Joss Stone acclaimed as... wait, what now?

It's that time of the year when magazines, websites, podcasts, television shows, groups, bloggers and Facebook Marketing Entities hand out 'best of the year' accolades.

Billboard has done a list, and amongst the winners this year is Joss Stone.

Joss, it appears, is the Reggae Artist of the Year.

You're surprised. How do you think the Jamaican Observer feels?

Puzzled, the paper has dug into the Billboard archive to see if it had somehow missed Stone being hailed as the greatest modern reggae act. It hadn't:

The album did not impress Billboard magazine writer Steven Horowitz who described Stone’s ‘reggae experiment’ as “unconvincing”.

He added: “For more than a decade, Joss Stone has been a serial genre-hopper. Switching from R&B to blues, funk to rock, the 28-year-old Brit has powered six albums with soulful vocals beyond her years. The songs are technically impressive, as expected from Stone, but unconvincing.”

Makes you wonder what the guy at number two must be like. Some chap called Bobby Marley.

Gordon in the morning: Alleged victim support

Gordon pulls off something of a journalistic coup this morning, taking a story about an alleged serious crime and somehow ending up with the image of a dog shitting on Robbie Williams' head.

Gordon claims that - being mates - after hearing about the business outside her house earlier this week, Williams was straight on the phone to Joss Stone to invite her over in order to cheer her up.

Given that there was a whole lot of space to pad out, and even if News International lawyers might be a bit shaky on privacy law they're at least sharp on speculation about cases currently before the courts, Gordon was left trying to imagine how Robbie Williams might go about cheering up Joss Stone:

He is still very protective of her and no doubt did his Alan Partridge impressions in a bid to get a smirk out of her.

Er, no doubt. Let's hope he didn't do the bit where Alan is chased through a rural landscape by the mentalist, though.

Still, you can't entirely take away the sting of a tough week just by pretending to be Steve Coogan. What other comic gems does Robbie have in his arsenal, Gordon?

Resting his dogs on his head is another of his trademark gags.

I'm not entirely sure I can even picture what that might mean. Obviously, I can picture it, but not in any way that makes me go "oh, that's a gag."

Gordon, clearly, also realises that it's an act which might need something:

But that's only funny if one follows through, surely?

Thus we go from true crime to the idea of dog crap sliding down Robbie Williams' face. Surely the Pulitzer Committee are watching?

Men accused of attempting to get blood out of a Stone

The strange tale of the two Mancunians apparently found outside Joss Stone's house has arrived in the criminal justice system:

Two men are due to appear in court over an alleged plot to harm and rob the singer Joss Stone at her Devon home.

Kevin Liverpool, 33, and Junior Bradshaw, 30, are due before Exeter magistrates later charged with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit robbery.

So it'll be up to a court to decide what was fact, and how much of the story was wild speculation.

Joss Stone doesn't like Lily Allen much

Joss Stone is unimpressed by Lily Allen's attempts to influence the law on filesharing, on the grounds that Allen isn't really a musician:

"[Lily] needs to sell records because she's not a singer, and that's not an offence to her because I think that she knows that too," Stone told the Press Association.

Whereas Stone is "making real music [and] people [will] come to the show" for "artist[s] like Lily ... it's about the track, their personality and their celebrity".

Yes, people really shouldn't take bread out the mouths of actual artists by trading on their celebrity to get jobs in other fields, eh, Joss Stone?

By the way, how did the acting in The Tudors go?

Still, Stone is smart enough to know that while you might pick a fight with Allen, you're on a hiding to nothing taking on the internet:

"She's not going to win [the] fight [over downloads]," Stone said. "None of us will win that fight. So let's just accept it and see it as something that can be beautiful and might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers."

Hmm. Actually, the weeds tend to be more interesting than the flowers, don't you think?

