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Apparently, before yesterday, this wasn't on YouTube:
And if that seems unlikely, here's someone who should know saying it's a first:
REVOLVER - Crimson - first time on Youtube! https://t.co/a8rD8sMA1m via @YouTube
— Mat Flint (@matflint) August 15, 2015
It's easy to forget when watching Miley Cyrus trudging through tropes that were probably best left alone just what a horrible childhood she had.
She reminds us in Marie Claire this month:
Covering the September issue of Marie Claire, the former Disney star opened up to the magazine about how she came to question her physical appearance after years of being "told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show."I'm presuming here she meant that she had massive tantrums, rather than webbed feet. I think. Although if Disney had decided she should have webbed feet, you can bet that excess skin would have been grafted on pretty swiftly.
"From the time I was 11, it was, 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing,' " she said. "Meanwhile, I'm this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like Toddlers & Tiaras. I had f—ing flippers."
Cyrus admitted that she began to develop body-image issues from how she was portrayed falsely on the Disney Channel series, telling the magazine, "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, 'Who the f— am I?' "So, having felt this weight, Miley's not going to play along with those rules:
She added, "When you look at retouched, perfect photos, you feel like shit. They lighten black girls' skin. They smooth out wrinkles. Even when I get stuck on Instagram wondering, 'Why don't I look like that?' it's a total bummer. It's crazy what people have decided we're all supposed to be."
Despite societal pressure, the pop singer told Marie Claire she won't be conforming to traditional beauty standards.Which is both a wonderful sentiment, and also sort-of hard to square with the announcement last week that Cyrus has signed on for a second run of promotional work with Estee Lauder's MAC cosmetics brand.
"I'm probably never going to be the face of a traditional beauty company unless they want a weed-smoking, liberal-ass freak," she said. "But my dream was never to sell lip gloss. My dream is to save the world."
Coming shortly from Nada Surf is an album which records their March 2014 Seattle gig. They're thrown us a bone in the shape of this track:
Tom "Bloody" Jones isn't a happy man. He was fully expecting to continue his judging role on The Voice - which effectively means sitting in a chair for fifteen weeks, occasionally jerking awake to say "Bob Dylan used to deliver my Ocado order in the 60s", before slumping back into a slumber. He'd even been practising trying to watch Will I Am's "antics" without allowing his face to betray the complete depth of his contempt.
But it's not to be. The BBC have decided that Sir Tom needn't bother himself this year. His place on the panel has gone to Boy George. (The now-absent Rita Ora has been replaced by Paloma Faith, which will have the same result you'd have got if Ora had spent the summer break doing a correspondence course.)
Tom isn't happy, though. The Telegraph hears his pain:
Writing on his official Facebook and Twitter pages, Sir Tom revealed he had not chosen to leave of his own accord, accusing executives of lacking basic respect.Someone who has been part of The Voice for four years being surprised at something sub-standard happening in the production team really does suggest Tom spent most of the time sleeping, doesn't it?
He said: "In good faith, as part of the team, I’d put the time in my schedule to be involved in Series 5, as I’ve done for the last 4 years. I’ve supported the show and the BBC since the beginning.
"I was told yesterday, with no consultation or conversation of any kind, that I would not be returning.
Having been through plenty of transformations throughout the years, I support and admire creative change. But being informed, as a matter of duty and respect, is an important part of creative relationships.
"This sub-standard behaviour from the executives is very disappointing.
"I will always admire the courage of the performers who participate in the show, as well as all the production staff who worked tirelessly to make a great family viewing experience for the audience at home. I wish the show well."
We have now reached the point in human history where people are writing nostalgia pieces about Jessica Simpson:
Get ready to throw it way, way back. In the early '00s, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were a total power couple and gave us all of our relationship goals.Way, way back? I've got jars of Miracle Whip in the cupboard that predate Jessica Simpson.
The Britannia Music Club - Buy CDs for almost nothing, and then be beholden to buy crappier CDs at full price forever more - gave up the ghost in the UK back in 2007. Astonishingly, its US equivalent, Columbia House, has been battling on in the face of the internet. "Has" is the operative word, though, as it's finally sunk under the weight of its USD63million debt.
