First night: Madonna at the Superbowl

Last night, while America recharged its glasses and flushed its toilets, Madonna popped up to do something from the new album at the Superbowl.

How did it go down?

The LA Times' Randall Roberts was left breathless with the audacity:

Think about it. In less than 10 minutes, America watched marching warriors pulling a massive chariot; faux trumpeters announcing the arrival of Madonna; a man name Redfoo with a ridiculously large afro fronting a duo called LMFAO; a polyglot British-Sri Lankan rapper slyly flipping the bird at the camera; a cartoonish multiple-personality Nicki Minaj; and a charismatic Buddha of a singer with a golden voice in one of the best bandleader outfits ever created, to say nothing of his stunning black choir robe.

Audacious, but...

But despite its success AND extravagance, this whole halftime package most of all was little more than an ingeniously well planned — and shockingly transparent — advertisement for "MDNA," and not much more.

It's a little hard to get outraged at the idea of the Superbowl being used to flog stuff. Not least because if you do get outraged, you're then legally obliged to add "this outrage is brought to you by Bud Light - the official beer of mild outrage at Superbowl XLVI."

MTV's John Mitchell also saw MIA's finger:

The pom-poms Madonna promised surfaced when she lit into her new single, "Give Me All Your Luvin," along with a blonde Nicki Minaj and a, ahem, bird-flipping M.I.A.. That's right, the lone bit of controversy around the often provocative Madonna's Super Bowl show will most likely have to do with the Sri Lankan singer briefly flipping off the camera. The otherwise slickly produced show went off without a hitch.

There's a lot of that in the reviews - how slick, how well-oiled it was, how well-choreographed. So that finger has taken on massive significance as it turns out to be the only interesting thing that happened. The Press Association tries to ramp it up as NBC struggles to play it down:

The Super Bowl, shown on NBC this year, is routinely viewed by more than 100 million people, the biggest TV event of the year. "We apologise for the inappropriate gesture that aired during half-time," NBC spokesman Christopher McCloskey said. "It was a spontaneous gesture that our delay system caught late."
The screen briefly went blurred after MIA's gesture in what was a late attempt - by less than a second - to cut out the camera shot. The National Football League (NFL), which produces the show, had no immediate comment.

The fnal verdict, though? As Reuter's Tim Molloy at the end of the performance, the ball would not have moved one yard in either direction:

Twitter responses were fiercely split, but it's hard to imagine what she could have done differently to win over the non-fans. If you like Madonna, chances are you liked her wild, genre-twisting performance. If you don't, you probably didn't.

Gordon in the morning: Noel Gallagher's clarification

Here's some oddness: Gordon has got hold of both Noel's interview with the Mail On Sunday yesterday, and the blog entry where Noel tries to fix some of the damage.

Let's first see what Noel had to say:

There is a headline that implies that I am of the opinion that the years spent under the rule of that soon to be dead granny, Maggie Thatcher, was good for the soul. I've read the story and I must say it's very misleading; any great working class art, fashion, youth culture etc came to be IN SPITE of that woman and her warped right wing views and NOT BECAUSE of them. Also for the record, on the day that she dies we will party like it's 1989. Just so you know.

Funnily enough, a lot of people are already saying 'well, there you go, then, he was misquoted'.

Except, you'll note that Noel doesn't actually claim to be misquoted. Just disagrees with the way the story was presented by the Mail.

Certainly, while Gordon notes Noel's clarification, he still runs it under the headline:

Noel Gallagher: Kids had work ethic under Maggie
...but I'm no Margaret Thatcher fan

and fillets out the key quote:

Noel said: "We were brought up under Margaret Thatcher.

"There was a work ethic — if you were unemployed, the obsession was to find work.
[...]
He said: "Under Thatcher, who ruled us with an iron rod, great art was made. Amazing designers and musicians. Acid house was born. Very colourful and progressive."

Noel's blog entry doesn't even engage with the private school or work ethic stuff; in fact, the only thing he seeks to "clarify" is whether the creative boom was in spite of, or because of. Interestingly, he's actually withdrawing the only thing he got right - you can't have a creative reaction to a thing unless it's because of that thing.

Gallagher could have used his blog to engage with the political points of the piece; instead he just wishes an old woman with Alzheimer's dead. He's hoping he can segment his audience; segment his messages. It's no wonder he hates Twitter.

But why would you give an interview to the Mail On Sunday, and say those things, in the first place, Noel?

