Posts
All Comments
We started this dip into Kennedy-related pop with a track from a great 90s indie band from Northern England. What could be more apt that winding it down with a track from a great 90s indie band from Northern England?
It's what Kennedy would have wanted. Not as much as a car with a roof, maybe, but I'm sure he would have wanted this.
[Buy Saturn 5]
But, hey, what if today isn't the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death, but in fact the half-century of the greatest hoax in modern times? Luke Powers claims that he's bumped into JFK, and he's alive and well:
Powers joins in the YouTube comments on that video, winningly defending timeline errors as being down to JFK getting a bit old and forgetful as he described what really happened.
[Part of Some seconds with Kennedy]
Murders aren't just about the person killed. There's also survivors, and bereaved. Can you imagine what it's like to have your husband killed next to you; and then to be followed the rest of your life by that incident?
Tori Amos tried:
[Buy: Jackie's Strength]
(You can also buy a karaoke version for a party that'll really go with a swing.)
[Part of Some seconds with Kennedy]
Yes, you can pull together reporter's viewpoints. You can wonder about how fate could be so cruel as to kill a man who was so pure (*cough*). But if you want to tell the story from the killer's point of view - well, for that, you need something heavier.
[Buy: Dallas 1PM]
[Part of Some seconds with Kennedy]
It's depressing that American politics has been so distorted by people with guns you can write a song gathering them together, and not even have enough space in the title to mention all the deaths you're mourning.
It was the killing of Bobby that prompted the writing of this track, but he doesn't even get a look in until the fourth verse:
Although Marvin Gaye does the definitive version, the original was a Dion b-side (because nothing honours a dead hero like giving him a b-side to Daddy Rollin').
[Buy: Marvin Gaye's version
Dion's version
[Part of
Sure, anyone can write a song about Kennedy. But using actual reportage to recreate the murder of Kennedy - and his killer? That's pro work, that is. Steinski pulled it off, and then gave the track away for free on an NME covermount.
Class.
Also: this is a homemade video which lifts the format above its usual level.
[Buy: The Motorcade Sped On]
[Part of Some seconds with Kennedy]
Astonishingly, someone on SongMeanings insists that this is:
ALL ABOUT THE DEATH OF JOHN LENNON.No, no it isn't. This, Phil, is what you get when you hope people will be able to work out the meaning of the lyrics without adding "in Dallas" to the lyrics every third line.
You have to wonder: if Zapruder hadn't been there with his camera, would Kennedy's assasination still hold quite the fascination it does today?
Anyway, the shot that was heard around the world has been reverberating through music ever since, and today, let us enjoy our breakfasts accompanied by some cheery songs about a man having his head smashed open by a bullet, shall we?
Kennedy gave The Wedding Present their first bona fide hit.
It's also been covered by Kerbdog
[Buy: Kennedy by the Wedding Present]
More Kennedy-related songs:
Human League - Seconds
Steinski's Mass Media - The Motorcade Sped On
Dion/Marvin Gaye - Abraham, Martin & John
Saxon - Dallas, 1PM
Tori Amos - Jackie's Strength
Luke Powers - I Saw John Kennedy
Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5
James Arthur and Lucy Spraggan having a Twitter fight about homophobia. This never happened in the old days of talent shows - you didn't get Pam Ayres and Lena Zavaroni squaring up over the Biafran War, did you?
Obviously, Arthur is on the wrong side of the argument. Spragggan called him out on his "it's not gay bashing because I rapped it" logic from last week and Arthur, despite his quitting of Twitter last week, felt the need to come back and defend himself:
He then called Lucy ‘just another narrow minded person in this narrow minded country with narrow views’ and added that she could ‘say whatever you like on you’re Twitter [sic].Yeah, how narrow minded can you be, Spraggggan? With your 'homophobic bullying can lead people to kill themselves' viewpoint, you're really making it difficult for people like Arthur to enjoy his freedom to call people "fucking queers". I mean, did you not read the story, Spragggggan? He only called a straight person queer - how could that possibly be homophobic?
‘My album sold 10 times youres in it’s first week so you can f*** off with you’re career sh**e… two faced fickle attention seeker. Dissapear [sic].’It's actually true that every album you sell makes your facts a little more correct.
