Posts
All Comments
We were wondering what had happened to Hard-Fi the other day. Not for long, admittedly, but it was a genuine thought nevertheless. So it's with some surprise that we discover they've popped up in Nashville being helped out by Mick Jones' Carbon/Silicon outfit.
Mick Jones explained his presence:
Matt W emails us with news of Just Jack, who shared his passion for The Clash with readers of The Sunday Times, enthusing over Train In Vain:
Mick Jones (Victor Spinetti impersonator and former member of Big Audio Dynamite) is hooking up with Tony James (spending his time deciding if it's worst to 'fess up to Generation X or Sigue Sigue Sputnik) are coming together to resurrect occasional band called Carbon/Silicon.
(Which is, of course, CSi in chemical symbols, so might be trying to get a toehold in the "badly-decaying corpse found with an unusual teaspoon in its anus" television crime franchise.)
The band will appear at the Isle of Wight festival with an ep due at the end of May.
James and Jones were both members of the London SS, back in 1975 when flirting with Nazi imagery was considered to be somehow cool rather than a tiresome indication a supply of self-importance outweighing common sense. Oh, no, that's right: it stood for social security, didn't it, Mick?
The last seven days on No Rock and Roll Fun:
The ten most-read individual stories on the site:
1. Heather Mills' nude calendar - which never existed
2. McFly naked - they're doing that again in this month's Attitude, you know
3. Lily Allen swaps her clothes under the sea
4. R Kelly sex video to be played in open court
5. KT Tunstall - does she like girls?
6. Mariah Carey does Playboy...
7. ... which is more stylish than Heather Mills
8. American Idol camp. It's not a joke
9. Jo O'Meara brazens out her behaviour
10. Charlotte Church's ex-lover sells story to News of the World
The two most-commented stories this week were about Everett True and - following us being condemned on some sort of Ocean Colour Scene message board - the new OCS album. Boy, those OCS fans can be sniff so mean.
The big news this week was the NME awards, which saw Victor Spinetti ("Mick Jones") presenting Bobby Gillespie with a godlike genius award after Kate Moss disappeared.
Also this week: Beth Ditto loved herself and loved herself some more; and amongst the hats being thrown into the Eurovision ring were Justin Hawkins, Brian Harvey and Scooch.
Five years ago this week, Liverpool's much-loved Voodoo club closed; Music Week flogged off DotMusic to BT - who would eventually sell it on to Yahoo; and Oasis released The Hindu Times: "George Harrison playing 'Does Your Mother Know?' by Abba on a sitar. Possibly in his death throes."
You can read the last week on one page or
skim the previous week in a single post.
And we tried to push these onto you (not the 30 Seconds To Mars one, that was more for the joke):
Dean and Britta's second post-Luna album: now it's almost all sex, all the way
The first of what we hope will be a long line of MSTRKRFT albums - "lyrics use dancing to signify fucking and fucking to signify dancing" reports Pitchfork
Dalek: like the other Daleks, Abandoned With Language will take you to dark, scary places and chase you through mental caverns. It won't, however, kill you.
Disappointingly, the Bluetones BBC sessions only have bits, not whole sessions
Amazon are pushing the new Patrick Wolf with a video interview
30 Seconds To Mars - a little old for this sort of thing now, surely?
Is it really thirty years since my brother bought his double vinyl Out of The Blue in that small record shop in Oakham?
Just be aware: Owning Nico albums wouldn't really get you laid in the 1970s; it really won't in 2007
Former Sunday Correspondent correspondent Sean O'Hagan returns to the studio with the High Llamas
The second batch of Torchwood episodes includes that one set in a barely-disguised Little Chef
Come on - That'll Be The Day and Stardust in one pack? What more do you want?
A collection of the best best-of lists and reviews. Yes, they've started posting them already.
Special mentions and thanks to Largehearted Boy and DJ Martian and their respective collections of links to more of this sort of thing.
Altrok radio's most-played artists of 2006:
Graham Coxon
The Futureheads
The Long Blondes
The Pigeon Detectives
Amazon.com editors' picks of the best albums:
1. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
2. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3. The Crane Wife - The Decemberists
4. Eye To The Telescope - KT Tunstall
5. Saint Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley
Architecture in Helsinki's album of the year, according to Filter:
Arthur Russell - First Thought Best Thought
Arctic Monkey's single of the year, according to 6Music:
Fedde Le Grand – Put Your Hands Up For Detroit
Ricardo Baca, Denver Post pop critic's CDs that "defined" 2006:
1. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
2. The Grates - Gravity Won't Get You High
3. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
4. Van Morrison - Pay The Devil
5. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
ContactMusic reviews the year with, erm, Castaldo-like insight: It's been another busy year in the music world. Songs have topped charts, albums have flown off shelves and musicians have kept up the grand old tradition of rock and roll by marrying, divorcing and getting arrested.
Corinne Bailey Rae's album of the year, according to Filter:
Editors - The Back Room
(We know, Summer 2005...)
Douglas Baptie reviews the year for CD Times: Ironically, it was also the year Sleater-Kinney decided to go on "hiatus" (read: split up) but 2006 was arguably the year that women finally broke through and were simply allowed to be, whether they were established acts like The Gossip or Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or newer faces like CSS, The Long Blondes, Be Your Own Pet, Blood Red Shoes, Tilly & The Wall, Lilly Allen, The Pipettes, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Metric - all just doing their own thing, but not being heckled or groped or having their attractiveness discussed in the music press.
Basement Galaxy is performing a slow reveal, but has already listed a top 10 ineligible albums list:
1. Pavement - Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition
2. Iron Maiden - Death on the Road DVD
3. Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend (Legacy Edition)
4. The Casettes - Neath The Pale Moon
5. Shooting At Unarmed Men - Yes, Tinnitus
Battle's single of the year, according to 6Music:
Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks
BBC Collective albums of the year, in no particular order:
The Young Knives - Voices of Animals And Men
Joan As Policewoman - Real Life
Joanna Newsom - Ys
The Knife - Silent Shout
Hot Chip - The Warning
Burial - Burial
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am...
Cat Power - The Greatest
The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Ben from Girlpants albums of the year:
1. Helios - Eingya
2. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
3. Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
4. Burial - Burial
5. Tunng - Comments of the Inner Chorus
Best selling UK albums of 2006:
1. Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
2. Beautiful World - Take That
3. Ta-Dah - Scissor Sisters
4. Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
5. Inside In / Inside Out - Kooks
... and the best selling singles:
1. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
2. A Moment Like This - Leona Lewis
3. Hips Don't Lie - Shakira Ft Wyclef Jean
4. I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters
5. I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker - Sandi Thom
Best selling albums, worldwide, with sales figures according to Mediatraffic (and an estimate at the total including markets not measured by Mediatraffic):
1. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium 5.693.000 (6.119.975)
2. High School Musical - High School Musical Soundtrack 5.397.000 (5.801.775)
3. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex / LoveSounds 4.348.000 (4.674.100)
4. Rascal Flatts - Me And My Gang 3.623.000 (3.894.725)
5. Pink - I'm Not Dead 3.419.000 (3.675.425)
6. Nelly Furtado - Loose 3.371.000 (3.623.825)
7. Beyonce - B'Day 3.238.000 (3.480.850)
8. The Beatles - Love 3.152.000 (3.388.400)
9. Evanescence - The Open Door 3.112.000 (3.345.400)
10. Andrea Bocelli - Amore 3.052.000 (3.280.900)
Between Thought And Expression provides an MP3 and videoed guide to the 69 favourite songs of the year:
1. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rise Up With Fists
2. Devics - Distant Radio
3. Grizzly Bear - Knife
4. Lily Allen - LDN
5. Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back To Your House
Blender's top albums:
1. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
2. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
3. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
4. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex / LoveSounds
5. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Bob Butler, who manages the warehouse for Southern Distribution chose, amongst his favourite things to listen to, The Mike Sammes Singer's Music For Biscuits and Danny Baker's Radio London programme. We suspect these two might be related.
Isobel Campbell's album of the year, according to Filter:
Bob Dylan - Modern Times
Chatanooga Pulse chooses the best local albums:
1. The Unsatisfied - The Way to the Crumbs
2. Infradig - Clinical Indifference / The Psychology of Breathing double ep package
3. Some Have Guns - Something Happened
4. Lou Wamp and Swing Shift - Wizards of Swing
5. Jennifer Daniels - A Thrill of Hope
Chromewaves: Rankings like that are inherently meaningless (as the uproar whenever someone publishes any sort of list that makes claims of definitiveness will attest) so instead, I've chosen to list off the ten records that meant the most to me in 2006 - the ones that soundtracked my life, so to speak. The post is a thing of beauty, lavishly illustrated with pics and links and mp3s, and highly recommended.
