LOAD DOWN?: There's a lot of RIAA-style excitement over the Pew survey that "shows" the lawsuits against ordinary joes is causing Americans to turn their back on downloads. It's worth noting that what this actually proves is that - following on from the high profile legal action against filesharers - if someone gets a phonecall out the blue from a stranger saying "Have you downloaded music in the last few days?", they will tend to say "Who, me, sir? No, sir."

TANKING: We're not just being mean to Posh when we say that this is the softest time of the year for record sales - in Australia, sales of the Top 10 singles collapsed by three-quarters in a week.

CASHBACK: We've had this link sitting around in our inbox since before Christmas, but that its a few days old doesn't make it any less fascinating, we think: a breakdown of how Cowell, Chapman and Fuller squeeze cash from the Pop Idol franchise.

REVOLUTION IN THE RADIO-HEAD: The Zimbabwe state broadcasters hit on a novel idea: paying artists for the music they play.

WE'D LIKE TO MAKE IT CLEAR WE LOVE ALL SINGERS, EVER. JUST IN CASE.: We know that nobody likes a critic, but Louis Barone's response to a chap who heckled a nightclub singer seems a bit extreme - he shot him dead. Blimey.

POSH PUSHED OUT: It was cruel and cyncial of anyone to assume that Victoria Beckham's people had chosen this week to release her new comeback single because it's the soft, hanging underbelly of record sales - after the Christmas rush, the first week of January is a time where nobody releases singles, meaning that anyone who has any sort of following and profile who is brave enough to poke something out should have no trouble securing that vital number one slot. Only the pre-Yule records are there to offer any sort of competition, and they've already burned themselves out in the last days of advent.

This Groove / Let Your Head Go (not so much a double a- as a double b-side) has limped in at number three, outsold not only by Mad World, which has now had three weeks at the top, but also by Kelly Osbourne and Her Sainted Pa. What were your plans B and C, Vicki? Fashion and Acting? Better get the sewing machine out.

Also making a worrying low debut on the Coca-Cola Chart is S Club 8, who only hit number 11 with Don't Tell Me Your Sorry. The 19 Management team have clearly been stung by suggestions that the S Club Juniors are little more than kiddywinks offered up for the salivating paedo-masses, and have recently launched a cunning strategy of disguising the fact the band are peddling a bunch of children by dressing them up as if they were all twenty five years old.

NUGENT AND KEY: The latest spinning of the reality TV format dice has coughed up Surviving [Ted] Nugent on VH1 in the States. Clearly pitched as "Survivor meets The Osbournes", it smacks to us more of Bernard Falk's Now Get Out of That hosted by Brian May: A team of the-sort-of-people-who-only-exist-on-reality-TV go out into the wilds with Ted Nugent and try to live up to his challenges.

We now live in an age where Arm Wrestling With Chas and Dave doesn't sound like a satirist's wildest imaginings.

THE COMEBACK KID: It's almost as if he never went away, but even so: Kid Rock is attempting a comeback. Obviously, when we say it's almost as if he never went away we say this with a sense of regret as his stupid clumpy act seems to have been rammed into our face with a consistency that would have made Orwell think he'd underdone the 'boot on face forever' schtick. Although, despite his consistent presence in newspapers and magazines, we were never sure what he actually produced in his day job - we had a vague sense of something lumpen and, as the name would have suggested, rock (in the 'drinking cheap cider' sense of the word). Now, apparently, he's been reborn as "Motown's first Hillbilly artist", complete with a Kid Rock Christmas Special. We're still guessing his small place in history will be being listed as "amongst the other people who shagged Pamela Anderson were..."

Also back: Edie Brickell. She's just had ten years off to be mother to Paul Simon's kids, and now she's returning to a recording industry with a new album. Taking a decade off is a risk at any time, but since she was working in a segment alongside Tanita Tickaram, Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega and Julia Fordham, she might find re-connecting with an audience almost impossible. It's like when you go back home after a decade and spend some time trying to work out which house now stands on the part of the playing fields where you used to waste PE lessons away - there's absolutely none of the familiar surroundings to give you context. Her new album is called Volcano, but I'll be what you really want answered is this: Yes, that Paul Simon.

GETTING BETTER, MAN: Good news from the Suicidal Tendencies camp, where Mike Muir reports on their official website that he's on the mend after a long time and two leg operations saw him laid up. The band still aren't back to work, but it sounds like they're getting there.

TEST CASE: Woe upon woe for the record industry, and the year not yet a week old. Test-Achats, the Belgian consumer protection body, is bringing legal action against the major labels, claiming the copy protection stuff wedged onto CDs infringes customer's rights. We're sure the defendants - EMI, Sony, BMG and Universal - will be delighted for the whole issue of "How dare they tell us what we can do with music we have paid for" to get a full airing in the European courts.

