Helly Luv is actually an edgy pop star

Time to catch up with Helly Luv, who makes most so-called edgy acts seem like the soft options they are:

She's Iraqi. That song is a direct attack on ISIS. And she insisted on making the video for it in Iraq.

All Things Considered have been to Iraq to find out how she's gone down there:

Tourism campaign makes poor choice of singer

There's no shortage of poorly-chosen music-related advertising and marketing campaigns, but the people attempting to turn Ebril into a tourist hotspot have managed to bounce themselves to the top of the list. This constitutes some sort of clanger being dropped:

One of the most recent triumphs for authorities in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, had was getting their metropolis named Capital of Arab Tourism for 2014. A schedule of events to draw more attention to the city and to attract visitors has been launched, as has a promotional campaign. But the latter has already run into some controversy.

Local officials have brought in Moroccan-born singer, Samira Said, to perform a song called “Erbil”, in which the musical star, who’s well known throughout the Arab world, praises the locale for its beauty.

Apparently Said was chosen, in part, because she is one of the nominees in the Monte Carlo-based World Music Awards, where best selling artists in each region and in various categories are given prizes. Said has been nominated for her single, “Mazal” and she’s also up for the Best Female Artist prize.

Now, so far, that doesn't sound so bad - Samira Said, with something of a global profile - coming over to sing a song about the joys of Iraqi Kurdistan.

What could possibly be wrong about that?

The same singer, Samira Said, was employed by Saddam Hussein to sing hymns to his regime, the same regime that tried to exterminate Iraq’s Kurds.

Yeah. That's taking "ill-judged" to a new level.

U2: Dissent in the ranks

Hey, it turns out it's not just us who worries about the people Bono rubs shoulders with. Larry Mullen isn't that comfortable, either:

Although he says he admires his bandmate for his achievements on the world stage – which he says will be “his legacy”, as well as his his voice and lyrics he adds: “My biggest problem really is sometimes the company that he keeps. And I struggle with that. Particularly the political people, less the financial people. Particularly Tony Blair – I mean, I think Tony Blair’s a war criminal. And I think he should be tried as a war criminal. And then I see Bono and him as pals, and I’m going: 'I don’t like that'.

He said Bono "would know how I feel about Tony Blair". Mullen said he understood why the singer had cosied up to President Bush. "George Bush has been very generous to his cause … the difference between him and Tony Blair is that Blair is intelligent. So he has no excuse for what he did. Whereas I think George Bush could find a few excuses for his behaviour.

It's admirably outspoken and honest of Mullen to say that in public - although it's hard to see why he's any more relaxed about the financial chums of Bono.

Bono, of course, has an explanation for why he rubs shoulders with Bush:

“It was embarrassing for the band. Edge always tells me, 'You’re an artist, remember that. You’re not a politician'. But if you’ve looked into the face of a mother whose daughter or son has died in their arms for no good reason, they don’t know or care who’s President of America. It’s something that once you’re a witness to, you can’t get it out of your head and so you don’t take shit on their behalf."

And that's a fair point - if you have the access, you should use it to push for good. Trouble is, Bono seemed to always be popping up to help Bush - photo-ops, stressing what a good job he was doing. And, indeed, the only time Bono seems to criticise his famous chums is when their period of power is coming to an end. It might be easier to believe that Bono is using his unique position to forward the needs of the many if the people with whom he met seemed more like they found the meetings awkward, rather than so much great fun.

Wasn't there meant to be a virus wiping all mention of him off the internet anyway?

Despite it having been an April Fool's Joke, the NME's 'Winehouse to appear in Doctor Who' story is looking set to have as much of an afterlife as the Bob Holness saxophone line: Fark is reporting it as close-to-fact this morning. It's now April 3rd.

More to the point, though, is the question of why, when Harriet Jones voted against the Iraq War, she didn't pull the UK out of Iraq when she was PM - as, clearly, the Torchwoodentops were watching news coverage of it the other week. Doesn't make any sense, does it?

[Thanks to Michael M for the tip about Fark]

Torture yourself

Mother Jones has put together an Imeem Playlist featuring songs used by American troops to... they don't call it "torture", do they? Is the current euphemism 'depleasantise' or something?

