Nick Jonas is doing it for the art

Nick Jonas. He's had sex you know.

"Any time I approach writing a song I think about the fact that since I started having sex my creative life changed dramatically, and my ability to write a song with more genuine depth, more reality."

Any time? Really? Any session of songwriting starts with Nick thinking "I am great at sex, me. Probably the best at sex."

"Sexuality is important as an artist, to embrace and use it as ammunition in your creative life, and understanding that part of your life, and how it makes you feel."

There's nothing as wonderful as that moment when two people just click, and you're loading ammunition into your creative life. It's magical, isn't it?

Buckcherry sex toys empire set to expand

Did you know that Buckcherry market their own range of sex toys? I'm assuming their dildos, if they're anything like their music, will be a bit disappointing - you can see what they're trying to do, but it's not very satisfying and nowhere near hard enough.

Still, their popular with their fans, according to the band's Josh Todd:

The band has its own line of sex toys, Crazy Bitch Toys. Are the products hot sellers?

Yes! We have a dildo, condoms and are working on adding a vibrator and butt-plug. People like us to sign them, usually. I hope they use them. We have some things in the works though it’s too soon to talk about them.

I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "we have some things in the works" when talking about sex toy development.

The idea that Buckcherry are busily trying to design a butt-plug is somehow cheering. Or at least more cheering than the thought they might be writing more songs.

Things you probably don't want to know about

The idea of older people having sex isn't a bad thing. We're all going to be older people some day, with luck, and having an active sex life as you get older is a good and healthy thing. There's nothing icky about older people having sex.

Although there is a line that probably should be drawn when the sex is this:

This time [Margaret Holyland] and her husband Rob were invited to take part in tantric sex lessons with aging pop star Leapy Lea and his pneumatic Danish girlfriend Bettina, self-styled psychic healer Raimondo and geriatric swinging professor Colin.

You might be struggling to place Leapy Lee. This is Leapy Lee:

Older people having sex is an excellent thing. When that sex starts to involve Leapy Lee, though, please make sure your curtains are drawn.

Let's all think about Rod Stewart having sex

It's too late now. The thought is there.

Apparently, Penny Lancaster's been talking about how Rod does it:

The 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' rocker may be 68, but he's still got the right moves in bed to please his wife, Penny Lancaster, 42.

Yeah, ContactMusic quoting National Enquirer. Your cock doesn't fall over when you reach 57. Who knew?

Penny reportedly told a friend: ''Rod's voracious! I knew he was a ladies man, but he usually tires me out!''

Nobody has ever said anything like that to a friend ever. That's not how people talk about fucking when they're with their mates. And nobody, outside of letters to porn magazines which were made up anyway, talks like that, ever, at any time.

The source said: ''Rod wrote a song about Penny called 'She Makes Me Happy' and two or three times a month he'll have the nanny watch the boys so he can whisk her off for a romantic night out. Sometimes they'll just take a walk on the beach, but other times he'll treat her to a lovely dinner followed by a night of passion in a hotel.''

Once every ten-to-fifteen days isn't really voracious, is it? Also, at their age, having a slap-up dinner followed by slap-and-tickle is just going to end up with a fumbling for the Pepcid.

The source added reformed ladies' man Rod - who has eight kids with five women - can't believe his luck and would never even think of cheating on his beautiful wife.

Hang about, though; this is meant to be Penny's mate, isn't it? Did Penny really say "Rod would never dream of cheating on his beautiful wife i.e. me?"

Miley Cyrus: something about her performance was choreographed

Here's a surprise. You might want to sit down.

That Miley Cyrus performance at the VMAs? It was intentionally attention grabbing:

‘I just needed to let go of the past in a way, so I felt like I could be the bad b***h I am,’ the 20-year-old said on MTV documentary Miley: The Movement addressing her blinding display with Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs.

Far from getting carried away, Cyrus instead says she meant every minute of her foam-fingered display.

‘You can watch that performance and think that’s a hot mess,’ she said.