And for you’re information my album was self-pennedThat's true. James Arthur's album, also called James Arthur, was entirely self-written. James and James alone.
One of the stranger aspects of Lily Allen's Hard Out Here shotstorm has been that it happened at all. Hadn't she quit music for the fashion industry? How come she's back making music?
May or may not be related: Lucy In Disguise, Lily's fashion business, has been put into liquidation, apparently:
On Sunday, the Mail Online revealed that the brand's backer Aurora Fashions - which also owns Coast, Oasis and Warehouse - was "granted a compulsory winding up order against the company in the High Court earlier this year."Hang on a moment, though...
Aurora claims it was forced to take legal action after Lucy In Disguise failed to pay back a £100,000 debt in sufficient time. It is still owed £12,000.
Saddened and more than a little bit annoyed to read in the weekend papers that Lucy in Disguise is finished... Well, here I am at Lucy in Disguise, 48 Lexington Street, Soho, London with a shop full of customers trying on vintage classics – looking for that special outfit for Christmas!! I don’t’ think I’m dreaming, no they are definitely real people in a real shop.In 2012, there was an attempt to wind up the company, but - ironically - the attempt failed because the person who turned up to present the order was badly dressed:
It seems that the press can’t get enough of raking over old stories and trying to make something new out of it – strange really as this is what Lucy In Disguise does really well – creating fabulous new looks from fashion pieces from a bygone era!!
Just to put the record straight for everyone.... Yes, there were some financial problems back in 2011 and yes, a couple of ideas for the business didn’t really gel, BUT things have moved on since then.
October 08 2012There was another attempt in June 2013, and this was successful.
A winding-up petition presented to the Court against Lucy in Disguise LLP was this morning dismissed by Chief Registrar Baister on a technicality.
The petitioner was represented by a solicitor from law firm Ellis Taylor. Unfortunately the solicitor was not appropriately attired in legal court dress and was refused audience and was therefore unable to address the Companies Court. As a result the petition was dismissed.
Nobody appeared at the Companies Court on behalf of Lucy in Disguise LLP which otherwise may have been able to obtain an order for costs of and occasioned by the petition against the petitioner.
Roger Daltrey has announced that he will never vote for Labour again.
Why, Roger? Is it because a man with three houses voting for a party of social justice might be too much irony for you?
Depressingly, no: it turns out that it's foreign people upsetting him:
I will never, ever forgive the Labour Party for allowing this mass immigration with no demands on what people should be paid.Didn't Labour introduce the minimum wage which, pretty much, is a demand on what people shou... oh, hang on; he hasn't finished.
I will never forgive them for destroying the jobs of my mates because they allowed their jobs to be undercut with stupid thinking on Europe, letting them (immigrants) all in, so they can live 10 to a room working for Polish wages.This might sound unlikely, but it turns out that Pete Townshend has been replaced with ten Poles. Shocking.
Here's what the Migration Advisory Committee goes on to say:Even someone who worries that perhaps foreign people are coming to the UK to get access to cheap-ish prescriptions and IDS' welfare disaster doesn't buy that they're stealing jobs, and wonders if there might not be some sort of other agenda at work here.
But this possible displacement of British workers only holds for those migrants who have been here for under five years. Both EU and non-EU migrants who have been in the UK for over five years are not associated with displacement of British born workers. Between 1995 and 2010 employment of such working age migrants rose by approximately 2.1 million. The associated displacement of British born workers was, on our own calculations, around 160,000 of the additional 2.1 jobs held by migrants, or about 1 in 13.
[...]
There are some reasons to worry about immigration. The evidence is ambiguous, but it's not unreasonable to think some foreigners may be coming to claim welfare. There is also a cultural argument, and while I wouldn't make it, not everyone who does is a racist or a bigot; Ed West frequently makes the case convincingly. But while it is reasonable to be worried about immigration, it is simply not true to suggest that "foreigners are stealing our jobs" or that immigration is responsible for unemployment. And those who do, in defiance of the evidence, make me wonder about their real motivations.
"I've got nothing against the Poles at all but that was a political mistake and it made me very angry and the people who get it in the neck are the immigrants and it's not their fault."You know the best way to help those people who are given a hard time? How about not standing up and yelling that they're undercutting wages and causing mass unemployment when it really isn't true, Roger?
