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Really? Does the world really need a Michael Buble/Reese Witherspoon duet?
"By all accounts it would be true," he said of working with Witherspoon. "I just really am a big fan, and so myself and my camp, we wanted to do this with her, and we were thrilled that she was excited about it too."Buble's camp made him want to work with Reese?
Now that Elizabeth Price has won the Turner Prize, Talulah Gosh are all over the place this morning.
There's an unintentionally hilarious piece on Contact Music, which talks about the C86 scene as if it was on the edges of living memory:
The band are said to have formed after Price met Amelia Fletcher in a club in Oxford, bonding over the fact that they were both wearing Pastels badges."Some old timers claim they had devices called geetars, which they would somehow use to make twanging noises. Other tales tell of unusual hair shapes, sometimes coming down to the eyes..."
Before long, they found themselves spearheading the twee-pop sound of the 1980s.That might come as something of a surprise to Orange Juice.
Of course, no indie band of that time was worth their salt unless they’d recorded a session for the BBC’s John Peel show and sure enough, that was broadcast in 1988.Someone wrote that sentence.
Price, the former member of Talulah Gosh, now joins the ranks of Gilbert & George and Damien Hirst – both former winners of the prize and major players in the British art world.No.
For the second day running, Gordon is enjoying the slow sales generated by the Tulisa album:
LANDING a guest performer spot on The X Factor is usually a sure-fire way to a chart hit.(Actually, as No Doubt discovered awkwardly, performing on the X Factor isn't a guarantee of success at all.)
But singing on last Sunday’s results show and sitting on the judging panel clearly hasn’t helped TULISA.
Early chart figures yesterday showed the former N-DUBZ singer’s debut solo album, The Female Boss, limping along at an embarrassing No17.
Worrying news from Birmingham, where a flat has been proposed for a building adjacent to the Hare and Hounds.
As we've seen before, there's a tendency for people to build residences right next to venues which have been operating for donkeys', only for the residents to move in and object to that venue "making noise".
Naturally, the Hare And Hounds is worried - they're getting a petition together.
Gordon is trying to not look too thrilled at early indications that Tulisa's album isn't selling well:
THE early signs aren’t good for TULISA’s debut solo album.At the moment, it's 122nd in the Amazon chart (and 130th in the MP3 chart.)
Despite a primetime promotional slot on The X Factor on Sunday, The Female Boss started yesterday at No27 on the iTunes chart.
It later crept up to No22 – behind KELLY CLARKSON, KE$HA and even JOOLS HOLLAND.
Olly Murs currently has the number one album and the number one single in the UK charts.
Think about that for a second.
Have you come across The Promo Bay yet? It's a spin-off from The Pirate Bay activities, where artists across a range of endeavours submit their content, willingly and happily, in the hope of being picked up for wider exposure.
Except they're not getting the exposure, in the UK at least, because UK ISPs are blocking them. TorrentFreak reports:
Promo Bay’s Will Dayble believes his site has ended up on some of the ISPs’ blocklists “by accident”.But that would imply that blocking - far from being the scalpel-like weapon it's claimed to be - is like a blunderbuss strapped to a hammer.
“These providers are pretty monolithic and old school, I’d imagine it’s just a broad-scale block against a bunch of Pirate Bay properties and we fell under the net. I doubt it’s a pointed move against the Promo Bay in particular,” Dayble tells TorrentFreak.
This happened a week or so ago, but I think it bears retelling.
Chris Gentry, who was once in Menswear, bought a platinum disc online, and posted a picture holding it, with a humorous note saying Nuisance had finally gone platinum after all these years.
Digital Spy picked up the story, and ran it as FACT.
Now, Digital Spy you could perhaps forgive for not spotting it as being a bit unlikely. Johnny Dean, however, you would have thought would have spotted it was all a bit of a giggle.
After all, he'd have been told how many copies the record would have sold, right?