It's led off by Fuck Your God by Deicide, which shows exactly the sort of subtle message that explains why American foreign policy wins friends and supporters around the world.

In related news, new Deicide tracks on MySpace are getting about 20,000 listens a day, presumably mostly from people not locked in container crates before the play button is pressed. We think that must be self-harm, then.

Bono's friends: It's tough at the top

Rolling Stone are granted an opportunity to fawn over Bono, and naturally treat him with the sort of kid gloves he grants to his chums in Washington. The most interesting thing about the Rolling Stone interview is the subtle, early attempt to reposition himself, ready for a change in the 2008 White House. He's not a friend of Bush, he's a friend of America, you see.

So, what about Iraq, then?

There was a plan there, you know. I think the president genuinely felt that if we could prove a model of democracy and broad prosperity in the Middle East, it might defuse the situation. I don't believe that, and in the capacity I had, I told them that.

[...]

I told Paul Wolfowitz, all of them, to go ask the British army what it's like to stand on street corners and get shot at. Remember that during the British army's first years on the streets of Northern Ireland, they were applauded by the Catholic minority. Go look at that, and ask yourself how that all got turned around.

It was always going to go wrong. I remember in the first moments after "shock and awe," I was watching it at home with [my wife] Ali and I said, "These people have just hidden their guns in the basement, took off their uniforms and come out waving American flags. And they've been told to. They knew this was coming, and they know what they're doing."

[...]
So you mentioned this to Wolfowitz. Who else did you say this to? Did you say it to Tony Blair?

I said it in all my conversations. To Condi. To Karl Rove. I did not discuss it with President Bush. I try to stick to my pitch, and it's an abuse of my access for me to switch subjects. But I'm a lippy Irish rock star, and I'm more used to putting my foot in my mouth than my fist. So occasionally I'm just going to talk about it.

We're a little lost as to why Bono felt he could talk about Iraq with Rove and Rice, but not with Bush - what would make that an "abuse of access"? Or did Condi and Karl encourage Bono to chat with them on their Arabic adventure?

You'll notice Bono sidesteps the direct question about Blair.

Of course, this also contrdicts what Bono, erm, told Rolling Stone a couple of years back when he suggested that he didn't discuss Iraq on his trips to seats of government:

He said he’s made it clear that he doesn’t support the war in Iraq, but he doesn’t campaign against it because his main priority is helping the poor and disadvantaged.

“I work for them,” Bono said. “If me not shooting my mouth off about the war in Iraq is the price I pay, then I’m prepared to pay it.”

It's also fascinating that - in the current version of things, Bono suggests that he was tirelessly working against the war on Iraq, but only in secret.

But that's besides the point, of course, because Bono then goes on the endorse the lie of linking the War On Iraq with Al-Qaeda:

I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't.

So how did a war against a country without a significant Al-Qaeda presence fit with a threat which "manifested itself" on September 11th?

Even The White House has given up on that one.

But then Bono probably doesn't live in the same world as the rest of us:

It is utterly accepted in the U.S. and Europe that you cannot live a life of peace and prosperity if at the end of your avenue there are hungry people without clean water, losing their children because they cannot access a twenty-cent vaccine or dying for the lack of drugs we have falling out of our medicine cabinets.

Really? "Utterly accepted", is it? Then why was George Bush happy to veto the bill which would have provided free healthcare to ten million children at the very end of his street, lest it upset the insurance industry?

Bono, of course, has a thing for politicians:

Just being in D.C., and meeting all the people I've met - I've now been going there for nearly ten years. They let me in their rooms and they listen to my rhetoric or invective or whatever it turns out to be. And I come away from that city not with nausea but with admiration. These people work like dogs. These lawmakers, they're trying to move between their families back home and Washington. All of them could make much more money in the private sector. Not all, but most of them are there for the right reasons. There's very little glamour. And they're listening to me, who's completely over-rewarded for what I do.

So, serving in Washington is a selfless, loss-making affair, is it?

Let's heed Bono's words, and appluad Ray Hunt, who selflessly serves on Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, bravely sacrificing time he could spend overseeing Hunt Oil's interests in exploiting the Iraqi oilfields.