Gordon in the morning: We're only trying to get us some peace

Whatever happened to Gordon Brown's use of the Widow Twankey ratings he was giving to Lady GaGa's outfits? Today he merely details that she wasn't wearing a bra. Perhaps he felt a bit ashamed of the whole "Twankeys out of ten" concept. But then, he's a grown man going "phwoarr, she's not wearing a bra", like a ten year-old caught in a Carry On movie, so perhaps he's just over-excited.

Elsewhere, Gordon has news of a collaboration:

JOSS STONE and MICK JAGGER are making sweet music together again.

Again?

The songbird and the wrinkly ROLLING STONE first collaborated in 2004 on track Lonely Without You, for the soundtrack to the movie Alfie.

Oh, yes... who could, erm, forget that one?

But now they have roped in some dazzling pals to make their next songs even more special.

Wow. Even more special than a track nobody's heard off a film that nobody saw? These must be some pretty dazzling pals indeed to deliver on such a promise.

The duo have been working with BOB MARLEY’s sons DAMIAN and STEPHEN as well as Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack composer A.R. RAHMAN and rapper NAS.

To you or I, this might sound like "some people who happened to be hanging about the recording studio who had a spare hour before lunch", but Gordon? Gordon's impressed:

It’s a mind-boggling roll call of musical heavy-hitters and they have come together to work on an album that will be issued on the UN’s International Day Of Peace, September 21.

A mind-boggling roll call? Really? The woman from the flake advert, someone's sons, a tax exile, a film composer and a random rapper? That boggles your mind, Gordon? Thank God you weren't born when Hear N Aid made Stars, your very head would have popped off and rolled clear down the street, like a whole pickled cabbage losing a fight with gravity.

Still, hats off to the UN for deciding to mark the International Day Of Peace by releasing a record from people known these days mostly for making a godawful racket.

You know what's missing from this well-meaning but pointless endeavour, though?

U2 frontman BONO is also involved in the project and has been recording separately with Damian.

Ah. There you are, Mr. Bono.

Stone casts votes

If there's one thing the US heartlands love, it's getting lectures on democracy from Europeans. It always goes down well. So what better than Joss Stone to get the vote out?

"America is a large, major power and it affects everywhere, so I can't just sit down and shut up," she said in an interview last week. "Just because I can't vote doesn't mean I can't say what I mean and what I feel. I just hope that people will vote. ... I'm not here to say Barack or McCain, I'm hear to say, 'Have a voice and use it.' It's so important."

Well, she's right that she can't just sit down and shut up; that's for certain. But if it's so very important with America being this large, major power, then shouldn't Stone endorse a candidate? How does saying 'vote for someone, anyone' actually mean Stone is using her voice?

Still, we should find out who she's back soon - there's less than a week to the election and since Gordon Smart insisted that Obama had personally invited her to write a campaign song for him, we must surely be about to hear it, right?

Where was Joss?

Talking of Barack, though: he's named his vice-presidential running mate. He's accepted the nomination. He's given Hillary a chance to do something other than run through the figures for the Clinton 2012 campaign.

And yet no sign yet of that campaign song Gordon Smart insisted Joss Stone was writing for him.

Joss Stone campaign hymnal

Almost nobody outside of the British press seems to be taking the Stone/Obama story seriously - and even then, the "doing the campaign theme song for" has been nervously marked down to "writing a song for".

Well, we say "almost nobody". Some right-wing bloggers are treating it like it's real.

CrushLiberalism is angry:

Obama hires young white woman singer to do his campaign song

Presumably a black presidential candidate should restrict himself to wizened, black, male singers. Some sort of blues, perhaps.

The American Pundit is angry:

Obama’s Young, White Female Songwriter

Not only is she white, but she's also not black. Thank heavens there are sharp eyed bloggers who spot these details.

But it's not just that she's white - she's not even a native American. Well, not not a Native American... oh, you know what they mean:

could Obama not find an American singer? I’ve got nothing against our British friends, but he’s exporting his theme song development while complaining about the exporting of other jobs? Not the greatest photo op there.

