, Eminem 'revealed' he'd had death threats from Al Qaeda - like, you know, everyone else in America; the Spectator suggested the Jubilee concert had "undermined the monarchy", TVS pointed out the Liverpool Capital of Culture slogan cost ten thousand a word (but that was a lot of money back then) and NME had Ozzy apologising for the clusterfuck that was Ozzfest; the odd comedy-and-music network Play UK called it day, taking Lucas and Williams' Rock Profiles series with it while MTV suddenly realised not having ads on MTV2 was a bit of an odd idea, and ran the Baby's Got A Temper video on a constant loop to try and make the rent; Madness musical Our House was launched and, equally upsetting, Atomic Kitten covered The Tide Is High.

These were new-ish, and buyable, this week:


If The Twang can survive the attempts to force 'Arctic Monkeys 2.0' on them, the next album should be classic


"Everyone's ancient at your high school reunion" - Loudon Wainwright's film-and-life soundtrack album


Shellac return with their first slice of glorious noise since 2000


Nick Lowe releases new album; wonders if he's going to have to die to get reputation he deserves


Turns out the BBC never gave Dusty Springfield anything like enough work - the Complete Sessions runs to just 22 tracks


Alex James - who is getting more like David Walliams' Rock Profiles take on him by the day - releases his autobiography


... he'll also read it to you on an audiobook. But it's called Bit of a Blur, rather than the more apt Me Me Me


Green Pitch: Franco-Danish ethero-pop thrills


Biffy Clyro continue to hover on the edge of the big time


On record, her inability to sing for toffee isn't much of a problem - Mutya goes solo


Possibly the only person to have worked with Guy Chambers and Bang Gang, Keren Ann's self-titled album seems to finally be getting her a push from EMI