Katy Perry's Prism album comes with a piece of paper encrusted with seeds. Plant this album.
It's turned out to be a terrible idea, though - not just because it's a rip-off of Richard Brautigan's 1968 poetry book, but because it's dangerous. A letter in the Guardian at the weekend from the International Plant Protection Convention explains:
Regrettably, the album was manufactured and sold internationally along with seeds of unidentified origin, which has caught the attention of the IPPC and our member national plant protection organisations around the world. Although the distribution of seeds by Ms Perry, as evidenced by her Twitter account, was to "spread the light", our work focuses on ensuring the safe trade of plants and plant products and, most importantly, protecting plants from harmful pests and diseases to protect food production and the environment.An album promo campaign which never, ever stops eating all your seed corn. Puts Avril Lavigne doing interviews pretending to still be 16 in a kindlier light, doesn't it?
We cannot turn a blind eye to Prism and its possible repercussions. Seeds could easily introduce an invasive new species to an environment, like the wood-boring beetle, resulting in widespread destruction. Depending on the species of flower inside Prism's seed paper, the risks may be small, but commercial movement of seeds into many countries is subject to assessment of those risks, restrictions and prohibitions. The introduction of pests can results in millions of dollars in damage, and some pests can never be eradicated.
[Vanessa Findlay, Australia's chief plant protection officer] says she cannot recall a time where the Department of Agriculture and pop music have crossed paths.And, hey, if it takes a beetle destroying Australia to make that happen, that's a price worth paying, right?
"It's caused quite a stir around here. We've had lot of people walking around the halls talking about the Katy Perry CD," she said.
"Most people are excited to think that there's an attachment between biosecurity and someone as popular as Katy Perry."
And she says employees with kids have found themselves the source of some unexpected attention.
"I think most of us are famous at schools around Australia at the moment because [kids are saying] 'my mum and dad are working with Katy Perry'," she said.
After James Arthur's surprisingly homophobic rap from a couple of days back comes the attempt PR fightback. You'll recall Arthur called another musician "a fucking queer", so it's quite a hole he's got to dig himself out of.
It might be best to be careful how you go about it, James. I mean, you don't want to just crash in and send a bunch of ill-considered Tweets.
In a series of tweets which have now been deleted, Arthur apologised for using the homophobic slur...Oh.
The Mirror has published the tweets, in which Arthur commented: "I just have to say I'm extremely disappointed in myself for being so naive with the diss track I made for an unknown rapper recently."I think we can all understand where he's coming from - weren't we all young and naive once, calling people "fucking queer" in all innocence?
I Would just like to make it completely clear that it was not meant in anyway as a reference to homosexualityOh, that's okay then. It was one of those queerbashing that isn't a bashing of queers.
I realise where the term has come from in meaningYes, you would. Because what else could you have meant by it?
but used in the context of the rap battles I have grown up with it has come to mean something completely differentAh, James. I see: we thought you'd used a gay slur aimed at a straight man because you thought it was a way of attacking him, but actually you were trying to create a teaching moment for the rest of us who hear straight people yelling "queer" and think we know exactly what's going on.
That said, I understand why it could cause offence and that definitely wasn't my intention.You were trying to insult a man by calling him gay. In what way was the intention not to be offensive?
Some of the things said in this rap can be mistaken for homophobic slursYeah, that's the funny thing about 'fucking queer' - it's surprising how often that gets mistaken for a homophobic slur in this day and age. Why, I've pretty much stopped writing 'you fucking queer' in Christmas cards these days as people take it all wrong when they open them.
and I assure you homophobia is something I do not believe inJames, given you're clearly a stupid man, I wouldn't be surprised to discover gravity is something you don't believe in. But that doesn't stop your toast soldiers from falling on the floor when you drop them.
I have many many gay friendsYou might want to check your voicemail before you assert this so firmly.
In rap feuds/rap disses the words I used have a different intent.Perhaps it's intended as a term of praise?
This is a straight man I was attacking.You realise that is kind of the reason why it's offensive? That you think calling a straight man "gay" is a dis. You do understand that is the whole point of why you are so far in the wrong here? Surely?
A straight man who littered his track...But you're a straight man, too, James.