Yes. Writing a theme song - that's a good thirty-five quid Obama has outsourced there. Would have outsourced there.

Hilariously, the Pundit even notices that it should treat a Gordon Smart story with caution:

I was surprised to learn that Stone is a “huge star in the USA”, but maybe that’s just me.

... however, having spotted one major flaw in the story, they still take the rest of it completely at face value.

Surely by now someone should be saying that Ronson/Winehouse have been approached instead?

Gordon in the morning: Stone me

Gordon Smart - and, to be fair, The Times both claim that Joss Stone has been asked to record the theme song for Barack Obama's campaign - although, curiously, the story doesn't appear in any American media.

The Times, at least, manages to keep fairly sober in its report, but Gordon gets a bit over-excited:

Democrat candidate Mr Obama approached her personally because he was impressed by her appeal to both black and white voters in America.

Really? He approached her personally, did he?

Joss is a household name in the US, where she spends up to nine months a year.

A household name? Really, Gordon? Do we need to go through the difference between "a household name" and "slightly well known" again?

It might sound ludicrous, but as Gordon points out, Stone has done endorsements before:

Earlier this year Cadbury chose her to front new adverts for Flake chocolate bars.

And what a great job she did with those toe-curling adverts, huh.

What really makes Stone an unlikely choice is the way that Obama gets constantly beaten-up on the un-American/ un-Patriotic excuse. If he orders a salad with French dressing, the right-wing blogs report it as a slight to Lady Liberty. Is he really going to lead out his campaign under a track which draws the "he can't even find an American to sing a song for him" jibes?

Meanwhile, Smart is still trying to construct a Lily Allen - Katy Perry battle from the thinnest of material:

But Lily has now postponed new album Stuck On The Naughty Step until next year in what is shaping up to be the best chart battle straddling the pond for years.

Although if Allen has rescheduled her album release, then it's not much of a battle, is it? I never read Hotspur much when I was a kid, but the few times I did, I remember the story where the German soldiers turned up for the battle six months after the British troops had gone home were always heartwarming from a humanitarian point of view, but somewhat lacking as a battle narrative.

Anyway, today's attempt to try and stoke a fire is the surprise that:

I can tell you Katy’s boyfriend TRAVIS McCOY, from emo band GYM CLASS HEROES, had a thing for Lily before he met the US pop sensation.

Oh yes?

When asked last year if he had any celeb crushes, he confessed: “Lily Allen. I met her before very briefly. She’s cute. Yeah. . . I’d like to see her again.”

The key words here, of course, is "last year" - before he was dating Katy, in other words. Not that stops Gordon extrapolating:

Oh dear.

Oh dear?

That’s the kind of historical comment that is perfect ammunition for a girlfriend.

That rather presupposes that she would be looking for ammunition.

I feel for Travis the next time he doesn’t pick up a wet towel after having a shower.

The old “I bet you wouldn’t do that if you were with Lily” trump card will be reeled out again and again.

Yes. Assuming, of course, Perry spends her days Googling to find throwaway comments to goad her boyfriend with. I can't escape the feeling that this might tell us nothing about life in the Perry-McCoy household, and more about someone else's day-to-day life.

I bet you wouldn't leave wet towels all over the floor if you were with Liam...

Nelly adds a Stone

Unlikely pairings of our time, number 49773: Joss Stone is dating Nelly, apparently. We just hope she hasn't commenced on the relationship using her hip-hop accent - can you imagine trying to keep that up through a marriage?

A "source" apparently told the Daily Mirror:

It's great she has met someone as successful as she is and who understands the pressures being a performer can put on your life.

Is it just us, or does that sound like Joss phoned the 3AM desk herself?

[Thanks again to Michael M]

Fill your pockets with Stone's

Joss Stone isn't worried if you download her stuff without approval. Not in the slightest:

“I think it’s great,” adding “Yeah, I love it. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll tell you why. Music should be shared. I believe that this is how music turned into like, some crazy business. The only part about music that I dislike is the business that is attached to it. Now, if music is free, then there is no business, there is just music.”

