We need to talk about '11: February

After Justin Bieber claimed that abortion was "killing a baby" and that if you've been raped "everything happens for a reason", Rolling Stone tried to help dig him out his hole. In other words that might come back to haunt him, Bieber insisted he'd never have sex without love.

Worrying signs that Lady GaGa has started to believe her own press, while Jon Spencer Blues Explosion became the unlikely highlight of the Superbowl and Wyclef Jean was being hailed hero of the Arab Spring.

It can't be proved that the theft of South African cables was designed to try and scupper a U2 gig, but I know what I believe. One Direction did at least make it to the stage in Oxford, but only played four songs. The U2 gig did go ahead, and Bono managed to offend swathes of people with his support for Shoot The Boer.

Great news for Michael Jackson: the whole dying thing sorted out his debt problems.

Radio 1 decided that Jo Whiley had done enough, as she moved to 2 and Radcliffe and Maconie headed off to 6Music. James Corden hosted the Brits, the NME awards were doled out to much the same people. And after Arcade Fire did well at the Grammys, outraged people who hadn't heard of them decided there must have been a mistake.

As NME posted sales down over 16% on a year it started to add made-up stuff to people's quotes. Music Week made some big changes to avoid going the way of the industry they write about as Citigroup took EMI off TerraFirma.


Last FM introduced a fee for mobile while Murdoch, along with his other problems, was losing millions on MySpace every month. Also having digital problems was Jeremy Hunt, saddled with an unworkable DEA. Sony muttered that it might take its music off iTunes, at some point in the future, and you just see if they don't.

Returning: Beavis And Butthead. Reunited: The Primitives. Retiring: The White Stripes.

Oh, come on: Who really would believe Beyonce would headline Glastonbury? Oh.


2011 Month-by-month
Part of We Need To Talk About '11