Racist Justice?

French TV is shunning the current video by Justice, for the Stress single. The promo's depiction of youths running amok in the streets has an apparently racist tinge to it. The ensuing controversy, and YouTubing of the video, has sparked some life into Justice's career. We're sure, of course, that there's nothing in any way cynical about the whole operation. No, no, no.

American idles: Is the steamroller running out of steam?

This week's edition of American Idol - the one where Paula Abdul provided a critique of a song that didn't exist - was notable for another reason; the show dropped off 1.2 million viewers week-on-week; its worst performance in a half-decade. There is a season for all things - could, at last, Cowell's behemoth be entering its autumn?

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Jeff Jarvis on the Decade Delta:

iTunes is 5 years old this week. The seb internet turned 15 yesterday. The decade delta between those dates is the generous amount of time the music industry had to save itself from the fate that overcame it … and didn’t. In these five years, iTunes has sold more than 4 billion songs. Think of how many songs the music industry could have sold us if only they’d gone with the flow of new opportunities and given us the chance instead of persecuting us and resisting reality while trying to preserve outdated business models based on outmoded technology.

Organic pop sales

Following on from the success - or, perhaps, not quite so much success - of Starbucks' CD sales, now the US supermarket chain Whole Foods is launching a 'discover new artists' campaign, flogging CDs from acts starting with Greg Laswell.

Laswell does, at least, have the beard-and-sweater of the type of person who happily shops at Whole Foods, paying the shocking mark-up on produce accounted for by some sort of woolly-lovely idea that driving to one massive store is, somehow, more kind to the planet than driving to your nearest supermarket and buying the same stuff at lower prices.

Rod Stewart's son: cleared of bricks

Rod Stewart's Son, Rodstewart'sson Stewart, has had charges against him dismissed. Sean Stewart, who makes his living as Rod Stewart's son, had been accused of assault with a deadly weapon, but his attorney argued that it wasn't clear he'd been involved in the throwing of missiles following a dispute on the road:

His attorney Dana Cole said: "Over the course of time, it became apparent to the district attorney's office that it may have been mistaken identity. There were a lot of people on the street at the time and he was a recognizable face."

We love the idea that his defence rested on his supposedly famous face, but it's worked. A civil case relating to the incident remains to come before the courts.

Venuewatch: The Lomax revives

For one night only, the Liverpool Lomax is being celebrated with a reunion on the 28th May at, erm, The Cavern. Ticketmaster are flogging the tickets, and the line-up is quite good:

Ian McNabb and the Dead Gratefuls
Amsterdam
The Aeroplanes
Man From Michael
China Crisis
Phil Jones
Frank Sidebottom (full Beatles set)
Eddie Shit

It's probably inevitable that Eddie Shit is on the list; he seemed to be something of a regular at the old Lomax. Although on nights when you'd never leave Old Man's Pub across the street.

Lindsay Lohan becomes a poster child for drunk-driving

Several states in America are currently pondering legislation which would make convicted drunk drivers install a device in their vehicles which would make their cars incapable of starting if they try to drive drunk.

The drinks industry is, for some reason, confused by this - it's decided that while drunk-driving is bad, it's also some sort of human right. And so it's running adverts with photos of Lindsay Lohan. No, really:

The full-page black-and-white ad appeared in USA Today on Friday and was paid for by the American Beverage Institute, a trade group that supports the interests of the alcohol industry. The ad reads "Ignition interlocks are a good idea for" above Lohan's mug shot from her July 24, 2007, arrest and "But a bad idea for us" above smaller photos of people drinking.

We're not entirely sure if they're suggesting that Lindsay Lohan - and Lindsay Lohan alone - should be breath-tested every time she starts a car, and that everybody else should be free to drive while intoxicated lest it interfere with their business, but it does seem like that.