DJOBIT: E Rodney Jones, the Chicago and Baton Rouge discjockey who played a major role in popularising the blues and helped numerous artists, including BB King and Muddy Waters to mainstream, has died from colon cancer. He was 74. Sadly, his death on Friday came just a couple of days before a Baton Rouge benefit concert in his honour.

Jone's approach to radio was one that's been too often sidetracked in the current era of playlist-by-computers, scripted links and Clear Channel: "A good radio personality is being yourself and being versatile. When I say being yourself, I'm talking about personality. Be a personality and you'll win in radio. That's all I was, man. I was me, nobody else. That's what the people enjoyed. That's what they will forever enjoy with me if I can work my health up and get back to it. It'll still be me doing my thing."

BRITNEY SPEARS IMITATES ROSS FROM FRIENDS: Although we're not sure if Jason Allen Alexander (no, sadly, not George from Seinfeld) had cats whiskers drawn on his face when it happened, but the News of the World reckons that Brintey got married in Las Vegas. They've got a copy of the licence, but nobody's entirely sure if they went through with the seventy buck deal at the Little Wedding Chapel. But she did keep to some of the old traditions - she turned up pissed, apparently.

TAKING IT ON THE CHIN: We thought Brian May got off quite lightly on Channel 4's 100 Worst Songs - sure, there was a bit of sport at the expense of his and Anita's hair, and the dreadful crypt-raiding that was the [surviving members of] Queen and Blue was rightfully castigated - not because Queen are an easy target, but for good musical reasons. Nevertheless, Brian may is not happy and has taken time out of his busy schedule "adding his six penn'orth of guitar to resident rock axeman" in Madrid to fume off about the whole show, and anyone ever connected with it, and all of Channel 4 and, oh, the world is terrible:

The 100 worst songs...? my bowels heave with despair.... without even looking at the list you get this awful feeling of thousands of bitter little people sitting around smirking while finding something to vent their vindictiveness on.

We're not sure that we like the idea of Brian May's bowels heaving, with despair or otherwise, since any odd flatualent noise he makes seems to wind up being released sooner or later; especially if Ford are willing to pay for it.

Oh yes; the Great British Public, in another display of lame negativity ..... while the rest of the world seems to actually get out there and enjoy life, we Brits sit at home in front of the Telly, or down the pub, slagging off anything that makes us feel threatened, because being able to put someone down makes you feel big, don't it?

Yes, it's sadly true - that's exactly what the British are like. Where else could a song about how radio is shit these days, and how music is rubbish, not like in the olden days, would make the charts? "All we hear is... radio ga-ga"...

Do those dullards at Channel 4 REALLY have nothing better to turn their minds to ? What a pile of worthless Horse-Poo. (actually horse-poo is MUCH more useful - it makes flowers grow..) If "Candle in the Wind" is a bad song, monkeys are flying out of my ass at this very moment.

It's all about bottoms with you, isn't it, Brian? At the risk of helping spider monkeys flee from your buttocks, we'd have to point out that Candle In The Wind wasn't on the list - Candle in The Wind 97 was, and that was there for the perfectly valid reason that Elton John couldn't even be arsed to write a new song for the biggest gig of his life, but just plucked a tribute he'd written for someone else and changed a few words to get round the awkward details that didn't fit (like Diana wasn't found in the nude, and he'd actually been for tea with her whereas he never knew Marilyn, and so on). Even the Franklin Mint went to the trouble of making original horrible little plates to mark the occassion - they didn't just slap a new label on "Little Angels." Surely fair grounds to castigate Elton?

Grow up, people - find something worthwhile and creative to do with your time. If any of you had spent the equivalent amount of time WRITING a song, even if it was utter crap, it would have been a more worthwhile use of your energy than this pointless and utimately self-negating exercise.

Self-negating? A chart of the 100 worst singles cancels itself out? How does that work, exactly?

Oh, and Brian... you really want Jimmy Carr to write songs in place of presenting light entertainment shows? Are you sure?

WHAT WE NEED IS A GREAT BIG BAIN MARIE, BIG ENOUGH TO TAKE THE WORLD AND ALL WE'VE GOT: America and Russia are very different places. In the US, black artists embrace and reclaim "Nigga", while in the former Soviet Union, the (apparently) first black artist ever to have a hit in Moscow has created an alternative: Mudio Mukutu Pierre Narcisse says "A lot of people called me, a lot of people thanked me. This one friend from Cameroon said, 'Thank you!' I asked him 'What for?' He tells me, 'Well, they used to call us niggers and now they call us chocolate boys!'"