Um... unfortunately, Holy Moly reports that although he had that information, he decided to believe the Digital Spy story rather than the more likely-sounding facts:
But lead singer Johnny Dean was less sceptical. A “source close to the band” tells us he immediately began to enquire as to the whereabouts of his missing money, making accusations of mismanagement, believing himself to be the victim of a great rock ‘n’ roll swindle.Now, to be fair, it's not implausible that that could have happened - labels and management and accountants have done worse in the past.
To "celebrate" the arrival of version 11, the most-read stories about iTunes in No Rock history:
1. AC/DC remain off iTunes
2. Guy Garvey loves filler tracks; hates iTunes
3. Heather Mills takes the credit for bringing Beatles to iTunes
4. iTunes is overpriced
5. Beatles sell tolerably well on iTunes
6. Apple ship an iTunes so buggy, you'd swear it was Microsoft
7. iTunes sales plummet. Really?
8. iTunes launches variable pricing
9. Remember the iTunes LP format? No, nobody else does
10. EMI predict variable pricing, just four years before it happens
These releases were interesting:
The Lovely Eggs - Wildlife
Download Wildlife
Cerys Matthews - Baby, It's Cold Outside
Marc & The Mambas - Three Nights Of Little Black Bites
Download Three Nights...
House Of Love - House Of Love 3CD version
Download House Of Love
Saint Etienne - Casino Classics
Download Casino Classics
Sonic Youth - Smart Bar Chicago 1985
Download Smart Bar
Liverpool's SevenStreets fears for the poor receptionist at the Maritime Museum, forced to listen to The Farm's Altogether Now on an endless loop, all day:
Can you feel that pulsing ice of terror running through your veins at the thought of having to hear “All together now…all together now…All together now…In no-man’s land…” hundreds of times a day with no respite? Listening to the fading sound of Peters Wylie and Hooton wailing away knowing that the Pachelbel-cribbing opening bars are about to remorselessly start up again and there’s nothing you can do to stop it? You couldn’t even put headphones on as that would look ‘unprofessional’.Footnote: I once spent a New Years' Eve in a small Cambridgeshire village; the locals in the pub were unamused by someone in our party putting Altogether Now on seven times in a row. I had a degree of sympathy of them.
Mostly driven by the fear of what it would cost if they won, countries are starting to pull out of next year's Eurovision Song Contest.
Portugal and Poland have both said they won't turn up; Greece and Cyprus are making noises which suggest they might not have the cash to be part of it. That they've only managed one win between all four nations might suggest the fear of an expensive win might be a little misplaced. But even the costs of taking part are proving something of a barrier.
Portugal, interestingly, sat out in 1970 on some sort of moral principle after the first prize had been shared by four countries the year before.
There are some songs whose lyrics are cryptic - who is the Walrus? Why is the bustle in the hedgerow? Why did Nik Kershaw release The Riddle in the first place?
And here's one The Wall Street Journal is puzzling over:
What was the song "Summer of '69″ all about? @bryanadams on music, photography and his career: on.wsj.com/11kV48J
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 30, 2012
Since the BPI's miserable failure to try and close down access to The Pirate Bay, the UK variant of the Pirate Party has been running a proxy service.
The BPI is now trying to get that closed, too, reports Torrent Freak:
Referencing the Party’s pro-freedom stance, [Geoff] Taylor apparently told Kaye, “Freedom of expression is not an absolute right. It comes with a duty to respect the rights of others, including those whose talent, hard work and investment help to create music and other entertainment.”That's so true - who can forget how Evelyn Beatrice Hall caught Voltaire's stance - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, providing you don't somehow impinge on an investment by Vivendi while you're doing it."
Hello.
Are you in charge of organising some sort of entertainment over the coming month or so? A school play, a Very Special Christmas Episode of something? Maybe a sports review of the year?
If you are, this is a plea going out to you.
Look at the bit of script where someone suddenly breaks into a dance, Gagnam Style.