Lohan's people, meanwhile, have suggested that she thinks the ignition interlock might be a good idea all round:

USA Today is idiotic to run such an irresponsible advertisement suggesting that drinking and driving is some kind of American 'tradition' we should protect," Lohan's lawyer, Blair Berk, said in a statement. "Not identifying that this ad was paid for by the liquor and restaurant industries is profoundly reckless.

"Drunk, white businessmen, drunk housewives out for girls night out and drunk wedding parties should be kept off the roads of America," Berk continued. "Lindsay Lohan fully endorses ignition interlock devices, which have been well-proven to save lives."

The US drinks industry seems to miss the reason why people are upset by the idea that some Americans should be allowed to drive drunk as if it upholds a tradition:

The American Beverage Institute stood by its use of Lohan's image.

"People magazine, Smoking Gun and a lot of people have republished this mug shot," said Longwell. "It was publicly accessible. We're not using it for any kind of commercial gain. So we're well within our rights to use it."

It's not that you used Lohan's picture, you idiots, it's that you think it's a good idea to campaign against the measure in these terms in the first place.

Does Diddy know what he's saying?

We're sure P Diddy-Wah-Wah didn't quite mean to make the surprising announcement he slipped out in Hollywood:

"It's also like my coming-out party here in Hollywood," Combs told AP. "I don't have nothing to hide about that. If I'm going to come someplace, I'm going to make some noise, and you're going to know I'm here."

So, that would be Diddy being out and - with nothing to hide - proud. We feel as if we should send some sort of card.

Darkness at 3AM: We bet Jessica's relieved, too

We're suspecting that she hasn't actually been asked, but 3AM heard on Heat Radio that Ashlee Simpson won't be playing Jessica's wedding to whoever she's getting married to.

Yes, the 3AM Girls have now replaced research with "listening to Heat Radio". Still, it does allow them to discover that Pete Wentz has some sort of pet's passport:

She missed Pete so much on her trip to London she had him flown over.

He'll be reunited with her just as soon as he's out of quarantine.

Not stirred

So, after more packing in more flip-flops than a busload of British tourists heading to Orlando, it turns out that Amy Winehouse won't be doing the new Bond theme. Because - surprise - she's too screwed:

Speaking to Sky News, Mark [Ronson] explained: "We tried to work for a little bit. I'm not sure she's ready to work on music yet."

Asked if the track would ever be completed, he replied: "I don't think so unless by some miracle of science it gets recorded and someone sings a vocal on it so probably not. We did work on it but we never finished it so that's about it."

Amusingly, Winehouse's people have countered the project foundered on "muscial differences". Like Ronson wanted to make some, Winehouse wanted to just score.

Stop honking your mouth out

There's another story on Gordon's page this morning which is also picked up by Stop Crying Your Heart Out, a pro-Oasis news site. Michael Eavis has expressed his disappointment at Noel's attack on Jay-Z:

“Why did he need to get involved? It was a bit weird, to be honest.

“He should give someone else a chance. He needn’t have said that and I was disappointed he did.

“He said it’s a place for guitar bands — but there are loads of guitar bands playing.”

Why did Noel get involved in something that he understands little about, and has nothing useful to add? Because he isn't dead, presumably.

SCYHO, though, isn't going to let Eavis get away with a moderate exasperated tut:

However, I reckon Noel has every right to make his feelings known and was only saying what most music fans were thinking.

Well, yes, he does have a right to make this "feelings" known - even if they're so ass-headed they were communicated in fart-sounds - but that doesn't mean there was any real need for him to do so.

And "what most music fans were thinking", eh? I'd love to see some empirical evidence for the belief that "most music fans" dislike Jay-Z more than, say, Noel Gallagher.

Gordon in the morning: Fashion advice shunned

Poor Gordon isn't happy: Lily Allen has ignored his fashion advice, prompting that what-is-he-thirteen "look you can see her nipples" "She's hiding Smarties down her top" joke that he does every time.

