Embed and breakfast man: Pins

The news today is unremittingly depressing, which given what the Tories will do to mental health services is probably going to be cyclical.

To cheer ourselves up while we wait for the to turn Broadcasting House into flats, here's a new video from Pins:

Nice work if you can get it

A press release arrives:

Australian vocalist Tim Fontaine aka BOROKO releases his latest music video for his single “Because Life”, from his sophomore album Western Child, which is set to release in early 2015. Filmed by the fashion photography team Alex and Iggy in the historic Artist Studio NYC, formerly the Irving Penn Studio, the “Because of Life” video was aimed to depict a conflicted man, heading down a path where his fantasies overtake his reality and he struggles with guilt and the forgiveness he seeks to remedy his “disease”.

That was what he was aiming to do. He wanted to depict that. How fortunate the "conflicted man" was mostly conflicted about a semi-naked woman rubbing herself all over him rather than, say, whether it's worth recycling when the developing world is consuming raw materials at an ever-faster rate, eh?

Miley Cyrus may have a footnote in history

There's currently an interesting piece on Today about the BBFC, which includes the possibility that - for the first time - pop videos might come under the ratings board's duties; perhaps only when being sold. (Google and the BPI, meanwhile, are talking about ratings for YouTube pop videos.)

Miley Cyrus might prove to have been the naked-look straw which broke the camel's tolerant back.

The Wanted realise they've dropped the ball; make new video

The Wanted have done one video for the I Found You single already.

It's awful - sexist, laddish, packed with stylised empty violence. Rolling Stone describe it as "edgy", but really it's just ill-conceived.

So they've done another version:

The Wanted pay tribute to the Beatles in this new alternate video for "I Found You."

It's a "tribute" as in "quick and cheap idea of sticking them in a studio and having some screaming fans, a bit like The Beatles, but equally a bit like how even that show where B*Witched come back will be".

Little Big Ban: No Doubt pull video, claims some of their friends are Native Americans

No Doubt have, within the last 24 hours, unveiled a Western-themed video for Looking Hot, pulled it, and issued an apology:

“As a multi-racial band our foundation is built upon both diversity and consideration for other cultures. Our intention with our new video was never to offend, hurt or trivialize Native American people, their culture or their history.

Although we consulted with Native American friends and Native American studies experts at the University of California, we realize now that we have offended people. This is of great concern to us and we are removing the video immediately.

The music that inspired us when we started the band, and the community of friends, family, and fans that surrounds us was built upon respect, unity and inclusiveness. We sincerely apologize to the Native American community and anyone else offended by this video. Being hurtful to anyone is simply not who we are.”

Yes, they might have phrased it slightly differently, but the did slip "some of our friends are Native Americans into their apology.

To be fair to No Doubt, their defence is pretty solid - they've never been the sort of band you'd look at and think "well, the English Defence League would enjoy this" - which just makes the misstep even more bemusing.

Especially if they consulted Native American experts. Which academic in the field would have said "yeah, go ahead and make a pop video in which cowboys fight with 'Indians'. There won't be a problem with that'".

24 Hours from David: 23. We Have All The Time In The World

Hal David worked with John Barry for the theme tune to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It then got reworked all over me by My Bloody Valentine. This appeared on an album Peace Together, a 1993 attempt to solve the Troubles in Ireland through the power of indie guitar music. It wasn't all Bond covers - it included Curve doing Ian Dury and Therapy? having a go at being the Police. But the Valentines doing Bond was something of a highlight.

Altogether now: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to disappear for twenty years burning through Alan McGee's money."

[Buy: Peace Together]
[Part of 24 Hours from David]

24 Hours from David: 11. What's New, Pussycat

You only ever hear the Flying Lizards' cover version of Money, don't you? And even then, usually just in a splat dropped over a magazine show report about something to do with money when a researcher thinks Pink Floyd is too obvious. Here they are having a go at Hal David's lyrics instead.