Look at that bit, pick up a pencil, and scrub it out.
Yes, yes, you can't say "2012" without saying "Gagnam Style". But that's as in "god, I fucking hope once we're over 2012, people will stop with the Gagnam Style."
I know you're doing it to get a laugh. I know that you've chosen the most unlikely person to yell "Gagnam style" and do the dance. I know it's going to be the head teacher, or Bob from accounts, or - God help us - Patricia Hodge as Miranada's mother, saying "what I like to call Gagnam Style".
How many nativities are being planned with an "edgy", "cheeky" entrance of The Three Kings Of Orient celebrating the birth of a Tiny Tears Jesus with - ho ho - a traditional Eastern dance?
Pick up your pencil, strike out the dance.
Believe me, the loudest cheers this Christmas will be yours if you do. The producers who resist dragging Gagnam Style into their shows will be hoist upon shoulders, and paraded through the streets. I don't think it's going too far to suggest statues might be raised; medals struck.
Don't go Gagnam on us.
Thank you for listening.
Frank Barsalona, American gig promoter, has died.
Calling him a promoter rather underplays what he did - sure, he was the man who first brought The Beatles and The Stones to America, but really he did much to create the very idea of there being a "live circuit", helping establish a business which has proved to be more resilient than selling small plastic circles with music on them. As his New York Times obituary records:
Dave Marsh, the rock critic and biographer, called Mr. Barsalona a founding father of the rock business. “The most significant entrepreneur of ’60s rock was not a record company president like Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun or CBS’s Clive Davis, or even a sharp promoter like Bill Graham,” he once wrote. “That title belongs to a balding, rotund booking agent named Frank Barsalona.”Frank Barsalona was 74; he died following complications related to Alzheimers.
Wild Beasts are doing a small show. Rather than just throw open the server and get a twenty second sell-out, though, they're holding a lottery:
Members of the public who want to enter a ticket ballot for the show can do so via the band's official website.You can throw your virtual hat into the cyberring on the Wild Beasts website.
The draw will close on Monday, December 3 at 9am, after which randomly-selected winners will be sent a link to purchase tickets.
There's a certain old grey whistle test wisdom in Robbie Williams playing all visitors his new album to see if it's any good:
Rob said: “I’ve been scared, thinking this sounds great, sounds confident, sounds big.As if the foot-dragging of a Yodel delivery wasn't bad enough, they now have to factor in ninety minutes for every delivery in case they have to pull a polite face.
“I’ve been having all sorts of people come in and have a listen — the mail man, the dustman, people delivering things from Amazon..."
“I said, ‘Come and have a listen to this. What do you think should be the first single? Is it good?’You're standing asking a postman if Candy should be the lead single. That's exactly where you are in pop culture.
“You see, this is a really important album for me.
“Every album is important but this one definitely shows where I am in today’s society and pop culture.”
Gordon is outraged this morning. OUTRAGED:
How can Plan B so thick?What has he done? He hasn't gone and backed Leveson calling for state regulation of newspapers, has he?
PLAN B won’t be voting for BRADLEY WIGGINS at next month’s Sports Personality Of The Year awards.Not knowing a sports person would surely be a gap in general knowledge rather than evidence of being "thick", wouldn't it?
The cyclist’s achievements over the past 12 months apparently haven’t registered at all.
In fact, the rapper — real name BEN DREW — had no idea who the Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medallist is.
Ben only became aware of his identity after losing out to the Team GB star in an online poll to find the UK’s most influential man.If Mr B really didn't know who Wiggins is, how would he have been able to make a joke about riding bikes?
[...]
Ben said: “I dunno who he is. But how many people has he influenced to start riding bikes? Not as many as I have to wear suits.”
We read everyone else's picks of the year so you don't have to. Or, more honestly, we read everyone else's picks of the year so we can churn out a post without having to think much about it.
This post will continue to be updated through the next month of so.