Bookmarks: Internet stuff - Liz Phair

I've not written about Lana Del Ray much, mainly because I've struggled with the idea that there's anything much that needs to be said - the whole thing just feels a little too frictionless; all backstory and no plot. Noticeable without being noteworthy. And, apart from a moment when I had to scrape my eyebrows off the ceiling at Prospect magazine, of all places, both throwing in the "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" quote and getting it wrong (it's not a self-description), much of what has been written about her has suffered from the same difficulty finding any point on which to stand in order to move the earth. Yes, yes, manufactured - but both mechanically recovered chicken and the Boeing Dreamliner are manufactured, but they're not the same thing.

All of which is by way of lining up this: the first thing that I've read on Lana Del Ray that I've made it to the end of. I'm not sure I'd expect 'Video Games' to appear at the end of a line on Only Connect that started with 'Fuck And Run', but Liz Phair, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reckons it fits:

I have a lot to say about her, but no sound bites. You see, Lana Del Rey is exactly what I was hoping to inspire when I took on the male rock establishment almost twenty years ago with my debut record, “Exile In Guyville.”

Let me break it down for you: she’s writing herself into existence. She’s giving herself a part to play because, God knows, no one else will and she wants to matter in this life. As far as I can tell, it’s working. I went straight to iTunes and bought her new release “Born To Die” in toto (how often do I do that??) because it was more than a collection of songs or a performance, it was a phenomenon. Maybe all the more so because she’s not overwhelmingly talented. The minute I hear the whisperings of “how dare she,” I’m interested. I don’t have to like it, it doesn’t have to be worthy.

Noel Gallagher: People always drift to the right as they become richer. Sorry, older.

Noel Gallagher pops up in the Mail On Sunday today, giving an interview that will probably excite Mail On Sunday readers:

'It was all better under Thatcher': Noel Gallagher on Britain's glory days, turning his back on drugs and the end of Oasis

Mail readers - who probably believe that Gallagher is some sort of role model to young people - will dance with delight; they might even see this as some sort of rock capitulation. Instead, it's a very rich man sounding like a very rich man.

There was a slim hope that he was just making a misguided claim that rotten government is good for culture, and there is a bit of that:

‘Under Thatcher, who ruled us with an iron rod,’ he says, ‘great art was made. Amazing designers and musicians. Acid house was born. Very colourful and progressive.’

I can't quite remember which member of the Tory cabinet it was who represented the birthplace of acid house - was it David Waddington or Douglas Hurd who had the Chicago seat?

Now, it's inarguable that great art was made during the Thatcher era, but to suggest that that makes the Thatcher era great is just stupid. Everyone can agree that For The Good Of The Cause is a damn-near perfect short story, but it doesn't really make the Stalin era look good from a distance.

And Gallagher isn't just going for the 'it might have been shit, but Ghost Town was a tune' nostalgia. Oh, no; he's going for full-on blue rinse:

'We were brought up under Thatcher,’ Noel Gallagher is saying.
‘There was a work ethic – if you were unemployed, the obsession was to find work.'

No, I've double-checked; this hasn't fallen into the page due to a mix-up with Jeremy Clarkson's copy.

Where do you start? Do you start with the obvious fact that the "work ethic" was a employer/ruling class construct that attempted to use religious imagery in order to impose a rigid pattern on the workforce?

Or that while people want to work, any inherent desire to find labour tends to get crushed out of you when the places your family have relied on for work for generations are closed down as the political class undermines the nation's manufacturing base?

And if there was "the obsession to find work" why was there all the compulsion to take any job that was introduced under Thatcher?

Indeed, the idea that 'back in my day, people would go out and hunt down work' sounds almost exactly like Tebbit's 'on his bike' speech, which supposedly was aimed at the working class during the Thatcher era for not doing that.

But remind us, Noel, what were you doing when you were unemployed in Manchester during the Thatcher years?

"I used to play arcade games when I was on the dole in Manchester," Gallagher continued. "Playing Defender."

Presumably he thought that if you got to level 4 of Asteroids there was a guaranteed job in it?

And on his own blog, Noel paints a picture of his life in 1980s Manchester that doesn't quite sound like a man obsessed with finding work:

Woke up yesterday with a naughty hangover. Felt like a dead shit. It was still raining. What the fuck? Didn't do much. Stared out the window watching the rain. Reminded me of being on the dole back home in Manchester in the '80s.

Well, yes, apart from that obsession with finding work, eh, Noel?