... with severe homophobic slurs towards me.Well, why didn't you say so? That's alright then. Micky Worthless recorded a rap which flung homophobic insults at you. You returned in kind.
Like I said though it was a rap dissThat isn't an excuse. It sounds like you've got one of those beliefs - like 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' or 'you can't get pregnant the first time' or 'it doesn't count if you don't kiss them afterwards' - that might offer some sort of befuddled justification in your head but doesn't actually have any basis in any law, whether the Code Napoleon, Law of the Jungle or natural law.
Given that the government seems to be hoping homelessness is a side-effect of house prices not going up enough, the work done by Shelter is more important than ever.
But did you ever wish you could help Shelter while listening to some indie music?
Now you can: simply download Music For A Good Home 2 while slipping at least five quid to Shelter, and you'll help move the debate on the lack of affordable housing on a bit further than, well...
The most-popular stories published in 2003:
1. What the pop papers say: Brody Dalle, John Lydon
2. NME awards shortlist 2003
3. What the pop papers say: London News Review; Observer Music Monthly; The Word
4. What the pop papers say: Ringo Starr to track Santa
5. Rose West decides not to marry the bloke from Slade
6. RIP: Kevin Macmichael of Cutting Crew
7. What the pop papers say at Christmas
8. Review of Channel 4's Morrissey biography
9. Avril Lavigne keeps it clean
10. All the radio stations on Sky in February 2003 reviewed
These came out this week:
Cate LeBon - Mug Museum
Download Mug Museum
Microdisney - Everybody Is Fantastic
Wooden Shjips - Back To Land
Kim Wilde - Wilde Winter Songbook
Download Wilde Winter Songbook
Erasure - Snowglobe
What do Mika and Swatch have in common?
Yes, yes, besides both having once been inexplicably popular despite reeking of clunky, bright coloured plastic. And now being pretty much biding their time until they can scramble onto an ironic retro revival.
Besides that.
It turns out they're both thirty years old, and so Mika has been invited to design Swatches to celebrate.
In fact, not watches but:
two colourful timepieces inspired by tribal mask motifsYeah, they're busy watches.
“The patterns are a mix of designs that can be found in Tunisian, Moroccan, other African and Oceanic tribal motifs,” according to Mika. “The tribal mask heads are a mix of sources; it’s difficult to pinpoint what they might be. But it doesn’t really matter, because they have the same function ― they’re there to inspire curiosity and awe.”Ah. It doesn't really matter whether there's any coherence to the work so long as you can think about it. That might sound like the sort of lazy cop-out you'd come up with if you'd just knocked something together, but I'm sure it isn't.
James Arthur is well on his way to being a Pointless answer in the X Factor winners category in a year or two. You might have caught his appearance on Children In Need last night; even with what seemed to be seventy other people on stage, the song and performance was totally empty. It was like watching someone humming in a very busy bus station. Even his tattoos seemed to be embarrassed to be part of it.
It wasn't the worst thing involving James Arthur yesterday, though: he's outed himself as a racist homophobe, too.
Somehow Arthur got himself caught up in a rap diss war with Mickey Worthless. Miss, miss, Worthless started it:
‘You sucked Simon [Cowell’s] bell to get your deal. You suck Simon’s bell and Louis [Walsh’s]’ as well. Yeah you did, you faggot. Yeah you did, fuck off.’Leaving aside the obvious homophobia of this line, if it was true, then surely Arthur could at least be said to have put in the hours to get his deal?
“You’re a terrible rapper, you should shoot yourself”[...]Ah, yes. The moral high ground of adding pedestrian racism to homophobic insults.
“You fucking queer. Hilarious, precarious you Talibani confused, imbecilic mimic of a gimmick”.
He thought he was Mr Rap Battle, so he had to get it. He asked for itYou'll note that Arthur seems convinced that it is HE who is Mr Rap Battle.
The Offspring aren't entirely sure what to do with the GREAT NEW MUSIC they're about to make:
In the true spirit of punk rock, Noodles seems unconcerned about what’s going to happen next.I've had uncles who talked like this - 'yeah, it's actually really liberating to be sleeping in a car, because you can just park up where you like, right? The whole world is my hotel. I could sleep by Loch Lomond, or outside Windsor Castle, or on the top of Snowdon. Although mostly I spend my nights in the hedge outside your aunt's house crying."
