No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: No distance left to run edition
MC Harvey - who apparently has developed a TV presentation sideline to keep him going during those long days when the rest of the So Solids are in chokey - and Alesha Dixon from Mis-Teeq popped up in the Observer's couples special. It would be easy to be cynical about the Posh and Becks of R&B, but they actually come across as rather sweet - MCing together at home to 8 Mile - although Alesha says bemusingly that they're trying to create "unconditional love", which is a little bit like trying to construct happiness - it'll either be there or it won't, you can't make it up.

Mojo lets itself fall into the lazy Beatle issue trap - Paul McCartney, he's nicer than you think, you know; probably - and offers perhaps the least enticing free gift of recorded time: some lucky sod will open their magazine and discover an original Yoko Ono artwork has been slipped inside. This is on a par, of course, with getting those crappy scratch cards they wedge in the nme nowadays.

Word demonstrates its first editorial wobble, giving the cover to Blur on the basis that the new album is meant to be really, really good - we never quite felt the same about Select after it had done that two-part 'every single moment' blur to date special, whcih shifted the magazine from being ravingly stupid about music into being the sort of wide-eyed boyfan who, having realised sexual intercourse is something that will happen to other people, has set about memorising the messages scratched on run out grooves in the hope that just maybe it will fill the yawning chasm in his life. And that was before Blur started to turn - as they seem to be - into the English U2 (Word reports Albarn ringing Alex James during a gig to get the audience to leave him a message - it's only a few steps down the road to wearing devil horns and hanging out with Bush).

But it's not all Blur. There is the mighty Danny Baker : "You must have it together by the time you're forty, and that doesn't include looking like you're still 19. 'Oh, look, I can still fit into the jeans I had when I was a teenager'? Well, you should be ashamed of yourself." Up against this there's his former 'rival' on the london airwaves, Edith Bowman. Edith thinks she's quite the rebel because - hooo! - she played the Datsuns on Capital FM. Oooh, fresh spinach dip, you rebel. It was her last day, so it really was on a par with muttering under your breath.

The there's Caitlin Moran, who normally I can either take or, much more often, leavel, who writes a much-needed condemnation of the rubbish that follows in the wake of an artist discovering cocaine: "miles Davis became so nit picky and ruined he gave recording for ten years and then came back covering Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time; Peckinpah went from Straw Dogs to directing Julian Lennon videos [...] commedians start wearing frock coats..."

Lucinda Williams entertains Mark Ellen; it's a tribute to Ellen's superior writing skills that the two of them getting smashed to a bosanova background turns out more "wish i'd been there" than "you had to be there" - nobody wants to piss on Smash Hits 25th birthday but, really, back in the 80's they had people of this quality editing their title; they might have only been writing about pop, but at least they could write. If you had a current Smash Hits hack and a half-trained monkey in front of you these days, you wouldn't choose the SH chap first to daub rude graffiti on a lamppost.

Kerrang has got a cover story on The White Stripes - normally we'd allow ourselves a gentle snurkle that a band who bear no hallmark of ROCK in any way, shape or form commanding the cover of K!, but the nme has got Coldplay on its cover which leaves Jack N Meg's mild maybe-incest and blues looking like a bunch of noisy pigs butt-fucking each other in a fireworks factory.

News leads that The Strokes might be coming to Britain again, maybe, who knows;Courtney's new album is going to be called America's sweetheart, which suggests she's the last person left following Madonna's lead; Marilyn Manson - crazy name, crazy... oh, hang on, dull, obvious name, isn't it? As was his album launch party - he GOT ON THE ROOF! With a loudhailer! Which he shouted through! So, not so much the God of Fuck as the Liberal Democratic candidate for Churchill Ward; Noel Gallagher's taking the rest of the year off and it might be not until the start of 2005 that there's another album from Oasis (and, therefore, it won't be until Easter 2005 that it gets marked down to £7-99 by Asda in a desperate bid to shift them). Still, lets just bask in the happy glow that Noel Is Fucking Out Of Our Faces until Christmas. Aaaah. Meanwhile, Ryan Adams has said he's quitting music, but he was just toying with us. There's a piece about why you "still" love McCartney, which suggests that the nme thinks its audience has been around the block a bit; but then there's another piece which - sidebarring a story about the Monkees influence on the new The Thrills video - starts with "the Monkees were the boyband of their day", which suggests the nme then decides its audience is about three.

InMe - who we always Claudius like think of as I, NME - choose some CD tracks (The Used, Pete Yorn and Talk Talk)

Kings of Leon think they have a "70s porn star look", but actually they seem more like the 118 118 guys from the TV advert. Asked about Iraq, they say "We don't wanna give an opinion on that, 'cos who the hell cares?" I'm sorry, but I really don't have time for tossheads like that any more.

There are posters again, but at least you get Tim Burgess in the bath. Although they have two bloody Shaun Ryder posters (including the most over-used NME picture of all time - yes, he's standing on a big letter E, very clever) which takes the edge off a little. What, no Paris Angels?

reviews - albums
radiohead - hail to the thief (not out until June 9th, so expect this one to be run and re-run) - "a good rather than great record", 7
yeah yeah yeahs - fever to tell - "not the fuck and run job they promised, mixed with a grander plan", 8
macy gray - the trouble with being myself - "she's not keen on her adoring fans", 6


singles
sotw - interpol - say hello to the angels - "you'll still be singing it [come] august"
mu - lets get sick - "not to be confused with nu or mew"
moving units - moving units ep - "gang of four revivalists"

live
blur - paris l'espcae clacquesin - "trout farms be damned; this is a high"
primal scream - glasgow garage - "tonight, right on the money"


and finally, Roger Morton thinks that one day Avril lavigne will wake-up, realise she's been played, and need to make a Tori Amos style angry classic. yeah, and one day my cat will wake up and want to be a lion, but he still won't actually grow a freakin' mane.