Saturday, December 25, 2010

Not Forgot-Ten: July 2010

We finally discovered how to shut the Kings Of Leon up. You just get a pigeon to poop in Jared's mouth. Elsewhere, Billy Corgan was falling over on stage.

Pete Wentz - who must be, what, 30 or 40 years old - formed a band called Bl4ck C4rds. I'm not certain, but I'm guessing the band logo will be a skull. George Galloway started work on a Dusty Springfield musical. Yes. John Lydon was reduced to starting a spat with Duffy and Prince announced the internet was finished. Plastic Bertrand was in court over if he was real, or just a fake Plastic.

Having spent the last few years jacking up prices, Festival Republic objected to the extra VAT on 2011 tickets. Lilith Fair discovered that you can leave many seats empty if you ask ridiculous sums of money for them. Lattitude's atmosphere was ruined by rapes in the campsite, and Germany's Love Parade came to a horrible end.

Island Records very publicly fumed that their new Tom Jones album was a bit rubbish. Korn revealed just what a painful job churning a Korn album out is. Pete Muprhy and Brendan Perry's supergoth tour ended in streaming mascara eyes before a single date got played. Oh, by the way: Katie Melua's an alien.

The RIAA decided that it should start suing makers of porn films that used music without permission. This was not an excuse to spend all day at RIAA towers watching porn. The Grammys decided to allow previous years winners to still be Best Newcomers in the future.

Retiring: Torry from The Donnas. Not reforming: The Darkness. Returning: Robbie Williams to Take That. Reforming: Ace Of Base. Rejected: Girls Can't Catch. Replaced: Ollie Los Campesinos.

Cheryl Cole caught Malaria, Jennifer Lopez caught the wrath of Greek Cypriots and the police caught George Michael with his car wedged in the side of a Snappy Snaps. The woman on the cover of Vampire Weekend's Contra demanded some money. And The Sun forced Joe McElderry to come out and smile while they did it.

Use a wheelchair? Live in Portsmouth? Might want to steer clear of HMV.

Had you noticed Fran Healy had been quiet? He's been working on a solo album, it turned out. Harvey Goldsmith insisted what we needed were more Muses.

As the campaign to save 6Music succeeded, Dunstable people kicked off a campaign to try and stop Global ripping out their Heart. Radio One waved goodbye to Mary Anne Hobgoblin. And a month after closing it, the NME announced a relaunch of NME Radio.

This month, Lady GaGa reneged on a promise to buy everyone pizza.


Friday, December 24, 2010

Viacom splits from the RockBand

Having realised that there wasn't really any synergy between MTV and the RockBand game franchise, Viacom have flogged off their games studio, Harmonix.

But, hey, it isn't a humiliating climbdown - they made $25m over what they paid, and are able to push out a press release with a bit of dignity:

"Harmonix has and will continue to create terrific video games, but for us, it is about focus. The console games business requires an expertise and scale that we don't have," chief executive Philippe Dauman said.
Of course, we could have told them that back before they bought in.


Not Forgot-Ten: June 2010

Brighton and Hove apologised to Status Quo. Portland paid due honour to Modest Mouse in art form. Leona Lewis fell into a big, black hole - not the one Steve Brookstein had vanished into. Pete Murphy wound up taking a part in kid's film Twilight, and Europe admitted they hate The Final Countdown as much as everyone else.

The US decided it didn't need Pete Doherty. The Pixies pulled a Tel Aviv gig, which led the internet to decide they were a terrorist organisation until it turned out to be a joke. Having succeeded in getting noticed for the first time in years by waving her arse about in Dallas, Erykah Badu tried to recast it as an act of political defiance. Gordon Smart insisted the Cole divorce timing would be dictated by the World Cup. Shortly after, there was a terrible moment when an ordinary person nearly touched Cheryl Cole.

There will never be another Spice Girls reunion, Mel C promises. Yes, she did promise before. Wendys said sorry for giving kids CDs with Donna Summer going on about sex on them. Michael Jackson turned out to have died from not being Muslim, announced his brother.

In administration: Fabric. In rehab: Bonnie Pointer. Threatening a return: Damage. Threatening retirement: Sia.