Knowing how tenacious these services were pursuing hapless members for their quota of coins were, you'd really hope that the creditors of Columbia House will pursue the company beyond the grave.
There's a really splendid piece by Simon Price at The Quietus which considers Rocky Horror in the round. I'm not totally convinced - I think it's as much 'exotic package holiday in other people's identity' as 'first swim' - but Price's case is strong nevertheless:
Rocky Horror indubitably provides a 'safe space', an adult creche where transgressive behaviour and cross-dressing are accepted, nay, encouraged. Rocky Horror is a set of stabilisers on your sex bike, a pair of water wings for your first swim in the sea of depravity. But is that such a terrible thing?
As we enter The Summer Without The NME, here's the most-read NME-related stories ever:
1. NME Awards shortlist [2009]
2. Russell Brand outgunned by Monkeys at NME Awards [2006]
3. The NME points fingers at file-sharing services [2008]
4. Conor McNicholas relaunches NME; says Coldplay sound like The Stone Roses [2008]
5. Arctic Monkeys win all the prizes [could be any year; this is 2008]
6. NME Awards nominations [2006]
7. That time they added McCartney to a prize when he turned up [2004]
8. NME Awards virtually a rerun of last year's [2008]
9. NME makesover again [2005]
10. Kerrang overtakes NME. Again.
These were this week's most interesting new releases:
Astrid Williamson - We Go To Dream
Download We Go To Dream
The Strands - The Magical World Of...
Download Magical World Of...
The decision of the High Court to make it illegal again to rip a CD you've purchased for money to play on a device of your choosing we've covered before. There's another sting to the judgement, though, as Consequence Of Sound have discovered. If you store your legally purchased music on your computer, and you back up your hard drive, you're a criminal, chummy:
the Government spokesperson went on to add that, “… It includes creating back-ups without permission from the copyright holder as this necessarily involves an act of copying.” In other words, if you legally purchase digital media online, you are now not legally allowed to back up that information on an external hard drive of any sort. In the long run, that means if your computer were to crash or get stolen, your only allowable course of action would be to re-purchase all your music and movies.(I'm sure Apple and Amazon would both point out that if you buy through them, your purchase is recorded and free to download again at any time.)
You'll have heard about Lenny Kravitz trousers ripping "unexpectedly" while onstage in Sweden. Suddenly, in Stockholm, his stock was no longer homed. Delighted fans snapped away. They only snapped with cameras - if they'd been snapping with shearing tools, Kravitz would have something to complain about.
But he's nonetheless upset that his trouser disintegration has exposed his penis to a mixture of acclaim, derision and lack of interest. And, to be fair, he has a right to be upset. Providing he doesn't overplay his hand.
He's overplaying his hand. And also overplaying his cock:
Today, The Metro reports that Kravitz's legal team have warned about the images, stating that they breach their "clients' copyright, human rights, right-of-publicity and performer's rights".It's not clear if Kravitz's penis has a separate legal team, or, indeed if it is considered a performer in its own right.
Andy Medhurst's piece on Cilla Black concedes she was square, but suggests that was her superpower:
In many ways, her achievements were most notable for establishing continuities between different eras. Despite being vaulted into prominence by the earthquake of Merseybeat, which shook a nation out of post-war deference by insisting on the new, the now and the young, she was within a few years drawing on entertainment codes honed in earlier decades. This led some to lament her supposed co-option by conservatism but the shift now looks more shrewd: a fusion of novelty and tradition that fashioned her into the unlikeliest of hybrids, a pop art Gracie Fields.
It's been a while since Ryan Adams recorded something memorable. I'm sure there's been something this century, but nothing springs to m... actually, that means it wasn't memorable, doesn't it?
Still, all that's about to change as about to release an album full of top quality material.
One hitch, though. Not his songs:
Adams is covering a singer with a country past of her own: Taylor Swift. Today Adams announced on Twitter and Instagram that he’s recording a cover of her hit 2014 album 1989. The 28-second clip of “Welcome to New York” that Adams shared sounds like a big improvement over the original: With heavy guitar backing and Springsteenian vocal harmonies, Adams makes 1989’s weakest track sound like a bona-fide rock anthem.It's not actually better, but it's better than anything else Adams has done recently.
