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Last night's Frank Skinner Show. The now-beyond-self-parody righteous fleck that is Moby trots through his usual playground-level attack on Eminem (he must be a poofter, etc). Next guest Elton John comes on, and won't even let Frank get a word in before he's taken Moby to verbal pieces.
Elton may be an awful social climber, but anyone who's declared war on the Sun and Moby is alright by us.
Having endured the jibes about being kept at the back of the videos and being "the fat one out of Wilson Phillips", Carnie Wilson has had gastric bypass surgery. There's a rare chance to see a popstar's stomach. On the same site Ann Wilson of Heart talks about her Lap Band surgery - believe me, you don't want to know. Personally, we think she looked better before.
Sony and Pepsi are linking up to formalise the artist-by-artist fizzy drink endorsement arrangements in the US. Now, Sony artists are hooked to Pepsi, and Pepsi are hooked to Sony Artists.
Now, this wouldn't be so much of a major leap forward if it wasn't for the way Tommy "Put some clothes on, Celine" Mottola is choosing to see this as going beyond the usual - picture of artist on multipack boxes; semi-naked artist in Pepsi poster; small 'Pepsi sponsors' logo on tour ads; artist photographed swigging Coca-Cola; awkward press conference.
Mottola claims:
We've always had a softy spot for Tara Palmer Tompkinson; her skittish performance on Frank Skinner (okay, she was coked off her head, but) is a TV classic moment. But when we hear that she's going to launch a singing career, we find ourselves suddenly recalling that we're meant to be exhibiting class hatred here.
Following on from the success of blindyouth.com in bringing early human league releases back to the stores, Nightporter, an equally wonderful Japan fansite, look to be making headway in their campaign to get Sylvian stuff rereleased. They deserve your support.
[Via remember the 80s.]
We've had Kylie II in Holly Valance. Now, prepare yourself for Delta Goodrem - the not-quite-as-good Natalie Imbruglia.
We don't have any MP3s to download, much less Liam Lynch MP3s. If you're really that desperate, popEx >> PopEx has a sample of the song in Real Audio.
Or you could try listening to 6Music, they seem to be playing it every ten minutes.
By the way: the novelty wears off on the sixth hearing.
We don't often bring you the joy of Ms Becky Bamboo's film reviews - we're not that sort of blog - but we're able to bend the rules when its 8 Mile, aren't we?
so, 8 mile was really fucking good. sure, the story is yer typical rocky, rah-rah underdog plot (amy said it was just coyote ugly with rap), but the performances are great (eminem is very good. really restrained and intense with these manic blasts of violence), the music rocks (the final rap battle was awesome - funny and witty), and it looks all grey and grimy. loved it. I thought kim basinger was a little out of place, but then I saw a picture of em's mom and she is a total glamour queen, so I guess that casting wasn't too far off.
Doom and debt-laden dinosaur Vivendi-Universal has released its figures for third-quarter sales, and what's most interesting from our perspective is that revenues at Universal Music Group dropped nine per cent, but they still managed to studd EUR1.3bn into their sack. And this is while they're pleading sickliness...
With Mariah reduced to snuffling around Trevor Mc, the New York Times reports on the supposedly humiliating reduction of Whitney Houston from coasting star to the Norma Desmond of the Malls.
We're not psychologists, but we can't help but feel that even if the new record bombs - and it deserves to, it's rubbish - the healthy dose of reality and being made to work for what she gets may do Whitters the power of good.
Like a bunch of Gibraltarians using the democratic process to say what they think people want to hear, once again the British People have voted Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of a poll.
This time, it's Radio 2's Number 1 Chart, celebrating fifty years of the Top 10. But once you get past the stinkingly obvious top three - Bo Rap, Imagine, Hey Jude, the chart gets a little more interesting. Bridge Over Troubled Water is at four, and while dying this year accounts for My Sweet Lord and George Harrison at five, the rest of the ten is made up with A Whiter Shade of Pale, House of the Rising Sun, Dancing Queen, Good Vibrations and Under Pressure. Kate Bush is at 11 with Wuthering Heights; joint 22nd is Steve Harley (Make Me Smile) and Rod Stewart (Maggie May). Ian Dury's Rhythm Stick is at fifty.
There's been some comment that there isn't very much recent in the chart, but then - its Radio 2 listeners, so you'd expect a certain level of rear-view mirror voting. Oddly, the most recent record in the list is by Elvis, who makes thirty-nine with A Little Less Conversation. Newest track is Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie.