Last updated: 30-12-12
Lest we forget: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008
[Part of the 2012 inch remix]
ABC News entertainment blog's album of the year:
Regina Spektor - What We Saw From The Cheap Seats
The Age's album of the year:
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
Billboard's Top 200 albums number one of the year:
Adele - 21
Billboard's Hot 100 number one of the year:
Gotye Featuring Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know
Tim Burgess' favourite album, via Twitter:
Carter Tutti Void - Transverse
CBC's worst musical moment of the year:
Meat Loaf and Mitt Romney singing God Bless America together
Clash Magazine's top album:
Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe
Digital Spy's best single of 2012:
Carly Rae Jespen - Call Me Maybe
Female First's best albums (in no particular order):
Little Mix - DNA
Christina Aguilera - Lotus
Aiden Grimshaw - Misty Eye
Adam Lambert - Tresspassing
Rihanna - Unapologetic
The Fly's top album:
Sharon Von Etten - Tramp
Grime's favourite live act, via The Observer:
Doldrums
Highest-earning musician of 2012, via Rolling Stone:
Dr Dre [$100 million]
Lesbians In My Soup's album of the year:
Aesop Rock - Skelethon
Vincent Neff of Django Django's best live act, via The Observer:
Krar Collective
NME's albums of the year:
5. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
4. Crystal Castles - III
3. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
2. Grimes - Vision
1. Tame Impala - Lonerism
Kevin Parker of Tame Impala's favourite music discovery, via The Observer:
The Field
Paste Magazine's best new band:
Matthew E White (he's not actually a band, is he?)
Li Robbins' best World Music Album, via CBC:
Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars - Radio Salone
Aerrow Shapiro's best track, via KSSU:
Jack White - Sixteen Salteens
Spotify's most shared artist:
Adele
Sweeping The Nation's album of the year:
Grizzly Bear - Shields
Time's top album:
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
Time's top song:
Usher - Climax
It's not much now, but this will be the anchor post from which all the review of 2012 posts will hang.
The most-read pieces from 2012 were:
1. Noel Gallagher pines for the Thatcher days
2. Gordon Smart promotes the Tulisa sex tape
3. MySpace surges back... sort of
4. Brits Liveblog
5. Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony
6. Mick Jagger endorses Boris Johnson
7. Frank Skinner thinks the Brits isn't as good as it used to be
8. Whitney Houston considered
9. Spotify announce intention to kill iTunes
10. Kanye West reckons he could be an architect
Other people's picks - a list of highlights from best of lists
Review of the year:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Vale 2012 - some of those who didn't make it through the year
Interesting releases - a few of the more interesting records of the year, but not all of them as life was too short to debug the list
After 96 weeks, it looks like everyone who wants one has finally got hold of a copy of Adele's 21, and it's finally dropped out the chart.
Only out the Top 40, of course. She's still in the top 50.
The Quietus has a brilliant interview with Shane McGowan; one of the highlights is McGown revealing his unexpected collaborators. The dead:
"I actually see people dictating to me behind me through… they call it the third eye, but the Japs reckon you've got at least eight, apart from the two here. I've seen ghosts behind me in period costume dictating songs on a couple of occasions. 'A Rainy Night In Soho' was automatic writing. I had no idea what it was about. I had a vague idea by the time I got to the fourth verse but until then I hadn't got a clue what was going on."("The Japs"? Really, Shane?)
Yes, Chris Brown has left Twitter in order to spend more time with his unfocused rage issues.
Although 'not having Chris Brown on it' has improved Twitter by a massive leap - they're currently using the strapline 'Sign up - it's okay, Chris Brown has gone' on the homepage - Brown did take the approach of a disgruntled student tenant and had a crap in the middle of the carpet before he left.
You'll have read elsewhere about his torrent of tweets aimed at Jenny Johnson, triggered by her refusing to pretend that Brown is some sort of god. But in case you haven't, or are reading this in four year's time, here's a flavour of what America's greatest living poet came up with:
"take them teeth out when u Sucking my dick HOE."That last one is especially puzzling - the retina is inside the eye; and even if it wasn't, does Chris Brown poop out tiny little shits that he can control with laser-guided accuracy?