‘But it’s a strategic hot mess. … If I wanted a raunchy sex show, I wouldn’t have been dressed as a damned bear.’

I think even people who haven't heard of Cyrus, or MTV, or possibly even music might raise an objection that no bear dresses like this:

But then Cyrus appears to think we're having trouble keeping up with the masterplan. Even my dead Victorian Great Uncle Hambleton could see that the whole point of Cyrus' performance was to try and flag that she's not Hannah Montana any more.

If Miley thinks she needs a documentary to "reveal" that the idea was to show, erm, that she was a "bad bitch" then you might argue that the performance had failed.

Here's the thing, Miley: if an actor who's just played Lear has to come on stage at the end and go "right, I was pretending I'd gone mad, see?", that would suggest he didn't have much faith in his acting.

Bookmarks: David Attenborough

As a tease for the soon-coming Bjork Meets Attenborough programme, they've released a bit of the pair's chat where David explains why pop is about sex*:

When asked by Bjork how music works in the modern day, Sir David said: “Well, one is absolutely clear, and that is the sexuality.

“And as it were classical times, troubadours singing up to their lady loves up on the balcony come and join me or let me come in.

“But in our own culture now, I mean pop music is hugely sexual, there can’t be any doubt about that. And that is why it is so popular amongst people between 15 and 30. That’s the peak of sexuality and it’s the peak of the passion about music.”

* - This claim, explicitly, takes no account of the Johnny Borrell solo album

Terrible marketing stunt turned into terrible marketing press release

There was a thing earlier in the week about how Durex were supposedly marketing Daft Punk themed Get Lucky condoms.

It turns out they're not, but like a drunk man hopefully filling his pockets from the Johnny machine in the bogs, Durex are hoping they can capitalise on a promise. Can you spot the moment when their email to MTV News turns from factual correction into jolly-marketing message?

We are aware of reports that Durex has launched Daft Punk branded condoms following their hit single 'Get Lucky,' " he said. "There is no Durex promotion or partnership with Daft Punk in the U.S. or any other markets and Durex is not posting free packs to the world's top DJs as suggested. However, we do hope that by using Durex condoms, music-lovers will continue to make sweet music together and have great sex!"

They might have just got away with it if they'd stopped after "make sweet music together", but you can just picture the room when that statement was hammered together...

- Do you think people will understand what we mean by 'make sweet music'?
- Yeah, Dave, I think they will
- Are you sure? It might be a bit subtle.
- It's not subtle, Dave. It'll be fine
- But what if people don't know what condoms are for?
- Look, Dave, you might have spent the first six weeks on this account thinking we were selling tiny sandwich bags, but most people will get it
- I think we really need to make it clear we want people to have sex with our condoms on
- Dave...
- No, seriously. We don't want to get sued if people take it literally, and put our condoms on their flutes and whistles and the lubricant destroys their instruments. Let's just add 'by doing sex into the condoms peniswise' to make it clear
- Dave, this is like the time you wanted us to rebrand as Durex Penis Covers. It's not necessary
- I'm not going to sign this off until you amend it
- Okay, Dave...

Ne-Yo: He's quite the catch, ladies

Let's skate over the impression Ne-Yo gives - that he's probably never seen a lady naked, much less touched one - and tune in as he shares his secrets for bedroom success, shall we:

I'm a firm believe in do me and I'll do you back. If you work me out, then I'm gonna work you put with the same amount of effort. That's how I rock.

Here's the thing, Mr Yo: if you say things like that, rather than reflecting well on you, it makes you seem like the sort of douchebag who expects applause for, basically, boasting that you're not a selfish dick in bed.

The whole comment has a nasty, sticky 'I'm Ne-Yo, you know, I don't have to treat the person I'm with like they have their own nerve endings' hanging over it.

Still, it's lucky Ne-Yo has a subtle seduction technique to fall back on:

He told Britain's more! magazine: ''One night we went to a club and bought about 50 bottles of champagne. We were ordering 10 bottles every 10 minutes. It's one thing to hand a girl a glass of champagne, it's another thing to hand a girl her own bottle.''