We're not sure that we'd see that as much of a leap forward ourselves.

CHART DEAL GOES FLAT: The BBC has announced that Coca-Cola isn't going to get its credits on TOTP and Radio One, in a tortuous re-reading of the producer guidelines. Apparently, because the broadcast world has moved on since the BPI first came up with the sponsorship idea, while it used to be appropriate to mention the sponsor at the 'event' of a first reading of the chart, in the BBC's words "the "reveal" of the weekly music chart [no loger] adequately constitutes an "event". In other words, the Top 40 is now - officially - meaningless.

Does this mean, though, the times when the Number One spot becomes a matter of public interest - at Christmas, or when there's a proper Oasis v Blur race for the title - the fizzy pop manufacturer can get its name mentioned on the programme?

That's if Coke wants to stick to the deal, which - without the artifical sweetener of the BBC plug - looks a lot less like value for money. Sure, newspapers which run the chart will be carrying the logo next to it, but without the reinforcement on air that the TOTP chart and the Coke Chart are the same thing, it's not going to have the same impact in the public mind; the shops which use the chart for the basis of their stock displays aren't going to be rushing to mention CocaCola when the company is actively building a download site to canabalise their sales, either. We'd imagine there's going to be some terse phonecalls between Coke and the BPI in the next few days. Of course, the BPI could choose to punish the BBC by taking its chart elsewhere, but we're not sure it's brave enough to unhook its chart from the state broadcaster.

"MUTT MADE ME WHAT I AM": Shania Twain has told a stunned world that she owes all her success to her husband, Mutt. While, obviously, it's nice to see a woman babbling away like a 1940s housewife, we'd like to suggest that, maybe, Shania, your worldwide success has less to do with Mutt's doubtless enormous managerial skill, and more to do with...



... something else?

OH, AIRBAGS: Following his car accident in New Zealand, Daniel Beddingfeld is going to be kept in hospital for a week. It could have been all so much worse - he's not really injured that badly, so they could have let him out to start making music again straight away.

RUSH RELEASE: We never really had Rush down as being a rowdy band - if someone had asked us, we'd have selected Yes or even Emerson, Lake and Palmer as being more likely to be making with the noise and the threats and the debauched unacceptables. And yet it was Rush bassist Alex 'Lifeson' Zivojinovich who needed police with a stun gun to arrest him on New Year's Eve.

The touble started because his son, Justin, refused to get off the stage during a celebratory event in Naples - obviously a trait he picked up off his dad, what with Rush's tendency to play tunes which lasted way beyond their welcome and usually managed to go beyond the limits of even a shy nun's politest tolerance. Somewhere during the fracas a female police officer ended up flying down some stairs - depending on who you believe, she either fell as she was trying to push Alex down them (according to Justin) or Alex pushed her down the well (according to everyone else).

And they say Canadians don't know how to party, eh?

GOSH! CRIKEY! JUST FANCY THAT: Congratulations to Boris Johnson on his victory in the almost-unwatched World Idol (The Christmas Day edition pulled in just a snifter over four million, the sort of audience which had the press nailing down the lid on Top of the Pops, of course), but apparently the whole thing might not have been a fair contest anyway, according to Alex, the Polish Idol's blog - records chosen for them by Fuller, of course, and so on. Clearly, Fuller had his own financial interest in some of the performers ("the good of the viewing public") at heart when he was making his choices. [Thanks to Claire FB for the link]

A QUICK LOOK AT THE FOOTBALL SCORES: Thanks (I think it's thanks) to Simon Tyers for this mash-up between Fatman Scoop and AFC Wimbledon [MP3]. That is, of course, the proper Wimbledon that plays in Wimbledon and not the faux Wimbledon which appears to currently be styling itself "Wimbledon at Milton Keynes", like Rock In Rio Actually In Lisbon.

(link fixed now - thanks to Jana in Prague)

BADDER AND BADDER: Over on the Blogcritics version of our 100 Worst review (it's basically cut just before the Jackson wanking gig) there's a small winter flurry of comments, one of which suggests Wannabe was always one of the worst pop songs ever. Not so. Oh, so not so.

DIFFERENT TO WHAT?: The Rub considers the total CD sales by genre for 2003 and asks "if alternative rock is the second biggest selling subgenre of rock, what exactly is it providing an alternative to?"

For what it's worth, alt rock sales grew by two million of what executives call "units"; Jazz also grew but the largest gains were in the Latin sector - almost four million extra sales over 2002. You didn't think the Latin Grammys were being given all that care and attention out of the kindness of everyone's hearts, did you? Memo to Robbie: If you want to break America - and we know you do, deep in your heart, still - maybe you should try learning Spanish.