[Buy: To The Flying Lizards]
[Part of 24 Hours from David]

Taking Codeine again

Never mind the Stone Roses: the only triumphant homecoming of a band who split in the mid-90s this weekend that was worth the candle was Codeine's reunion. The New York Times was there:

“That last song was the last song that we wrote and, um, yeah, it sounds like some of the other ones too,” Stephen Immerwahr said after he sang Codeine’s “Median” at the Bell House on Friday night. It was, like the rest of Codeine’s set, adamantly slow, asymmetrical, morose and drastically dynamic; among its terse lyrics were “grim and pure, like me.”

The Codeine dates haven't been the focus of a circus; there are no acres of photos of drunk forty something pissing and waving their cocks around. The dates didn't attract Liam Gallagher back down to ground level.

And how did Codeine sound?

Oh, yes.

Ola Ray finally gets paid for Thriller

Ola Ray screamed her heart out in the Thriller video when she discovered her boyfriend, Michael Jackson, was a zombie.

She then screamed again when she realised she'd not been paid for all the sales of the video.

It's taken a while, and a lot of lawyer time, but the estate of Jackson has finally given her a payment.

John Landis, the man who made the video, is still trying to get his share.

Ofcom thinks of the children; issues new pop video guidance

Ofcom has chucked out some fresh guidance to broadcasters about pop videos, having done a bit of research amongst parents:

regarding music videos, of all the parents surveyed, the main concerns were:
sexually explicit content (6 per cent)
and overtly sexual performances (6 per cent),
followed by offensive language (5 per cent),
nakedness/naked body parts (5 per cent)
and generally unsuitable content of a sexual nature (4 per cent).

Ofcom had surveyed 1,024 parents - it's worth noting that only 11% had actually said they were worried about music videos in the first place, fewer than had worries about soaps, films or reality programmes; and more were worried by violence than sex (20% against 17%).

They'd also asked a smaller selection of teenagers (768):

just under a quarter (23 per cent) said they had seen something on TV before the watershed in the previous 12 months that had made them uncomfortable or they had found offensive;

• the top five concerns measured as a percentage of all teens questioned were:
sexually explicit content (7 per cent), offensive language (4 per cent), violence (4 per cent), nakedness/naked body parts (2 per cent), news (1 per cent) and
animals being killed/mistreated (1 per cent); and

• the genres of programme causing most concern measured as a percentage of all teens surveyed were: film (7 per cent), followed by soaps (6 per cent) and reality
TV (5 per cent). Music videos came fifth (4 per cent) after dramas (4 per cent). This was followed by documentaries (3 per cent) and news (2 per cent)

After reminding broadcasters about observing the watershed for all programming, Ofcom turns to music videos:

Ofcom recognises that music videos in the Urban and R&B genres in particular are well known for including mild sexual content and innuendo, and there will be a certain level of audience expectation for this type of content. However, having taken into account factors such as the strength of the images, the genre of music and the time of broadcast (looking particularly at whether the video was broadcast at a time when children were likely to be watching), broadcasters must consider whether potential audiences (including both adults and children) would expect to see such content.

Did Ofcom just say 'well, you expect it with black music, don't you?'

But what about bondage, I hear you ask? Okay, maybe you're not asking, but apparently lots of people do:

Ofcom has been asked whether the Code restricts images of sexual bondage, dominance and sadomasochism in music videos before the watershed. The Code does not prohibit such images before the watershed.

However we advise broadcasters to take into account the nature and length of shots used and the overriding theme of the music video. Before the watershed broadcasters should take care to avoid any explicit images of sexual bondage, dominance and sadomasochism in music videos, or any inappropriate cumulative effect resulting from the repetition of these types of images that are unsuitable for children and likely to cause concern to parents.

Seriously, Ofcom? There are broadcasters ringing you up saying "look, I've got a video here with a lass tied up, ball-gag in mouth, and a naked bloke spreadeagled getting whipped - is that okay for teatime?" They need extra guidance on that sort of question?

And, let's make it clear, your video is not going out dressed like that:

It is important to note that in pre-watershed content, Ofcom would not expect to see singers and dancers wearing clothing that does not adequately cover their bodies (in particular their breasts, genital area and buttocks). As above, broadcasters should consider the length of shots used and the overriding theme of the music video

Not entirely sure if Ofcom's use of "breasts" is because they don't realise men have them too, or if it's just trying to spare us yet another R&B singerbloke taking his shirt off.