Eric Bachmann - To The Races
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Cat Power - The Greatest
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Early Day Miners - Offshore
The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
Land Of Talk - Applause Cheer Boo Hiss
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
Shearwater - Palo Santo
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's - The Dust Of Retreat
Billboard's Classical best US sellers year-end charts:
Classic album: Sting - Songs From The Labyrinth
Classic artist: Sting
Classic crossover album: Andrea Bocelli - Amore
Classic crossover artist: Andrea Bocelli
Bloggedy Blog picks albums of the year:
1. Tapes 'n Tapes - The Loon
2. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
3. Cat Power - The Greatest
4. Asobi Seksu - Citrus
5. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Bootie USA has pulled together a CD of their favourite mash-ups of the year, including Party Ben's Hung Up On Soul (Death Cab For Cutie vs. Madonna) and Go Home Productions' Don't Hold Back, Sweet Jane (Chemical Brothers vs. Velvet Underground vs. U2 vs. Sugababes vs. MARRS)
CBC Radio 3 select 94 best tracks of 2006:
1. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Nowhere with you
2. Malajube - Montreal -40c
3. Islands - Rough Gem
4. Cadence Weapon - Oliver Square
5. The Hidden Cameras - Awoo
Gideon Coe's single of the year:
Joan as Policewoman - The Ride
Andrew Collins, 6Music presenter and 'Not Going Out' scriptwriter track of the year:
Jamie T - Sheila
Daily Mirror's remaining 3AM Girls award their "3a Emmies":
Pop group: Sugababes
Legend: Elton John
Album: Christina Aguilera - Back To Basics
Tour: Take That
Businesswoman: Victoria Beckham
Band: The Kooks
Single: Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous Girl
The Daily Record's Razz column's albums of the year:
1. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am...
2. Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
3. The Feeling - Twelve Stops And Home
4. The Fratellis - Costello Music
5. Morrissey - Ringleader Of The Tormentors
Users at eMusic choose their albums of the year:
1. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
2. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
3. Belle And Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
4. Cat Power - The Greatest
5. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
Glide Magazine has 20 from 2006, in no especial order:
Built to Spill - You In Reverse
JJ Cale & Eric Clapton - The Road To Escondido
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Cat Power - The Greatest
Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint - The River in Reverse
Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Earl Greyhound - Soft Targets
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Joanna Newsom – Ys
The Roots - Game Theory
Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
The Slip - Eisenhower
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Viva Voce - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Andrew Parker at The Gong Show took 180 of these sorts of lists, and compiled a best of the best albums:
1. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (Number one on 14 lists)
2. The Knife - Silent Shout (8)
3. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (7)
4. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury (6)
5. Bob Dylan - Modern Times (5)
Guardian Music Blog top albums, as voted by music writers on The Guardian and The Observer:
1. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am...
2. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
3. Hot Chip - The Warning
4. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
5. Ghostface Killah - Fishface
Blogcritic's assistant music editor A L Harper submitted her own list of best albums:
1. Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
2. The Working Title - About Face
3. Pink - I'm Not Dead
4. Green River Ordinance - The Beauty Of Letting Go
5. Placebo - Meds
Kenny Herzog, editor of CMJ's albums of the year:
1. The Goodnight Loving - Cemetery Trails
2. Various Artists - Confuzed Disco
3. Ghostface - Fishscale
4. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
5. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
... and his favourite singles
1. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
2. Rick Ross - Hustlin’
3. E-40 - Tell Me When To Go
4. Girl Talk - Smash Your Head
5. In Flames - Take This Life
Idolator munches through pages and pages of HTML to sum up the year:
Best artist: Gnarls Barkley
Album of the year: TV on the Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Top track: Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Top reissue: Pavement - Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition
Enthusiasm (Total votes/voters selecting album) ratio: Burial - Burial
Under 30's album: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Bloggers' album: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Newspaper writers' album: Bob Dylan - Modern Times
African/Caribbean voters' album: Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Caucasian voters' album: TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Other race voters' album: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Midwest album: The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
New York album: Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
I Love Everything users gather to suggest albums overlooked by other lists: The new Bleach album. Title is long and the English translation doesn't make a whole lot of sense...something to do with the head nodding from side to side and chewing the meat
Indielaundry mp3-powers their albums of the year:
1. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
2. Hot Chip - The Warning
3. Midlake - The trials of Van Occupanther
4. Tom Waits - Orphans
5. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
Jeroen of MusicMania picked a favourite album:
Sylvester Anfang - Satanische Vrede
Keisha Jenkins of Donewaiting.com's favourite album:
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
The Jpopmusic forum discuss best singles: I vote "Nanairo no Ashita~brand new beat~/Your Color". I think its one of her best singles since "Double" and "Be The One".
Kerrang's albums of the year:
1. Taking Back Sunday - Louder Now
2. Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
3. The Bronx - The Bronx
4. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
5. Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Largehearted Boy selects the albums of the year in some form of alphabetical ordering:
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
Casey Dienel - Wind-Up Canary
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Serena-Maneesh - Serena-Maneesh
Shearwater - Palo Santo
Last FM has a "best album 2006" tag, although it's not been assigned to anything since October at time of writing.
Lee, co-owner of Netherlands store Patta, according to Slam X Hype:
Band/music of the year: Peter Bjorn and John
The Long Blondes
Clipse
Nas
Concert: Be Your Own Pet (Lowlands)
EPMD Amsterdam
Douglas Lyttle at Bloomberg reviews the year: Most Unwelcome Trend: Singers cranking out "tribute" records to long-dead artists, or worse, going whole hog and covering batches of songs from entire eras. Notable offenders this year include Michael Bolton ("Bolton Swings Sinatra'') and Rod Stewart ("Still the Same ... Great Rock Classics of Our Time.") Ol' Rooster Head has now hit a second wind by working his way through most of the eras, starting somewhere around Pearl Harbor and ending in Woodstock. What's next? "Stewart Sings Streisand"?
Matador Records are celebrating their year with the Matador Player, featuring a couple of tracks from their big-hitters of the year, including Pretty Girls Make Graves, Matmos, Brightblack Morning Light and Yo La Tengo. [Link probably going to decay at some point]
Mediatraffic's best-selling in week of release worldwide albums
1. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium 1,108,000
2. Kumi Koda - BEST (second session) 983,000
3. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex / LoveSounds 932,000
4. Evanescence - The Open Door 775,000
5. Tool - 10,000 Days 756,000
6. Beyonce - B'Day 736,000
7. Rascal Flatts - Me And My Gang 733,000
8. The Beatles - Love 721,000
9. The Killers - Sam's Town 706,000
10. Ayumi Hamasaki - Secret 696,280
Metacritic scientifically feedback the best-reviewed albums of the year:
1. Ali Farka Toure - Savane 94 points out of a possible 100
2. Tom Waits - Orphans Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards 91
3. Clipse -Hell Hath No Fury 90
4. Bob Dylan - Modern Times 89
5. Joanna Newsom - Ys 89
6. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain 89
7. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale 88
8. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies 87
9. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America 87
10. Los Lobos - The Town And The City 87
Amongst Metric's favourite albums of the year, according to Filter are:
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
Mixtape Monday from MTV.com picks its six artists "that had it poppin' so hard that the streets and the mainstream had to pay attention":
Lil Wayne
The Game
TI
DJ Drama
Mick Boogie
DJ Green Lantern
Mojo magazine's year-end selection of albums:
1. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
2. Bob Dylan - Modern Times by
3. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
4. Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
5. Archie Bronson Outfit - Derdang Derdang
More Cowbell's top albums:
1. M. Ward - Post-War
2. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
3. The Brother Kite - Waiting For The Time To Be Right
4. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
5. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
Mr Red Penguin's Top 100 singles of 2006:
1. Art Brut - Nag Nag Nag Nag
2. Metric - Poster Of A Girl
3. Young Knives - Weekends and Bleak Days (Hot Summer)
4. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
5. Long Blondes - Weekend Without Makeup
MTV UK collects some of the notable popstar quotes of the year:
“Don’t hate me cos I’m a superstar and I’m married to a superstar” - Er, okay, Kevin Federline.
Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good offer best albums:
1. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
3. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
4. Mates of State - Bring It Back
5. Beirut - Gulag Orkestrar
Craig Ness of Donewaiting.com's track of the year:
Beirut - Postcards From Italy
NME's albums of the year:
1. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
3. Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
4. Hot Chip - The Warning
5. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexi
NME's tracks of the year:
1. Hot Chip - Over And Over
2. Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks
3. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
4. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
5. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Chicago's North West Herald singles of the year, in no particular order:
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Lupe Fiasco - Kick, Push
Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous
Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
Dixie Chicks - Not Ready to Make Nice
Belle and Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue
Beyoncé - Irreplaceable
Prince - Black Sweat
AFI - Miss Murder
Listeners to NPR voted for their CDs of 2006:
1. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
2. Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
3. Bob Dylan: Modern Times
4. M. Ward: Post War
5. TV On the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Obscure Sound mp3-enabled albums of the year:
1. Xiu Xiu - The Air Force
2. The Divine Comedy - Victory For The Comic Muse
3. The Veils - Nux Vomica
4. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up, I Am Dreaming
5. Scott Walker - The Drift
Off The Record contributors choose their favourite albums:
Grace: M Ward - Post-War
James: Sarah Blasko - What The Sea Wants The Sea Will Have
Sandra: Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
The Onion AV Club writers struggle to produce a best music of 2006 listing: We used a weighted voting system—meaning passion proved nearly as important as widespread popularity—and tallied the votes using a highly scientific combination of computer spreadsheets, solar calculators, and an abacus, in a scientific formulation designed to ensure that only the finest albums would make the list.
1. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
2. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
3. Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther
4. Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
5. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
And, from the Onion AV Club's essential guide to the Least Essential Albums of the 2006, including:
LEAST ESSENTIAL "REUNION" The New Cars, It's Alive
LEAST ESSENTIAL MUSIC TIE-IN TO AN INESSENTIAL TV SHOW Various artists, The Biggest Loser: Music Featured In And Inspired By The NBC Series
LEAST ESSENTIAL RACHAEL RAY BRANDING VENTURE (MUSIC DIVISION) Various artists, Rachael Ray: Too Cool For School Mixtape For Kids
LEAST ESSENTIAL GHOULISH LIVE ALBUM: Blind Melon, Live At The Palace
LEAST ESSENTIAL SEQUEL TO A TOTALLY FORGOTTEN RINGTONE-BASED AMPHIBIOUS ARTIST: Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits
LEAST ESSENTIAL ALBUM OF 2006 (THE YEAR OF THE FISH IN THE BARREL): Kevin Federline, Playing With Fire
Picadilly Records of Manchester staff albums of the year:
1. Vetiver - To Find Me Gone
2. Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther
3. Cat Power - The Greatest
4. Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators - Keep Reachin' Up
5. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy
Picadilly Compilations of the year: "The "Rip It Up & Start Again", "North By Northwest", CD86, John Peel and Hacienda compilations had us older Piccadilly people happily tripping down memory lane regaling 80s obsessive Brad with tales of post-punk life. All in all it was another great year for compilations."
Picadilly reissues of the year: After an inclusion of one track on Gilles Peterson's "Digs America" compilation had tipped us off to his greatness, Darondo's "Let My People Go" became a firm favourite on the shop stereo at the beginning of the year. Also totally new to us was the Fern Jones "Glory Road" collection which put a smile on our faces and spring in our step on those busy Saturday afternoons, and Las Malas Amistades early work release which filled our heads with weirdness.
Pitchfork files its top videos of the year, including the sub When The Whistle Blows that was Keith Allen's daughter's Smile and, inevitably, the OK Go one with them on the treadmills. Admittedly, that was more inspired than anything they've done musically.
Pollstar track the largest US tours of the year:
Rolling Stones lead in sales value at $138.5 million
Kenny Chesney sold the most tickets, 1.13 million
PopMatters best 'world' music:
1. Ali Farka Touré - Savane
2. Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Panic in Babylon
3. Anouar Brahem - Le Voyage de Sahar
4. Värttinä - Miero
5. Kékélé - Kinavana
Q Magazine file the sort of best albums list that you'd expect from Q:
1. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am...
2. Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
3. Razorlight - Razorlight
4. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
5. The Killers - Sam's Town
Q's best reissue is The Clash - The Singles
Rebecca Raber, associate editor at CMJ, with a list of her favourite albums:
1. Girl Talk - Night Ripper
2. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
3. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
4. Islands- Return To The Sea
5. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Raven Sings The Blues offers an MP3ed best-of, in no particular order:
Vetiver - To Find Me Gone
Beach House - Beach House
Shearwater - Palo Santo
Wooden Wand & The Skyhigh Band - Second Attention
The Skygreen Leopards - Disciples Of California
Woods - How to Survive in/ In The Woods
Flying Canyon - Flying Canyon
Horse Feathers - Words Are Dead
Kahoots - Fourteen Ghost
Benoit Pioulard - Precis
Nina Nastasia - On Leaving
Howlin' Rain - Howlin' Rain
King Tuff - Mindblow
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultra Violet
Sinoia Caves - The Enchanter Persuaded
The Black Angels - Passover
Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
Indian Jewelry - Invasive Exotics
M. Ward - Post War
Reverend Moose, content editor at CMJ, picks albums of the year:
1. The Knife - Silent Shout
2. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
3. VAUX - Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice
4. Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Heart Bloom
5. Against Me! - Americans Abroad!!! Against Me!!! Live In London!!!
Revolver Magazine chooses best albums:
1. Lamb of God - Sacrament
2. Mastodon - Blood Mountain
3. Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
4. GOJIRA - From Mars To Sirius
5. Converge - No Heroes
Marc Riley's single of the year:
Das Wanderlust - Orange Shop
Tom Robinson's single of the year:
Camille - Ta douleur
Rocksound magazine delivers a top 75 via its MySpace blog:
1. The Bronx - The Bronx
2. Converge - No Heroes
3. Isis - In The Absence Of Truth
4. Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
5. Kylesa - Time Will Fuse Its Worth
Rolling Stone's Top 50 albums of the year:
1. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
2. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
3. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
4. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
5. Ghostface Killah - Fishcake
... and Rolling Stone's 100 tracks of the year:
1. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
2. The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
3. Chamillionaire - Ridin'
4. TI - What You Know
5. The Pack - Vans
Ron of MusicMania picked a favourite album:
TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain
Rough Trade Shop top 100 albums:
1. Beirut - Gulang Orkestar
2. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
3. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy
4. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
5. Brakes - The Beatific Visions
Rough Trade Shop best reissue:
The Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional
Rough Trade Shop's favourite compilation:
Jarvis Cocker & Steve Mackey/Various - The Trip
Seattle Gay Blog gathers top albums...
1 Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case
2 With Love and Squalor - We Are Scientists
3 Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
4 Carnavas - Silversun Pickups
5 Wolfmother - Wolfmother
... and the Seattle Gay Blog's best singles:
1 Well Thought Out Twinkles - Silversun Pickups
2 Hold On, Hold On - Neko Case
3 Analyse - Thom Yorke
4 My Love - Justin Timberlake featuring T.I.
5 Woman - Wolfmother
Skatterbrain tracks of the year:
1. Pants Yell - Our Turf
2. The Most Serene Republic - You're Not An Astronaut
3. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes
4. Belle and Sebastian - Sukie In The Graveyard
5. The Knife - We Share Our Mother's Health
Status No Object from the Village Voice picks the New York gigs of the year:
1. Jay-Z at Radio City Music Hall, 26/6/06
2. Sleater-Kinney at Webster Hall, 2/8/06
3. TI at the Apollo Theatre, 1/6/06
4. Cat Power at Town Hall, 10/6/06
5. Boredoms at Webster Hall, 2/7/06
Stylus Magazine's best singles collated by JBones, based on the rating given by the magazine averaged from a number of reviews. Maximum possible score is ten:
1. Nelly Furtado - Maneater (9.0)
= Marit Larsen - Don’t Save Me (9.0)
3. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes (8.7)
4. Justin Timberlake - My Love (8.6)
= Bertine Zetlitz - Midnight (8.6)
Slim Devices have started to debate albums of the year on their talkboards. Bosonova808 takes advantage of the time difference: dEUS - Pocket Revolution (will be a 2006 album in the States but has been out for a few months in Europe) - good. Not quite as amazing as The Ideal Crash which still totally floats my boat, but Tom Barman remains seriously cool.
Suite 101 have picked the best Christian rock albums of the year:
1. Derek Webb - Mockingbird
2. Johnny Lang - Turn Around
3. Delirious? - Mission Bell
4. Leeland - Sound of Melodies
5. Phil Joel - The deliberatePeople album
The Sun's Bizarre column invited its readers to vote for their favourites. Madonna is so desperate for decentpress she even turned up to be presented with her prizes:
BEST MALE: Justin Timberlake
BEST FEMALE: Madonna
BEST NEWCOMER: Lily Allen
BEST BAND: Oasis
SINGLE OF THE YEAR: Take That - Patience
BEST LIVE ACT: Madonna
BEST COMEBACK: Take That
ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not
CANER OF THE YEAR: Noel Gallagher
SHAGGER OF THE YEAR: Russell Brand
SACK THE STYLIST: Britney Spears
BEST FILM: Borat
BEST COMEDY: Little Britain
BEST ACTOR: Daniel Craig
BEST ACTRESS: Keira Knightley
BEST DJ: Chris Moyles
Sweeping The Nation has embarked on a slow-reveal of its top 30 2006 albums. Overall winner:
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Tony Sylvester of Southern Distribution picked top albums:
1. Kaada - Music For Movie Bikers
2. Daniel Higgs - Ancestral Songs
3. Entrance - Prayer Of Death
4. Current 93 - Black Ships Ate The Sky
5. Burial - Self Titled
Tapes N Tapes favourite album of the year, according to Filter:
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Time Out New York's top albums:
1. Joanna Newsom - Ys
2. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
3. Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
4. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
5. Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Tiny Mix Tapes suggests a tiny mix tape of the best tracks of 2006, including:
Ghostface Killah - The Champ
The Flaming Lips - The Sound of Failure
Boozoo Bajou featuring Oh No - Back Up
CSS - Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
UK Music Bloggers poll organised by Sweeping The Nation:
1. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
2. The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes
3. Camera Obscura - Lets Get Out Of This Country
4. Cat Power - The Greatest
5. Joanna Newsom - Ys
We Are Scientists favourite single, according to 6Music:
We Are Scientists - Inaction
Paul Weller's favourite singles, according to 6Music:
Midlake - Young Bride and
Amy Winehouse - Rehab
John Wenzel, Denver Post staff writer, picked his CDs of the year:
1. Snowden - Anti-Anti
2. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
3. Built To Spill - You, In Reverse
4. Beck - The Information
5. The Black Angels - Passover
John Williamson reviews the year in the Glasgow Herald: The Young Knives' Voices of Animals and Men is at least [The Arctic Monkey's] equal, and the Long Blondes re-enforced Sheffield's claim to musical city of the year (Jarvis Cocker's solo album and Richard Hawley's belatedly acclaimed Cole's Corner also deserve mention) with their updated take on C86 pop. The rush to cash-in on the Arctic Monkeys (like Oasis and the Stone Roses before them) brought a number of atrocities in their wake, but at least the cause seemed modest in the receipt of their acclaim.