HEY... I'VE GOT A GREAT IDEA HOW WE CAN REVIVE OUR FLAGGING CAREER: Let's not write off Girls Aloud just yet, shall we - it would be too easy to dismiss them as a worn-out bunch for whom the Knock of Opportunity has been replaced by the tap-tap of death watch beetle. But, as this picture (from GAY on New year's eve) shows, they're doing their best to cling to fame:



... it's not merely an inept faded photocopier of the not-very-interesting-to-begin-with Madonna-Britney snog, is it?

We hear the band's My Little Pony diaries have got "Try to crack America" written in for May. That is, we suspect, except for Nadine Coyle's, who clearly has been picked to get the spin-off solo career. We're expecting her first solo FHM cover in July, followed by a single in September.

WE HAVE NOT SEEN THE WORST WHILE WE CAN STILL SAY "THIS IS THE WORST": Last night, Channel 4 - having used up its supply of Wife Swaps the previous evening - filled the airtime with the 100 Worst Pop Records of all time and so on. As ever with these popularity/unpopularity polls, it was a bit of a double A-side - some bits were splendid, some were just frightening. We think the possible highlight of the three hours was the splendid James Masterson patiently explaining that Vanilla's 'No Way No Way' thing was the result of a jokey bet between two record producers (although, of course, scientology was also created thanks to a bet, so it doesn't make it right.) We've said before that we have a bit of a soft spot for Vanilla - their obvious ineptness was kind of endearing, and their sudden reinvention as the only Marxist girlband in history makes Busted's insistence that they be allowed to actually plug their guitars in look a little bit lame - and we find it extraordinary that Natalie Cassey felt comfortable criticising the band's looks while sitting under the worst perm since Brian May said "what happens if you use double the amount of that liquid?"

Because there's no real criteria suggested for what counts as a rubbish record, the chart has no real coherence to it - so you get things that were abominations rubbing shoulders with tracks that are great but happen to have been made by people who've fallen out of fashion. You know how No Rock feels about Victoria Beckham and - especially - Geri Halliwell, but that doesn't mean that Wannabe has somehow turned from being a Great Pop Song to the 27th worst - less merit, it's alleged, than Catherine Zeta-Jone's single. At least Michael Jackson is represented by something from his bad smell days (Earth Song), we suppose.

The "experts" were pretty much rubbish, most of their contributions being of a "watch this video and then pretend you're recalling it from when it was in the charts" nature - and, frankly, anyone who didn't know that Andrew Lloyd Webber was the producer of Timmy Mallett's Bombalurina track has no right appearing on my television set pretending to be knowledgeable enough about pop music to offer opinions. It's like Match of the Day inviting pundits aboard who've never heard of Pele.

Amongst the best bits were Harvey from So Solid Crew talking about Michael Jackson. It seems that we shouldn't criticise Jackson, because you can't see God. No, hold on, go with Harvey here - so, because we can't actually see God, "there are people sent down to represent God - and he's one of them." (Which, taken with Jackson's claim that he sees the face of God in children must mean they're a reflection of himself - the cops are wrong: he's not wanking kids, he's polishing up a mirror). Harvey gets even madder when asked about Jarvis Cocker's stage invasion during jackson's Brits performance. Like, seriously, do-some-harm mad: having offended against St Michael, "Jarvis is lucky he didn't get kidnapped." What Harvey's outburst did remind us, though, was that at the time the Jackson PR team put out a (false) story that Jarvis had trampled on children while on the platform - which we think may be the first recorded instance of Michael Jackson lying about child abuse.

Toyah was astonishing - her anger at Mariah Carey is unsurpassed only by her anger at starving asylum seekers trying to find a bed for a night; and then she proceeded to have a pop at the girl from St Winnifreds School Choir for having a speech impediment - thorry, Toyah, you're thaying what? (That girl has grown from baby-voiced frizzy haired irritant to a sexy goth, by the way.) Equally unbelievable was Sonia, who criticised Chas and Dave for being little more than a steroetyped portrayal of what cockneys are like. Whereas, of course, Sonia's cheeky scouse charm is pure mint.

A pair of country dancers were invited to comment on Rednex's Cotton Eyed Joe and Steps' 5-6-7-8, and revealed that country dancers are even more precious than indie kids: "we don't need to be taught how to count" they spat, before suggesting that things like pop and fun have no place in the square dancing circle.

Oddest thing of the night was the credit on Middle of the Road's Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep video - apparently, this vital piece of rock history had been filmed by the Central Office of Information, which makes us wonder if the government publicity department has got any more lost pop gems stored in its archive, although not as much as it makes us wonder why the hell the COI was filming this in the first place.