Format of the month: The musical tee.

Coming late to the streaming market, Rdio hadn't even managed to bag a great name for itself. Buzznet picked up Gorilla Vs Bear and RCRDLBL (which might explain why older RCRDLBL embeds keep screwing up, come to think of it.) But don't go near Google - MIA reckons it's part of the illuminati. Not as evil, of course, as ASCAP which declared war on Creative Commons.

EMI tried reshuffling management again. Tom Yorke suggested that you steer clear of major labels and Lily Allen suddenly had a strange thought that the Brits might be about selling records rather than, you know, art. Jay Z, for his part, was surprised that record companies were run by old blokes.

The NME filled up an issue with the 50 Most Fearless People In Music, after getting stuck trying to come up with One Decent Idea For A Magazine that week. A couple of weeks after Krissi Murison suggested it could be a fine replacement for 6Music, the NME cut NME Radio back to its barest of bones. Commercial Radio continued to argue that rather than expect it to be any good, the BBC should be made worse as that would be fairer. You know,when you set about halving the number of stations in the Heart network, that's the sort of thing that makes you rubbish, not the existence of the BBC.

Back in Brighton, and one neighbour seemed set to have the Freebutt venue closed.

This month, Lady GaGa was squatting in Seinfeld's box.


Thursday, December 23, 2010

Not Forgot-Ten: May 2010

Elvis Costello thought again on playing Tel Aviv and Madonna was unhappy with Malawi's disregard for human rights. Morrissey slapped down Stephen Street for daring to play a twenty second clip of a demo. Even angrier was Ian Astbury, who raged that nobody had stopped him pretending to be Jim Morrison. Because we were laughing too hard, Ian.

Guess who Liam Gallagher is going to make a film about? Oh, yes. The Beatles. However did you guess? Meanwhile, Katy Perry was paying tribute to something called Big Star without really knowing who or why. Peter Andre took a new role as something to do while queuing for a rollercoaster.

After his promo team slapped an advert on a wall that was a memorial to Elliott Smith, Roger Waters nearly managed a sincere apology. Nearly. The invitation for Shakira to record the official world cup song was about as popular as the England team.

MIA took against a New York Times interviewer who suggested that her life might be a bit comfier than her image would imply. And Axl Rose was upset about something, too but he often is. Miley Cyrus looked agape at Glee because, they burst into song. You don't do that in real life.

Apparently assuming we'd need his advice, Simon Cowell endorsed David Cameron. Meanwhile, a Susan Boyle-P Diddy duet was being talked up in the hope that either party might believe they'd agreed to do it while out of control. Mel B had reached the nadir of a reality TV show.

Which? magazine lamented the loss of indie record shops. Now it was no longer enjoying the benefits of rivals closing, HMV returned to decline.

Format of the month: Some odd thing where you'd be emailed a CD you buy at a branch of - yes - HMV.

It turned out closure was just the marketing device 6Music had been waiting for. Prince William went to the Radio One Roadshow. Didn't do Bits And Pieces, though.

Losing one: Interpol. Quitting 6: George Lamb. Gaining Mick Hucknall: The Faces.

Apple refused an Atari Teenage Riot app in case it lead teenagers to riot. I got a DCMA takedown notice for, erm, a song Seasick Steve's PR team had sent me to share online. The RIAA helpfully published a list of really good filesharing websites, while winning a victory over Limewire. Yes, it was still going, apparently.

Xtina was too busy too tour, Bono threw his back out and Adam Ant went back to hospital.

The JLS dollies went in to production, with the toy company hoping that the band's fans wouldn't be too grown up by the time they reached the shops.

This month, Lady GaGa's life was being turned into a comic.


Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Collection agencies: They do if for the artists

SoundExchange - roughly comparable to our broken-but-keen PRS - has just published its figures for 2009. Yes, despite burning through nearly $17million dollars worth of musicians' and writers' money on administration, it's taken until now to get the figures out.