Perhaps Noel should read what this chap has to say, for a slightly-less rose-tinted view of what Thatcher really meant for the working class:

"I remember the 70s constantly being winter in Manchester and the Irish community in Manchester closing ranks because of the IRA bombings in Birmingham and Manchester, and you know the bin-workers' strike, all wrapped up in it... They were violent times. Violence at home and violence at football matches."
[...]
One of his strongest memories is collecting the dole every week with his dad and seeing his friends there, too. "That was the Maggie Thatcher age - everyone was there with their dad."

That was Noel Gallagher talking to the Guardian in 2008.

To be fair, most of Noel's blether is fuelled by a clear total ignorance of what the world is like beyond his cocktail circuit. He defends sending his kids to private school by pointing to the local education system's problems:

There were riot police outside our local school the other morning. Turns out there’d been a stabbing. Rival gangs. We shouldn’t need riot police at schools. This is Maida Vale. This isn’t Handsworth or Tottenham, do you know what I mean?

Noel, sweetheart, have you heard of Philip Lawrence? Do you know where his school, the school he was stabbed outside, was? You moved to the site of one of the most horrible school stabbing incidents in recent British history, and are surprised that there is violence in local schools?

Gallagher's other defence for taking his children out the state system is also a bit alarming:

‘I don’t want them coming home speaking like Ali G.'

I'm not sure Noel is clever enough to come up with a coded way of saying 'I don't want my kids to come home speaking like they're black children', which means we could be generous and assume that he's really, really worried about correct grammar and received pronunciation. That would be it, right?

If one good thing can come out of this, perhaps it will be that the NME will finally stop pretending that Gallagher is any more relevant or interesting than Jagger, Collins or Lydon. Or any different to them.

This week just gone

Top ten - seriously - snow-related stories of all time:

1. One of Snow Patrol gets arrested
2. Gary Lighbody announces an extra band
3. A snow day edition of What The Pop Papers Say - presumably written on a day when it had snowed.
4. Gennaro Castaldo predicts Snow Patrol's first number one with Chasing Cars (It got to six.)
5. Young Jeezy's snowman tshirt creates drug panic
6. On a snowy day, Gordon Smart is reduced to running old snaps of Simon Cowell
7. Mariah Carey claims she frolics in the snow in a bikini
8. Former Snow Patroller warns early reviews of his band will bang on about Snow Patrol (I'm not sure there were any reviews at all.)
9. Geldof insists the 2004 retread of Band Aid "will be remembered"
10. Test Icicles have a half-arsed split

These were this week's interesting releases:


Darren Hayman - January Songs

Download January Songs



Django Django - Django Django

Download Django Django

FREE DOWNLOAD: Default (Tom Furse Remix)



Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

Download Have Some Faith In Magic



Alex Chilton - Free Again: The 1970s Sessions

Download Free Again



2 Bears - Be Strong

Download Be Strong

Adam Lambert not even worth a 'you're no Mercury' gag

I'm struggling to think of under what circumstances 'giving his job to Adam Lambert' could be considered a tribute to Freddie Mercury.

The Decemberists: Heroes of recent wars

It's good that - in the face of the sort of bad publicity even Mel Gibson couldn't generate - the Susan G Komen Foundation have reversed their original decision to punish Planned Parenthood for helping people in difficult situations.

Amongst those who sounded their outrage at a cancer charity behaving like right-wing politicians were The Decemberists:

The Decemberists are deeply troubled by Komen for the Cure's recent decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, a vital resource in the battle against breast cancer. Providing cancer screenings to low income women is integral to the prevention and defeat of breast cancer and it is unconscionable that Komen should politicize this very important issue by bowing to the fear campaign being waged against PP by the right. We've decided to redirect the proceeds of the Team Jenny t-shirts and buttons away from Komen for the Cure. 100% of the net profits of these items will be instead donated to Planned Parenthood's Breast Health Emergency Fund.

Please help to support this essential institution. And, if you've supported the Team Jenny effort in the past, please write to Komen for the Cure via their site or via twitter (@komenforthecure) and let them know that undermining women's health for political reasons is unacceptable.

Update: The Decemberists are pleased that Komen For The Cure reversed their decision.

Reversed for now. The Komen Foundation should be watched, closely.

Bookmarks: Canada

Something for datalovers: a list of every Canadian music act to appear on Saturday Night Live, produced by CBC.

The main lessons? They should have done this list before December, so it didn't end with Michael Buble.