The top 15 (bottom 15?) were:

1.The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) - The Cheeky Girls
2.The Millennium Prayer - Cliff Richard
3.Agadoo - Black Lace
4.Candle In The Wind 1997 - Elton John
5.Fast Food Song - The Fast Food Rockers
6.Mr Blobby - Mr Blobby
7.Because We Want To - Billie
8.Barbie Girl - Aqua
9.Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus
10.Jenny From The Block - Jennifer Lopez
11.Orville's Song - Keith Harris and Orville
12.Look At Me - Gerri Halliwell
13.Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
- Bombalurina feat. Timmy Mallett
14.(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams
15.Sacred Trust - One True Voice

Which we think is a little unfair on the Cheeky Girls, who might be rubbish (and have certainly worn out their welcome) but aren't on the same level of rubbishness as Cliff's Lords' Prayer to Auld Lang Syne with concentration camp footage in the background effort was. But it's not like we're going to go to war to fight for the cheeky girl's honour.

Hero of the whole affair was Renee, out of Renee and Renato - back, now, serving up Italian Food (which, to be honest, is a far greater good for mankind than anything achieved by 98% of the music industry) who basically said "I had an opportunity, people bought it, you'd do the same thing, so do you want black pepper and cheese on my ass when you bite me?"; biggest waste of space was Jono Coleman, the world's least funny man who came to share his insights. 2 Unlimited's No Limits was "a mindless thing", apparently. Er... yes, it was a dance single. For dancing to. In a mindless way. It's always puzzled us why anyone is bothered that the words of No Limits were so scanty when it never pretended to be a song that would benefit from having an acoustic reworking by Kurt for Nirvana Unplugged. It set out to be a stupid track to bounce around waving your arms to, and succeeded in everything it set out to do. You might as well complain that Chi Mai was rubbish because it didn't have any words at all.

While Jono might have been a waste of space, the most disgraceful shame was Channel 4 inviting Jimmy Carr to anchor the rundown. With some pisspoor gags which substituted smut for punchlines, he added nothing at all to the proceedings apart from his face. Which we could do without. It's obvious that the network is desperately trying to find a vehicle fit for his talents - we'd suggest a 1974 Ford Cortina with dodgy brakes at the top of Snake Pass on a moonless night when it's below freezing.

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: The stars of the past will not be put out quietly
"If I'd had a gun, I would have shot myself." Does this mean, as the common interpretation of Pete Townsend's interview with The Observer seems to have concluded, that The Who man came close to suicide? Only if you believe that Kurt Cobain would still be alive if he hadn't had a gun, either. Generally, the suicidal look for a route to take them out of the world, and if Pete had seriously been considering leaving Daltrey as the sole survivor of the band, the absence of a firearm in his glittering home by the Thames wouldn't have stopped him. The interview with Sean O'Hagan is notable for, despite all his attempts to try and appear contrite, it's clear that he still can't quite accept what he did was wrong. The story has changed subtlely once again - it seems that now Pete wasn't researching a book when he typed his credit card details into the kiddie porn site, not was he gathering evidence to present to the authroities of child porn online; now, he says, he was trying to find people he could get to join a twelve-step plan. This is interesting, not merely because it's a new line of defence, but also because we'd always been led to believe that Alcoholics Anonymous type-groups were self-help organisations rather than set-up by people who didn't have the particular problem they were designed to combat. That they were usually the brainchild of recovered addicts, not of the well-meaning concerned. And yet it's obvious to anyone that Pete is telling the truth when he says he isn't a padeophile, and that although he paid for images of children being abused it wasn't something he did habitually.

Indeed, it might be easy to accept Pete's "I made a mistake" and move on were it not for two things. First, the extraodinary, shifting details he gives about what he did or did not do - at the time the news broke, he was adamant that he'd only gone as far as seeing as what was being offered at the site; now, he's apparently conceeding he did go further and actually look at "two or three" images; he also says that he went to the pay site after having seen a link saying it was an FBI sting. The justification for paying money to a child porn website which he had already been told was little more than a front for lawmakers on a trawl for mucky old men is tortured - it seems he thought that by putting his credit card details into the system he might meet people he could help with his twelve step programme; although surely if he wanted to reach out to help people who'd been captured wanking over buggered five year olds the place to start would have been getting in touch with the FBI rather than going to website?