MusicAlly has the details:

. They reveal incoming royalties of $204.2 million for the year (up 20% on 2008), outgoing distributions to artists and copyright holders of $155.5 million (up 55%), and operating costs of $16.7 million.
You'll have spotted a gap between what came in, and what went out. It turns out there's gallons of dollars slushing about in SoundExchange's coffers:
The key figure being the $111 million of ‘unpayable funds’
A distribution agency that can't find homes for a tenth of a billion bucks sounds like an organisation that isn't spending its seventeen million admin cream-off very effectively from where I'm sitting.
SoundExchange says it paid out $38.3 million of the $111 million in Q1-Q3 2010.
It's unclear if that $38.3m is included in the "outgoing distributions" - assuming it is, that makes the gap between what's come in and what has gone out in 2009 something around $70m.

The music industry likes to shout about filesharers "stealing" from artists. A collection agency which takes in millions of dollars to distribute to people, then admits it doesn't actually know who that money should be going to might be committing no crime, but seems to be in something of a murky grey area.


Gordon in the morning: Bono bonus

Ah, what could be better than Gordon nodding his way through some Bono justification?

Gordon has copied a piece Bono has written somewhere or other - he doesn't credit it, which is funny, what with Rupert Murdoch getting so cross when people "steal" News International "content" and pass it off as their own - and applauds quietly the Vox's bravery:

BONO understands why some folk "projectile vomit" when he preaches about humanitarian issues.

The U2 rocker - who's become as famous for his campaigning as he has for his music - admits he can sometimes be a "pain in the a***".

In a brutal scrutiny of his character, the One star also reveals he infuriates himself at times.
Oh, but surely you're being too hard on yourself, Mr. Bono? Cannot you find it in your heart to exonerate yourself? It is Christmas, after all.
"All I can say is that you can become traumatised as well as inspired by the lives you meet along the dirt road of extreme poverty.

"Sometimes I forget that I'm an artist - but I shouldn't, because that's what I am, a working pop artist in a big F-Off rock band."
That's alright then. So long as you never forget that you're an artist.


Not Forgot-Ten: April 2010

LL Cool J was surprised to find himself in a programme being interviewed by Sarah Palin, a person he's never met. Keane were livid to hear David Cameron using them as a theme tune, but not as angry as KT Tunstall was with her BNP stepdad. And Dave Rwontree explained why he fought elections. Not just something to do between Blur reunions.

Forced to choose between a girl, and a pop career, Cliff Richard decided to go the route of causing the most suffering. Liam Gallagher came up with a witty riposte just weeks after being called a name by Peter Kay. Working even more slowly, Ringo Starr decided to blame eBay for his withdrawal from autographs a couple of years back.

Q and Mojo decided to squeeze freelancers a little bit more. The NME had another revamp.

Hopes that 6Music could be saved by being rebranded were thrown down a well by the BBC. The battle between Absolut and Absolute for ownership of the name ended in a draw. Or possibly drawe. Always close to a pound note, Heather Mills won a set of free Whitney Houston tickets off Heart FM.

To the delight of the Daily Mail, it turns out Kelly Clarkson causes cancer while Phil Collins started to steal chunks of the Alamo. Dappy claimed to have taken meow meow, although the fact he called it meow meow makes it seem unlikely. Leona Lewis didn't need alcohol for a good time, or at the very least turned into a one-woman episode of Casualty. Just the message bit.

Ian Astbury pulled on our sleeves - had we heard about this downloady thing that people do on computers? It's wrong, he concluded. Last FM made itself a bit less useful by junking the 'play this track' feature. Hoping nobody would spot they were a major label, Warners tried to crowd-source the funding for Natty's new album.

Andrew Liversage from the BPI was caught out suggesting repurposing a birthday card but said he was only joking because copyright is sacrosanct, right? Information Is Beautiful had a crack at breaking down how much each format made for an artist, with limited success.

Returning: Shania Twain. Disappearing: White Rose Movement. Reworking: Shirley Manson. Quitting: Supergrass. Reforming: The 22-20s. Winding up: Voxtrot. Pausing: Idlewild.

Was the world ready for an Adam Ant comeback? More to the point, was he?

This month, Lady GaGa was unwittingly at the heart of a deep south homophobia t-shirt row.


Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gordon in the morning: How would this have worked if One Direction had won?