“At this point, all options are open. Either we go back and try and renegotiate a deal with Columbia or work with someone else or maybe even make our music free on the internet.
"In a way it’s very liberating, as well as being scary, not knowing what to do and having to figure it out for ourselves, but you know, we’ve been doing this for quite a while and I’m sure we’ll land on our feet.”
So, Brand New are doing some dates in the States, and their popularity, unfathomable though it may be, has brought out the scalpers.
One disgruntled fan contacted one of the profiteers and took issue with the size of the mark up.
The scalpers response? He created a Craigslist advert with the complainant's details on, apparently offering tickets for sale.
After the murder of two members of Yellow Dogs and others earlier in the week, New York is rallying round. Brooklyn Vegan reports:
Monday (11/18) at Brooklyn Bowl there will be a "Special Memorial Evening / Fundraiser" featuring performances from Nada Surf, James Chance, Luke Temple, Dirty Fences, Kyp Malone (of TVotR), Helado Negro, Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), Iranian visual artist and activist Shirin Neshat and more; plus DJ sets from Paul Banks (Interpol), Jonathan Toubin, Sinkane, Vito & Druzzi (The Rapture), The Men and more.There doesn't seem to be a non-tickety way of donating if you want to help out but can't be in Brooklyn, but if we come across something we'll pass it on.
Tickets ($15.00 - $30.00) for the benefit go on sale Saturday (11/16) at noon. 100% of the door will be going to the families of the deceased, the hospital bills of Sasan Sadeghpourosko who was wounded in the shooting, and then as well as the two surviving members of Yellow Dogs.
Journey have announced a $350,000 donation to the food programme getting vital supplies out to the Philippines after the typhoon.
"Don't stop believing, help is on the way for the people of the Philippines," said [Manila native and Journey lead singer] Arnel Pineda, who is leading the efforts to mobilize the coalition of partners.If it had been me, I might have chosen not to shoehorn the song title into the statement, but even so: generous work, Journey.
Ah, the end of one of the great partnerships off our time: Loveable Rogues have been waved off by Syco:
Speaking to Jon Hornbuckle for Digital Spy, the band put the reason behind the split down to a conflict of ideas about the direction the group should take, but insisted they had parted with the Sony imprint on "good terms".It's not entirely clear what the different plans the band and Syco had, although the smart money is on Syco planning to wait until people had forgotten the band ever existed before quietly dropping them from the roster. And the band didn't have the being forgotten part of the plan.
They said: "It didn't really work. We had different plans to what Syco had for us. It's different for them because we ended on good terms with them and they're not really used to that!"
I don't think anyone's surprised that Lady GaGa has moved past her peak, but some American analysts have been caught out by the speed of the decline:
Lady Gaga's new album ARTPOP is predicted to sell an estimated 260,000 copies in its first week of sales in the US.Born This Way sold over a million copies in the first week; that was helped out by a 99cents deal at Amazon, but even if you strip out all those Amazon sales, Artpop has managed about half of what Born This Way did.
The new figures come after industry experts predicted an initial pre-release forecast of 300k-350k.
To mark the release of the Talulah Gosh retrospective (for which he wrote the liner notes), Everett True measures his love:
I loved them because they loved the same bands as me – Razorcuts, The Pastels, (early) Soup Dragons, Buzzcocks, Ramones, Girls At Our Best!, Marine Girls, Altered Images, Shop Assistants, (early) Primal Scream, The Shangri-La’s, The Ronettes, Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike, Dolly Mixture. I never knew this at the time … except for the first three or four, obviously … it was just an unspoken understanding.
I loved them because they were always ready to burst into a quick chorus of “ba ba ba ba” at the drop of a hair-slide.
Lily Allen's probably wishing she'd stuck to covering Keane and helping John Lewis flog festive geegaws.
Instead, she's found herself caught up in being guilty of not having addressed every single social wrong in a three-minute pop parody video.
There's a lot of stuff been churned out about the Hard Out Here video, and, I suspect, there is much more to come, although anything that goes beyond 'perhaps Allen didn't think through absolutely everything through from every angle' is probably overboiled and aimed at a soft target.