The second difficulty in accepting Pete's contrition is his own insistence that he is "innocent" (despite having accepted a caution, which is an admission of guilt) and that he was caught on a "technicality": "It's tough. Although I'm at the lowest status, and it's a technicality, and I didn't commit a crime, and they didn't find anything, but I was cautioned for the use of a credit card, which is interpreted as encouraging people to disseminate more, inciting others to disseminate more." As O'Hagan points out, this isn't a technicality at all, but yer actual guilt. Not that Pete has stopped twisting - he constructs a massive, curious justification that David Blunkett changed the law so as to allow people (i.e. him) to be prosecuted for the use of credit card to buy kid porn prior to the actual passing of the law. We're not sure if this is paranoid fantasy or just fantasy - as far as we can recall, the only piece of legislation that has been enacted creating a retrospective crime in the last fifty years was designed to cover nazi war crimes - and whatever Pete did wrong, he hardly flayed a person to make a lampshade. And if David Blunkett had gone so far to try and create a constitution-twisting law merely to entrap and make an example of Pete Townshend, why then would he have let Pete get away with just a caution? Wouldn't he have insisted on a showtrial to make use of this new, extraordinary law?

Townshend isn't a paedophile. He did do something a bit (well, very) thick and - fairly - got drawn into the criminal justice system as a result. Clearly, though, he's yet to actually accept his guilt, despite taking the caution and signing the sex offender's register. If he had had a genuine defence for having given financial support to a company which made its money from distributing real pictures of real kids being really raped, the obvious line of action would have been to turn down the caution and use that defence in a courtroom. However much he might try and blame other people - the home secretary, the credit card companies, probably Tim Berners-Lee - sooner or later he's going to have to actually accept that he did a thing that wasn't just an "error of judgement", but was "commiting a crime." The Observer headlined the interview "won't get fooled again", which we think was meant to reflect Townshend's confused-into-buying-kid-porn tale, but would also cover the "lie to me" approach of the media - although, desperate to believe, most papers seem happy to play along with Pete's tales. The full interview is on the Guardian website.

X-Ray kicks off a bold look forward into its second year, secure in the knowledge that its main competitor, Bang, is gone. To celebrate, it's even allowed itself to pretend that it's the Radio Times and covered its New Year edition with an illustration. We weren't entirely sure if the character in white spandex was meant to be Justin Hawkins with a little less hair than usual, or Iain Duncan Smith with a little extra; "Karen O" appears to be receving vaginal penetration from a tulip-shaped alien's antenna, which would account for the surprised look of pain on her face; Charisma Carpenter seems to have joined the White Stripes and we're not certain if the guy at the front is George Harrison or one of the Kings of Leon; he is equally unlike both.

It's another cracker of a CD: British Sea Power, Belle & Sebastian and Electric Soft Parade. Jet are on it, too, but every party has its bowl of cheese balls to avoid.

The Electric Soft Parade make a frankly baffling attack on Britney Spears - "she's juts being a cunt" mutters Tom, because the MTV snog-stunt "is leading people to think there's a difference between lesbianism and being gay." Um... but isn't there actually a difference between two girlfriends kissing and being gay? Isn't that rather tha point?

The difficulties of promoting rebellion from within the belly of corporate beast: X-Ray attacks Britney for "sucking Starbuck's cock", while running a full-page ad for Borders, whose eager consumers are, erm, refreshed by Starbucks. Not to mention damning someone for working a corporate line in a house magazine for part of Capital PLC, of course.

Gobsausage might be the next big thing, or they might not. We're thinking they might not be, because "a live phenomenon on the sleazy underbelly of London's art-porn scene and are given to parading tits-out through the streets of the capital" makes them sound less like an exciting, daunting prospect cutting through the taboos of society and more like a bunch of desperate show-offs with half an idea. If Malcolm Maclaren can claim to have done your act twenty-five years ago, and still be telling the truth, loves, you were born passe.

And we suspect the same might be true of Scissor Sisters, who look like Fischerspooner going to a fancy dress as Kid Creole and the Coconuts. They have names like Ana Matronic and Paddy Boom and - oh, how shocking - the band name is slang for a type of lesbian. The trouble is that they come across like they've spent a lot of time thinking about their image, but look like any half-well-funded indie band, except with some hats. It's all very well to think "we'll be a glamorous alternative", but some people just can't dress for shit.

Now, looking good are the Golden Virgins - smart, with a band uniform, and a snappy sense of coherent statements being made through their choice of trousers. It's only slightly hobbled by the black suit; red shirt; black tie combination already having been trademarked by Interpol.

X-Ray's Top 50 albums of 2003 is headed up by The Sleepy Jackson's Lovers, which just points up how the magazine is just ever so slightly more hip than the parent radio station. It also likes OutKast, of course, but so does everyone.