And there have been many more Canadians making the trip to New York in recent years.

Spector settles

A small punctuation point in a long, sad story: Phil Spector has settled a wrongful death suit brought against him by the mother of Lana Clarkson.

Hotpants Romance: Back, back, back

Hotpants Romance - who have been on maternity hiatus - are back. They're returning on Valentine's Day at Salford University. (Sorry - that should be 'Salford University: Manchester', shouldn't it?)

This is what we've been missing:

Mick... Off... Gone

Some sad news from Liverpool: after 27 years, Mick Ord is leaving Radio Merseyside.

He's risen up to the top of the station; it's now the most-listened-to local station outside of London, which is quite an achievement in a pretty competitive market.

He's off to edit the religion and ethics website, reports the Echo. Yes, that's what I thought, but it really would be a spectacular misprint.

Gordon in the morning: Chipper Williams

The only thing more crushing than Robbie Williams launching a Robbie Williams themed poker site is the amount of over-excitement it has created in Tessa Munt:

Ms Munt said: "I am absolutely outraged by this. I think it is deplorable.

"Robbie Williams of all people should be sensitive to the problem of addiction.

"I don't believe there is anything harmless about gambling in this way. The problem is escalation, and he must know what this is like.

"There's no excuse for doing this. Young people are hugely susceptible to this sort of advertising and I am totally opposed to it. It directly targets his fans, including a new generation of children."

I'm not sure it entirely does - it's more a playing-for-matchsticks type gambling, where you can win Williams tat; there's an element of paying for some virtual chips, which is tacky but hardly justifies the reaction of Munt:

She said: "If he wanted to be generous with his time and merchandise surely, with all his enormous wealth, he could visit his fans in his home town and sign posters for them?

"I hope he puts every single penny he makes from it into addiction charities or to help victims over this kind of problem.

"I'm very surprised he is doing this. I think it is awful."

It's tawdry, but is it worse than any other site which offers free games that you then find you have to pay for. I'm all for attacking Robbie Williams, but it hardly seems fair to pick on him for what is a fairly common practice. That much, anyway.

Gordon in the morning: Ice shards

Last week, Gordon Smart was treating Hulk Hogan like he was still an important cultural force. Turns out Gordon's still trapped in 1986 as today it's Vanilla Ice.

Gordon nods as Ice talks about his comeback tour:

The rapper is gearing up for his comeback tour and says: "I want to hit arenas and really put on a big show. I want lasers, pyros and all that stuff, a huge production."

I suspect this hasn't been run past Ice's accountant. I say "accountant", I mean his nephew who's got Excel on his computer.

"There are a few acts I like that would be great to support me – Tinie Tempah, he would be cool.

"A lot of people don't know who he is in the States, they don't play Tinie on the radio over there."

That's the big difference between Ice and Tempah - Ice is transatlantic, and isn't played on the radio either side of the ocean.

But Ice isn't a deluded fantasist - he knows that he might not get Tempah. Don't worry, though, he has a plan b. It isn't Plan B:

"I like Dizzee Rascal too. We hung out at Glastonbury and some of the other festivals so if Tinie can't do it maybe he will."

Yes. Let's hope that that mobile number Rascal gave to Ice doesn't turn out to be the number of a mincab firm in Hounslow, shall we?

Even Gordon struggles with this:

Chesney Hawkes might be keen.

Which does undercut Ice nicely. Unfortunately, it does come at the end of a big splash piece and enormous photo. If Smart believes Ice is a fantasist, why give him so much space in the first place?

With a ladder and some glasses, you could see to Hackney marshes, if there wasn't Tinie Tempah in-between

What's that, Radio One? Your big weekend in going to be in East London this summer?

Yes, that's a brilliant idea. It's not like every bloody thing else is happening in East London this summer, is it?

I'm still at a loss as to how it makes everyone feel like the Olympics is a nation event when it's acting like a giant magnet that just sucks everything, inexorably, back into the capital.

Anyway, line-up: Plan B. Jessie J. Andy C. And some people with full surnames.

John Humphrys snapping at Chris Moyles

Here, perhaps, is a sign that it might be time for Radio One to review their breakfast show: the battle between Chris Evans and Chris Moyles for morning crown is now well over; instead, Chris Moyles is struggling to avoid being beaten by Today. MediaGuardian does the RAJARs:

BBC Radio 4's Today programme had an average weekly audience of 7.15 million in the last three months of 2011, a whisker away from its biggest ever listenership and just 90,000 behind Moyles on Radio 1, who had an audience of 7.24 million.