Gordon has handed the obviously staged kiss "caught" by photographers to Richard White to "report" on:

The show winner, 27, chatted intimately with ex-S Club Junior Stacey McClean hours after single When We Collide hit the top spot.

Matt - often told by show judges "You made that song your own" - kept smoothing
Stacey's hair as they spoke at London's May Fair Hotel.
This, of course, is a genuine thing that really happened, and not an attempt by his managers to try and shift the impression that Cardle is about as thrilling as a cold cup of coffee in a queue at St Pancras.

Although the thought that anyone would recognise Stacey McClean without someone handing out copies of her CV to the paparazzi does seem a little unlikely.


Unwanted format: The Playbutton

A few years back, there was a brief vogue for chunky little plastic boxes which, when you hit a button, would play a song. I've got vague memories of them being offered in McDonalds; certainly, they were considered to be kiddies' toys.

Somewhat surprised, then, to see the idea being resurrected by a company pushing something called PlayButton:

The Playbutton is a digital music album in the form of a badge, providing album artwork that you can wear. Pin it to your lapel, plug in a pair of headphones and you can walk down the street displaying your musical taste as you listen.
Now, you could say that's perhaps a bit of a curious idea as a gimmick; knock a few of these out as part of a marketing campaign and it'd be a bit of a laugh, right?

The truth, though, is that they're thinking of it as an actual format. To sit alongside CDs:
"It's a small object, perfect and immediate, that you can hold in your hand," says Nick Dangerfield, founder of the New York-based Playbutton company.

Mr Dangerfield says he came up with the format in response to a widespread feeling that people were "tired with CDs", but finding digital music downloads "not entirely satisfying".

"I thought about giving a new use to digital files by putting them in a dedicated player. It's an iconic form that gives you the chance to show your affiliation," he says.
People aren't "tired of CDs", though, are they? They're buying downloads because they're more convenient. You don't see people in HMV... well, you don't see people in HMV at all, but if you did, they're not saying "I'd really buy a record, but these circles of plastic are so derivative. If only there was some ugly badge thing I could buy instead."

Seriously, the idea that it's somehow going to be attractive to buy music in a format where the music can't be transferred to another player, which can only play the ten tracks over and over again and - oh yes - you can't shuffle the order of the tunes:
Mr Dangerfield thinks the sequencing of an album is about "surrendering control to the artist" and that something important is lost when we have the power to rearrange its track listing.
Yes. The power to not have to listen to rubbishy filler that has been dolloped on the record in order to stretch an ep-worth of idea into a lp-worth of a sale.

So, this latter day eight track should at least have the benefit of being cheap, right?
Mr Dangerfield thinks the ideal price would be $15 (£10) if bands sold them at their gigs, but the price could be up to double that, "depending on the type of release and sales channel".

"It's up to the artist to decide how much they want to charge," he says.

Isn't that pricing the Playbutton too high? Mr Dangerfield thinks not.

"If you say to people, 'It's an MP3 player and it's $25,' they say it's cheap," he says. "But if you say, 'It's an MP3 player and it's already got a good record inside,' they think it's expensive."
To be honest, I don't believe that anyone would say "$25 for a 256mb mp3 player? That sounds like a bargain", and it's not much of an advert for your product to say that as soon as anyone puts music on the thing, its perceived value drops like a stone.

Surely music bullets must be on the cards for 2011?


Not Forgot-Ten: March 2010

After Yoko took a big cheque from Citroen, it fell to Sean Lennon to explain how it was all about legacy and not merely shaking Lennon's corpse until the coins fell out. The PRS splashed away money intended for its members on a pointless survey. Money better spent was that the BPI used to charm Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement Jones, who inserted the BPI's wording into the Digital Economy Bill. God help us if the Lib Dems ever get in government, eh?

The latest idea to try and fight file sharing? An attempt to create a moral equivalence with drunk driving. Yes, that'd work. Almost as good idea as EMI's bid to flog off the back catalogue to save itself.

It turns out JLS have a five year plan. They'll think again once they start shaving. Clearly, though, the idea of a JLS condom range was never going to happen - they're a preteen's band, right? And for people who have trouble sleeping in a ditch, Amy Winehouse signed up to produce a fashion range to let you get her look.