Ofcom adds a warning that lyrics which might be double entendres when heard lose at least 50% of their entendre when slapped on screen with a simple-minded 'show what they say' video:

For example, the lyric “You want some more baby? I love the way you do it cos you do it so crazy” does not contain an explicit sexual reference,
is ambiguous in its meaning, and is unlikely to be understood by children as specifically referring to sex. However, when combined with clear, sexualised images (for example, women in sexual positions) the strength of the material is raised in terms of its potential to cause offence and concern to parents.

There are also some reminders about dancing. You'd have thought that the rules about sex would have been the same whether someone was jiggying in tune to the music or not, but Ofcom thinks there's a category of dancing that is lewd of itself. Perhaps it saw Dirty Dancing, but left during the interval.

And, to wrap up, there's a reiteration that showing violence isn't all that cool.

It's all fairly sensible stuff, but has a massive "of course, they can go and see it on YouTube any time" hanging over it. It's not Ofcom's place to ask why we should just assume R&B videos will be fairly degrading to women, but perhaps they should prompt us all to ask the question.

Embed and breakfast man: Mary Margaret O'Hara

Towards the end of the 1980s, towards the end of a day, suddenly this most amazing sound started to come out of Radio One.

A singer-songwriter, yes, but also an apparent self-exorcism.

She's not exactly prolific - two albums and an ep in thirteen years - but she's still a going concern, so there's always hope. Her debut, Miss America, took four years to complete. So, patience is importance. 

And what she sounds like when she does get to release is this:



That's the official video for Body's In Trouble, from a time when it looks like Virgin Records were hoping she'd have a slightly more conventional career.

Buy Miss America
Apartment Hunting soundtrack

Links
Unofficial but comprehensive fan site
Mary Margaret O'Hara on Spotify

More to come across the weekend
Dark Dear Heart
You Will Be Loved Again
November Spawned A Monster
Peanuts

Gordon in the morning: Noel Gallagher Catchphrase

This morning, Gordon pastes the new Noel Gallagher video into a page. But, of course, he's being paid to be a journalistwriter so he has to provide some sort of text to go with it.

So, like a flailing contestant on Catchphrase, he blurts out what he can see happening on-screen:

The promo to The Death Of You And Me is set in a dusty, American desert motel.

Noel is seen sitting in a diner booth before throwing the young woman into the water.

She then escapes the drudgery of work by joining a caravan of travelling musicians.

It's good, but it's not right. Actually, it's not even that good.

Embed and breakfast man: Madder Rose

Your arms in a wild rotation this weekend, as we spend some time rummaging through the back catalogue of Madder Rose.



Considered by no less an authority than someone posting a comment under the name MadderRoseRulz as "one of the best bands which came out of the NYC area", Madder Rose ran through the 1990s like a seam of pure gold. Formed in 1991, four albums - two indie, two for Atlantic - later they sort-of fell apart just before the Millennium Dome opened, although Mary Lorson and Billy Coté would stick together to make an album of almost-drugged almost-chamber music under their own names.

We've kicked off up there with Swim, which is probably the peak of their powers. (Yes, that's the way to sell the rest of the weekend of Madder Rose tracks, isn't it? 'It's downhill from here'...)

But who knew you could take something stripped down, and strip it down even further?

Colorcoded25, fetch us your ukelele:



Buy
Swim
Panic On
Bring It Down
Hello June Fool

Madder Rose online
Trouser Press biography
Madder Rose on Last FM
Madder Rose on MySpace - contains "BBC Manchester" recordings, which I'm guessing must be from Radcliffe's graveyard shift show

More Madder Rose across the weekend
Panic On
Ultra Anxiety live at Glastonbury
Hung Up In You live on MTV
Car Song
Sleep Forever

The Daily Mail is outraged

The Daily Mail really is outraged about the Vogue/Kate Moss/Evan Voytas pop video. Really outraged. It just can't get it out of its head:

Saucy Kate Moss flashes her bra and hitches up her skirt to show her pants in one of her raunchiest shoots ever

Two things here, I think. First: is it saucy or is it raunchy?