Chris Wilman of Entertainment Weekly's favourite albums of the year:
1. The Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way
2. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
3. The Beatles - Love
4. Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing And A Curse
5. Vince Gill - These Days
Wikipedia's (potentially) ever-changing attempt at a chronology of music in 2006: November 8 – Nelly Furtado makes a cameo in the Portuguese soap opera Floribella.
... and a Wikipedia chronology of UK music: Single sales bounced back in 2006 as legal downloads added nearly thirty million sales to the total for the year. Despite this, the 17,694 copies sold during it's week at number one gave Orson's "No Tomorrow" the distiction of being the lowest sales ever of a chart topper.
... and Wikipedia on Swiss music in 2006: Despite the consistency at the top of the chart thus far in 2006, the Swiss singles chart has seen a lot of popular acts pass through it. Normally in the first two months of the year the chart would be mostly quiet, but the top ten has been fairly active, with acts including US5, 50 Cent, Ch!pz and Mary J. Blige entering toward the higher end of the chart this year.
Amy Winehouse's favourite singles, according to 6Music:
The Zutons - Valerie
Yahoo Music reviews the year: Pete Doherty Kicks Reporter: Finally, this guy successfully kicked something
Yahoo Top Searches found Britney the overall most-searched for term on the web in 2006; Shakira's Hips Don't Lie was the most-searched for lyrics.
Yannorossi posted a top ten albums:
1. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
2. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
4. The Long Blondes - Someone To Drive You Home
5. Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
This post will be updated as more lists are published on and offline; last updated 08-01-07 at 2.00pm
The 2005 collection
There's nothing in any way tacky or dispiriting about the claims Janie Jones makes about Joe Strummer. Apparently, he visits her with advice:
"When I heard about Joe's death I cried my eyes out. He was still a young man," Janie said. "His spirit now comes to me.
"I was asked to do a film project and I couldn't make up my mind.
"As I sat looking in my mirror, Joe came to me and said, 'You're not doing it for them - but do it for me'.
"I didn't know what to wear for the event so Joe told me to put on a Clash sweatshirt he'd given me. He said, 'It's on top of your cupboard' and he was right.
"Every now and again I feel he sends me a message. Mick Jones told me, 'I feel he comes to me too'."
It's not recorded if Joe gives Mick advice on clothing, although he's apparently being lined up to replace Lisa Butcher on What Not To Wear. BBC insiders say that although he's not quite as corporeal as Lisa, he still has more screen presence.
We're never entirely sure when the Mojo awards come round if they're a wrap-up or a opening: were these the last awards of the 2005 season or the first of the 2007 awards? Although being Mojo, some of the awards felt they were from 1985:
The MOJO Best New Act
The MOJO Best New Act Award supported by BBC 6 Music. Chosen by MOJO Magazine readers & Mojo4music.com users. Presented to an act who have made a significant impact over the last 18 months.
Presented by Tom Robinson
Winner: Corinne Bailey Rae
Tago
MOJO Classic Album
Sponsored by Rhino. Presented by MOJO to an artist responsible for a landmark release in the history of rock’n’roll. Presented by Jason Pierce
Winner: Can - Tago Mago
The MOJO Roots Award
Chosen by MOJO Magazine.
Presented by Richard Hawley
Winner: Dann Penn And Spooner Oldham
The MOJO Inspiration Award
The MOJO Inspiration Award sponsored by EMI Catalogue. Chosen by MOJO Magazine readers & Mojo4music.com users. Presented to an act that has been the catalyst for music fans and fellow musicians alike.
Presented by James Dean Bradfield
Winner: Buzzcocks
The MOJO Les Paul Award
Presented to a visionary performer on the guitar. Only innovators, genii and true legends of the string-driven thing need apply. Sponsored by Gibson.
Presented by Jeff Beck
Winner: Brian May
The MOJO Catalogue Release Of The Year
Cash Sponsored by HMV and presented by MOJO to the reissue that is both definitive and beautifully packaged.
Presented by Nick Cave
Winner: Johnny Cash - Legend (Sony BMG), collected by Roseanne Cash
The MOJO Vision Award
Sponsored by HMV and presented by MOJO to the best music DVD package of the year in recognition of visual innovation and impact.
Winner: The Flaming Lips - The Fearless Freaks: The Life And Times Of An American Invention? (High Coin)
The MOJO Merit Award
Chosen by MOJO Magazine
Presented by Beth Orton & Roy Harper
Winner: Bert Jansch
The MOJO Maverick Award
Chosen by MOJO Magazine
Presented by Bobby Gillespie
Winner: Jesus And Mary Chain
The MOJO Medal sponsored by Ford Transit
Chosen by MOJO Magazine
Presented by Vic Reeves
Winner: Jools Holland
The MOJO Hero
Chosen by MOJO Magazine
Presented by Don Letts
Winner: Prince Buster
The MOJO Songwriter Award
Voted for by MOJO readers and supported by MOJO Radio. Presented to an artist whose career has been defined by their ability to consistently pen classic material.
Presented by Mick Jones
Winner: Chrissie Hynde
The MOJO Icon Award
Voted for by MOJO readers and Mojo4music users, the recipient of this award has enjoyed a spectacular career on a global scale.
Presented by Phil Alexander
Winner: Scott Walker
The MOJO Hall Of Fame
Presented by MOJO to an act or solo star who is best described as “an artists’ artist”.
Winner: Elton John
The MOJO Lifetime Achievement Award
Presented by Phil Manzanera
Winner: David Gilmour
Perhaps the most notable of these awards (i.e. the one that isn't just going 'you're old, and great') is the one for Corinne Bailey-Rae. With the papers desperate to find some sort of online music creation, rather than the Sandi Thom approach, shouldn't they be focussing more on Rae, whose otherwise unnoticeable music got a strong, sustained push from Amazon, with some sort of live event being trailed for what felt like forever on their .co.uk homepage - surely, the first ever virtual instore appearance?
Harraj Mann was on his way off to catch a flight from Teesside Airport, and was delighted to catch a cab which had a slot to plug your mp3 player into.
He entertained the taxi driver by hooking up his device and singing along to Procol Harum, The Clash and The Beatles.
After being dropped off at the airport,Harraj was surprised to discover the cabbie had called the police, fingering him as a terrorist.
Mann was marched off the plane and interrogated for three hours.
Why? Because he was a bit foreign-looking and while singing in the taxi had belted out the lines "war is declared and battle come down" in London Calling.
Harraj can see the funny side:
"I played Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale first, which the taxi man liked.
"I figured he liked the classics, so I put on Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. Then, since I was going to London I played The Clash and finished up with Nowhere Man by The Beatles.
"He didn't like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don't think there was any need to tell the police."
Now, obviously we live in different times, but how can we have faith in the police to actually protect us from terrorists when they're not very good at it - it takes three hours for them to realise "oh... he wasn't on the phone getting details from Osama, he was singing along to a famous song from one of the most famous albums of all time." Mind you, compared with Jean Charles de Menezes, Mann can probably count himself as lucky.
We imagine Durham Police are still trying to decode the Procul Harum lyrics, though - "turning cartwheels across the floor, are we, sonny?"
The ongoing Met Police investigation into the Moss & Doherty cocaine sniffing video (when they've spent hundreds of thousands finding the criminal, they intend to spend more trying to work out who the victim actually was) has dragged Mick Jones out of Big Audio Dynamite into the mess.
Oh, alright. Big Audio Dynamite and The Clash.
Jones was producing the Babyshambles album and is meant to be on the Daily Mirror video of models and musicians snorting coke, although The Sun this morning suggests that he's being treated as a witness rather than a suspect. Presumably the police interview was along the lines of "we're not angry, you're not in trouble, we just want to know how long we should throw Doherty into prison for."
The police are still hoping Kate Moss will return to the UK so they can ask her about where the drugs came from, almost as if they think Kate holds the key to the case - again, we're not sure but the logic seems to be "she's the most famous person on the video, so she's bound to know the most." In the same way that it's always the actor you recognise in The Bill who's at the centre of the crime.
As if the dire predictions of the future awaiting our children, and our children's children, and Michael Jackson's children aren't bad enough, now Bono is predicting that his music will be around for 100 years. Admittedly, this is only one-tenth the time Adolf predicted his reich would last, but both seem to have been driven by a matching sense of certainty of history flowing their way:
A dedicated lobbyist for the world's poor and AIDS-stricken, the U2 frontman told CBS' "60 Minutes" that "I think my work - the activism - will be forgotten.
"And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away," he said in an interview that aired Sunday.
Since 1999, Bono has helped persuade Republicans and Democrats, presidents and lawmakers, to provide millions to help end the scourge of AIDS, eliminate poverty in Africa and forgive Third World debt.
The Irish rocker also predicted that his music will still be around in 100 years, explaining that his songs occupy "an emotional terrain that didn't exist before our group did."
Sometimes, when we suggest that Bono has the kind of self-regard visible from space, people tell us we're being unfair. We kind of think our point might have been proven here. There's little you can say about this claim - that Bono has invented a whole new set of emotions for rock - apart from "bollocks." Even Sting had had a wander over that bombastic-but-introverted style of rock a good decade before Bono had bought his first pair of Snoopy Sunglasses.