Let's applaud Dick Cheney, who scraped by on his simple Vice-President's salary while his former employer, Haliburton, somehow got loaded down with Iraqi "re"construction contracts. Oh, yes, the massive hike in share price might have helped a little, what with him holding getting on for half a million share options, but let's not forget that Cheney had "forgotten" those holdings when he told NBC he'd severed all ties with the company, so effectively, he probably thought he had forsaken all that cash.

Bono, there's no shame in loving power and money and even that faint whiff of corruption. Just don't keep playing us all for bloody idiots.

Duran drop Iraq track

Duran Duran have left off the Iraq song from their new album because they hoped to sell some copies in the US. Sorry, because it was too angry, apparently:

Nick Rhodes says, "We've always reflected what's around us but we always tried to pick the more uplifting subjects. There was so much doom and gloom around that this record was becoming angry and political."

Good heavens, not connecting with the real world, you mean? Thank god you put a stop to that, otherwise you might have ceased to be a bunch of fading popstars burning through goodwill to your youngerselves in lieu of offering any relevance to the modern world.

After all, why just bum people out by focusing on a war that so far has wiped something in the order of 75,000 civilians? Why not focus on the positive things instead? We look forward to your album, 'Arbys Introduce Subs', with its lead-off single 'Watching kittens in boxes on YouTube', Mr. Rhodes.

50 Cent tries to enter politics

Presumably as part of his ongoing frustration at being bested by Kanye West at every turn, 50 Cent has had his people rustle up some political observations for him.

Cent has appeared to support the Iraq war in the past, popping over to help the troops keep their peckers up. Which makes his sudden conversion to being anti-war a little awkward:

"Me and George Bush were both born on July 6. He has less compassion than a regular human being.

"We are so different. I actually went to Iraq because I went to perform for the soldiers.

"Bush just sends people to war."

50 Cent, of course, is well known for his hatred of pointless violence and his disgust at the suggestion that guns and shooting and killing are cool and.... oh, hang on, he isn't, is he?

But turning to next year's elections, who does 50 Cent fancy?

"I'd like to see Hillary Clinton be president.

"It would be nice to see a woman be the actual president."

The actual president? As opposed to what, exactly? Are there fake lady Presidents we've been missing out on?

Still, you've got to applaud Cent's grasp of the complex political issues facing a Democrat planning a run in 2008 - he's able to identify which one has the skirt. Well done, Fiddy.

Trust me, I'm a guitarist

Thanks to MC Glammer for bringing this to our attention: Bono "knew" Blair was going to be great leader because he played guitar:

"They're often very clever (guitar players), very studious - they spend hours in the bedroom practicing - you know, swottish."

Frantic teenager masturbators also spend hours in their bedrooms, putting in the hours, but I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of a Prime Minister whose red box has got a gunked-up copy of the Damart catalogue hidden at the bottom.

And while it's true that you have to concentrate very hard to be able to play the guitar well, there's little evidence that Blair was anything more than a strum-and-run guy; and isn't every hour spent learning the twiddly bits from I Am The Walrus an hour less spent finding out about the world? After all, Noel Gallagher is a pretty good guitarist, but his lyrics suggest a man whose interests are strongly limited.

But Bono is about to get more facile yet:

"What I admire the most about Tony Blair is that despite all accusations of a slick PR machine, spin doctoring and the like, he has almost all of the time exposed himself to bad press and outcry for doing the things he believed in."

You'll notice that Bono only implies we all hallucinated Alistair Campbell, and the rest of the "slick PR machine", but let's let that one by. The broader question is since when did Blair expose himself to bad press for doing "things he believed in"?

If we recall correctly, at the start of the Iraq War - the source of most of Blair's negative coverage - the bulk of the media stood foursquare behind him. Indeed, the image of a Tony so relaxed at pressing on with conviction in the face of criticism is a little at odds with his reaction when someone suggested that the public may have been lied to in a bid to persuade us into war - a dead scientist, a fix of an inquiry, the sacking of the Director General of the BBC: thank god he was so relaxed in the face of criticism. Just imagine what he'd have done if he hadn't been convinced of his rightness.