Public Enemy's attempts to crowdsource album funding fell flat. Pink Floyd sued EMI for allowing people to decide to not spend money on songs they don't want. Money that could be spent, for example, buying Pink's breath in a bottle, which you could keep safe with a Bonnie Prince Billy bottle stopper. Or, if you had a spare half a million, you could have a body like Rihanna. Or piss it away investing with Bono.

In a desperate attempt to remove any interesting music programming at all, MTV closed MTV2.Having spotted that 6Music was popular, Ed Vaizey did a total u-turn and suddenly called for its saving. The Economist proudly announced that iXtra and XFM were "similar", presumably because they both had X in their name. Radcliffe And Maconie were cut by a quarter, not offset by the one night revival of the Evening Session.

NOFX confirmed they didn't really hurl piss at the SXSW audience. Sri Lanka said they didn't want anything Akon might hurl at them. Erykah Badu was definitely not trying to stir up press coverage by rubbing naked bits on the Grassy Knoll. Not at all. No.

Format of the month: The iTunes LP, sinking beneath the waves.

Mark Owen turned out to be human after all. Graham Coxon turned out to be a bit of a bullying git. Florence Welch and Gang Gang Dance came to terms. And Kelly Osbourne tried to stop a dog fight.

Split: Janes Addiction (again). Returning to music: Molly Ringwald (no, really). Quitting after this one: Miley Cyrus. Reuniting: The Libertines.

Barbara Walters worried that she might have put the idea in people's heads that Ricky Martin was gay. That, and not, you know, his being gay. Mike Joyce was busily trying to put the idea in people's heads that there was much more to him than being in The Smiths.

Sony dropped Jedward. It doesn't seem to have sunk in yet.

This month, Lady GaGa was overcharging and being sued.


Monday, December 20, 2010

Jedward redeem their entire existence

I have ground my teeth, finer and finer, over the year as Jedward - or the Two Chicos - have refused to go home.

But their reaction to Florence and The Machine during a 'songs of the year' thing at the Guardian almost makes me forgive them:

Yeah, she's good. We've got two signed albums at home. And yes, it's a really, really good song. Universal's really pushing her to be really big. To be this big global artist. Will she meet their expectations? No.

That's quite amusing. Let's just hope they don't go and say or do something so irritating it sets my teeth grinding again...
John and Edward Grimes (Jedward) star in Nintendo's new TV ad campaign and are ambassadors for Dragon Quest IX on the Nintendo DS.
Excuse me, I must to a dentist.

[via @andymalt]


Gordon in the morning: Suddenly spinning Jackson's corpse in the opposite direction

Ooh, I wonder who rang the Sun and had a word? After last week's fair enough bit pointing out how poorly the new "Jackson" album is doing, today there's a piece tacked on the end of a story about Mat Cardle which looks like an attempt to try and make it sound like a great sale:

Michael, the King Of Pop's new album, got to No4.

It's MICHAEL JACKSON's biggest-selling album in terms of opening week sales in the UK since Dangerous in 1991.
Yes, but that's only because it's Christmas week and people are buying gifts - and because everything since Dangerous was either a repackaging or stillborn. There are going to be so many people opening packages on the 25th saying "oh... thanks, Gran... you remembered I loved Michael Jackson" and swallowing back the words "when I was six years old."

For a rotten album, it's an alright sale, but proves once again that by the time he died, his place in the entertainment industry was closer to Ripley's Believe It Or Not rather than Presley.

The article is a bit strange, too, as - despite being published "today" - it's speculating that Matt Cardle might be Christmas Number One. Despite, erm, the Christmas Number One having been announced last night.


Cricket approach wicket with all you can eat download service

Cricket, the US mobile operator whose popularity is roughly on par with that of the game of cricket in the states, is plotting a ComesWithMusic style all-you-can-eat download service.

It looks like it's only going to be available as part of a bundle with unlimited voice, text and data, which might help with apparent take-up figures, as on its own it's not much of a service: DRM-wrapped music files that you can apparently only store on your phone. So unlimited by number, but severely limited as to how you can use them.

Oh, by the way: it's called Muve Music. Yes, but what do you expect?