Elesewhere, he reports on some sort of battle amongst people who have sex with footballers. Fiona Barratt (who is girlfriend of Sol Campbell, apparently in lieu of a career) moans about Victoria Beckham on what appears to be grounds of being less than famous than her. People tried to take pictures of Beckham during the world cup, it turns out. Just fancy that.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

James Cridland went to the Guardian's Radio Reborn conference earlier this week, and took notes:

Paul Brown, DRDB: is fed up of the radio industry ’staring up our own fundements’. I do like Paul. Points out listener figures, and set sales, are high. Says commercial radio isn’t very good at selling ads on digital radio, interestingly. Very bullish about radio in the future. Says that radio has been hampered by ‘indecisiveness’ because of being owned by shareholders. Says that commercial radio doesn’t crosspromote enough. Mentions that PlanetRock had more Sony Radio Academy Award nominations than any other national station (not entirely sure that’s right, but it did get quite a few).

The comments are great, too:

I like how Fru had to say that GCap were bigger than last.fm.

A few years ago it would be obvious that a commercial radio group would be bigger than an internet station. Now it’s become notable. How the internet changes things…

James Taylor afternoon: Her Town Too

Continuing an afternoon with James Taylor, JD Souther turns up for a run through Her Town Too:



[Part of James Taylor weekend]

Xfm goes networked

The geniuses running XFM have decided that, in future, much more programming on the regional stations will be networked during the day.

Great news for the Manchester branch of the network, then - having managed to increase its share of all listening in its region from 1.2% to 2.30% in twelve months, it's now going to have dump lots of its programming to make way for stuff coming from London, whose share of all listening fell from 1.80% to 0.90% in the same period. Apparently this is somehow going to help "the financial viability" of the brand.

Hives "let gorillas choose set list"

The Hives are playing some sort of festival at a zoo, and according to NME.com are letting the animals choose which songs they'll play:

Speaking to NME.COM, The Hives' singer Pelle Almqvist said he was letting the zoo's animals influence his choice of setlist for the gig.

"We're a bit scared that the gorillas will start a riot if we don't play the right songs," he explained. "We've never played a zoo before you know? Once we played at a festival in (hometown of) Fagersta in a field and their were cows there. Did they like our music? Well cows are pretty chilled out generally aren't they? So yes, I think so."

Given that the Zoo Thousand and Eight festival at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park also features Chas and Dave, we shouldn't expect The Hives would need to worry about what the animals think of their set; they'll clearly be at the other stage.

James Taylor afternoon

Back to 1977, and James Taylor is joined by Carly Simon to sing Close Your Eyes:



[Part of the James Taylor afternoon]

Non-existent record attempt made by Beth Ditto and, erm, Pearl from Powder

We don't like to be snarky at charities, we really don't, and Crisis do brilliant work and we suggest you support them. Give them some money. Go on.

Having said that, what on earth is point of the thinking behind the "bid to break the world record for number of downloads of a charity single on a single day"? We know it's supposed to create a bit more interest around the Enemy/Beth Ditto/Paul Weller/Supergrass single, but how is making up a record which nobody would ever have even thought of really going to help?

They've got Pearl Spam from Powder involved:

Ambassador for Crisis, Pearl Lowe, said: "Before everyone goes off for the bank holiday, we want them to think about giving something back and helping us to set this world record."

But it's not a world record, is it? It's just quantifying something that's never been measure before, like me deciding I'm going to break the world record for the most embedded James Taylor videos in a music blog on a Friday. Good cause, terrible half-arsed marketing idea.

Beware of the Dogg

Despite the appeals judge pointing out that the great Snoop Dogg Heathrow fight consisted of him trying to entertain some kids while the police and British Airways staff went in heavy-handed, the government has announced it intends to appeal over plans to let Snoop Dogg come back into the UK. Probably because Brown desperately needs one policy to remain unchanged week to week:

"We maintain that the immigration judge in the initial hearing made a material error in law.

"We will continue to oppose the entry to the UK of individuals where we believe there may be a risk to the public."

