Spotify suddenly obsessed with running

How can you tell Spotify has reached middle age?

It's suddenly started becoming obsessed with keep-fit and the gym.

Yes, as well as adding podcasts and video in the big announcement yesterday (or "moving on from doing one thing well to trying to do lots of things other people already do better", to use the technical term), Spotify kept banging on about running. Like that bloke from the office who had a mild health scare and suddenly started showing up in a tracksuit, thrusting his fitbit under your nose in the breakroom.

Spotify Running. Every week millions of you lace up and hit the road to Spotify.

Yes, we lace up and hit the road. But what about when we get back from travelling corsetry show? What then, Spotify?

Music is the perfect running companion but sometimes you need even more motivation to push on.

I have some sympathy for the poor sod who had to churn this paragraph out, because the announcement is little more than 'you can do something with Spotify and the Nike+ you almost certainly don't own, and we've put together a playlist of some fast songs', but they're having to try and milk a couple of hundred words out of it.

That’s why Spotify Running is all about helping you go the extra mile.

Fortunately for an announcement about keeping fit, although this announcement is packed with words, none of those words contain any calories whatsoever.

We’ve combined the best music on the planet – recommendations based on your listening history, multiple-genre playlists and original running compositions written by some of the world’s foremost DJs and composers – all tuned to your tempo and seamlessly transitioned to ensure you’ll never miss a beat.

"Original running compositions".

You know how that conversation went:
- Hi, foremost DJ, it's Spotify; we'd like you to compose something running for us
- What does that mean, even? I don't think...
- We will give you lots of money - tonnes of the stuff. Loads more than if you were a composer providing the music for our core business, ironically. Lots of money.
- Really? Hang on a moment.
Goes to Mac, drags half-finished song from Trash, renames file 'Hitting The Streets.mp3'
- Sending something across now.

Start running and Spotify will detect your tempo, matching the perfect music in time to your step – making you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.

I don't know much about running - although I did once get to prance about wearing one of Steve Ovett's Olympic medals - but what Spotify seem to be pitching is a metronome which adjusts down or up to your pace.

Which isn't really what you want in a pacemaker, is it? The idea is that you choose a song, and try to pace your running to that song. If the song switches the pace you're running at, what is the point?

And will the music start lurching around stopping and starting? You're off like a shot and Icona Pop are I Don't Care-ing it, but you suddenly get a stitch and out of nowhere Morrissey appears? Will, should you collapse to the ground in pain, clutching your arm, Spotify notice you've stopped and lob on a Lake Wobegone podcast?

Then Spotify do this:

The new Now experience will begin rolling out today to iPhone users in the US, UK, Germany and Sweden – with more markets and platforms to follow in the near future. Spotify Running will start rolling out to iPhone users globally today.

That’s entertainment.

And, yes, "That's entertainment" links to That's Entertainment.

Spotify spend a long time making a pitch for how they're awfully clever at choosing just the right song for the right moment through algorithms and brilliance, and then illustrate this ability by showing how entertaining they are with a song that is using the word "entertainment" with an irony so bitter they could put it in bleach to stop toddlers accidentally swigging Domestos.

That's entertaining, Spotify, but not how you think.

You, YouTube & The Music revisited

Robin Carmody just pointed out that out of three great music moments in a 2006 post, the only one remaining active was a Jam appearance which is such awful quality it's unlikely even Weller could identify himself in the clip.

This calls for a revisit.

So... here's a rebuilt version, this time with embeds.

First, here's Britney Spears doing Toxic on Blue Peter:


Some classic 'point camera at TV' work there.

As a bonus, here's Britney doing I Was Born To Make You Happy on BP:


Next up, Stevie Wonder doing Superstition. On Sesame Street:


And, finally, once again, it's The Jam on Tiswas. Think of it as a Public Information Film about the risks of video tape degradation:

Even Weller thinks Lydon's an embarrassing old grump

When even Paul Weller is telling you that, frankly, you sound like Grampa Simpson, you should probably take a look at yourself.

Weller has stretched and yawned in the face of John Lydon's latest 'I remember when it was all horses" tirades:

"I don't really understand him anymore," Weller explained. "He's become the antithesis of what he once was. Does he need the money?

"Perhaps he misses the adulation, the buzz. Nostalgia has become a whole industry in itself... and I don't like it. You can never recapture what has gone."

That's not a problem for Lydon, of course: he's much more interested in making up a past that never really happened.

Weller: 'reunion is cabaret'

Paul Weller isn't, he's reiterated, all that comfortable with the What Used To Be In The Jam reunion tour that the rest of the band is still pushing on with, not at all:

"I’m not mad about the idea, It’s a bit cabaret to me," he explained. "I thought we were against all that."