Not Forgot-Ten: February 2010

Jack White took on the American Air Force for not asking before the service used a tune in a recruitment ad. Soundscan was accused by Cheap Trick of flogging data it shouldn't have to major labels to let them undermine self-released stuff. Google wiped a swathe of music blogs off the internet but, obviously, not in an evil way. Perhaps that might satisfy Kasabian, who decided that the internet has ruined music.

Noel Gallagher, of Chalfont St Giles, applied for planning permission to build a gazebo of some sort.

Warners got angry that having music paid for by advertising didn't treat the "artists" with "respect". Not like churning out best ofs and dumping acts who don't recoup does. Talking of respect, EMI's Guy Hands doesn't honor his mother and father with visits, as that might affect his tax status. Legally, he's a tax avoider. And if you can't remember the difference, tax dodgers don't pay their tax illegally, tax avoiders just don't pay tax unethically.

Courtney Love was invited to the Oxford Union to share her... well, for some reason. Status Quo went to the Palace to pick up their OBEs and beamed from ear-to-royalist-forelocktugging-ear. The BPI invited Peter Kay to host the Brits, with the expected results.

Ministry Of Sound might be turned into flats and EMI suggested they might flog off Abbey Road.

Feargal Sharkey stomped his foot after a signed piece on the Culture Show had a different point of view to himself. And by "himself" these days, Sharkey tends to mean the whole of UK Music.

Elton John tried to make a subtle point about what Jesus taught us, but it ended up being reported as saying Jesus was gay.

Although the BBC Trust announced that it didn't think 6Music should close, the network wasn't out the woods yet, as it became clear management were going to close them anyway. Over on commercial radio, Akon launched a regular show on Capital by axing his regular show on Capital.

A bad case of overheating knocked Spotify off the internet for a while.

Billy Bragg staged a protest outside the offices of RBS while one of JLS got into trouble in a branch of Currys. Kittie wished people would stop treating them like they were teenagers.

Deciding that doing an interview with Playboy wasn't douchey enough, John Mayer took the opportunity to announce that his penis was a white supremacist. Having made a Canadian court rearrange all its dates, Noel Gallagher decided to not turn up at his attacker's hearing after all.

Q fell behind Mojo while This Is Fake DIY went paperstyle.

Revitalised: Buggles. Returning: Dubstar.

This month, Lady GaGa abandoned her water dress for a tribute to McQueen.


Sunday, December 19, 2010

Ice ice baby

Vanilla Ice is, apparently, on the shortlist for Dancing On Ice. Although, sadly, he isn't the "Ice" upon which the dancing will happen.


Paramore split. A bit.

Paramore have lost forty per cent of their workforce, in the sort of downsizing which makes Eric Pickles reach for the lotion bottle and his special sock.

The brothers Josh and Zac Farro have quit, although somewhat confusingly they appear to have "put in a request to leave" two months ago. So they must have been working out their notice, then, like they were on an insurance call centre team.

That the band is confident of continuing without a drummer might give the impression that it's almost like the music bit of Paramore doesn't have a great deal to do with the front end.


Spotify concede they might not make it to the US this year

Given that it's December 19th, and even Santa is thinking about taking next week off, it's probably no surprise that Spotify have said 'you know what, we might not hit the launching in the US 2010 deadline'.

It's now not going with a launch date for America at all, just saying that it's coming. Possibly quite wise.


Madonna prepares to sweat

The idea of Madonna starting up the machine that's been churning out horrible music for the last few years is enough to cope with on a miserable Sunday. We all could have done without this mental image:

"Its official! I need to move. I need to sweat. I need to make new music! Music I can dance to."
The thought of Madonna having her typing minion fire up Facebook to announce that she's preparing to gush sweat from whatever pores have survived the flesh cauterizing processes she's been through fair puts me off my cheesecake.

Perhaps she's obliged to issue a warning, as it also functions as a statement of intent to start eating the monkey glands of younger, more interesting artists:
"I'm on the lookout for the maddest, sickest, most bad ass people to collaborate with. I'm just saying"
Did you catch that at the end? That's what young people say when they're "chatting" on their "text phones" or "Twitting" through their "Faceybooks".