Obviously, you might feel a little confused as to why, if commercialisation is so bad, Stone lovingly embraced doing ads for Cadburys. Maybe she just dreams of a day when there is no chocolate industry, just chocolate?

It turns out she does want some business, though:

“As long as you come to my show, and have a great time listening to the live show it’s totally cool, I don’t mind,”

So: distribution deals and publishing - bad; ticketmaster mark-ups and venue bans on photography - good. Hope that's cleared that up.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Joss Stone Broke

Don't get carried away with the idea that Joss Stone is rich, or anything. She isn't. Or so she'd have us believe:

"I see all these fancy sums attached to me and although I have more money than most people my age, it's nothing like that. My record company gives me a lot to make a new album but I have to spend it on musicians and studios.

"The only time I make good money is when I'm on tour - but even then I'm having to pay my band and the road crew."

Presumably, though, the chocolate advert wasn't done out the goodness of your heart?

The crumbliest, flakiest

The 'gorilla playing drums' advert for Cadbury's has been hailed as some sort of success, being credited with a rise in sales of unpleasant chocolate in 2007. Less over-excited observers might conclude that getting through a year without having to recall tons and tons of chocolate because a dirty factory had led to a salmonella problem might have explained the rise more satisfactorily, but no matter.

Buoyed from the success of linking one chocolate product with an unlikely musician, they're trying it again with the Joss Stone advert for Flake.

It's horrible. It's really horrible. Joss is seen working hard in the studio - laying down some tracks, maaan - when an unscheduled break gives her the chance to have a chocolate bar. No finger of fudge for Joss, though - she has the Flake, sings the theme tune to herself and picks some crumbs off her breasts.

It's quite inspiring the way the advertisers have managed to combine the supposed unique selling point of the product (that it's sexy - look, I'm patting my breasts) with the reason why it makes sense to steer clear from eating Flakes in the first place (the go everywhere, falling in a shower of vegetable oil chocolate one piece of which, no matter how much you brush, will remain on your clothes, melting and looking like a poo fleck.)

Adding to the supposed 'sexiness' of the brand, the advertisers have inserted a shot which, we suspect, is purely there to let us peek up Stone's neckline.

If the advertising agency really knows what it's doing, it will have filmed a version of this with an alternate ending, for release online, where Joss' moment enjoying her chcolate is interrupted by a rimshot, whereupon she and the camera swing round to reveal the Dairy Milk gorilla is playing drums on her new record.

Joss Stone flakes off secret gig

Not so long ago, Joss Stone was complaining that nobody in Britain appeared to like her. Now, she's pulled out of a gig because, erm, people wanted to see her.

To be fair, the gig had been supposed to be a secret appearance with Yes Sir Boss at a pub in Topsham; humps were had when Stone discovered that tickets were being sold on her name rather than that of Yes Sir Boss. (Funny that, eh?)

Stone's spokesperson said she felt "compromised" - yes, compromised - by the sale of tickets. And you wouldn't want to be compromised by ugly commerce, would you? Unless you're flogging Cadburys chocolate.

God, I could murder a Cadbury's Flake but then you probably wouldn't let me into heaven

What with Cadbury's somewhat blase attitude to public health - demonstrated by the way they flogged salmonella-laced chocolates from a filthy factory - you might wonder who on earth would want to link their career to their products.

Step forward Joss Stone, whose career has now stalled so badly she's going to take the job advertising Flake. Like Anthea Turner did in her twilight years.

A Cadbury spokesman said the company has chosen Miss Stone because "she reflects the Flake girl's attitude to life".

We're not quite sure what that attitude would be - moaning on about how people don't like her in Britain?

Presumably Cadburys are hoping that the launch of the Stone ads might stop people noticing that their prices are going up in January. And not just because of Stone's fee.