"I should fart while ur giving me top."
"mom says hello... She told me not to shart in ur mouth, wanted me to shit right on the retina."
Before shutting down the account, Brown told his fans that the exchange proved "how immature society is."Quick FYI, Chris: If you've climbed to the top just to shit in a stranger's face, it probably isn't the moral high ground any more.
Louder Than War is reporting the death of Flowered Up's Joe Maher.
Not many details in the report, but terrible news.
The depressing sight of Pete Doherty selling the memory of Amy Winehouse to the Mail On Sunday is just another grubby episode in a parade of grubby episodes.
But there was a darkly amusing moment in the piece, where it transpires Doherty sees drug rehab the way other people use gym memberships, something you plan to do after a Christmas blow-out:
"It [the Thai rehab] was an unbelievable experience for me. I went through the detox and experienced life clean of drugs. It gave me a vision of how the future should be.What's more likely to happen, of course, is that he'll sign up and pay; go a couple of times and just drink the free orange juice, before forgetting where he put the card and making a definite, definite pledge he'll start going more often when the evenings get lighter.
"Unfortunately, I wasn't ready mentally to commit and I ended up coming home. My plan is to finish writing my new solo album and head back there in the New Year. I want to have a proper run at it, scramble over the wall and land in a world of cleanliness."
Who knew that Martin Kemp has lived his life under a cloud of the thickest, darkest shame?
No, not apparently for the late-period Spandau Ballet output, but for how he joined the band:
Kemp, 51, was recruited for his brother Gary’s band, then called The Gentry, at his mother’s insistence.I'm not sure you should feel shame at having your mum go down the school and insist you be allowed to play with the other boys; and it's not like the original bassist ever turns up, Pete Best style, playing his own version of Chant Number One and claiming to be the One True Spandau.
But his arrival displaced the existing bassist, a fact Kemp says he still recalls with shame.
Keisha out of The Band Comprising All The Former Sugababes can't, apparently, talk about her experiences in the Sugababes:
“Legally, I’ve been told I can’t go into detail. I can speak for England and I’d enjoy telling the world exactly what happened but I can’t. I pretty much found out when everyone else did. We had a really good relationship.”Yes, nothing screams "great relationship" like not even being able to talk about it for fear of being sued.
The most-read stories from this month:
1. RIP: Mitch Lucker
2. MySpace have a plan
3. AC/DC suddenly realise iTunes might not be so bad after all
4. Neil Young's Pono will destroy iPods
5. Shakespeare and Jeff Buckley - together at last, alas
6. Lenny Kravitz to try to be Marvin Gaye
7. Pitbull hopes we'll respect him when he dies
8. Chris Tarrant is still grumpy
9. Newspaper Licensing Agency wants to be paid for quotes
10. Gordon Smart exclusively reveals the Sherlock news we knew last winter
This week's interesting releases:
Mogwai - A Wretched Virile Lore
Download A Wretched Virile Lore
The Walkabouts - Berlin
Download A Wretched Virile Lore
Blue Nile - Hats
Download Hats
I think David Rodigan was the only surviving member of the original (legal) Kiss FM line-up from 1990; but he's gone now, resigned in protest at the marginalisation of his show and reggae in general on the network:
David Rodigan said he was leaving Kiss FM after 22 years "with great sadness" after being moved to a midnight slot.Sunday nights at midnight is a pretty grim slot, especially compared with the veritable shop window he occupied before:
He said the change "left me no option but to make a stand for my passion".
The DJ's hour-long Sunday show had previously been broadcast at 23:00 GMT.Seriously, though, even though it's just another hour later, there comes a point where you have to take a stand against the chiseling away of the slot; a point beyind which too much piss has been taken.