And Bono said he has no intention of slowing down. He noted that people in rock 'n roll burn out at age 40, and said he wanted to see if his band could continue making "extraordinary" music.
Yes, people burn out at the age of 40, Bono. Paul McCartney being the exception. Along with The Rolling Stones. And Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Mick Jones and Siouxsie. And...
Pete Doherty's first love was football, not music, and his passion was for Queens Park Rangers. Now he's returning to that love, writing a song that he's offered to the team to use when they win the FA Cup. They've got a while to decide if they want it, then, although... it's possible the sub-I Ludicrious lyrics might make the decision quite simple:
I'll be, I'll be there
And just before I hit the bar
With the ghost of Rodney Marsh in his pre-smug pundit days
Before he sold Rangers down the Swanee
With Gerry Francis's offshore money
It's a toss-up between Mick Jones
And a consortium from the Middle Eastern equivalent of Barrett Homes
I'll be, I'll be there
With blue and white ticker tape in my hair
Up the Rs
Up the Rs
Up the Rs
What a life on Mars
If Byron was alive today, he'd be writing football anthems. But they'd be better.
The death has been announced of Nick Hawkins, guitarist. Hawkins was recruited by Mick Jones for the second incarnation of sample-heavy politico-lite Big Audio Dynamite, the clunkingly named BADII; he was with the band from 1990 to 1997.
Having relocated to the US, Hawkins had worked on music for his wife, the R&B artist Jo Beng, and had been producing his own solo project, Dusk Till Dawn.
Hawkins, who was 40, is believed to have had a heart attack.
Ian Blair, London's top rozzer, will be delighted this morning that the press seem to be lining up in favour of his intervention in the Kate Moss drug affair. We'd suggest it was like shooting fish in a barrel to go after what the Mirror is calling the Mossy Posse, but what with the Met's recent record for shooting people for carrying table legs and not wearing heavy coats on the tube, that might not be the best visual image.
Apparently, the Met is going to interview everybody they can think of, presumably sitting in an office cutting up back issues of Heat and sticking the photos of known associates up on the whiteboard. The Mirror reckons all of Babyshambles, Sadie Frost, Mick Jones and Davinia Taylor will be sitting in a windowless room while someone bangs the table and yells "what do you know?"
Again, we have to ask: how much is this costing Londoners? And with such a wonderful distraction, does this mean the terrorist alert is over?
Last night's Question Time (now sporting surprisingly retro 80s graphics) spent some time worrying over cocaine and if Kate should be punished, what with her being a "role model" and all. Nobody pointed out that Moss hadn't actually been advocating taking drugs, and indeed had gone out of her way to stop these young folks what look up to her knowing (or at least, really knowing) that she takes drugs, although Bonnie Greer did mention that Moss has hardly ever stood up to condemn drug-taking or sought public office to tell others how to live.
The oddest moment came when Quentin Letts, the Daily Mail sketch writer, issued advice to Kate that she should drop Pete Doherty. When primetime BBC1 is being used by a parliamentary journalists to offer relationship guidance to a supermodel is the point where we wonder if the whole thing - out of control for over a week - is actually going to drag the nation to a point of madness.
Meanwhile, Pete Doherty's role as public enemy uber alles has been ratcheted up in today's Sun, which attempts to paint him as borderline paedophile. The paper reports that Doherty was at the centre of a search for a missing 16 year-old girl.
Pals said Doherty had fondled the teenager against a wall after the show on Tuesday.
She jumped in a car with the Babyshambles entourage and they then headed off to the Scottish leg of the band’s tour, it was claimed.
Her mum Gillian was told by Natasha’s friends she was on the road with Doherty, 26, and she called police.
Blimey. Except the girl was at her aunt's in Strathclyde. But that gets buried quite a way down in the story, as it kind of spoils the effect.
Good work to the subs on the South Wales Echo who, faced with a fairly dull story about Mick from the Clash wandering down to the station to pick up Pete Doherty's supermodel girlfriend came up with the mahic headline Strolling Jones gathers Kate Moss
WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Gets later and later, doesn't it?
Some people have tickets on themselves; other people just sniff and say "if you need to ask, you couldn't afford me." Anastacia would be in that group, of course: it's hard to dislike someone who's had a massively awful illness and survived, and yet Anastacia does, indeed, manage to turn any goodwill you might feel right around. It's not simply the "trademark" glasses - anyone who uses glasses as their trademark is already struggling for a personality, of course (with perhaps the sole exception of Nick Robinson's "I am interviewing the prime minister through a letter box" narrow specs); Anastacia's unusual adoption of the specs worn by Dr. Jacoby off Twin Peaks marries a bum idea to a lack of taste. But beyond the glasses, there is the belief that she is on some kind of mission. This, of course, is demonstrated by her interview in Radio Times: "I immediately thought 'you have picked the wrong bitch, cancer. That's a big problem when she's got a worldwide ability and press at her feet'... [Elton John]'s a friend... he reviewed my album, he said he loved it; he's kind of the guy that's still your friend even if you don't speak to each other that often... every time we [Sharon Osbourne and me] saw each other, she was like 'I love you'" -and so it goes on...
It's Word's turn to remember Peel; Mark Ellen does the honours, which is appropriate as Ellen once filled in for Peel on Radio 1 - Peel told him that letting someone else do your show is like sharing a toothbrush or letting another man sleep with your wife (we don't remember Ellen on night-time ourselves, although we do fondly recall Ellen's stints when Annie Nightingale was elsewhere). Ellen is balanced, and honest - if only sleeping with Germaine Greer had been Peel's worst foot-wrong in the 60s - and draws an interesting parallel: Peel chose his records and sent them out convinced they'd be met with a cold shoulder; "it was a bit like the world weary view of Norman Stanley Fletcher trying to synthesise some fun in the controlled, unappetising surroundings of Slade Prison."
Also in Word: Lucas (The Scissor Sisters and Jacques Brel) and Walliams (Soft Cell; Nick Cave) are amongst the word of mouth sampling people - so are Felix Dennis (BB King) and Peter Bogdanovich (Louis Armstrong); there's a collection of worst album names ever (Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1 wins, although U2's Pop and Humans Lib by Howard Jones put in a good showing) and a balancing best album names (we love Kirsty MacColl - to the extent that we're refusing to go to Costco - but Electric Landlady is not, surely, a worthy winner; although the appearance of Achtung, Baby in the list suggests things could be worse). Caitlin Moran suggests that we need gossip so badly now, there isn't enough gossip to keep us going, before digging into a history of life before Popbitch. And do you wnat under-rated movies? Word suggests Election, Mr Holland's Opus and - hey, who let Kermode in? - Silent Running are better than the critics would have you believe. Mind you, you have to balance their pleas for recognition for these works with the equal plea for Sweeney. And not a word about the Likely Lads movie, neither.
One of the things we like about Word is that you can flip from a piece about the Nirvana box-set to a collection of gems of advice from David Starkey, who describes Janet Daley as "Anne Robinson with intellectual pretensions." And then you get an excited enthusing over the re-release of Lexicon of Love by ABC. Somehow, though, we can't bring ourselves to make a start on the sixteen page Pink Floyd feature.
Q has a fold out cover to mark its awards, but it's a lazy, useless fold-out without any real point to it, except to show off the people who got awards, but no matter how you fold it, you can't stop Bono being on the fucking front saluting, stood behind Elton John. No wonder the Q team decided to sling together a CD to cover up as much of the smugfest as possible (a CD which, we should add, caused the self-serve checkouts at Tesco to go into a blind panic; in the end we had to rip the thing off and slip it straight into the bag to shut the bloody machine from chirruping 'unexpected item on the belt' - which meant we were back to square one of Elton John smugging out of our bag. We rammed him face up to the cat litter in the end.) Tracks on the now-regular 'that was the year, that was, even though we put the album together at the end of September so missing out on three months of the year we're celebrating' compilation include Jamelia; The Clash and Jeff Buckley.
Ricky Gervais is doing Cash for Questions (he's in Word, too - new book and new Office DVD, innit?) and he reveals he fancied Soo. The panda.
As if the slightly smug 2004 Q awards hoopla isn't bad enough, the "great moment in music" is the 1996 Q awards photo, which is like boomerang smugness.
More interestingly, Chrissie Amphlett of the DiVinyls is tracked down. She explains, somewhat put out, that I Touch Myself was meant to work on lots of levels "but people only focussed on the dubious one." She's apparently writing a book now about, yes, her time in the band - it's going to be "really interesting" because they were "wild." How badly did Caitlin Moran reckon the gossip shortage has got?
In common with Harpers & Queen and GQ, Q has got Gwen Stefani popping in to plug the disappointing album, explaining that the whole point of the collection was to let her tick off ' super sexy dance album' on her to do list. Pity she didn't go to kill two birds with one stone and also get to put a line through 'decent solo set' at the same time.
Inspired by Goldie Lookin' Chain, (and that's not a phrase you get to use very often), Q assemble a panel (vicar, "little old lady" and a moral guardian - someone from Whithouse's potty right-wing stalking horse Mediawatch) to decide on the most offensive song ever. The best thing is the old lady takes on Mediawatch's David Turtle instead of the records - "Don't you ever say fuck? I'm a Christian but I still let out the odd fuck" but Turtle's distance from popular culture makes it clear why he's in no place to act as a moral guardian, self-appointed or otherwise: he complains that You're Mother's Got A Penis fails to deal with any of the issues of transgenderism. Yes, he really does.