- You do a lot of screaming. Does it hurt?
- I found out a month ago I have a node on my vocal chords... if Christina Aguilera gets a node, she's fucked, becasue it affects the clarity of the voice. For me, because I scream, it's not so bad
- Brody Dalle, quite relaxed about having an open wound on her vocal chords.

New Year, New Musical Express. And what fresh delight do we have offering us the prospect of joy and discovery in the untested, virginal 2004? The fucking return of Oasis. Apparently, their sixth album "promises to be their best album yet" - quite a claim, since they haven't recorded a single note for it yet, and the lumbering back into the recording studio of the musical version of the Guardian's Slack Dad column is greeted with a sense of hoopla at Kings Reach Tower that doesn't reallt feel like its matched in the wider world. "Only Radiohead are at a comparable stage to Oasis in their career" claims the paper, fighting for breath (the nme can only think of two bands who have released six albums?); the new Oasis, out in September, "is their most important yet" and the two band's relative critical fortunes are depicted in a little graph, showing Oasis pulling ahead of Thom and his mates with this album, having got a lower mark on all but their first album so far. Except, of course, Hail to the Theif has been recorded, played and rated, whereas the surge for Oasis is achieved purely by the assumption that - when this new album is made - it will get nine out of ten. But how likely is that? Talking to one of the three (THREE!) journalists it took to put together the single page, Noel admits he's run out of things to say, and songwriting has become "a constant struggle to say the same thing differently", and promises the album will sound like a cross between Highway 61 Revisited, Their Satanic Majesties Request and The Stone Roses. In other words, at its freshest, it's going to sound as bang-up-to-date as 1989. But why would Noel have let himself be influenced by the modern world - a man who thinks Chris Martin is a genius but fails to understand the Flaming Lips - "Come on, you weird fucking cunt, try and play a gig without some twenty foot vegetable behind you" (harsh words from someone who shares half the writing credits on his next record with a man who makes corn on the cob seem like intelligent life). Part of the reason Liam will be getting a few quid extra for his songs this time is Noel is too busy to write much - "now I've got kids and this and that, I don't have time to write as much as I used to." I'm sure people working a double shift down the hospital laundry will feel the requisite level of sympathy for him.

But Liam and Noel aren't the most-clapped out double act featured in the nme this week, as Chas and Dave crop up in a full-page picture thanks to their Libertines warm-up. Actually, that doesn't mean Liam and Noel aren't the most clapped-out double act, does it? And, to be honest, Dave looks better than either of the Gallagher boys these days and - whatever else you might think of them - the old-joanna-hammering duo's distinctive style is all their own, rather than some pastiche of a shimmering McCartney past, and while we wouldn't claim the Sideboard Song is better than anything Oasis have ever done, it's still better than anything they've done on the last four albums.

Ryan Sult, of motorcityrocks.com and the nme's man in detroit was an eyewitness to the Jack White - Jason Stllsteimer punch-up, and it sounds like he'll wind up being a material witness too. His version of events won't, it has to be said, help White's defence team very much. Anyone who's ever been lucky enough to have an argument with someone off their tits on coke will find the events sounding kind of familiar.

Courtney Love has faxed the nme to tell them that she's alright now, and the new album's going to be out soon and Brody Dalle is her new best friend, and everything. The lyrics to the first single from the new album, "mono", are going to make us "stop dead in our tracks": "well they say that rock is dead/ and they're probably right/ 99 girls in the pit/ did it have to come to this?" Oddly, we're finding we're still ambulatory so far - maybe it'll be the chorus that does it.

Peter Robinson takes on Sophie Ellis-Bextor, but she is pregnant and lovely so its not a fox-and-chicken shake to the death. Sophie knows there's a difference between a school disco and School Disco (TM), and that's reason enough in our book to cherish her.

Scissor Sisters are in the nme, too, look, as Radar band. But now jake Shears looks a little bit more like Justin Timberlake than he used to.

So, Oasis' comeback is one of the 101 reasons why 2004 will be great. Some others, slightly more convincing are:
Albums from The Streets, the Libertines and The Vines
The tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, 20th of Marvin Gaye and 25th of Sid Vicious
Hooker Chic apparently being "in" (which means that Hardman Street in Liverpool has been waiting for 2004 for the last seven years or so) and the first new crappily named scene of the year: Art Wave (listen to Kling Klang and look like Justine Frischmann is our understanding of it, neither of which are bad things in themselves)
A website about plimsoles
The possibility of a new Chris Morris series
Oh, and a festival in Lisbon which is going to pretend its Rock In Rio. I see.