In other good news, 6Music again reported a record audience. If Mark Thompson had had his way, the station would have been off the air by now.

Madonna remains an educator

The first school Madonna planned to bring Kabbalah to Malawi didn't end well. In fact, it didn't start well, with £2.4million being somehow consumed without a single child being taught about magic water or magic string.

Still, when life gives Madonna lemons, Madonna puts a biopic of a lemon farmer into planning, and so she's trying again.

This time, though, she's giving some money to people who actually know what they're doing, BuildOn.

Madonna seems to think of this as her charity building schools rather than just giving a charitable donation; hopefully the work being done by BuildOn will mean the schools don't have to pretend that New York Kabbalah is an actual thing.

Madonna remains aloof

Madonna has absolutely no idea what people are making of her new film, WE:

She said: "It's been at many festivals now - Venice, Toronto, London and I had a screening at the Museum of Modern Art, and I know a lot of people have seen it and written about it, though I have not read anything anyone's written about it. I think people will like it or not like it."

People will like it or not like it. Well, that's half right.

It's hard to see how Madonna could remain totally aloof from the reviews - surely she must have noticed the planks being hammered across cinema doors, the red crosses daubed on the walls? The report from the screening in Belguim where the entire audience put their own eyes out with spoons?

Still, when Madonna is given lemons, she has her people investigate why she wasn't presented with higher quality lemons. Turns out The Kings Speech was actually just a prequel for her film:

She added to ComingSoon.net: "While I'm happy about 'The King's Speech' because it does set up my movie in so many ways, and it gives people a reference point, the one thing besides the fact I didn't like was how Wallis Simpson was portrayed, they didn't show how close the brothers were."

That's what happens with films, Madge. Things get left out - you know, like the way your film doesn't dwell on the whole 'fawning over Hitler' bit.

Gordon in the morning: TOWIE infection jumps to movies

Mark Wright, the face drawn on a piece of wood from The Only Way Is Essex is going to be in a movie, reports Gordon.

A movie? What sort of movie would a producer think "you know what we need for this? George Michael's death mask"?

He's going to feature alongside Tamer Hassan and Danny Dyer in a new British gangster movie.

Ah, that would make sense. (Did you know they still make British gangster movies? I suppose it keeps Danny Dyer off the streets.)

It's hard to imagine how the inept stunt casting could be any worse. Hang on, what's that, Gordon?

[Mark is] playing Kelly Brook's love interest.

I'm sure the queue for tickets is already forming.

Madonna tries to rake up interest in WE

Having got the hint that nobody cares much about WE, Madonna is trying to shake some life into the thing by trying to reverse an autobiographical theme out of it:

Madonna, who split from Ritchie in 2008 after eight years of marriage, tells Newsweek magazine, "I'd been married 10 years (sic) when I started writing it. And I was certainly asking a kind of existential question that I think people ask when they've been married that long: 'What is the perfect love?'

So, yeah, it's not just a film about a girl called Wally and Wallis Simpson, it's kind of about Madonna, yeah? Right?

But there's a happy ending:

But the Material Girl refused to let her own failed marriage change her views about true love as she worked on her movie W.E.: "When you get to the end of the movie, I think it's very clear they (Edward and Simpson) really loved each other... I am a romantic and I do believe in true love."

And Naziism. True love and Nazis.

TVobit: Don Cornelius

Don Cornelius, who created Soul Train and hosted it for decades, has died.

Cornelius created Soul Train as a black answer to American Bandstand in 1970; within a year it had outgrown its Chicago audience and went into national syndication. It remained syndicated for 35 years, which is a record.

Don remained as host until 1993; the programme continued with out him until 2006.

Given that Soul Train was, perhaps, the highest-profile regular slot for African Americans to appear on prime time television, who better to illustrate it than, erm, David Bowie?



Here's Cornelius interviewing Janet Jackson - he owned the interview. Or at least Soul Train Holdings did:



And here, with Korean subtitles, is Don introducing Betty Wright:



Don Cornelius, who was 75, was taken to hospital with head wounds. Unconfirmed reports in the LA Times suggest these may have been self-inflicted.

MIDEM 2012: What does 'sharing' actually mean

Facebook trumpet round the MIDEM conference with a huge number:

The 2012 Midem Music Conference has brought new data to light about the Facebook Music experience which launched last Fall: over 5 billion songs have been shared via Facebook as a total count since they launched the Facebook Music thing last year at the f8 conference.