He's convinced splitting the Jam was the right thing to do:

"It was the right thing to do. It was an artistic decision, without sounding poncey. I didn’t want to be in the same set up for the rest of my life. I like to change and move on," Weller explained.

It's amusing to see Weller simultaneously praising his own ability to move on while, erm, dwelling on how clever he was all those years ago:

"Do I miss it? No, not particularly. I quite like what today is. It was a lot of pressure, being that kind of spokesman for a generation. Whether it was my own fault for setting myself up or not, I don’t know, but it was a lot of pressure for a young man. I certainly didn’t miss that"

He doesn't let on if he's equally proud of his decision to split the Style Council.

Jam tomorrow

Some nice work in today's Guardian, where John Harris asks leftist popstars how they feel about the endorsements they're getting from Cameron and chums:

When I put in a call to Paul Weller, he mentions Cameron's alleged fondness for his old songs, and expresses a fatalistic puzzlement. "It's like, which bit didn't he get?" he says. "It's strange, but the whole nature of politics has shifted, hasn't it? The stark contrasts of Thatcherism and socialism have gone: you can't really tell who's Brown or Cameron or anyone else. I don't know what Cameron's for or against, really. Even with that div who's running for mayor - Boris Johnson - there's some things he's said that I've found myself agreeing with, like bringing back the Routemaster buses. You sort of think, 'Hang on - I'm agreeing with a Tory twat.'"

When I mention his residual feelings about the long years of Thatcherism, however, out it all comes. "I think they were absolute fucking scum - especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class - the dismantling of lots of things."

It's hard to see how anyone who believes what Cameron believes could really have enjoyed the Jam - especially since, back at that end of his career, Cameron would have still been in The Bullingdon Club, still Thatcher supporting. It's hard to shake the suspicion that liking The Smiths and The Jam has been arrived at by back-projecting 'what would the man I'm meant to be now have been listening to then?'.

Otherwise, we have to believe one of three things - one, that Cameron enjoyed the music, but ignored the politics. But take the politics out of The Jam, and there wasn't a lot left.

Two, that Cameron enjoyed the music and approached the lyrics as a dialectical, maintaining some sort of dialogue as he pogoed: "Ah, when Paul Weller sings of thugs having attended "'too many' right-wing meetings", he is falling into the trap of portraying agression as being rightest, whereas, of course, with his money and take-away curry and a bottle of wine, the protagonist is, in fact, truly the right-winger in the tale, enjoying the economic benefits of twelve months of Tory rule, turning round the economy after the stagflation of the wasted Callaghan and Wilson years." But this seems unlikely.

Third, that Cameron was just too stupid to understand what the songs were about. This isn't impossible - indeed, it turns out to be true of one his colleagues, as Harris discovers:

On this score, my favourite story concerns the Cameroonian Tory MP Ed Vaizey, who recently appeared on Michael Portillo's BBC4 Thatcher documentary, The Lady's not for Spurning, talking about the Birmingham-based 80s band the Beat, whom he claims to have "adored", despite being an "ardent Thatcherite". "They had a song called Stand Down Margaret," he marvelled, before telling Portillo he assumed that everyone in Britain admired Mrs Thatcher in much the same awestruck terms as he did, so when it came to the song's target, the penny never really dropped. "I couldn't work out what they had against Princess Margaret," he said. D'oh!

In a recent Guardian webchat, Cameron was asked how he felt about Morrissey's Margaret On The Guillotine. His response?

"The lyrics - even the ones I disagree with - are great, and often amusing."

Now, it is possible to enjoy a song with whose politics you diverge - Robert Wyatt doing Stalin Wasn't Stalling is a great piece of music, even though is somehow manages to ignore the actually-quite-stalling Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But could an ardent Tory really listen to a song suggesting that right-thinking people would enjoy the execution of one of your party's touchstone leaders and think "well, that's a well-written tune. The calling for what would amount to a regicide is very amusingly phrased"?

Surely only if you didn't believe in anything very passionately could you make such a claim?

Heavens preserve us

The not-actually-important-parts-of-The-Jam, who've been gigging up and down the country under the name _From The Jam, have decided that the reunion is going so well, except for not having the voice of Weller, that they might as well record some new material:

Foxton says From The Jam plans to start rehearsing song ideas in April, after the group finishes its early-year tour commitments. "There will be new material, (but) it probably won't see the light of day until the end of this year," he says. "We've got a few good ideas kicking around. We'll see what we come up with. We don't want to rush it. There's no pressure from a record label or anybody. It's a great position to be in."

Obviously, the idea is to give people who haven't had a chance to get the gigs to realise that they're still alright, if you can get over the missing Weller to discover through records that, past the initial disappointment, they're alright.