Single of the week, as record shops start to get back to proper business after weeks of fending off enquiries like "have you got the single about primal scream therapy from the movie about the rabbit?", is Peaches and Iggy Pop - Kick It. This is a perfect pairing, of course, and just further points out why the Marilyn Manson meets Peaches photo in the last edition looked so plain wrong.

And finally: in the Observer, Colin Murray suggested the best thing about last year was the Darkness, and the worst was the re-appraisal of Elton John's early career. In other words, he's desperate to try and prove he's in on the joke, but doesn't actually have the first clue what it's about. It's like claiming Mike Yarwood is the greatest commedian of modern times without knowing who Harold Wilson is.

BLOWING A FUSE: While EMAP's stations (and, to a lesser extent, Sky's little trio of music channel) nipping at MTV's heels in the UK, MTV is now facing stiff competition on its home turf from upstart music network Fuse - and is playing dirty to try and squish the new competition. MTV is insisting on exclusives from some artists in a bid to try and choke off the supply from Fuse - Radiohead's There, There was one which MTV gathered up to is bosom screeching "mine" (we wonder how Thom felt about that?). At the moment, MTV is able to get away with this because of the squillions of dollars they pay to record companies in licensing deals, and because of their larger audience. But with Fuse being seen as the bright and edgy choice, it's only going to be a matter of time before artists who seek to pretend they're streety start to wonder if they might not be better off on the young network rather than the besuited Viacom behemoth.

NOISES OFF: Although it's apparent that the Tatu jig is up, their management seem reluctant to let them go, and are keeping them alive through a series of stunts in which the women themselves don't actually appear - a bit like that programme on Margo from the Good life that was on last night, only even more rubbish. So, the whole Tatu to run for president of Russia story is cooked up without the actual need for either Yulia or Lena to appear. They have to stand together so their totalled ages takes them over the minimum needed to run for office in Russia and because "we cannot separate the girls," according to the spokesman - which is funny since it's clear they've not been in the same room for several months. We kind of like the idea of the band continuing like Snatch Foster, doing things but always only in reported speech. It's certainly better than watching them.

BECAUSE WE WANT TO: We knew this would bloody happen. Because she made an alright fist of playing herself in the Canterbury Tales, someone's now decided that Billie Piper Evans is an actress and given her a lead role in a drama. She's going to play a "troubled teenager who grows up in a care home" and is abused by the adults in charge who sniff cocaine off her breasts and pimp her out to fading djs in need of a quick boost to their profile.

WHISTLING IN THE DARK: The Californian Police, not unexpectedly, have rejected Michael Jackson's claims that he was mistreated during his arrest. The cops point out that Jacko's chaffing occured on a different part of his arm to the bit where handcuffs go, that in tapes of his time in custody he trills that he was happy and - despite a supposedly disolcated shoulder, he was whistling quite happily as he was driven to the station. Adding to Jacko's woes, they're now thinking of adding an extra charge of false reporting to his rap sheet - worryingly for Mr. J, the witnesses in such a case would be a lot more difficult to buy off. Even if he did get a shedload of money from CBS for his recent interview. Some commentators are suggesting that, rather generously, the US network paid Jackson for giving him a chance to clear his name - which is a step away from Anglia offering Pontins a few thousand to appear in their commercial breaks. CBS insist that no payment was made, which isn't as unlikely as it sounds. The station has got a massive Michael Jackson special scheduled for this week, and to let it play without at least some sort of attempt to distance him from the kiddie shagging allegations would be difficult to justify. The suggestion from Fox News was that the cheque for the special was boosted, so that while not actually directly giving the pale-faced one a payday off the back of the claims, in effect that was what happened. And, lets face it, if anyone knows about making payments to Jacko, it'd be the Fox networks, who gave him several hours of airtime in 2003 to head off the child abuse allegations the last time it happened.

We're buggered, however, if we can make any sense of the whole Nation of Islam bodyguard saga. There's suggestions that as well as keeping Jackson from the world the NOI 'handlers' are sealing Jacko off from his advisors, too. Apparently, Jermaine thinks they're doing a top job, but Michael and his Ma want them out and someone else in. Except the NOI are a little bit like Harry Potter books - once you've picked them up, they're very difficult to put down again. What makes this even more curious, of course, is none of the Jackson clan (as far as we can tell) are even members of NOI. And without wanting to be too cynical, we can't help feeling that it'd be in their interests for Jackson to go down, and provide them with a martyr, rather than be exonerated.

AN ETERNAL QUESTIONMARK: Although it seemed cut and dried that Elliot Smith's death last year was at his own hands, the coroner hasn't been able to determine that Smith was a suicide. This isn't, of course, quite the same thing as saying he didn't kill himself, just that there's a small lingering doubt. But, equally, there's no evidence pointing in any other direction.