Five Billion is certainly a number with a lot of zeroes. But what does this "sharing" actually constitute?

Sharing used to mean making a song available - borrowing (or, if you were an executive stealing) an actual track.

This five billion might include some people clicking on links to hear a song, but mostly just means billions of little blips of data floating up the side of the screen, mostly ignored.

Spacelab is starry-eyed:

What's more, the Facebook music sharing data shows a wholly different group of songs than what you'll find on the Top 40.

Really? Wholly different?

"When we looked at the top 100 songs shared on Facebook, it was a lot of the same songs you would discover if you looked on a Billboard chart. Some artists aren't as famous globally but have local artists with pockets of fans. One example is Skrillex. [He's] not necessarily a top 10 artist, but two of [his] songs [were on our chart.] So that's one of the really powerful things about this. It's not just reinforcing the same songs everybody's listening to, but enabling artists to be discovered in ways that were never possible before at scale," said Facebook's VP of partnerships Dan Rose to Billboard editorial director Bill Werde in a keynote Q&A Monday.

So that's "wholly different" in the sense of "mostly identical, except for a few cases.

(And don't you love the idea that Skrillex is some sort of out-there act who you wouldn't come across without Facebook?)

It's clear Facebook haven't really thought through their pitch - if it's not about reinforcing the same songs everyone listens to, then what's the point of a top 100 listing?

As with most things it touches, Facebook don't offer anything particularly valuable or inventive, and rely just on scale.

Still, five billion has a lot of noughts in it.

Gordon in the morning: One could get a concussion from such a bimp

As we prepare for James Corden's contractually unavoidable Brits hosting, Gordon has bought a magazine which has a photo of him in.

In it, Corden is attempting to be Peter Sellars. Smart's verdict?

It’s Clouse-au but no cigar, James Corden

Oh, yes. Clouseau's famous cigar. How could anyone forget... eh?

Oh, it's just a joke that doesn't quite work - although, to be fair, Gordon isn't the first to make it.

JAMES Corden does his best impression of Inspector Clouseau star Peter Sellers — but it looks like he could do with a few clues himself.

Isn't looking like you need a clue a pretty good impersonation of Clouseau?

James isn't alone in the frame.

The 33-year-old comic donned thick-rimmed specs for the 1960s look — as Georgia May Jagger draped herself across his shoulders.

Well done, Gordon. You didn't describe her as someone's daughter.

The daughter of Rolling Stones star Mick took on the role of Sellers' wife, Swedish film beauty Britt Ekland.

Well, not straight away.

Steve Jones' American adventure comes to a halt

Whoever would have thought that Steve Jones wasn't the right person to host a high-profile primetime US TV series?

He won't be doing The X Factor USA next year.

Never mind, Simon Cowell. That bloke who used to be in The Only Way Is Essex who does the Take Me Out aftershow on ITV2 - you know, Mark something; looks like a man wearing a paper mask of his own face - he's got some time free later this year. Give him a call.

Gordon in the morning: Someone's daughter

How long do you suppose Georgia Jagger's career will have run before Gordon stops headlining pieces about her like this:

Mick Jagger’s daughter Georgia looks ore-some

Presumably the only way for her to stop being someone else's daughter is if she gets married, right, Gordon?

Whatever happened to...?

I'm assuming, by the way, that since there hasn't been a ceremony since 2008, the NME Awards USA has quietly died a death?

NME Awards 2012: The shortlist

Okay, haven't actually looked at these yet, but I'm going to guess that the key theme of this year's NME shortlist will be 'please like us, Lana Del Ray's people'.

Here's the shortlist in full:

Best British Band (supported by Sonos)
Arctic Monkeys
Bombay Bicycle Club
The Horrors
Kasabian
Muse

Best International Band (supported by T4)
Arcade Fire
Foo Fighters
Justice
Odd Future
The Strokes

Best Solo Artist (supported by Rekorderlig)
Adele
Florence + The Machine
Frank Turner
Laura Marling
Miles Kane
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Best New Band (supported by Boxfresh)
Foster The People
Lana Del Rey
Tribes
The Vaccines
Wu Lyf

Best Live Band (supported by Carling)
Arctic Monkeys
Kasabian
Muse
Pulp
Two Door Cinema Club

Best Album (supported by HMV)
Arctic Monkeys - 'Suck It And See'
The Horrors - 'Skying'
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds'
PJ Harvey - 'Let England Shake'
The Vaccines - 'What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?'