What is quite interesting, though, is the interesting and polite interaction between Suzanne Moore and Lily Allen on Twitter last night - proving, at least, that it is possible to disagree, and disagree about fundamental and important things, without resorting to ALLCAPS FUCK-LOBBING.
What is even more interesting, though, is that Allen appears to have deleted her messages to Moore, leaving Moore appearing to be talking into thin air. It's a pity, as Allen made a really sharp point, reminding Moore of the time Suzanne accidentally upset trans people.
It all ended with this:
2) Feminism is cool about disagreement . I respect. @lilyallen We are grown ups . We both give as good as we get.
— suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) November 14, 2013
Is Johnny Borrell upset by the pissweak sales of his solo album, Borrell1?
Of course he is.
But is he going to admit that?
No way. Take off your shirt and put on your brave face, baby:
''It is being heard and appreciated by as many people as possible! It is!After all, if anyone enjoys it, that's a bonus, right?
''If that's 500 people, that's 500 people. If those are the 500 people that are open enough at this point in time to heard this record, f***ing fantastic man.''
''I would rather play to 80 people who are switched on enough, and unprejudiced enough, to get what's going on with this band right now, than to play to 80,000 people who are there because that's the CD that's out this year or whatever.''Yeah, because why would you want to cram your pockets with a payday when you could, instead, be playing the backroom of a pub somewhere for peanuts and the odd lager top?
Lady GaGa popped onto the Howard Stern show to snidey-dig at Madonna and Perez Hilton.
I know what you're thinking: "surely at least three quarters of the people mentioned in that sentence aren't still going, right?"
So, Stern asked GaGa why Madonna "has an issue" with GaGa. GaGa has a theory:
: "I think she's more aggravated that I'm not upset that she doesn't like me. 'Cause I don't care that she doesn't like me... No, I don't care... It's such nonsense.In effect, then, GaGa asked "am I bovvered?" Because she doesn't care about Madonna. Not her. Why would GaGa even have any interest in what Madonna was thinking, right?
"[Attacks from people like Perez Hilton are] really rooted in Madonna, that's the centre of it. It's silly... There's always this pissing match: 'She's taking her torch, is she the new her, is she going to outlast her or not?'"
"There's this thing with some people that I'm a threat to the throne. I don't want your f**king throne, no thanks, I have my own," she added.Pssst... Stefani, remember you're not meant to be any better than the fans.
"I actually don't want a throne at all, because I don't view myself as a queen, I view myself as one of my fans."Hey, why don't we have a giant throne which everyone can sit on. Except Madonna, obviously.
Madonna performed a mash-up of her song 'Express Yourself' with Gaga's 2011 hit 'Born This Way' during her 'MDNA' world tour.Have you got that? GaGa really doesn't care what Madonna may, or may not, have done or may, or may not, have been feeling. She genuinely can't stress enough how little thought she gives to Madonna at all. Ever. Barely even flits across her consciousness. It's certainly not like she's got a room called The Madonna Room, which she sits in for three or four hours at a time, staring into the eyes of a giant Madonna poster, chanting 'what do you want of me' over and over.
Gaga said in response that she was "kind of floored", adding: "I'm not quite sure what her intention was - to do that in the show - but I don't really care."
Apparently music is in need of saving, in some way, and VH1 has appointed itself saviour.
Of course, it can't save music on its own - it has other demands on its time, making programmes about tattoos - and so has some ambassadors on board:
Britney Spears has joined the VH1 Save the Music Foundation's 2014 Ambassador Class, a consortium of musical superstars that includes Taye Diggs, Jason Derulo, Hunter Hayes, Gloria Reuben, Diane Birch and Cher Lloyd. The artists have banded together to promote music education in American schools.It's a laudable aim, but Cher Lloyd and Britney Spears don't quite strike me as the right people to address the main problem with teaching music in American schools, which is Americans don't want to pay the taxes that would fund it.
There's a pretty grim story coming from New York this morning, as a split in an indie band has come to a horrible, bloody end: Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie, formerly of Iranian group The Free Keys, appears to have shot Arash Farazmand and Soroush Farazmand of the Yellow Dogs. A third man, Ali Eskandarian was murdered; after firing on others, Rafie turned the gun on himself.
The New York Times has pieced together the full story, which appears to hinge of Rafie's falling out with the rest of the Free Keys and the easy access to guns in America.