I don't think I'm the only person who sees Sam Smith as a placeholder pop star - filling the space on bills; turning up; doing the job; but not an actual supernova pop star. You couldn't imagine a That'll Be The Day style movie being made about him; the biography isn't going to be a Hammer Of The Gods affair. More a Paintbrush Cheap From Homebase tale.
This impression doesn't go away with the discovery that people who had gone to see him at Red Rocks actually recognised him while he was mucking about before the show.
That's all a bit awkward, but at least we know the answer to the philosophical conundrum 'if Sam Smith is not on stage with a light shining on him, does he even exist?'
It turns out that it's not just any old fight that Chris Brown has picked in The Philippines - oh, no, he's taking on Jesus himself:
Brown has become embroiled in a disagreement with Church of Christ following a gig which was meant to take place on New Year's Eve 2014. Brown pulled out of the gig but, according to the church who helped fund the gig, he was paid $1m (£645,000) for his time.I know what you're thinking: what the hell is a church doing paying Chris Brown anything at all for a gig, never mind a million dollars. Perhaps Brown kept the money to teach the church not to get involved in this sort of the deal. They do say the Lord moves in mysterious ways...
Pharrell is off to play South Africa. A few years back, choosing to play South Africa would have brought out massive crowds demanding the event be boycotted.
And, actually, that's what's happening this time, as Pharrell has done a deal with Woolworths. Because the South African retailer sources some of its stock from Israel, Woolworths has been a target for protests from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel. And because Pharrell is co-promoting a thing with Woolworths, he's now become part of the target:
“He is about to face the biggest backlash any artist has faced in South Africa in over 30 years, since the days of apartheid,” said Braam Hanekom, a BDS South Africa board member.The rejection of the protest request won't stop the protests; it just means they're going to take a different form.
“He is walking into a very angry, unhappy environment because he has chosen to walk with Woolworths,” Hanekom told Reuters after the City of Cape Town denied an application by thousands to protest at Pharrell's first concert on September 21.
It's been announced this morning that Cilla Black has died. It feels weird that this time yesterday I was writing about her being on the NME cover in 1986.
She had an astonishing career - not the only person who had the good fortune to be born in Liverpool at just the right time to catch a rising tide, but with the personality to take that advantage and turn it into whatever was needed to work.
Singer; presenter; presenter who sang her own theme tune. There were many Cillas. But my Cilla - and I say this without any side - is this my Cilla, the Cilla I first encountered. Advertising Cilla:
(Actually, the one that has been banging round my head for nearly 40 years was 'I know it's not just me/ all my friends agree', but that doesn't seem to be online.)
There's not many current pop stars who could convincingly push a slightly nasty chocolate cube into a stranger's mouth and not come across as creepy; and much as I love Charli XCX, I couldn't really picture her working a sofa with Bob Carolgees on one side and a pair of twins who hadn't seen each other in twenty years on the other.
Bear Grylls might think he knows something about survival, but Cilla's career shows what survival really looks like.
Ten years old: The most popular stories from August 2010:
1. The AC Chart and the Fresh 40 Chart will save music
2. Louise Who Used To Be In Eternal now advertising bread
3. Melissa Etheridge now cancer-free
4. Tatu announce plans to work with Sting, Dave Stewart, Richard Carpenter
5. Marilyn Manson asks 'what about Harry Potter?'
6. Jon Brookes reveals new Charlatans album will sound like The Charlatans
7. Nico movie cast
8. Liam Gallagher marries well
9. Portugal give U2 a massive award
10. The odd world of Avril Lavigne dress-up dolls
These came out over a week ago now:
Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf
Download Y Dydd Olaf
Hannah Peel - Rebox 2
Download Rebox 2
Ducktails - Saint Catherine
Download St Catherine
Disappointingly, the official TSA blog has kept quiet about Morrissey's claims that his penis was fondled by a security screener at San Francisco airport - although they do report twelve people around the US trying to take bear mace through in their carry-ons. You've got to be one hell of a nervous flier to think you need to be prepared in case there's a bear on the plane, surely?