Stoned at home

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now, as Joss Stone snuffles about the reception for her second album:

"I felt kind of sad about it actually.

It's funny because the only country that hasn't liked it is my own.

"It's just like, well, thanks guys! It's like coming home and having them be like, 'Go away, we don't like you!'

"It's the whole country and it's like they're mad at me for being in the US.

"Maybe it's because I dye my hair, maybe because my accent is messed up. But I've got to let it go and get on with my music."

Or... and here's a though, Joss... maybe it's because your last album was aimed at a sludgy, AOR market which doesn't exist in large enough numbers in the UK to make it as lucrative. But, still, not to worry - you carry on counting your money. Sorry, getting on with your music.

Sinking like a Stone: MTV Awards leftovers

Twenty four hours after the MTV Video Music Awards, our papers of record finally get the chance to report on the events you've already read all about. But, to be fair, they do manage to find angles that online media have somehow missed.

3AM reports on, erm, Joss Stone's "pre-awards" appearance - which, of course, was "fab":

Joss Stone's fantastic performance at a pre-MTV bash showed she's put awards show embarrassments behind her.

...by, presumably, the simple expedient of not being invited to appear at the awards show.

Still, never one to miss the bendy-bus of a zeitgeist, they also join in the 'Winehouse was robbed' chant, treating her unsurprising no show/no prize hand off as the second criminal snub to Winehouse in a week.

Victoria Newton is in no doubt who the star of the evening was: breast tape. This is handy, as on a thin night, it means she can stuff Bizarre with a bunch of pictures of women holding up their breasts with duct taping.

Still, kudos to the Bizarre team, who did at least manage to spot a Briton at the awards. Mind you, it was only a Spice Girl. And even then, it was only Mel B.

A lot of good work for charidee

Let's just preempt the comments box and say: Yes, we know Annie Lennox's Band Aid style single is in a good cause and, yes, it will raise a bit of money.

However, wouldn't it be better all round if Shakira, Joss Stone, Dido, Celine Dion, Pink, Fergie, Gladys Knight, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Etheridge, KT Tunstall and Madonna all released a proper single - one that they might have released anyway - and gave the money from that to Nelson Mandela's 46664 Aids charity instead? Wouldn't that raise more money and, indeed, mean that the artists involved could feel a sense of actually contributing to the cause by redirecting some of their royalties, rather than just spending an hour or so making a record that nobody would really want for its own merits?

An environmental impact

At least with Live Aid, you couldn't prove that Adam Ant was taking food from starving Ethiopians. But how green are those involved in Live Earth? We've just pulled together a few notes:

Madonna

Housing
Madonna owns seven properties, scattered around the world, each taking space that could be used by other families and requiring upkeep even while sitting empty. [WebIndia]

Appeared in adverts for The Gap
The Gap is praised for being an "Environmental Protection Agency Climate Leader" in the US under the government's voluntary code for setting targets for reducing carbon footprints. However, the company hasn't actually achieved its (self-imposed and somewhat soft) targets, which makes it less a climate leader, more a whisky priest [Climate Leaders]. Furthermore, it sources clothes from around the world, adding needless journeys shipping sweaters and boxer shorts from continent to continent.

"Designed" for H&M
Leaving aside the question of if having a industry based on needing a complete new set of outfits every six months can ever be sustainable, H&M have been manufacturing clothes in Asia for the last thirty years [China Textile News 11th May 2007], and are stepping up their operartions in India, despite not actually having any retail outlets there. So everything made in the Indian stores will be shipped thousands of miles across the planet. [Images Retail]. H&M have pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, but have created a formula which means they will measure their success as "relative to sales" - in other words, they could happily keep increasing their CO₂ emissions while claiming to be reducing them. [H&M].