The suggestion that Blair spent ten years "almost all of the time" pressing ahead with conviction in the face of negative comment is even more facile than Bono's 'guitarists make the best PMs' bumper-sticker claims.

Can an iPod stop a bullet from an AK-47?

You'd think "probably not", but last week saw a hugely dugg story - complete with photo - which suggested that an iPod had, indeed, saved the life of a US soldier in Iraq. As with most stories with the word "Iraq" in them, the truth was slightly different, as HavanaLion has discovered:

The armor stopped the bullet.

The iPod was how Kevin Garrad found out he was shot. This is the real story.
Kevin said he got into the fight with the insurgent and afterwards he did not know he was even shot. He said he returned to his bunk after the patrol, put on his earbuds and began to clean his weapon.

He said: “you get into a ritual out there.”

No music came on. He dug around in the pockets where he kept the iPod and pulled out the twisted hunk of metal that is in the pictures. He said that was how he found out that he had been shot during the fight. He was happy that his armor worked.

He said the upgraded armor he was wearing could stop the AK-47 round.

This will be good news for the Pentagon - imagine if they'd had to kit out their entire surged-up troops with full body iPods for protection.

[iPod image from TikiGod on Flikr]

In other Middle East conflict iPod news, Arthur Bachelor, one of the British sailors captured by Iranian forces in disputed waters, has been complaining that the goody bag he was given on release was no replacement for the iPod the Iranians apparently nicked off him:

THE gifts the Iranians gave the crew were a load of junk - and nothing in comparison to what they stole, including Arthur Batchelor's iPod, he said yesterday.

They [...] got a "granny bag" full of tat including toffees with a label saying "containing pistachio", a CD and DVD that don't work and 11 books.

These were in English and mostly aimed at trying to convert the reader to Islam with titles like Youth and Morals by Sayid Lari.

Arthur said: "The iPod was really special to me as it was a gift. It had our song on, Hold Me Tonight by Angel One, which was one of the tunes playing when we first met.

"It was in a pocket in my overalls. The guards took everything off us - including cigarettes and watches.

We're still puzzled why the Mirror seemed so outraged that the toffees had pistachio in them - do they suspect some sort of attempt to try and trigger nut allergies?

Still, at least Arthur will be able to buy a new iPod when he cashes the big cheque from Trinty Mirror, so it's not all bad. (He could also try flogging the goody bag on eBay - we bet it'd get a fortune.)

Downloads send war to the top ten

The need for nothing more complex than a server and an angle to get a single into the c charts looks like paying off from Ugly Rumours, the band that isn't Blair and Mark Ellen's old band. They're heading for the Top Ten with an anti-war cover of Edwin Starr, although as Franco M pointed out to us when he sent us the link to the story, it's not entirely clear what war they're protesting against - Iraq? Afghanistan? The Inch War?

It comes to something when a band feels the need to protest, but not only can't be arsed to write a new song, but they can't even come up with a new name.

Where the bleats have no name

Bono very, very careful in his Iraq war remarks - careful to suggest that Tony's heart is in the right place, and bloody careful not to piss off his friend George by mentioning him at all.

Call us paranoid

But 3D suddenly arrested on drugs and porn charges?

We hope Somerset and Avon police have got something very solid, otherwise the arrest of one of the most vocal critics of the government's Iraq policy might just be a little too convenient for words.

Damon Albarn - you might want to go into hiding.

No rock and war fun

We were interested to read Anthony Easton's NYLPM piece about the Dixie Chick's new song; a heart-mushing tale of a young wife turned young widow by the death of her football hero husband in a pointless foreign war.

Is this the same Dixie Chicks who turned up yesterday to do the National Anthem at the Superbowl, watched by dozens and dozens of combat ready troops while fireworks recreated the raid over Baghdad? Interesting opening ceremony - only a few tanks short of a Soviet era May Day parade. And what was Celine Dion doing trilling about America? Um, when you say "your land", don't you mean "the country next door"?