So, those Q awards then:
Icon Award - U2 ("I think at a U2 show, people feel good about each other" says Bono); Classic Songwriter - Elton John ("the scene is good now with The Killers and The Kings of Leon"); Best Live Act - Muse ("Elton gave me his phone number" trills Matt Bellamy. If you were a couple of years prettier, love, it'd be his room number); Best Album - Keane ("I'm convinced there's been a horrible mistake" worries Tim Rice-Oxley and, to be honest, we think there may well have been, too); Best Producer - Mick Jones ("Amy Winehouse was absolutely fantastic"); Best Act in the World - Red Hot Chilli Peppers ("Thank you for being kind to us" says Anthony Kiedis via video); Best Single - Jamelia - See It In A Boys Eyes (no, really. We're guessing it was voted for on a machine made by the good people at Diebold) ("I'm the first black face of Pretty Polly" - Jamelia, honey, if anyone notices it in a bra ad, you'll probably be the first any face of Pretty Polly.); Lifetime Achievement - Roxy Music - we'll come to this in a moment; Best New Act - Razorlight ("I'd like to ask Bono about his hair"); Merit Award - what the fuck is a Merit award? Why don't they just have a Thank You For Coming Prize and be honest about it? - Shane McGowan ("Like every other award I've ever won. They're all the same"); Best Video - Franz Ferdinand - take me out (no words, just pictures); Inspiration Award - Pet Shop Boys ("Bono's given me a kiss" - Neil); Innovation In Sound Award - seriously, why not just leave an award on every fucker's table? The Ordering The Shrimp Award? - The Human League ("It's the best award we could have got" - Susan Sulley.
Ah, yes, Roxy Music. Bryan Ferry is asked "What's your highlight of 2004" and, rather than selecting the discovery of citrus flavour KitKats or the launch of ITV3, for Bryan it was "my son Otis's brave and courageous deed on the floor of the House of Commons. I've kept silent about it but since you ask, I'm very proud of him... I feel very sorry for Otis. I don't hunt and I'm from the working class so I know both sides. The whole argument of the people persecuting Otis and his friends is based on spite and that's a terrible indictment of the people who are running the country, although I accept that they might be doing well in other areas." So, you're proud that your son not only decided that, because a democratically elected chamber had voted against their animal-slaughtering hobby, they should attempt to change the law by breaking into Parliament and... what? The protest wasn't only boorish, but was a fine demonstration of just how empty the pro-fox killers are: they were able to get as far as the floor of the House of Commons and, with the attention of the nation thus arrested, had no message other than a chinless whine about how it's unfair. What Ferry pere et fils really don't seem to get is it's got nothing to do with class and spite. New Labour don't hate the rich and powerful - they only have to hear the rustle of Coutts chequebook cover and they're bending over rummaging in their red boxes for the KY. Trying to pretend that the cabinet are enemies of the elite is a little bit like trying to suggest that Dennis Skinner is a rabid anti-communist. Anti-hunting is, mostly, people feeling there's not a good argument for chasing a mammal before ripping it to pieces. It's not a class thing. Oh, and Bryan? Might want to stop trying to claim working class credentials, petal. You saying "I'm from the working class" is like me introducing myself to people as a member of Mrs Van Noort's first year infants. We're both long off those respective registers.
Not the best time for Q to be doing a 'What's wrong with Radio One' feature, although the fact it starts with "Colin & Edith's show" might answer the question in one go. Peel pops up a couple of times, to say that Chris Moyles is a nice bloke but he's "not as keen on his show" and, asked about the other djs, says that it's like working in a bus garage - "you don't know other drivers names, and you don't know their routes." Asked where Radio One will be in five years time, Andy Parfitt says, ominously, that it will be an "audio-visual brand." Couldn't we concentrate on having a half-decent public service pop radio network instead?
There's something for people missing the Melody Maker in Q this month, by the way:page 122 has that picture of Marilyn Manson showing his ringpiece that the Maker ran every week until it had chased away all its readers.
John Aizlewood gets to meet Avril Lavigne: its "like having your soul sucked out; her attention span is as tiny as she is."
Oh, and there's a claim on the front of the magazine that there are "one million free tracks for every reader" - except it's bollocks; it's Napster, so if you have a credit card and a PC running XP, and be prepared to use leaky ole Internet Explorer, you're in. Otherwise, no dice. I'm no expert, but I think the words "requires credit card and ropey PC set-up" should have appeared somewhere on the front page.
At the back, it's Sharon Osbourne, moaning that the Estate Agents flogging her neighbour's house "put a few thousand on the price" by saying "next to the Osboures" - I don't think so, Sharon: that sounds more like a full legal disclosure rather than an attempt to bump up the price.
Onto the NME, then: The Strokes are on the cover, with the unlikely words "first time ever" slapped across them.
The Scissors Sister's Halloween special is pictured in all its glory - they went as bloody Rocky Horror. How is it that a band who are visually inventive every day of the year fall back on something so hackneyed even fucking Andrew Marr's done it when asked to fancy dress themselves up? We'd have gone as Interpol.
More Peel: In a smart move, Burn It has dragged Peel's mix for the Fabriclive series out, so it's not even an imaginary mix CD, either - Jimmy Reed and the Kop Choir. And Teenage Kicks. Of course Teenage Kicks.
Morrissey's apparently written a piece for the NME Annual, which claims that The Libertines are better with Pete. Which is an unfashionable view, but is spot on.
Peter Robinson grills Katie Melua. He asks her questions he's been emailed - it takes three before she realises that they're spams, and even then she gets herself confused on the question of fucking the hottie next door - "No... the people next door are a family; and the girl my age, I don't think is a lesbian. And neither am I."
Oddly, the idea of giving more space to the letters, which we did sort of snicker at, is paying off, as they've not been so entertaining and engaging since the days when Stephen Wells would pretend they were all about Morrissey. A friend of Dominic from The Others writes in to slap him for his "stupid and immature stance" on drug-taking - "the fact is, taking coke makes you into a twat"; while others pile in to take him to task for suggesting that only people who've come from the arse-end of the working class are capable of feeling emotions. But that's nothing to the shoe-slapping the Manics get.
Devendra Banhart, Rufus wainwright; Joanna Newsom and Regina Spektor get a feature, although they have to share it amongst themselves, and also with an attempt to give a name to their "scene" - if, like me, you keep a list of these things, you might want to add "Quirky-somethings" underneath Camden Lurch and Raggle-Taggle.
reviews
live
what happens
for some reason, instead of being usual reviews, the longform pieces are split into "what happens" and "what this means"
what this means
it looks like a brave experiment to bring some sense of order to the live pages, but it basically means that you only read the last paragraph
the kings of leon - newcastle, northumbria university "a waifish, girl-haired Brad Pitt"
juliette & the licks - devil doll ball, LA: "frighteningly tight yellow spandex trousers"
the bees - camden electric ballroom: "good mainstream music for the people"
albums
U2 - how to dismantle an atomic bomb - "a classic... preposterous... but also brilliant", 9
laibach - anthems - "Ho! Ho! Ho! Es ist alles seht kownik", 5
panda bear - young prayer - "sombre and occassionaly euphoric", 8
tracks
totw - graham coxon - time for heroes - "elder statesman on a wonky skateboard"
nick cave and the bad seeds - there she goes, my beautiful world - "masterly, gospel-tinged"
and, up the rear: they pull pieces of Hurricane Number Ones hits and rarities album (there is such a beast) sleevenotes, like wings off a fly: an overblown, many winged fly.
THE MAN SPIES ON THE BAND: Following on from the release of the CIA's secret papers on John Lennon (we've not seen them, but we're guessing "terrible bore" and "unlikely to indulge in any activity that would harm property prices" features heavily), The Clash are worrying about what information the British Government holds on them:
London Calling legends Mick Jones and Paul Simonon believe the British government were so frightened by their actions in their late '70s heyday that they instructed MI5 to compile a dossier about the band.
Simonon says of the existence of the MI5 file: "There probably is, yes, alongside the file of the Sex Pistols.
"It's hard to fully appreciate now, but we certainly stood out back then, we really made a noise.
"It wasn't just us, it was every punk - anyone, in fact, who wasn't wearing flares was making a big political noise that terrified the government."
You'll note, of course, that there's no actual indication that there is a file, just the belief of the relaxed radical that there must be. Wouldn't they be crushed if it turned out there was nothing?
LONDON RECALLING: Some "recently rediscovered" demo tapes from the recording sessions are forming the heart of the otherwise not really required reissuing of The Clash's London Calling. Included amongst the tapes, which turned up in Mick Jones' "storage facility" (I'm not making this up), are some songs which didn't survive the brutal cull of forming the tracklisting - presumably because even in a rough, demo form, they were deemed to be to weak to be worth perservering with. Why they've suddenly gotten any better since 1979 is anyone's guess. There's also going to be a DVD, as there has to be these days. It's what Joe would have wanted. Or, at least, could have been persuaded into signing up for.
WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Where did the Nation go to edition
Gill Hudson manages to restrain her desire to point out that she doesn't care much for the Kat-shagging-Andy-to-pay-off-Alfie's debts storyline in this week's Radio Times - last week she devoted three separate articles to the plot, apparently unaware that the whole point of EastEnders is to discover increasingly unpleasant ways of making its characters even more miserable, and railing against it is like complaining that Manchester is a bit windy. Anyway, this week, the magazine you just know she's pitching as being renamed 'Gill Hudson's Radio Times' has got Abba on the cover, because it's Eurovision weekend and thirty years since Abba won on stage at the Brighton Dome. They point out that the United Kingdom jury gave Waterloo no points at all back in 1974, and then go on to suggest that James Fox will win because, erm, if you add up all the marks ever given and divide them by the number of contests, the UK comes out top. This piece of math ignores the awkward fact that if you did this last year, the UK would have come out even further ahead, and yet got nothing. Even more rubbish, there's no big grid with the flags and names in which we can keep our own scores as the programme unfolds, which is a real let down.
Other listings magazines are available, of course. Time Out marks the 150th edition of one of the two survivng bits of the much-missed Late Show with a bit of a kicking for Later. "Worse still is the hubristic belief that even the best music can be improved by the presence of [Holland's] stilted barrel-house boogie-woogie piano... Holland used to signify a sly, buttoned down rebellion, he's now become one of those 'comic' celebrities..."
How many magazines have successfully changed their name? The Musical Express & Accordian Times did, of course; Record Mirror's bids to rebrand as both New Record Mirror and then RM didn't work as well. New Socialist tried turning into NS, and had only a few issues before dying. And let's not even look over the water at the fate of Rosie. So, Sleaze Nation's rebirth as Sleaze - not even an apologetic, small text 'nation' hanging about - is a bit of a risk. It feels a bit half-hearted: if this is a whole new magazine, why not give it a new name? And if it's just a relaunch and you don't want to throw away the heritage, why dump half the name? 'Sleaze' is nowhere near as interesting as 'Sleaze nation' as a title, and the content also seems slightly more eager to please, 'please like me enough not to yawn at my attempts to be outrageous.' So, the verdict on the American Presidency is "the race will be won by a guy with Tourettes or an asexual Louis Vuitton handbag", a big thing about how, like, work sucks and what could have been a prescient piece about Man United taking on Al Qaeda, only, of course, there never was any terrorist plot to blow up Old Trafford. Instead, the magazine suggests that since Man U has more supporters than Al Qaeda worldwide, why not use Man U to fight the war on terror? It's not a bad package, but the whole magazine feels corporate in a way its predeccesor didn't - not quite as bad as The Sunday Times Style section, perhaps, but there's a sense of restraint. Sleaze Nation would leap boundaries; Sleaze feels like its keeping one foot still in the garden. Hey, if it was totally new, we'd be loving it, but this is like getting a Bella Italia on the site of a family-run Italian bistro.
Talking of new magazines, we've got hold of a copy of Clash - this is number two, we never saw the first one. It's quite an exciting little monkey - almost square, very glossy and really well designed: actually, we'd be tempted to say it's the best designed British music magazine we've ever seen, but that could be the fumes affecting us (did we mention it smells great?). It describes itself as "essentially independent", which is up there with "smatterings of pregnancy" and grew out of Vibe - not the Vibe still on the shelves, mind. This month they've got The Charlatans on the cover, although everyone's pretending not to notice that James Iha has returned in place of Tim Burgess.
The Delays choose three seaside resorts: "Blackpool, although I've never been there; Weymouth... and Lulworth Cove."
Phantom Planet are asked about doing the theme for The OC - "The only thing I gave any consideration to was not to be credited, just cos the last thing any band wants to be is 'the band from the TV show'"
There's a bunch of Beatles pictures, and the Beta Band forget that Ringo is still alive - one is a forgivable mistake, the other less so.
Sometimes it gets a little bit too much One Two Testing - James Mercer of the Shins is asked about what software packages he uses, which is of as little interest to anyone as what sort of string wax Coldplay put on their guitars.
Tim Burgess speaks up for the Rolling stone's disco period, lauding 'Undercover' and 'Emotional Rescue' - but then The Charlatans are starting to adjust to life as a two-decade act, with the big 20 not that far off now.
Miss Kittin describes herself as "a product that came at the righ time", which is a bit more grim sounding than we think she meant it to; she ponders that if she wasn't what she is, she'd be doing radio or writing a book - she's done two chapters of a novel in the last year, so could have one finished by the time the oil runs out.
There's a fashion section, which we suspect falls just this side of "excuse to have women in their pants in the magazine without having to feign an interest in Hollyoaks"; there's also a three page "attempt" at a Who career overview, which would seem to be doing little more (along with the Beatles snaps) of attempting to persuade readers to hurry along and try Mojo. And then, it goes horrible wrong - pages and pages and pages about Ayrton Senna, who died somewhere between Kurt Cobain and John Smith, and seems to have driven some sort of cars. Then there's a page about the Gumball Rally, which is like CB radio: nobody was interested at the time, except for people trying to pretend they weren't gay, and it has no place in 2004.
Petrolhead obsession apart, it's quite a nice magazine; we hope that it manages to thrive - although with Bang and X-Ray both flopping, we're not sure the prospects look good. Enjoy it while it's there.
So, to the NME, then, which has Thom Yorke on the cover, marking the end of the Hail To The Thief tour. The issue is American themed - we're not sure if this genuinely American flavoured, or if it's like those Tescos American style products which our genuine in-house American claims are about as accurate American as Dick VanDyke was cockney.
So, coachella: big photo of Wayne Coyne in a giant bubble. Radiohead "at their best"; Steve Sutherland pops up to warn Conor Oberst that he might want to cheer up lest he be out-moaned by the resurgent Morrissey, and, oddly, the Pixies review seems to be being held over for two weeks. Nice posters, mind: Brody Dalle looking like Debbie Harry, Matt Bellamy, Thom Yorke, and Balthazar from the 'Bad Girls' episode of Buffy. Oh... Frank Black. Four pages of the posters are given over to a reader survey, though, which seems to be an odd use of glossy paper.
There's a very nice picture of Meg and Jack going to the Coffee and Cigarettes premiere; apparently RZA was also there, but he's not as photogenic as Meg in the dress she married Jack in. Less lovely is Alex Kapranos and Noel Gallagher - it's meant to be some sort of beatification of Franz Ferdinand by Oasis, but Alex is smirking like a child who's just heard his grandma fart, and Noel just looks like his face has been replaced with a shrinky-dink of his face. He also appears to have invested in a genuine Beatles Wig.
Hey, the kids - meet Brad Duea, the President of Napster. Brad is faced with the difficult task of trying to convince people that the new Napster - available in Dixons - is true to the "brand" of the old Napster. Curiously, when he's asked about why you should pay for downloads, he says that "You get what you pay for, and what you might get is viruses, spyware, improperly labelled tracks, inconsistent encoding." Which is true, but that was present in old Napster; so, if those things are such turn-offs, how can there be any value in the Napster brand name?
Delays are here, too, doing the CD thing - Sonic Youth, Morrissey, and Neil Diamond.
Peter Robinson has his trickiest task to date, taking on Mick Jones. Peter suggests that a large chunk of Mick's beer money must come from rereleases of Clash material, an option lost to future directions. Mick suggests they could repackage their MP3s. Helpfully.
Radar band is The Others, plus details of free downloads from yourcodenameismilo, explosions in the sky and the secret machines, which is pretty good value. (We're kind of surprised that the nme really is just giving these away - not even some sort of secret code word for you to at least pretend you've bought the magazine or whatever. We can't decide if its trusting or just madness run riot.)
The attempt to try and keep Shroomadelica going is an interview with Dios, who suggest the genre should really be called "psychedelic thriftstore punk" instead, like in the old days.
reviews
live
morrissey - wiltern theatre, LA - "you always go back to Morrissey in the end", 9
the Live 24 in London - "9.01 Feeder take to the stage. 9.02 Under such severe circumstances, NME decides to call it a day on the No Drugs front too."
the walkmen - highbury garage - "emotional directness", 7
albums
ash - meltdown - "dave grohl will be looking over his shoulder", 8
deerhoof - milk man - "pure girl-pop magic", 9
klang - no sound is heard - "donna matthews mumbling like an estuary patti smith", 7
singles
sotw - the others - "so close to being terrible, but..."
M83 - America - "white noise and stuttering electronica"
and finally, we were delighted to see an advert from David Miedzianik in the classifieds. Back when we were young, before Tesco did Value brands, David used to pop up week in, week out, in the Record Mirror personals. Each time, the message was the same - write to a named dj and ask him (or her) to play more Bob Dylan, along with the address of the dj of the week. One week Janice Long, one week Paul Gambaccini. We'd not seen anything from him for ages, but this week, he's back. His advert wishes Bob Dylan a happy birthday, and asks for Bob to do a song for him. If Bob has any heart in his trousers, he would do - there aren't many artists who could call on the unflinching support of someone to the extent that David M has done his best by Bob; doing a little something in return would be a sweet and touching gesture - not one as lucrative or titilating as a Victoria Secrets ad, but it would mean a hell of a lot more. Failing that, maybe The Charlatans could do him one?
WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: There's no q in sex edition
In the second round of the Men's weekly battle, the two sides fought themselves to a standstill, by both putting Jordan onto their covers. This week Zoo (or is it Nuts) has moved on to Beyonce, who at least has more to offer than just her ass.
The oddest front cover, though, has to be the new Radio Times, which has chosen to raise Billie Piper - yes, Mrs. Chris Evans - onto its front page, to mark her continued acting career. There was some sort of assumption that her role in Canterbury Tales was going to be the first step to big things, so RT is quite excited by the new project - almost as if it had never heard of Madonna, and Desperately Seeking Susan, and what happened next.