Secondly: as the Mail itself concedes, she pole-danced for the White Stripes. And in most of her photo shoots, the top usually comes off at some point. Jesus, one of the iconic Moss images is her, topless in dom boots clutching a teddy bear. She's on the cover of Love overheating commentator's tolerance for who we're allowed to kiss. "Flashing her bra" isn't really measureable on the Moss-raunch scale, surely?

But this is the Mail, so it's not just - uh - outraged - by the shoot, stills of which it runs just so its family audience can understand that, you know, it's not making this up, and you can see her pants and everything.

Oh, no. The Mail has other concerns:

Music obsessed Kate Moss has had one of her raciest shoots yet turned into a pop video - but it's not for boyfriend Jamie Hince's band The Kills.

You know, it's one thing to make a raunchy video for your boyfriend's band, but making one for some other act? What sort of hussy is she, anyway?

U2's new pop video isn't a pop video

There was an interesting post on the Creative Review blog about a pop video U2 have made which they were insisting wasn't a pop video:

Deluxe editions of U2’s new album, No Line On The Horizon are accompanied by Linear, a specially commissioned film by Anton Corbijn. “It is not an extended music video or a U2 documentary, it’s a new way to listen to a record - a new way to use film to connect to music,” claims Corbijn.

The idea is that, as many people will be listening to the album on a computer or MP3 player with video screen, they can choose to listen and watch the film at the same time.

So it's a pop video you have to synch yourself.

But, hang on, no... it's not a pop video. No, no, because you don't have to look at it:

The idea of the companion film was apparently developed during the making of the album. “The thinking is that as a lot of people buy music from the internet and are likely to hear this on a computer or mp3 player, their listening pleasure could be heightened by visuals. It is not essential to the record - you can either watch it or ignore it,” says Corbijn.

Whereas, of course, it's imposssible to listen to Steps 5,6,7,8 without having the visuals in front of you. You simply can't do it.

And, it turns out, it's a blog you'll have to imagine, as it's fallen off the Creative Review blog. Wonder why.

PRS kills goose, torches farm, ploughs salt into land

Well, thank you, PRS: An unrealistically high demand for royalties on videos shown on YouTube in the UK means that music videos are about to vanish from British PCs:

YouTube said today that after the expiry of its former deal, PRS had proposed new payment terms that would be financially prohibitive for the site and would require YouTube to pay out more than it makes from the ads next each video.

It also said that PRS would not agree to identify which artists and songs are covered by which licence, something essential for YouTube's content ID system to identify and reimburse rights holders for each song that is viewed.

"We value the creativity of musicians and song writers and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright," said Google in a statement.

"But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us - under PRS's proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback."

This is further indication that the PRS might be the wrong people for the job of ensuring digital royalties get to artists. It seems they're incapable of understanding the value of music in the new age. In the same way that they seem to think it's going to be worth the while of small garages to pay hefty licence fees on the offchance customers might hear music leaking from the service bay, PRS is incapable of grasping the value of individual songs to Google. Hence, nobody gets anything.

For their part, the PRS is acting outraged:

PRS said in a statement that it is "outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK".

But since when has the PRS ever given a flying hoof about consumers' interests? Because, fair enough, they're not there to represent them. They should be representing the interests of songwriters, though, and it's hard to see how anyone's interests are served by this move.

The PRS claims, by the way, that Google are fibbing:

PRS insists that Google has made this move because it wants to reduce the amount it pays in royalties, despite an increase in viewer numbers.

Does the PRS realise that all it's managed to do is shore up whatever unlicensed system picks up the business from disaffected YouTube viewers?

Because, OMG, it was, like, a mystery or whatever, Leona

Go on... admit it, you'd been wondering before MTV asked the question:

Leona Lewis Explains Why 'Gossip Girl' Hunk Chace Crawford Stars In Her Video

Yes. Why has someone whose label is desperate to prove is more than a one-song Wanda in the US market had someone popular parachuted into appearing in her promotional video? Why, Leona, why?