Provided soundtrack for Vauxhall and Peugeot car adverts

John Buckley estimates Madonna's personal carbon footprint at 1,018 tonnes, 100 times the average British impact, and "[t]he[..] singer's Confessions tour last year produced 440 tonnes of carbon pollution in just four months, simply in flights between venues. This does not include the trucks required to transport equipment, the power needed to stage each show, or the transport for fans travelling to each concert. [Daily Mail]

The Police

Housing
Sting has several homes, and often holds meetings which require people travelling from London to Wiltshire; his partner Trudi Styler boasted to Architectural Digest that their Wiltshire home consumes a vast amount of energy: "There’s nothing out of bounds, no feeling that anything is Mummy’s best furniture—and plenty of heating. I think we could heat the entire hamlet with what we’ve put in here." The house was extensively reworked by an interior designer flown in from New York for the job - presumably, nobody knows how to scatter cushions in Wiltshire. [Architectural Digest]

Advertised S-Type Jaguar
Sting's Desert Rose video was reshot as an advert for Ford's S-Type Jaguar - the top model managing a pitiful 22.5 miles per galon while spewing out 314 grammes of emissions per kilometre. [Honest John]

Sheryl Crow
Advertised Subaru four wheel drives
Every Day Is A Winding Road used as soundtrack for ads

John Legend
Lexus adverts
Music used in adverts for Lexus cars

Joss Stone
Appeared in adverts for The Gap
The Gap is praised for being an "Environmental Protection Agency Climate Leader" in the US under the government's voluntary code for setting targets for reducing carbon footprints. However, the company hasn't actually achieved its (self-imposed and somewhat soft) targets, which makes it less a climate leader, more a whisky priest [Climate Leaders]. Furthermore, it sources clothes from around the world, adding needless journeys shipping sweaters and boxer shorts from continent to continent.

Pepsi
Pepsi is signed on as a major sponsor for Live Earth [Pepsico corporate website]. One of Pepsi's major businesses, Aquafina, sells water drawn from mains in bottles, an indefensible waste of bottles, distribution, and energy. Pepsi's Chinese business has been criticised for releasing waste products into the water resulting in a blacklisting [Polaris Institute] and was named as a serious polluter by the non-governmental The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs [IPEA] and are being investigated in Kerala after pesticide residues were found in some products [Polaris Institute]. The Pepsi bottling plant in Madhurawada was banned in 2006 from using groundwater after complaints about "the predatory exploitation of groundwater by the Pepsi bottling unit, the pollution being caused by it, the unsatisfactory way in which effluents were being treated and other related issues." [IndiaResource] In 2004, the US Environmental Protection Agency was forced to order the company to improve procedures at its Tucson bottling plant. "The company's facility lacked effective management practices or an adequate containment system, which allowed storm water to come into direct contact with industrial pollutants -- such as oil and grease -- from its truck fleet before entering municipal storm drains and the Rodeo Wash. The Rodeo Wash flows to the Santa Cruz River, a tributary of the Gila River and the Colorado River." [Environmental Protection Agency]

Microsoft
MSN is a key sponsor of the event; parent company Microsoft's policy of producing increasingly processor-heavy programs and attempting to use its near-monopoly to enforce upgrades of equipment to cope with the heavier software means hundreds of thousands computers are discarded every year by people who need newer equipment to do exactly the same things they were doing with their old machines. [Green Party warns of Vista Landfill effect]

The Live Earth environmental impact
Artists will fly a total of 222,623.63 miles to attend the various concerts
Carbon footprint of event, including expected TV audience: 74,500 tonnes
1,025 tonnes of waste will be generated
[Daily Mail]

May not, then

Brian May was planning a duet with Joss Stone during tonights Mawkathon Difest - but has now decided not to. Apparently, he was afraid of embarrassing himself:

: "I just could not get my head around the way they have arranged it.

"I didn't want to risk embarrassing them - or myself! It was too short notice for such major changes.

"I have chatted to Joss and we are going to create something new together soon."

You'd have thought that Brian May would have been beyond embarrassment by now, though, wouldn't you?