The TSA have denied that anyone groped Mozzer, though:
A TSA spokesperson said in a statement to Rolling Stone magazine Thursday that after reviewing closed-circuit TV footage of the encounter, the officer in question appeared to have “followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual.”That respect thing must be difficult when you're faced with someone who thinks it's okay to climb aboard with a can or two of bear incapacitant - or the dozens of yahoos who want to take their loaded guns to have with them as they fly.
"TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect," TSA spokesperson Mike England said in the statement.
According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he “gropes” male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA.It took three months from the TSA in Denver being told about this before they did anything about it.
“He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.”
The female TSO then proceeded to roughly feel of [sic] her breast including her nipples. The TSO didn’t go under her arms or along her sides. She indicated that she did not receive a proper pat down. The search was limited to her breast… Two other individuals came over to where the supervisor and gentleman were and they began laughing. The caller indicated that the incident was not the business of the other two officers and not a show for them. The caller indicated that even the Supervisor, along with the others, began to roar with laughter.So when Morrissey says he was assaulted at the screening point, the only surprising part of that story is that Morrissey wants to leave San Francisco. Everything else is too grimly believable.
Not every artist would be delighted to hear their old work is going for fifty cents in a bargain bin, which is why Tiffany is to be cherished:
Great little find 50 cents #Promo USA cd @tiffanytunes here in Sydney pic.twitter.com/rAxL36a8np
— Andy Lindley (@andylinners) August 1, 2015
When I was growing up, my parents listened to Radio 2, so Lynn Anderson's Rose Garden was a fundamental part of my childhood. What I didn't know about her, until today's obituaries, was that she appeared in Starsky And Hutch:
Lynn Anderson died following a heart attack on July 30th. She was 67.
David Cassidy is bankrupt, and selling his house. He's even reduced to showing people round the home in a bid to sell it:
At least he hasn't yet had to endure Amanda Lamb turning up to cast judgement on how he lives ("offer ways to help with the clutter"), I guess.
And Cassidy won't be down for long. Apparently he's got a Christmas album coming out, so if you do happen to be in a car park at the same time as he is, do pick up a copy.
Yesterday, Conor McNicholas, former NME editor, Instagrammed a photo of the last-ever NME (paid version) with the words "I'm holding a piece of history".
If even a former editor didn't exactly bother rushing out to get it when it hit the newsstands, you're looking at a piece of history that somehow struggled to write itself.
So what do we get for the extra quid on the cover price? It's a bumper edition - 132 pages, although 50 of those pages are reproductions of the greatest covers (or the "greatest" covers). And I say reproductions, but the older covers - at a guess, the ones which predate digital production on the magazine - look really shit. I can't work out if they're supposed to be artfully distressed, or if they're just distressed. On a few, you can even make out the adverts on page two peeking through. Even covers which have been reproduced elsewhere, in better quality, like the Shaun Ryder on the giant E one, have turned up for closedown looking like they've been scanned for a school project.
What else is there? A history of the magazine spends longer on the punk years than the interesting bit in the middle. The hip-hop wars get a mention - and the 1988 "Greatest Rock & Roll Band In The World" Public Enemy cover is neatly tied to Kanye's Glastonbury pronouncement of his "greatest living rock star" status, but curiously Barry Nicolson declares "the hip-hop warriors eventually won". A strange victory, as Kanye aside, there's not been any other hip hop act (or even hip-hop-ish) on the cover of the NME since Skrillex over a year earlier. If hip hop won - and that's not an unfair suggestion - then the NME was very much the warrior who didn't hear the war was at an end; fighting on deep in the jungle. Fighting on against those deeply into jungle.
This bit's odd, too:
Indie remained the paper's bread and butter, however, and a series of questionable laet-80s cover stars (Cilla Black, anyone?) hinted at a scene in the doldrumsThe impression here is that somehow indie was in such a parlous state by the end of the 80s that Cilla Black was an indie hero.
We approach the future cognisant of the most valuable lesson learned from our past: that music doesn't stand still, and we can't afford to, either.Well, Time Magazines (formerly IPC) clearly couldn't afford to stand still.
Tomorrow is the last day the NME will be trying to charge people money for their services; to mark the occasion they are inviting users to add page impressions wildly ("click through 50 best covers to vote for the best").