On the whole, it's a pretty impressive list - some of the songs may be so over-familiar now they stink, but at least only having 960-odd songs to choose from seems to have focused the voter's minds a bit more than usual in these matters.
More interesting is the celebrities choices. Tori Amos has plumped for Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones; Alison Moyet has chosen Wuthering Heights. Damon Gough selects You're The One That I Want. Most amusing of all is Tony Robinson, not because he chose Doris Day but, because no matter how long he's a member of the Labour Party NEC, he'll always be Tony Robinson (Baldrick).
The chart on the Radio 2 website doesn't look permanent, so there's a copy of the listing here and the celebs choices can be found here.
HBO are putting together a history of hiphop told through fictional characters long, interweaving lives. Sounds like the sort of idea that might just work, to us; certainly got to work better than rush-filming The Jam Master Jay Story and selling it straight to Channel Five.
Although the EU Court decision rejecting a street trader's claim that the unofficial merchandise he sold was a "sign of alleigance" rather than a breach of trademark refers to the sale of unofficial Arsenal stuff, it's significant for the music industry, too.
What the court has just done is outlaw all non-licensed product, which means that those tshirt and poster sellers who do brisk trade outside gigs, for example, are now outside the law rather than in a grey area. Of course, while individual artists would probably think twice before hammering down on such sales, the way the new Robbie Williams contract hands much of his merchandising pie to EMI suggests that in the future, it'll be the labels who call the shots. And we know what they're like.
Still, cheer up - it's not like official, in-venue merchandise is chronically over-priced already, is it?
Paul McCartney is reaping the benefits of being the one who didn't die. After years of teeth-grating whenever people referred to the works of "Lennon and McCartney", the traditional way, he's altered the credits on his new live album to read "by Paul McCartney and John Lennon." Doubtless he'll be looking forward to joining the Bingley and Bradford, and enjoying a Wise and Morecambe repeat this Christmas.
Exclusive-ish to No Rock, our Munich correspondent Mr R reports back from the Manic Street Preacher's Munich gig:
it was fooking freezing out last night, i got to the venue at about 7pm, admittance was at 7:30, thought i was going to loose a toe or something, but just in the nick of time, we were let in.
the support were readymade, a band from wiesbaden that i had heard of, but not heard yet, but had been informed that i should probably like them. and it's odd that i lived in the city right across the river for 9 years and never knew that there was music of possible interest from so close.... oh well.
they weren't bad, really, a good opener for the manics. 4 piece guitar band, the drummer was absolutely wild. imagine animal in short black hair about 6 ft tall in all white with a red star on the t-shirt, and you've got him. hands flying everywhere, the muscles in the face constantly moving in all sorts of contortions. he would have fit into system of a down quite easily like that. the bassist had a sort of dirty blonde brad pitt look, and not in a good way. the lead had a white shirt and a thin black tie, like he was trying to be in a blues brothers type band, no hat though.
as i said, not bad, really heavy guitars, like thick molasses, and while the lyrics where in many cases rather melancholy, neither the style of music nor the voice gave it the needed melancholic touch... i wouldn't necessarily go to one of their own tours, but if they were supporting a band i wanted to see, i
wouldn't go "oh my god, not them again". this seems, to me at least, and i am trying to finds ways to disprove this, the state that german music is in. just not quite there yet, needs an extra kick or something, that little spice that makes a dish from bland to delicious is missing. but cheers to jonathan who last night gave me a list of german bands to check out! as it is, one of them just appeared on my amazon recommendation list today...
while the stage was being rearranged, a red hot chilli pepper mix was played. lots of people swaying while watching the stage.
nicky's mic stand was covered in turquise and neon-pink feathers. he wore a leopard print hat and a long white jacket for most of the show. at somepoint, the hat came off, and big grandmom sunglasses with red frames appeared and a scarf around the neck. he was so pale and with the black eyeliner, when the light hit him right, he looked like a ghost. and the way he moved about the stage, it looked like he was floating at times...
as you know, i've never been the wild manics follower, so i didn't know even half the songs that were played... but nevertheless, i enjoyed everything, they sang well, even though james appoligises for having a cold and not really reaching the high notes ("i sound a bit like joe cocker, eh?") but here's the set list:
Motorcycle Emptiness
You stole the sun from my heart
Everything Must Go
There by the grace of God
Found That Soul
Tsunami
Ocean Spray
Kevin Carter
Life becoming a Landslide
Slash and Burn
Stay Beautiful
Faster
Roses in the Hospital
Motown Junk
Little Baby Nothing
Suicide is Painless
The Everlasting
You Love Us
Design For Life
If you tolerate this ....