A Weller-free Jam might seem an odd idea, but people buy decaffinated coffee and fat-free guacamole, don't they, and there's technically no bloody point in those products, either.

Foxton and Daltrey suggest musicians incapable of managing money

Obviously skirting round the awkward fact that the copyright in most recordings is owned by corporations rather than the original musicians, Roger Daltrey and Bruce Foxton have complained that government plans to leave copyright terms untouched will condemn them to penury:

Daltrey told BBC News that musicians rely on royalties as many don't have pensions.

"They are not looking for a handout," he said, "just fair reward for their creative endeavours."

Bruce Foxton, who used to play bass guitar in The Jam, has also spoken on the issue.

"I've played bass on all The Jam tracks, and all we've been asking is that we can earn royalties from those recordings, assuming people keep buying them," he said. "Now I will be faced with losing all that when the time comes, and at a point when age will seriously limit my other earning opportunities."

We reckon Bruce has got another twenty-odd years of earnings which he could, as other people have to with their earnings, sort out his pension scheme in; Daltrey, meanwhile, might be able to squeeze by using his American Express card and income from his trout farm. Of course, if they're really worried about the plight of pensioners, they could try campaigning for a rise in tax rates for top earners so that everyone can look forward to a comfortable old age, rather than making a few musicians rely on there being an audience for work six decades old to be able to live.

Tim Burgess: Malice aforethought

Our all-day celebration of the first 40 years of Tim Burgess' life continues - this is taken from the soundcheck for March's Manchester Versus Cancer event, and, yes, it's Paul Weller and The Charlatans doing A Town Called Malice.

Flob at sting

While the concept of a man knocking fifty spitting a picture is one so devoid of dignity we're almost tempted to send him a telegram asking him who the prime minister is, few of us can honestly say, confronted by a portrait of Sting, we wouldn't consider spitting at it. Paul Weller, apparently, actually did.

More Jam tomorrow

The success of the not-quite-Jam in selling out their you-can't-call-it-a-comeback tour has led to the booking of a larger tour (in terms of venues) for November & December:

Saturday November 24 Plymouth Pavilions
Sunday November 25 Cardiff St Davids Hall
Monday November 26 Grimsby Auditorium
Tuesday November 27 Liverpool Carling Academy
Thursday November 29 Glenrothes Rothes Halls
Friday November 30 Preston 53 Degrees
Saturday December 1 Leicester De Montfort Hall
Monday December 3 Leeds Met Students Union
Tuesday December 4 Nottingham Rock City
Wednesday December Manchester Academy
Saturday December 8 Sheffield Octagon
Sunday December 9 Bristol Carling Academy
Tuesday December 11 Southampton Guildhall
Wednesday December 12 Norwich UEA
Friday December 14 Newcastle Carling Academy
Saturday December 15 Glasgow Carling Academy
Sunday December 16 Cambridge Corn Exchange
Tuesday December 18 Birmingham Carling Academy
Wednesday December 19 London Kentish Town Forum
Friday December 21 Brighton Centre

The astute amongst you will notice that this tour ends at the Brighton Centre, where the actual Jam ended their last tour. Irony unbounded, eh?

The Jam reunite (sort of)

It's the news music fans have almost been waiting for: The Jam nearly reuniting for an not-quite-a-reunion tour.

Yes, all of The Jam (except for Paul Weller) are getting back together for the first Jam tour of any sort in twenty-five years, and the first Jam tour without Paul Weller ever. Not that Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are going to stop Weller joining in, if he wants:

"I have stayed close to The Jam fans over the years,” says drummer Rick Buckler. “The songs mean so much to so many people. Fans have been demanding that we play live for years. Paul Weller has a fantastic solo career and is one of the UK's most talented songwriters. Paul is always welcome to join us for the reunion, but until then, we've got a tour and a new album to do!"

We're not entirely sure we believe "fans" have been petitioning for "just two thirds of The Jam" to get back together, but it's nice to think they have. People marching chanting "what do we want? The less-significant portion of the band back together! When do we want it? Whenever."

And, yes, there is a threat of a "new" album in there, too, featuring new material. So, they're not only going to stomp all over the legacy, but they intend to piss in its face as well.

We're not fans of the solo Weller, but any sort of Jam without him seems distinctly seedless.

NO JAM TOMORROW

Even although he denies he's worth £165million, Paul Weller has insisted he'd never be tempted to get The Jam back together:

"Nah that would never happen. Why would I want to go back? For nostalgic reasons? That's never good enough," he told Uncut.

"My philosophy is to embrace the new day and get on with it. If The Jam reformed now it'd just be a sad cabaret and that's not what I'm about at all."

Well, not since The Style Council split up, anyway.

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