Madonna's search for the sickest people to collaborate with has been successful; she's spending Sunday at the Royal Leamington Spa General on the acute ward. Miss Ivy Doodleson, 86, tells reporters "we're just going to jam and see what comes out of it, although the gentleman who had a jews' harp didn't make it through the night, I'm afraid."


Not Forgot-Ten: January 2010

http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2010/01/spice-girls-get-to-that-stage.htmlThe BPI was caught trying to actually write legislation rather than relying on the British tradition of buying a politician lunch on a yacht in order to alter laws. The new, legal, ignored Napster tried floating the idea that free music wasn't very good. The legal sledgehammers being aimed at Oink resulted in a not guilty verdict.

Pointless new format: MusicDNA, a download "file that is extremely searchable and can carry up to 32GB of extra information".

Discovering it couldn't really persuade Miley to keep her breasts covered much longer, Disney announced that Hannah Montana was coming to an end. And the chart people declared indie guitar music dead.

Myleene Klass said she'd been warned by police after waving a knife at intruders, and then the story fell to pieces. Not as quickly as all the press stories about heroin being the cause of the Blur split, which were quickly yanked after legal intervention.

After a less than stellar 2009, Morrissey decided to dump his manager - perhaps a new oversight to his career might save him from wandering into racism scuffles, yes? Meanwhile, Bono firmly endorsed the idea that there's a right to pollute which can be bought or sold while the BBC admitted it had over-endorsed U2. Iggy Pop introduced a comedy sidekick self-referential puppet to his awful insurance adverts.

Liam Gallagher started manifesting as a giant flaming head. Perhaps that was a portent warning of Perez Hilton and Simon Fuller joining their forces. But if working with Hilton keeps Fuller away from making his Spice Girls musical, maybe even that has its plus side.

The Sunday Express proved it didn't know much about Twitter or the BBC. Music Week came to the iPhone, setting the sort of over-inflated price its target readership would love to be able to get away with. Beyonce found herself quite unable to turn down the equally silly money on offer to play a private gig for the Gadaffis and Los Angeles taxpayers sued the corpse of Michael Jackson to get the cost of policing his memorial launch show back.

Jonathan Ross said he'd leave the BBC, which worried Gennaro Castaldo more than it probably should. ITV came up with Pop Star To Opera Star, taking people who sing for a living and putting them in a crazy position where they had to sing for a living.

A puzzled Olly Murs couldn't work out why Robbie Williams hadn't been back in touch since The X Factor finished. Perhaps he should try giving Dappy his number, although given Dappy stole a phone number of a critical caller to Radio One and started issuing death threats, maybe he shouldn't.

Over on radio, Kiss cut its specialist programming back even further while XFM announced - with the help of science - that Mr Brightside was the best song ever. Ever. Commercial Radio decided it didn't want to make a fuss about the Haiti Earthquake. Steve Penk complained that Chris Evans' breakfast show was being promoted on the BBC while his programme on North Norfolk Digital or whatever failed to get a mention on the Andrew Marr show. Although Penk did get a lot of press coverage when he played Van Halen's Jump as a severely depressed human being stood on the edge of taking their own life.

Given that all they're really known for is their viral videos, you have to admire EMI's decision to bar Ok Go videos from being used viraly. Let's not rush to embrace the internet too wildly, eh, EMI? Back in the 21st century, http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2010/01/you-too-can-have-your-song-in-rock-band.html">the Rock Band franchise plots to allow bands to upload their own songs into the game.

ContactMusic happily accepted that Biffy Clyro was a Welsh astronaut. Everyone else had nodded when told Van Morrison had become a father, but that turned out to be even shakier than the idea of Welsh moonshots. Guy Ritchie decided he could run a record label with his pub house band as first signings. Nobody stopped him.

Reunited: Swans. Reopened: The old Factory offices, as a nightclub. Remaining split: System Of A Down. Merging: Ticketmaster/LiveNation.

IPC told a copyright court hearing that they were just about to launch a digitised version of the Melody Maker archive. Perhaps they're still choosing colours or something.

This month, Lady GaGa was pretending to be an inventor for Polaroid.