Back to the wankers for a moment, and Mark Thomas writes in the New Statesman about his decision to quit Zoo after one edition - apparently he had no idea that it was going to be quite so tacky. It seems he'd hoped he'd have been a moral compass in the romper room; instead he realised he'd be struggling to hook people's attention on globalisation in a sea of breast meat. Elsewhere in the Statesman, Rosie Millard announces that her journalistic role model was the teenage Julie Burchill, which is a bit like Miss Jean Brodie citing Rasputin as a formative figure.
And, welcoming John Squire's return to music making, John harris suggests that The Stone Roses were John the Baptist to "the more messianistic" Oasis, which is all wrong - the Roses, surely, were the Jesus figures; Oasis is more your Jim Jones - thought they were it, but everybody who followed them ended up dead.
As today's sales figures show, Q has really lost its way, and the current issue - the Sex Issue - shows quite how badly. It's not just lost its path, but it seems to have forgotten its name, misplaced its car keys, can't remember what it came into the room for and has no feeling in its legs any more. Of course, we'd cheerfully buy any magazine with Pink on the front, and the further the bra is pushing up, the happier we are, but we're a specialist market. Who reads Q now, and what do they expect?
Is Nicola Heywood, from Australia, typical? She writes an interesting letter about the White Stripes: "Without the White Stripes, nobody would ever have become interested in what was happening in Detroit. Personally, I think Stollsteimer's got a some nerve running around bad-mouthing Jack. If anything happens to Jack I'll never listen to music again. The bereftness after Buddy Holly, the numbness after Kurt, will be nothing compared to the gaping hole left in the music industry, and in the world, if anything happens to him." Got that? Jason really should shut up about being brutally attacked by the thuggish Jack, because Jack dying would be like the moment when Jasmine was taken away in Angel. Are Q readers all under twelve these days?
Kelly Jones thinks if the Stereophonics "stick around long enough" critical acclaim will come. Kelly, there isn't a long enough long enough. If you're expecting to get recognised as one of the great British bands, at the current rate of absolute sky canker you're releasing ("Moviestar... we know who you are" or whatever it is?) Sellafield will be safe for sickly children to go picnicing on before it happens. Oh, and if you really want to have a good excuse for slapping Kelly's squishy face when you see him next - and sure, you could just do it for fun - take his comments on Richard Branson: "Branson is cool, but he'd probably try to nick your bird." I guess wearing a pullover and entering into a business with noted homophobe Brian Souter would appear to be cool to someone who uses the phrase "nick your bird" without actually being in The Sweeney.
Offered straight or gay, Emma Bunton plumps for both; offered Jack or Meg, she chooses Meg. It's such a pity the new album sounds like a rushed house band trying to create some Baccharach feel without having to actually pay royalties.
Apparently, N'Sync are being sued for USD9.6 million by their former tour manager Ibrahim Duarte because he "endured constant slurs, jokes and belittling comments." And, presumably, had to see them playing live every night for several months. He's suffered enough.
Ronnie Wood has sold USD3 millions worth of his paintings - which is a really breathtaking amount, especially since he doesn't actually use platinuim instead of canvases.
A name to be taken: Cozmo Jenks. The woman who makes Jay kay's hats. Meanwhile, Q offers 12 steps to building the ultimate hair metal collection, which is like being told how best to give yourself crabs. And since when were The Cult hair metal?
Jack Black claims that tenacious D fans are more intelligent than those of Green Day. We'd like to see that tested, and we'd like to see it tested by asking them all 'is your favourite band real?'
Franz Ferdinand have a cute story about how they started: Belle & Sebastian's Mick Cooke gace Alex Kapranos a bass and told him to do something useful with it. So far, let's hope he's not disappointed.
Another Sid-dead-25-years-piece, this one by ted Kessler. Sid, you see, is Punk's greatest icon, although he got beaten in a broken bottle fight by Paul Weller - alright, so it was before Weller took to carrying an accordian and only wearing sports socks, but it's still a bit of a come down. He also promised to die before he was thirty "just like Iggy Pop." Really, his contribution to art seems to be little more than flicking Vs, and the quarter century of his passing will hopefully end the mistaken belief that he was an icon - because what do all these pieces amount to? "He couldn't hack it, had no ideas, couldn't play, killed his partner and killed himself." We're still not sure where the hero bit actually starts.
In what world was Phil Oakey's haircut bad? Nicky Clarke - a man who could play David van Day's twin without the need for any help from wardrobe - claims that Phil's iconic half bob was "ridiculous." And owed something to Bobby Charlton. Eh?
"I just thought 'this is like a surreal art project'... my whole five years actually felt quite smooth." Melissa Auf Der Maur talks about life in Hole as if it was holding down a day job on the board of a small provincial theatre, which it probably was, in a way. Apparently, Billy Corgan rang her up when she left Hole and said "the stars have alligned. You have to join my band" and she obeyed. Wonder if he tries t6hat with pizza delivery?
So, finally, Q slips its shoes off and talks dirty. It offers first a list of twenty songs to get you off - Whitesnake's Is This Love? Led Zepplin's The Lemon Song? I suspect nobody at Q has had need to add extra detergent when they wash their sheets in a very long time. Then we get an a to z of sex. A is for auto-erotic asphyxiation, B is for booty... Q is for Queer, illustrated with a picture of Rob Halford. Z? Zoophilia. The Anti-Nowhere League. Let's move on.
Some seduction tips now from Lionel Richie - "should you put out on a first date? Who knows? It's like downhill ski-ing" he claims, thereby rejecting the 'uphill gardening' model. But he gets plenty, apparently, despite the moustache so maybe we should listen to the man: "If you discover half way through you don't like her, you suck it up and gracefully find your way out." Of course it's out of context, but... exactly.
Would Pink think it easier to have a relationship with a woman? "Fuck, no; women like to talk about everything, way too much shit." It's worth noting that she treats the question about orientation with the same disdain as she would a question about her race; it's all mixed up, so what's the point?
So, onto the NME, which turned up late clutching a CD by way of apology - it's pretty good, too: von bondies, kylie, BRMC and, of course, Jet (they're determined to try and force them on us, aren't they?) The cover is a montage - of the magazine, we mean; they probably figure why bother wasting a great shot that won't add sales as much as the CD? then there's a second cover, inside the cover, which has Outkast on. If Paolo Hewitt was alive today, he'd be clearing his throat and asking if it's NME policy for black guys to only be on Page One when there's a wrap around hiding page one.
The big picture is apparently of the Rapture gig - little face in a crowd. As is getting to be a habit, it's a 'you had to be there' shot.
The NME tour is given a quick double page plug (although it's probably fair enough - 37,000 people saw the shows, or about one person for every two readers) and there's a small item about Courtney's diary - but it's almost as if the determination to try and offer a lot of news coverage (like a Sunday newspaper, breadth and context) as a reaction to the knowledge that The Kids get their news light and bright from their space computers has been abandoned in favour of just using the space to report on the NME's own doings - we thought it was just the time of year when the news pages shed; they're not growing back with spring on the way.
Peter Robinson meets Senior Junior senior, and tells him he's half the Bert and Ernie of dance. Senior is bemused, claiming they don't have Sesame Street in Denmark.
Brand New are the radar band, with a name that will hang around their necks like Bono if they make it past the five year mark. They do bristle when they're called Emo, so we doubt that it's going to be an issue, though.
Andre 3000 always calls his pants knickers now, something he's taken from British people. And Outkast want to meet the Queen. It wouldn't surprise me if the feeling was mutual - so many people spent the christmas period saying how much they loved Hey ya I'm sure it got a plug on the Message to the Commonwealth.
There's a random pop love generator thing which works by numbers - I shall ask my glamorous assistant to generate a romance. Ah: 88467 - marilyn manson meets two of girls aloud while they're working as waitresses in cocktail bars, chats them up with the line "whats French and does it doggy? moi" and it all ends when they spot him getting off with someone at a bus stop. What's really interesting is that there's a 'you' option, but only under the 'male' pool.
Liars deny they're goths. Nobody who has to say "we're not goths" are ever not Goths.
Posters have been replaced - for one week only - by valentines cards, because nothing says I love you like a picture of Fab ripped from a magazine.
reviews
live
the streets - astoria - "Skinner, still pushing things forward", 8
dogs - barfly - "a fearsome prospect",
albums
various - the new cross - "unsigned bands. not shit.", 7
einsturzende neubaten - perpetuum mobile - "man versus machine versus nature", 8
probot - probot - "enjoy the darkness",8
preston school of industry - monsoon - "like the cure after eight months locked in a deserted nashville bathroom", 6
singles
sotw - bubba sparxx - deliverance - "a real heart of uncertainty"
auf der maur - followed the waves - "FM metal juddering"
Pudgy faced love god James Walsh from Starsailor loves Celine Dion. Okay, he doesn't, he chooses Dion; the only thing he has in common with Bobby Gillespie.
And finally, Conor McNicholas popped up in media guardian this week, choosing the My Media stuff. He thinks that Blender has a lot to teach us (that putting half naked women on the cover of a magazine otherwise indistinguishable from mid-90s Q sells?) and that, online, he rates... erm, nme.com. Which is a good rolling news service, but isn't a very imaginative choice.