What The Pop Papers Say: The Blackburn and Lamacq edition

It's perhaps not surprising that virtually every general magazine has chosen as a subject for its cover this week that milestone, with the exception of the Radio Times which has gone for quite a different milestone, marking the 2000th edition of Top of the Pops (although, actually, TV Cream seems convinced the 'notable' episode passed some weeks back); they have a fold out cover of some past presenters. It's perhaps unsurprising that the current team of nomarks are banished to the bit that you can't see, and the team that people have heard of - Saville, Mike Read - are given the shelf space. I mean - Richard Blackwood? Lisa Snowdon? Wisely, the innards of the magazine have been handed to Stuart Maconie, a man who is able to write with genuine affection about the show. Holly Johnson credits David Bowie hugging Mick Ronson on the pops as being the first show of genuine affection between men on proper telly, you know...

Talking of the Pops, how bad is Amanda Platell? For some reason, the pointless woman has decided to turn from a subject she knows little about to a topic she knows nothing about, as her gaze turns from politics to celebrity in her frequently embarrassing new Statesman column. She condemns the people partaking in I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here as people who have "dreamed of, or slept with" celebrity. Amanda, here's half a clue for you: It's called Google. Type in a name and you might find out that Tony Blackburn is, in some sense, an uber-celeb. Leaving aside the fact he's the highest rated AM music show presenter, Tony created the Radio One Breakfast Show format that's still in place today (modernised, but basically unchanged otherwise). He presented Top of the Pops for years (that, and not 'get me out...', is why he's on the Radio Times cover this week - at a time when the show was a mighty force on British TV rather than a quaking brand buried against Corrie. More crucially, his very public breakdown following Tessa Wyatt dumping him, and the fall-out and following interviews, was the event which set the template for the celeb-goes-nuts/celeb-gets-rehabilitated cycle that drives the tabloids today. Someone who comes from a tabloid background should know that...

Following the Blackburn celeb crack-up route, a sad piece in the Observer OM follows Adam Ant on his downward spiral. All a bit upsetting, really, as Adam frets that "I know its going to be Rock Star Goes Nuts." Which is, of course, part of the deal you make when you seek fame - people will embrace every new nuance of your painted face and hang on your opinions; but they'll also stare at every unpaid bar tab and piece of misbehaviour. When you live your life as theatre, you can never go and hide in the wings...

Music Week reports that a "bewildered dance music industry" are embracing cheesey-dance as their only hope of avoiding wipe-out as the market for beats falls away. This means more songs about rubber ducks, less Moby. There's no way to slice that so it sounds bad, so to make clearer: the future is Scooter singing Supertramp in Minnie Mouse voices. Forever...

the nme has black rebel motorcycle club on the front - "drugs! death! paranoia!" - yeah, but what *new* have you got for us?...

there's five pages about the blur split - headlined 'blur in crisis', like they were the Middle East; but it all hangs on the non-appearance of the Graham on the Webcam, really. Mozzer denies he's ever had an offer to reform the Smiths - ten quid and a box of new energy Boost bars, then, Moz?; Marquee reopens (or rather, old sign hung up outside new club); police deny last week's stories about police brutality during the leeds riots (and, so far, no formal complaints have been made); stars are flocking to record at Toe Rag studios, apparently; Pete Libertine's ex-girlfriend is threatening to sue the band for using a line from her dear john note as a lyric; JJ72 have had their album date pushed back to make way for Suede - in all, there's news right up to Page 24 this week; curious since its actually rather a quiet week...