"I'm a big 'Gossip Girl' fan," she told The Associated Press. "I love that show. I just love it. We get it back home [in England], but it's like one season back, so it's kind of hard to catch up, but I love it."

She just loves it. That's why. She was always talking about Gossip Girl, wasn't she? Couldn't shut up about it when she was on The X Factor. Chance Crawford's presence in the video isn't, in any way, an attempt to try and spark some interest in her new record. No no no.

Embed and Breakfast man: Neko Case

With a new album and charity-powered free download all over the place, what better time for a quick trawl through the marvelous Neko Case's solo work?

Case really battered her way into people's minds through her work with the New Pornographers - which was kind of the wrong way round, as the band was meant to be a side project and not a flagship. Still, it did allow people to discover her solo work - both with her Boyfriends backing team, and without. This weekend, we'll just focus on the solo stuff.

Let's start with The Boyfriends in the room. This is Furnace Room Lullaby, which turned up - according to the caption, anyway - on the soundtrack of psychic-crime-busting schlocker The Gift:

More on Neko Case

Neko Case on No Rock
Neko Case official site
Neko Case MySpace
Neko Case on iLike
Neko Case on Wikipedia

Buy Neko Case

The Tigers Have Spoken
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Blacklisted

Download Neko Case

The Tigers Have Spoken mp3s
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood mp3s
Furnace Room Lullabys mp3s

More videos over the weekend

Things That Scare Me live in Calgary
Middle Cyclone
Favourite live in California
Deep Red Bells live in Park City, Utah
Knock Loud live in London

Malcolm McLaren returns to art

It's been quite a while since anyone's taken Malcolm McClaren seriously - he's tried TV (that frightening Oxford Street thing that Channel 4 underwrote); he's tried radio (that Radio 2 thing which the BBC funded) and at every turn people seem to fail to recognise that he's, you know, visionary or whatever.

So he's now turned up pitching video art in New York:

Mr. McLaren allowed that since he had attended several art schools (and been thrown out of most of them), he was coming full circle. He also copped to being an opportunist. “I’m trying to meet the zeitgeist,” he said, “and art is the hottest cultural form around.”

Well, apart from knitting little dogs out of spaghetti, perhaps.

It would be cruel to suggest that by "the hottest cultural form" Malcolm actually means that he reckons its the cultural form where you can get away with the lamest work and still be shrouded in applause.

If that was what he thought, he was wrong:

Instead they got amateur actors anticipating sex and looking morose after sex, men in Italian suits and women in underwear wearing masks, a woman with large breasts bobbing in a pool. Each snippet was repeated, in slow motion, accompanied by mash-ups of things like William S. Burroughs talking about drugs, incongruous spirituals, and the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together.” The kinkiest aspect was the hotel guests who wandered into the adjoining bar in white hooded waffle robes and nothing else.

The video lasted 86 minutes. Some audience members lasted less.

Ms. Rabinowitz, who had produced the evening, admitted, “Some are boring ... they are all so different.”

There were those, naturally, who came up to Malcolm afterwards and told him how brilliant it all was. Sadly, that's probably all it's going to take to encourage him.

Embed and breakfast man: Charlotte Hatherley

She was excellent in Night Nurse. She brought something to Ash that unquestionably reinvigorated a band that could have slipped into being an indie-by-numbers outfit. And since she was - shall we say - phased out of the band, she's been turning out some cracking solo music. Apparently there's a new record being slapped together - Luke Smith produced, Alan Moulder mixed and it's being mastered right this second. First fruits - a downloady single of some sort - should be here before St Stephens Day. Meanwhile, let's remind ourselves of what we've been missing.

Kicking off with the promo for Bastardo - or B*stardo as Amazon know it:



And, like some sort of DVD extra, here's a making of feature - might seem like nothing to you; to ITV2, this is an evening's programming:



Hatherley on line
Official site
Facebook
MySpace
Last FM
Wikipedia

Buy
The Deep Blue
Grey Will Fade

More videos this weekend
Performing with Client on TV4
Summer live in Birmingham
The Name Of The Game live in Sheffield
Siberia