Curious they should insist it was an error in law, rather than in judgement, as we're pretty certain the appeal by Mr. Dogg was upheld because the judge didn't think there had been any risk demonstrated, not because of some clever, Alan Shaw style legal arguments from the Snoop team. Does the Labour government really feel that British people would sleep less soundly if Snoop was allowed to take rooms in Hounslow or Havant? Are they that far out of touch?

Kylie knight

The French government who, frankly, seem to hand out membership of the the order of Arts and Letters like a commercial radio station hands out signed photos and goodie bags, has decided to honour Kylie Minogue by awarding her the title:

Minogue, who will collect the honour at a ceremony in Paris on May 5th, has been given the award for her “contribution to the enrichment of French culture”.

Blimey, she must have done wonders for Olivier Martinez, musn't she?

Kylie is thrilled, too:

“French culture has influenced me greatly and I have always had colossal respect for the arts and people of France,” Minogue added.

Well, she did have a hit with a French title, didn't she?

Embed and breakfast man: James Taylor afternoon

BBC Four is having a James Taylor night this evening from nine, with all manner of Tayloresque programming. Never having any shame at hitching our bicycle to ride in the slipstream of a bigger bus, we're going to sprinkle some Taylor over the afternoon.

This is You've Got A Friend (the theme from the AA advert, as I suppose we're meant to think of it now) live in 1971:



More James Taylor this afternoon:
With Carly Simon doing Close Your Eyes in 1977
With JD Souther doing Her Town Too

[Buy: One Man Band CD-DVD greatest hits one-two]

Darkness at 3AM: Somewhat in the dark

Gordon might have made himself look a little silly by trying to pretend that his review of the Madonna gig in New York was an "exclusive", but compared with this morning's 3AM Girls, he looks like a man in control of his brief. Mirror readers are told to ready themselves this morning:

Madge will also launch her assault on the US media this month to promote Hard Candy.

Did nobody even send them a press release?

Erm, yes, apparently, as at the same time Mirror readers are told about Madonna flying to New York to promote Hard Candy. Although, surely, that must have been on Tuesday?

Gordon in the morning: A new meaning of exclusive

You might have enjoyed reading reviews of Madonna's New York gig over the last day and a half. Apparently, Gordon hadn't, as he seems convinced that his review was somehow "exclusive". Although, to be fair, his fawning piece is the only one which didn't mention her falling over at the end or the vocal track screwing up, so it's exclusive in that sense.

Mind you, Gordon didn't only have eyes for Madonna. He was very excited by Justin Timberlake, too:

He’s a complete Lord, JT. The man simply oozes charisma, dances like MICHAEL JACKSON and he spread a smile across Madonna’s face with his cheeky performance.

While Gordon is over in New York, someone credited simply as "online reporter" is holding up the nipple count in his column:

Desperate Jay sinks to new low

IF there was a letter after Z in the alphabet, that’s the list JAY NICHOLS would be on.

The desperate glamour 'model' - a veteran of the capital's party circuit - pulled her oddest stunt yet by turning up at Chinawhite wearing this number.

Hmm. Oddly, having rolled eyes at how desperate Nichols (who she?) is, the paper then obliges by running pictures of her. And giving her a load of coverage. Surely that makes Gordon's column much more desperate than the woman? Calling "look at me" is one thing, but rushing over yelling "look at the woman calling 'look at me'" must be worse.

Meanwhile, Pete Samson again delivers a proper exclusive - which may or may not be true, of course - claiming not just that Pete Doherty is going to be released on Tuesday but will then spend the next three days "getting smashed". You can tell it's a serious story, as they actually source a quote. Admittedly, only this one:

Ex-Home Office minister ANNWIDDECOMBE [sic] declared: “Nobody should ever come out that early.”

The real surprise, of course, is that Pete's planning a three-day boozy celebration - didn't the Sun tell us he'd become Muslim during his time in jail? Why, it's almost as if that wasn't true.