There's a rundown on The New Lamacq betting - Colin Murray, Zane Lowe and Mike Davies out front; there's also some weasling from the Radio One head of Specialist, Live Music and Speech Ian Parkinson, which is interesting. They say the show is being axed because "it's Steve's show, and to simply put in a new presenter would be wrong" - curious that, since the Evening Session has been presented by Goodier and Wylie as well, and on thursdays it's done by about five different people - why would the regional editions be possible if it was Lammo's show? The big hint here is that they wanted rid of the ridiculously gaunt one, a feeling confirmed by the 'managers vote of confidence' that follows. ("Steve remains a key presenter at Radio 1, fronting one of our flagship specialist shows" - yeah, we'll give that until Easter). "There's nothing wrong with the Evening session, but we feel that a new show and a new presenter will give us more freedom to approach the alternative music scene in a new and exciting way. We want to take the championing of new music to the next level." Now, since it's hard to imagine anyone more passionate about their music than Steve, this can clearly only mean: we want to play stuff Steve doesn't like, so he's out. I mean, how can you approach the music scene in "new ways" other than playing the records, giving out sessions and talking to the bands anyway? "You have to remember that the Evening Session has hugely widened its musical remit over the years" - no it hasn't; and I'd challenge Radio One to demonstrate that it has. It's always been mainly guitar based with occassional forays into dance. Sure, there might be more punky/nu-rock nowadays, but that's because there's a lot more raw material around right now. Besides, if the show *has* adapted over the years, why stop iit now? Asked if Radio One still has a duty to play alternative music, Parkinson says "It's not a duty, it's a passion." Erm... actually, mate, it's a duty. You're funded by the licence fee to provide something for everyone, and part of that is playing music from beyond the pop mainstream. Its why Radio One is worth saving from the people who would privatise it. It's why Radio One deserves to be funded. You might enjoy doing it - that's great - but still, never forget - you're there for us. Okay? And for a final spot of spin, challenged that Radio One has a bias towards dance and urban, Parkinson retorts "It's simply not true. There are more hours devoted to guitar and alternative music than urban and dance." Now, clearly there's no need for a quota to be applied, and radio 1 should be doing all these things, but... c'mon. All the 'indie' shows have been pushed back in the schedule to make way for more shows like Dave Pearce's - when's the Breezeblock on now? Half past nighttime? - and from the end of Mark Radcliffe on Friday, it's pretty much pop and dance solidly until, well, Radcliffe on Monday. In sheer terms of hours, it might be there's more guitars on the network, but the impression of Radio One is of a dance-heavy station. Worse, much of it is scheduled at the same time that commercial stations are doing substantially similar programmes, robbing listeners of any choice...

on bands - wit - the atomic kitten of electroclash and the zutons - another Bandwagon band...

Marcie Von Bondie started to play guitars "because boys made me." That's her off the ladyfest wish list, then...

BRMC are asked who their favourite authors are. Peter's response is "Who wrote the Old Man and the Sea?" - which is apparently the only book he's ever finished. No such problems with which rock star they'd most like to have been - Jimi Hendrix, Ian Curtis, (more playfully) Kurt Cobain. I wonder why people think they're detah-obsessed?...

the centre pages are given over to that "No war on Iraq" ad from Blur and Massive Attack. Which is great to see, but I'm not entirely sure that the claim "Both the British and US governments have stated their preparedness to use nuclear weapons in this war" is entirely true - haven't they just not ruled out first use, and not with regards to Iraq specifically? Its a small point, but it would be a pity if a strong moral cause felt the need to inflate the case to win people to its side. That's for *them* to do...

Didn't the nme used to love Oxide and Neutrino? Maybe its to avoid falling into the trap last year, when the paper seemed to be too quick to let off their So Solid chums for the fifteen year old with a broken jaw incident, but this time, O&N are paraded for the prime knobcheese you'd expect of an act who will sing "most of the time when you meet a girl, that girl will be a ho" - and who think that Peter Stringfellow is "proper safe." Hmmm...

Coldplay do the ten tracks - Pixies, Streets, Smiths, Kraftwerk, Aretha, Clash. Blimey, they listen to all that, and *still* make records that sound like weedy old gant toss. Makes you wonder...

reviews - soft cell - cruelty without beauty ("verge on the hamfisted", 6); death in vegas - scorpio rising ("adds up well", 8); miss black america - god bless miss black america ("al the wrong music", 5); paul weller - illumination ("long may he rail", 8); atomic kitten - feels so good ("cows", 3); roddy frame - surf ("uncool, of course, but beautiful", 8)...

sotw - the datsuns - in love ("we're besotted"); not suede - positivity ("go quietly now, and [your fans] will remain true", nor Avril Lavigne - complicated ("nowhere near as shit or wrong as the impending busted single"), nor BRMC - whatever happened to my rock n roll ("a very good record")...

live: foo fighters at ULU ("they've kept getting better"); Libertines in Scotland ("wistful as they are brutal")...

from the small ads: "Manics/Placebo fans wanted for university dissertation research. What draws you to these bands?" Contact magnoliasparkle@yahoo.com if you want, but it sounds like a trap to me...