Sophie Ellis Bextor is taking time off from telling people not to smoke by telling them not to wear fur, either. FabSophie is shown in a new series of PETA ads holding up the gizzards of a dead fox. She still looks curiously sexy, too. SEB: The Moby that doesn't come across like a sanctimonious schmuck.
As soon as Mark Goodier announces the number one this Sunday, he's off to Classic FM.
Kylie condemns TV talent shows making popstars - of course, that's the soap operas' job, isn't it, Kylie?
Good news for those of you who're interested in The Thrills and especially Santa Cruz - the official site has gone live, and its got streaming music coming out of its ears. Yippee.
Some good news, apparently Gordon Lightfoot who had been at death's door has chosen to turn round and come home. He's showing signs of improvement and been taken out of intensive care.
Having woken up to a queasy sense of deja-vu this morning, as Bob Geldof fretted over a forthcoming famine in Ethiopia, it's probably timely to mention www.thehungersite.com. I think a lot of their old regulars got out of the habit of doing a daily click when the site nearly blew away in the dotcom boom, and while it's spitting at the sea, every little bit helps.
If Billy Ocean deserves an honorary doctorate for writing Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My Car and the theme to that Michael Douglas movie from back when Michael Douglas was a fairly charming man and not so obsessed with a sense of his own greatness only someone as apparently blind to every nuance of their own surroundings as Catherine Zeta Jones could manage to spend any time in his presence, then what on that scale would, say, Costello or Clinton or, dammit, Haines deserve?
Wisdom Goof brings you last week's chart expressed in terms of Googlism.
Undoubtably, the hardest time in anyone's life is when you have to kill a loved one because they're the devil. A close second, of course, is when you have to sack your own mother because she's screwing you, as Charlotte Church will testify. You'd hate to imagine that scene, wouldn't you? "Mum, you must think I'm some kind of pussy. You've been screwing me. You're fired. Um... can I borrow the car at the weekend?"
Wise, holding off the announcement of their engagement until now. This way, the eight weeks we're giving them will see them into the new year.
and there's a station, we'll call it LBC. And they were together, but then... Why is it we only ever hear of Simon Bates when he's being sacked?.
The first rule of business is to have an idea that's blindingly obvious. The second rule is to consider why, if the idea is such a good one, why has nobody ever done it before, then? When Lou Reed came up with the plan to bring together Edgar Allen Poe, Bowie, Laurie Anderson and some of his own Poe-like poetry, he clearly didn't get as far as stage two, did he?
Apparently, Robbie's Christmas single is now coming out a week early "to satisfy public demand." Oh, yeah? Nothing to do with trying to avoid an embarrassing drubbing for the Man Who Holds The Hopes of EMI at the hands of Gareth Gates and Blue, whose singles shared the original date of release, then.
If public demand for Robbie singles is really insisting they come out earlier, why not today?
But, sometimes, the truth just has to be told. We believe that streaming albums before release over the web is a handy way of allowing people to sample the wares when deciding to buy, and can often turn a waverer into a purchaser. However, when Vinnie Jones does it with his new album, Respect, it's sole purpose is presumably to kill of any of the last interest that may reside in the project.
His voice is so weedy and rubbish, we can't start to work out how anyone actually decided that getting him to sing at all would be a good idea; much less why they decided to ask him to have a crack at such tricksy classics as Dock of the Bay and - oh, sweetgwen - Minnie The Moocher. By about halfway into the collection, Vinnie seems to twig that he's not going to hit any notes anyway, and so just makes do with rasping the words out as blandly as he can in the hope that it'll all be over soon.
At least with Christmas confections like the Eastenders cast singalong albums, the effect of many voices bellowing tunelessly suggests a party atmosphere someone's tried to recreate on record. With Jones effort, it's like listening to a neighbour singing while ironing his trousers prior to the golf club Christmas party, unaware he's serranding the entire block.
Hi Ho Silver Lining seems to last for the best part of fifteen minutes. And how did Jools Holland end up on the thing? And how, how, how, did it get released? The Queen's not wrong when she says there's forces we don't know about at work...
I think we're proud to be the number one response for sigur ros homosexual perverted on Google. I think...