They've found space for Simon Cowell's 2009 cover. That's the standard we're going with.
Personally, although I always think the much-hated Youth Suicide issue was the best NME cover ever, and I have a soft spot for the Motorcycle Boy one which was a by-product of corporate meltdowns, I think the occasion should be marked with this one:
Hadley Freeman sticks up for Kate Moss in today's Guardian, and in the course of it says this:
I’ve heard and read plenty of tut-tutting about Moss’s alleged former drug use, with much headshaking about the global damage done by drug users and so on, and that’s just grand: well done on your “virtue signalling”, to borrow a useful term coined by the New Statesman’s Helen Lewis. Strangely, though, I very rarely hear such qualms expressed about, oh, let’s say, Noel Gallagher, who has talked frequently about his former cocaine abuse and yet now seems on the fast track to national treasure status, despite writing songs so boring I honestly believe they should not be played on the radio out of concern for drivers falling asleep at the wheel.
Time to catch up with Helly Luv, who makes most so-called edgy acts seem like the soft options they are:
She's Iraqi. That song is a direct attack on ISIS. And she insisted on making the video for it in Iraq.
All Things Considered have been to Iraq to find out how she's gone down there:
The top five stories last week:
1. Savage Garden's Daniel Jones seems quite lovely
2. Tim Worthington's guide to terrible protest songs
3. Music your neighbours like best
4. Three Doors Down are looking out for their fans
5. Lily Allen hires a trainer for her face
Last week's new releases:
Flying Saucer Attack - Instrumentals
Download Instrumentals
Samanthan Crain - Under Branch & Thorn & Tree
Download Sing Into My Mouth
Ben Bridwell & Iron And Wine - Sing Into My Mouth
Download Sing Into My Mouth
Tame Impala - Currents
Disappointing news for schadenfreude fans: Chris Brown is out of the Philippines:
Journalists saw Brown and around 10 others boarding his private plane parked at an airport hangar, with one taking a selfie before going into the plane.No other derogatory records? Has she not heard Fortune?
Tan said Brown obtained the departure clearance at the bureau's extension office and not at the main office in downtown Manila where dozens of journalists were staking out.
She said the clearance was given after "verifying that Chris Brown has no other derogatory record apart from the (immigration lookout bulletin)" that was issued Wednesday.
According to Ahmed Best, who played the most universally despised figure ever to appear on film (and, yes, that's including Triumph Of The Will), his part in Star Wars nearly went to Michael Jackson:
"Me, Natalie Portman, and George's kids - we were at Wembley Arena at Michael Jackson's concert. We were taken backstage and we met Michael.Best's theory is that Lucas didn't want to have Jacko in the film because his presence would have overwhelmed the movie. Which is a bit like someone taking a poo in the kitchen sink but moving the dishcloths first so it doesn't get too unhygienic.
"There was Michael and Lisa Marie [Presley]. George introduced me as 'Jar Jar' and I was like, 'That's kind of weird.' Michael was like, 'Oh. OK.' I thought, 'What is going on?'
"After Michael had driven off, we all go back up to a big afterparty. I'm having a drink with George and I said, 'Why did you introduce me as Jar Jar?"
"He said, 'Well, Michael wanted to do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and make-up like Thriller.' George wanted to do it in CGI."
It sounds like he's not doing well, being held in the country over a contract dispute:
in his third video the 26-year-old was filmed on his knees and saying, "Please, please, let us leave, please,” suggesting Brown was becoming increasingly concerned about his situation. The video was captioned, "OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!" but has since been removed from his page.If only Chris Brown wasn't such a reprehensible person, it might be possible to feel sorry for him. Instead, it's just amusing. I'm guessing the plan is for him to be held in the country until he's given the nation entertainment to the value of the million dollars they say they paid him for the gig he never played.
Brown also published a series a panicked tweets denying any wrong-doing and claiming he was trapped in a “serious situation” that someone needed to be held accounted for.
I have nothing to do with anything going on right now. I came back to Manila to do a make up show for New Years. I did the show 3 days ago
This is a very serious situation and someone needs to be held accountable for mixing my name up in all this. I've done nothing wrong!!!