Best Track (supported by Fender)
Arctic Monkeys - 'The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala'
Bombay Bicycle Club - 'Shuffle'
Florence + The Machine - 'Shake It Out'
Hurts – 'Sunday'
Lana Del Rey - 'Video Games'


Dancefloor Anthem (supported by NME Radio)
Azealia Banks - '212'
Foster The People - 'Pumped Up Kicks'
Justice - 'Civilization'
Katy B - 'Broken Record'
Metronomy - 'The Bay'


Best Video (supported by NMEVideo.com)
Arctic Monkeys - 'Suck It And See'
Beyonce - 'Countdown'
Hurts - 'Sunday'
Lana Del Rey - 'Video Games'
Tyler, The Creator - 'Yonkers'

Best TV Show
'Dr Who'
'Fresh Meat'
'Misfits'
'Never Mind The Buzzcocks'
'This Is England '88'

Best Festival
Bestival
Glastonbury
Reading & Leeds
T In The Park
V Festival


Best Film
'Black Swan'
'Drive'
'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2'
'The Inbetweeners Movie'
'Submarine'

Best Music Film
'Back And Forth' - Foo Fighters
'Living In The Material World' - George Harrison
'Talihina Sky' - Kings Of Leon
'There Are No Innocent Bystanders' - The Libertines
'Upside Down - The Creation Records Story'

Greatest Music Moment Of The Year
Brian May joins My Chemical Romance onstage at Reading Festival
Kasabian see in 2012 with their epic London O2 Arena show
Noel Gallagher launches his solo career with press conference
Pulp steal the show at Glastonbury with secret set
The Stone Roses reunite

Best Re-issue
Manic Street Preachers - 'National Treasures'
Nirvana - 'Nevermind'
Primal Scream - 'Screamadelica'
The Rolling Stones - 'Some Girls'
The Smiths - 'Complete Re-issues'
(New award)

Best Book
Jared Leto - 'Notes From The Outernet'
Jarvis Cocker - 'Mother, Brother, Lover: Selected Lyrics'
Malcolm X - 'A Life Of Reinvention'
Noel Fielding - 'The Scribblings Of A Madcap Shambleton'
Shaun Ryder - 'Twisting My Melon'

Hero Of The Year
Alex Turner
Dave Grohl
Matt Bellamy
Noel Fielding
Noel Gallagher

Villain Of The Year
David Cameron
Justin Bieber
Lady Gaga
Liam Gallagher
Nick Clegg

Worst Album
Coldplay - 'Mylo Xyloto'
Justin Bieber - 'Under The Mistletoe'
Lady Gaga - 'Born This Way'
One Direction - 'Up All Night'
Viva Brother - 'Famous First Words'

Worst Band
Beady Eye
Coldplay
Muse
One Direction
Viva Brother

Best Album Artwork
Arctic Monkeys - 'Suck It And See'
Bombay Bicycle Club - 'A Different Kind Of Fix'
Bjork - 'Biophilia'
Friendly Fires - 'Pala'
Jay-Z and Kanye West - 'Watch The Throne'

Best Band Blog Or Twitter
@Example
Frank-Turner.com/blog
@KanyeWest
@LadyGaga
@Theohurts

Best Small Festival
Field Day
Hop Farm
Kendal Calling
Latitude
RockNess

Most Dedicated Fans
30 Seconds To Mars
Arctic Monkeys
Hurts
Muse
My Chemical Romance

Hottest Male
Andy Biersack, Black Veil Brides
Dominic Howard, Muse
Gerard Way, My Chemical Romance
Jared Leto, 30 Seconds To Mars
Matt Bellamy, Muse

Hottest Female
Amy Lee, Evanescence
Florence Welch, Florence + The Machine
Hayley Williams, Paramore
Katy Perry
Marina Diamandis, Marina And The Diamonds

Jared Leto's written a book? Bless.

Well, here's a thing; not a heavy stuffing of nominations for Lana Del Ray; just the one, for the fairly meaningless pop video prize. But that's enough for her to be popped into the headline on the noms page:

Arctic Monkeys, Noel Gallagher, The Vaccines, Lana Del Rey nominated for NME Awards 2012

But I think the shortlisting of Brian May getting on stage with My Chemical Romance as being "the greatest music moment of the year" is the thing that screams out of this list as marking their loss of way.