Only Guy Hands would invest so much in a dying business

The guy who tried to cash a $360 billion cheque claimed that his girlfriend's mother had given him the money to start a record label. Presumably she was only investing for ten per cent of the stock...

XFM: The great switch-off

Bloody hell, no wonder the team at XFM panicked and brought back daytime presenters: the experiment of dumping DJs has caused the station to tank, mislaying 40% of its audience year-on-year, according to today's audience stats.

The trouble for XFM is that its audience is younger, smarter and more plugged in to the web - having persuaded a couple of hundred of thousand of them to look elsewhere for entertainment, it's going to be virtually impossible to tempt them back.

Still, at least the hollowing out of the XFM audience has spared its 'flagship' sister station the humiliation of being overtaken by the indie-snits down the corridor. Capital is continuing to do badly - the Vaughan-Van Outen breakfast show now languishes behind Magic and Heart. Capital MD Paul Jackson is insisting that it's still "early days" for the new schedule, although since Van Outen popped up on the station back in February it doesn't really seem all that early in the day. Perhaps Jackson has a different concept of "early" to the rest of us. Maybe he thinks getting up at Noon is "early to rise." If he does get up at midday, it would explain why he thinks the Vaughan-VanOuten breakfast show is a good idea, I suppose.

More worryingly for Capital, it's now having its arse kicked by Kiss:

Kiss had 1.58 million listeners, the first time it has had a bigger audience than Capital [on 1.56m], although its audience share of 4.3% is behind the GCap Media station's 4.6%.

Nationally, both Moyles and Wogan had record audiences at breakfast and Radio 1 has broken the 11 million barrier - the first time since back when Sara Cox was doing breakfasts.

Darkness at 3AM: A little behind deadline

Perhaps the 3AM Girls really do stay up to 3AM writing their column, which would explain why (a) it reads like it's been written by people who desperately want to be asleep and (b) it sometimes doesn't come spuming out of the TrinityMirror RSS machine until lunchtime.

Now they're live, we can all enjoy what sort-of-passes for wit amongst the Spice Girls:

Geri Halliwell has taken a pop at Eddie Murphy, who still hasn't seen his baby with her fellow Spice Girl Mel B. Asked to name her favourite Murphy film, Geri sneered: "Daddy Day Care."

Well, yes, that'll show Murphy.

They also find room fro this:

Kelly Osbourne certainly doesn't have the luck of the Irish. She tracked down digits for Danny O'Donoghue, of Dublin rockers The Script, so she could call for a meet-up - but he was in LA working.

Woman discovers man she doesn't know isn't in when she phones him! Hold the front page! We do, however, enjoy the implication that while Osbourne might lack the luck of the Irish, it certainly didn't desert O'Donoghue. If, of course, he really was working in LA, and not merely hiding behind the sofa mouthing "tell her I'm in LA" when Kelly rang.

Elvis in London

The latest Word podcast had some fun with the claims that Elvis Presley came to London and hung out with Tommy Steele without anyone noticing, suggesting it's a tale with the stamp of something that someone once said in passing that got passed around and more-or-less backed Steele into a wall of having to claim it was all true.

Now, someone who was with Presley on his trip to Europe has officially squashed the tale:

"My apologies to Tommy, but it did not happen," said Mr Fike, who was in the US army with Presley in Germany.

"I was with him the whole time," he told the BBC News website. "I got there two days after he got there. He was confined to base."

Presley did visit Paris and Munich during his 18 months in Germany, Mr Fike said, but added: "Had he gone to England, I'd have been there."

Steele has previously tried to play down the tale:

In a note to the Daily Mail newspaper, Steele said he "swore never to divulge publicly" what took place and "regrets" that news leaked out.

"I can only hope he [Presley] can forgive me," he said. "It was an event shared by two young men sharing the same love of their music and the same thrill of achieving something unimaginable."

