No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: THE DIRTY BOMB EDITION
there's two free cds that don't suck circling the racks at WH Smiths at the moment, as Seven enters its second monthly edition with a Cd including a Miss Kittin track on the cover, while Uncut comes complete with Charlatans on audio-format-listen style...

the current Spectator has Stephen Glover tut-tutting over the Jubilee concert - not because it had Atomic Kitten trying to cover Motown, not because the magazine had found out that Tony Blair lobbied for him to be able to sing with Sir Paul McCartney; no, it's precisely this sort of doing something popular and connecting with the people which undermines the mystique of the monarchy, don't you know? While we do agree with him that the world would have been a better place without Brian Dobson-May doing an electric version of the national anthem, it's proved a simple guide to just who the enemy is these days...

the strangest piece of the week was in Guardian Weekend, where Gabriel Garcia Marquez filed an article about Shakira - he's a big fan, apparently, what with them both coming from Columbia (so, doubtless fond of cocaine too, then), and it allowed the Guardian to have it both ways - an article by a Top Respected Name, illustrated by pictures of a woman in her bra. Tops Salman Rushdie on U2, doesn't it? This comes hot on the heels of the discovery last week that Peaches is also a big Shakira fan (she also comes from a country beginning with 'C', or they're on the same label, or something...)

In the Sunday Times Colour Magazine, they went off to see Jo Whiley. In a piece that was so full of quivering admiration that you could taste the salt in the air, in a desperate bid to put in some balance they dragged up the reviews of her Channel 4 show. "I couldn't understand it - I didn't want to have argument on the show" she defends herself, and the Times doesn't bother to point out that that would be the very reason the show was so unwatchable. You don't have to have people ripping each other's throats out, but to follow someone else's conversations, you need to have something other than a mutual mindwank going on. But then, of course, that's precisely the reason the Times piece failed. It simpered that Jo was the only female radio 1 presenter to make the Radio Times' top 50 radio voices list - strange that, since the only other possible would have been Sara Cox...

having bemoaned the generally shit nature of british music writing, we came across again a copy of TVS. The rapidly improving liverpool arts title has never been afraid to rattle cages, and leaps straight in waving sticks pointing out that Liverpool City Council's slogan for its European Capital of Culture bid - "The World In One City" came in at ten thousand pounds per word. This month's issue is boosted by being the official organ of Writing on the Wall festival - errrrm, supported by the Liverpool City Council Capital of Culture bid - and has Jamie 'I'm off to work for Select' Bowman interviewing Steven Wells of - of course - the NME. He (Wells) describe the Doves as Celine Dion with guitars and manages to answer a few questions before STARTING TO TALK TOTALLY IN CAPITALS. Bowman fails to ask why the darling of the SWP is able to take money from AOL Time Warner, instead asking how the AOL takeover of IPC has affected the paper as a whole. As if AOL is fundamentally any different from ReedEislever or IPC...

Talking of which, here is the nme, a lovley purple cover spoiled by being oasis. if you buy the magazine, it promises you'll find out why Liam's songs are "fookin' rubbish". Now, i don't need to spend £1-50 for that - because he's a fucking twat, with no imagination, no intellect, and nothing to say. Do i win a prize?...

news has Fatboy Slim in Japan for... hang about, wasn't this the lead story last week, too? Jesus, at least come up with a different bloody angle; Eminem crows all over about how he "beat" the bootleggers with all his fabulous security. This would all be a lot more impressive - we might even believe it - had he not had that big screaming fit of petulance when it was spread all over the web. Interestingly, he maintains that he'd kept hold of the only copy of the album during the entire record making process, which means we can only conclude that it must have been him who leaked it; and that he wants to beat the fucking shit out of himself. All those alteregos must be starting to confuse him; with nothing to the story than "ozzy to sell condoms", the nme pads out a quarter page with a sub-Thrills, will-this-do about bat shapes and so on; R Kelly has posted $750,000 bail and been released - not the first time he's bought his way out of prison on child sex allegations; the new supergrass release is going to be restricted to a 1,500 pressing run. Expect 1,400 copies to turn up in the bargain bins; the new Coral video is a rip-off/homage to The Whicker Man; the alternative Jubilee people seem not to have realised that playing twenty feet from the official celebrations and Not Getting Noticed At All isn't registering discontent, it's just not registering anything...

"My daddy wasn't an alcoholic. Life is good" trills on-band boy Carey of athlete, apparently the New Supergrass, so help them God; Brendon Benson looks soulful and comes from Detroit, and is already on his second label...

gig tshirts now cost £14, you know - fucking rip off, even if it is Idlewild and they are playing on the Shetland Islands. Apparently, very few people react, but it's an under 18 gig, and since its likely most of the audience are losing their gig virginities together, what do you expect?...

Somewhere, in amongst attempting to deny that Liam sounds like he's trying to be Lennon ("I think he sounds like Johnny Rotten" - so, at least we can agree its some fucking middle class wanker playing the rebel, then?), Noel inadvertently says something interesting: "I like Coldplay. I don't know why McGee said they make music for bedwetters. He wants to go and check his back fucking catalogue before Oasis came along - 18 Wheeler? BMX bandits? His band, Biff Bang Pow?" - demonstrating his own problem. The Bandits, the 'Pow - yes, they wrote songs that could usually fell a lumberjack with their tweeness, but they were heartfelt, and crafted. Coldplay's bedwettyness isn't because they were Fotherington-Thomas types, but because there songs lacked any attempt to take a leap with their emotions. Coldplay is "all yellow"; early Creation was a revolving paint dream. Not what's said, it's how it's said.
NME: What's on Liam's stereo right nowNoel: The Beatles.
Nuff said?...

The Music croak through a ten-track CD of stuff, including Led Zep and Stevie Wonder...

albums: Papa Roach - Lovehatetragedy ("solid. honest. rock.", 7); sonic youth - murray street ("fail to get into the groove", 6) - The review is just sixty words long, shamefully; Punk Rock Baby ("punk transformed into tweenieesque jingles", 5); this girl - short strut to the brassy front ("hormone crazed and unsullied self-belief", 6)...

sotw is the Vines - get Free ("stunning pop sense") over - HURRAH! - Mr Scruff's Shrimp (the nme says "It's not very nice", but they're beastly)...

live - the coral at ULU ("twisting and turning their songs"); Homelands ("it's difficult to act the churl... about the end of mainstream dance music"); le tigre at the astoria (it doesn't get much cooler")...

Finally, It Never Hurts To Say You're Sorry: Ozzy Osbourne apologises to fans over the "one big cluster fuck" that was Ozzfest.

Shit. We might need him in government.