That and Noel Gallagher. I mean, I'm not fond of Liam - you might have noticed - but to pillory his band while the equally inept Half Hearted Birds leader is in with a shout of hero of the year.

And what's the point of the "most dedicated fans" section? Isn't that implied by the level of support for otherwise clapped-out warhorses?

Gordon in the morning: Oi, stop talking and look at my wad

I'm delighted to see the pretence that the Stone Roses reunion is about anything other than the money has been formally dropped today, with Gordon running a story which is one stop short of a naked Ian Brown rolling in a vat of ten bob bits:

STONE ROSES bassist Mani was left speechless after visiting a cashpoint – he'd become £1.8million richer overnight.
[...]
Mani told pals back home in Stockport: "It's madness. I only went out to buy milk and things.

"I went to the cashpoint and someone has stuck nearly £2million in while I wasn't looking.

"The whole world's gone crazy. I could have fallen over backwards when I saw the balance."

Gordon - who, you'll recall, is really excited by the comeback - has run this story through his patented HURHURHURTHEYWEREALLONDRUGSatron:

So you can imagine Mani's disbelief when he tapped in his PIN and saw all that loot.

Back in the day, that would have been down to a really good trip.

Right, Gordon. You don't really get the whole drugs thing, do you?

- "I was so out of it on drugs last night, I thought I'd balanced my chequebook"
- "Me too, I was so off my stylus I was convinced I'd renegotiated my home insurance and got a tidy discount."

Getty takes steps towards becoming a music business, too

You'll be familiar with stock photo behemoth Getty Images, right?

[Insert picture of slightly unconvincing model looking convinced]

They're branching out. They've had a stock music business for a while, but now they're signing up ;name' artists (well, Joss Stone) to provide notes-for-notes. The Next Web explains:

Singing-songwriter Joss Stone was on hand to endorse the announcement. Her new independent label Stone’d Records has partnered with Getty to use the service as a revenue stream. Indeed, Getty is pitching this as a useful source of income for upcoming and established artists alike. The service is designed to simplify the process of gaining the rights to include music in a production, which can be difficult for content producers to navigate.

You could see this being quite attractive to larger media companies - background music which requires neither tortuous negotiations for overseas sales or online use, nor the shuffling down to the library of ominously-titled CDs for something royalty-free. May be a bit of a worry to both royalty collection agencies and library music companies.

Exciting news as the ones everyone has forgotten rejoin The Happy Mondays

I know, I know; we can hardly hear ourselves think above the noise of church bills ringing out for the reunion of The Happy Mondays.

Well, not actual reunion; it's just the continuation of the second reunion, only now with the all-important original line-up of Bez, Shaun Ryder and... erm... you know, the other... two? Three? Was one of them called Spanky?

There's something ironic in Rowetta making the announcement to the BBC that the original line-up of Mucka, Ducka, Trucka, Sucka and Bez; given that presumably she won't be involved.

Had the band that was playing as recently as 2010 been Beaky, Mick and Titch and this was the return of Winona Ryder and Bez, there might be something newsworthy about it. Instead, a band that have only had three years off in the last twelve playing some more dates might just look like it's hoping nobody noticed as it struggles to steal chips off the plate of the revived Stone Roses.

This week just gone

The most-read stories from this month:

1. Gary Glitter's Twitter wasn't Gary Glitter's
2. Why did Megaupload get taken down?
3. Those So Solid Crew Members in full
4. Gordon Smart knows a lot about Robin Gibb's medical status
5. Seal now selling his divorce
6. Michael Jackson Tribute style concert "planned" for Amy Winehouse
7. Hulk Hogan. Yes, it is 2012
8. BRMB dumps name after 40 years
9. BPI insist piracy a problem as Adele album outsells all records, ever
10. Universal somehow forgot to pay the Sugar Hill Gang

These were the interesting releases:


First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

Download The Lion's Roar



Nada Surf - The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy

Download The Stars Are...



Laura J Martin - The Hangman Tree

Download The Hangman Tree



Lacuna Coil - Dark Adrenaline

Download Dark Adrenaline



Chairlift - Something

Download Something



Brett Anderson - Live At Koko



Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur

Download Voyageur



Mull Historical Society - City Awakenings

Download City Awakenings



Francoise and The Atlas Mountains - E Volo Love

Download E Volo Love



Karen Dalton - 1966

Download Live In Boulder



The Skids - Singles Collection

Download Scared To Dance