Elvis achieved the unimaginable of inventing fame and turning Rock and Roll into a mass-market commodity; Tommy Steele managed the unimaginable of persuading ITV to make Quincy's Quest. We imagine they would have had an awful lot to talk about. Had the meeting ever happened.

We're expecting Tommy to send another note to the Mail in a couple of days saying "Did I say Elvis? I meant I showed Hans Lohmmann, my German penfriend, round London. I always got those two muddled up."

Quincy's Quest? Oh, you do:

Mojo Awards: They like their Duffy

The annual Mojo awards, which they call the Mojo Honours (slogan: 'Every bit as important as the Q Awards') have issued their shortlist for 2008. It's come out now so you can manage your expectations down.

The nominations in full:

Breakthrough Act
1 Duffy
2 Foals
3 Pete Molinari
4 The Last Shadow Puppets
5 Bon Iver

Best Album
1 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute)
2 Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino)
3 Radiohead – In Rainbows (XL)
4 Duffy – Rockferry (A&M/Rough Trade)
5 Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Decca/Rounder)

Compilation Of The Year
1 Theme Time Radio Hour With Your Host Bob Dylan (Ace)
2 The Very Best Of Ethiopiques: Hypnotic Grooves From The Legendary Series (Buda/Manteca)
3 Cries From The Midnight Circus: The Ladbroke Grove Scene 1968-1971 (Sanctuary/Universal)
4 From The Motion Picture Control (Warners)
5 Juno OST (Warners)

Song Of the Year
1 LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends (DFA/EMI)
2 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute)
3 The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age Of The Understatement (Domino)
4 Richard Hawley – Tonight The Streets Are Ours (Mute)
5 Duffy – Mercy (A&M/Rough Trade)

Best Live Act
1 Arctic Monkeys
2 Rufus Wainwright
3 Seasick Steve
4 Led Zeppelin
5 Neil Young

Actually, it's easy to mock the Mojos (go on, have a go) and, yes, of course it's got Alex Turner running through it like a rust-stain on a public lavatory wall, but at least there are a couple of names on the shortlist which mark it out as having a slightly different intent to the others. We love the idea that Bon Iver is an act which has, in some way, broken through something in the last twelve months.

Of course, they'll wind up sharing out the prizes between Turner and Duffy and, thus, turn themselves back into a simulacrum of every other awards ceremony. But at least they've tried.

You can trust the music industry

All those guys in the record labels - they're pretty straight kinda guys. You can trust them.

Up to a point. The Australian RIAA client has got an only-slightly-sinister-sounding Music Industry Piracy Investigations unit which has produced a video for kids to teach them about copying being bad. It turns out, though, that they got some musicians to take part by lying to them:

Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall, also a radio presenter at Triple J, told the Herald he was furious at being "lumped in with this witch hunt" and that he had been "completely taken out of context and defamed" by the Australian music industry, which funded the video.

He said he was told the 10-minute film, which is being distributed for free to all high schools in Australia, was about trying to survive as an Australian musician and no one mentioned the video would be used as part of an anti-piracy campaign.

The MIPI Unit denies that anyone was duped:

Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), which partly coordinated the film and is pushing for it to be included in school units related to copyright and file sharing, said all of the feedback she had received so far from other artists and their managers had been positive.

She questioned whether McDougall had actually watched the film and said only 1-2 minutes of it discussed the issue of downloading and how it impacted musicians.

- although it seem strange that a Piracy unit would be making a film which wasn't actually about piracy, and push for it to appear in schools when teaching about copyright if it wasn't about copyright. We love the way they're saying "well, nobody else complained" as if that somehow disproves McDougall's complaint.trip

Songwriter's payday: AOL, Yahoo, Real told to dig deep

A Federal Judge in the US has settled the long-running debate about how much the major internet companies should be paying to songwriters. The judgement could be backdated to the start of the millennium; sample figures suggest that AOL will have to find six million dollars, for example, to cover 2006 alone.