You'd have to hope the bottle came with its own ice bucket, because if you're being targeted by a man who thinks that buying a bottle of champagne every sixty seconds for the best part of an hour is impressive, you're going to need a bucket.

Wall Street Journal struggles with obscure lyrics

There are some songs whose lyrics are cryptic - who is the Walrus? Why is the bustle in the hedgerow? Why did Nik Kershaw release The Riddle in the first place?

And here's one The Wall Street Journal is puzzling over:

What was the song "Summer of '69″ all about? @bryanadams on music, photography and his career: on.wsj.com/11kV48J

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 30, 2012

Oh, yes, the mystery of that song.

"It's not really about the year 1969" reveals Bryan, just in case there's anyone alive on the planet who might not have spotted that within about three seconds.

Spotify claim 1 in 3 people can think of a song that's "better than sex"

Why, yes, the good people at Spotify have produced a graphic depicting certain informsations - an "informatograph", you might want to call it, which shares findings it has made up ("been told by Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen") about sex and music.

Müllensiefen is an academic at Goldsmiths college, which provides a worrying aspect to his findings, drawn from talking to 2,000 people. Let's just hope, then, that he just happened to choose the wrong person 2,000 times for his research, as the findings are - well, let's be fair to the good doctor and go with "miserable" rather than "unlikely-sounding".

Let's start with that one in the headline up there - 1 in 3 people can think of a song that's better than sex. Now, I love music, a very great deal. A very, very great deal. And music is there for me. It got me through some barren times. And maybe at those points, I could have told myself that 'these songs are better than sex'. But, just as when you walk home in tears and throw your takeaway over a hedge and mutter to yourself "he stinks anyway", you know you're just being brave.

Music is a great replacement. It's a wonderful comfort. Like instant coffee, it can give you warmth and a sense of flavour and tell you that it's going to be alright.

Now, I'm told that sex can sometimes be pretty underwhelming, that it isn't so great all the time. But this poll is putting one single song up against sex as a category; I guess some fair-minded people may have approached the question scientifically and gone with the median point in their sexual history rather than the night they'd normally think about if they were in bed alone, only they're not because they're thinking of this one song instead. But surely an academic would make that clear in their report? "1 in 3 people can think of a song that's better than the mid-point sex they had in a declining relationship'.

And, to be fair, around 1% of people don't care for sex at all, and to them, genuinely, the theme from EastEnders is better for them than sex.

But if 1 in 3 people are telling this doctor that they know a song which is better than sex, then the headline is not that music is great, but 33% of us are either doing sex totally wrong, or not at all, or both.

But hang on. There's more. For this isn't 660 people thinking of 660 different tracks. Apparently, the group think goes deep enough that Spotify have managed to draw up a chart of songs which are better than sex.

Which they have hen shared with us.

And so we can now discover these better-than-sex tunes. I shall give you a moment to go and slip on something a little looser. To take the phone off the hook. To close the curtains. And to send children out the room.

Ready? Here we go...


Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi.

Yes, because what could be more erotic than a song about people trying to survive during a withdrawal of labour following a problem down at the docks? On this basis, Boys From The Blackstuff would be better than never having to use the safeword.


Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell

- Do you want sex, honey?
- Oh, no, because I'm humming along to a bloke in a frilly shirt two sizes too small for him spitting in my face as he tells me that nothing ever grows in his rotting old hole.
- Yes, I surely can't compete with that

Robbie Williams - Angels (I'm not embedding that, but you know how it goes; like one of the Kray twins has had a bit too much ginger wine at a party.)

Worryingly, as well as being "better than sex", this is one of the most popular songs to be played at funerals. We're a confused little country, aren't we?


Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire

I'm not sure people really mean that this is better than sex; it's surely rather the phrase "sex on fire" is guaranteed to make you never want to have sex again, coming as it does with the imagery of a large course of penicillin and needing to wear very, very loose-fitting trousers for two or three months, while having to send out postcards to your exes.


Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

Better than sex? Even if you buy the idea that it's actually possibly to find a scale upon which you could measure both 'sex' and 'songs', and even if you travel far enough along that hypothesis to conclude that some songs might outrank sex, we are expected to believe that this is the track for which the gap between 'sexy sex' and 'music' gets to be the greatest. Really?

Really?

Did 660 people get halfway down the street from the interviews and all clutched their heads and say "sex! That thing with two or more people and rubbing! I thought he was talking about those new Dyson handdriers. God, I told him that I thought the overblown and overplayed Queen song BoRap was better than sex, when all I really meant was that it's a bit better than waving your hands through a jet of hot sterile air. And, to be honest, if there was some way of using a Dyson to dry your armpits Madonna-style, I wouldn't even have handed Queen that victory. Boy, I hope another six-hundred odd people don't make the same mistake, or else the results are going to look a bit crazy."

There's some other findings - apparently people will still lazily yell "Marvin Gaye" when asked any question about music and sex; the hum-and-humping survey equivalent of premature ejaculation.

Because, let's face it, there's nothing sexy about Sexual Healing - as soon as Marvin announces that he's got a heart like an oven, the moment has gone. Your heart is like what? An empty box with a light at the top and a stain that's baked on which might be cheese sauce from the Christmas before last? Is it a gas oven? Are you saying your heart is wanting me to be some sort of Sylvia Plath figure? Put the fucking lights on, give me back my shorts, I am GOING HOME.

Other people, asked to name a song that's best for "flirting on the dance floor" choose Lady In Red.

No, I thought that - 'it must be a different song' - but they say Chris DeBurgh. And no, it's not a different Chris DeBurgh, either, or a typo. It might just be Daniel Müllensiefen including a response so unbelievable he's actually sending a coded message; that he's sat handcuffed to a radiator somewhere thinking 'surely people will realise that my claiming Lady In Red is a flirty song is a signal that the Lobster People have stormed my office and are keeping me as a pet; surely now help will come?'

But let's assume it's not. ("Ha! Your plan failed" snurfles the King Of The Lobster People.)

First of all, where on earth would you be that plays Lady In Red - to dance to, under circumstances that would mean the dancefloor has people on it with whom you would wish to flirt? Seriously, in even the circumstances of the most ill-judged office party booking, long, long before Dave Doubledecks opens up the Chris DeBurgh jewel case anyone with whom you might ever want to flirt would have abandoned the event.

More bizarrely, even if you did manage to maintain an interest in sex, or living, while Lady In Red plays, how would you be flirting to it? It's a slow song. It's an end of the night song (or, more honestly for its target audience, it's a 'you better leave now if you want to make it home for Emmerdale' song.)

If you're going up to someone and flirting with them while Lady In Red plays, you've missed your opportunity. You're turning up too late. And if you're just continuing a flirt from the previous song - which would have been Agadoo - your flirting if failing.

Finally, for our dip into these statistics:

40% of people think listening to music is more arousing than touch during sex

Sorry? Only six people out of every ten get more sexually aroused by touching their partner than by having Westwood on in the corner of the room?

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Usher apparently beating women off with a stick

I suppose you should perhaps be impressed that Usher is honest enough to say that being currently famous means he gets to have sex with people who wouldn't normally look at him twice. Although I'm not sure he realised that was what he was saying:

"There's great benefit that comes with it [being famous]. We can't ignore this thing! Wherever I go I will have some attraction, I can't run away from who I am."

Yes, he is trying to suggest that, oh, it's such a trial.

"But it's very hard, like, Man, there's lights everywhere. And some women I've been able to experience or relate to or date or merge with, they run from it."

Yes, he did say "merge with". Usher doesn't have empty, meaningless sex. He's found a way to make that even more hollow.

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Rolling Stone

If you've looked at Rolling Stone recently - and it would probably have had a woman in her pants on the cover - you might have wondered just when it started to be so hypersexualised. So did Mary Nell Trautner and Erin Hatton; so they've produced a graph which shows that - perhaps unsurprisingly - women started to appear mostly in their bras during the 1990s. Sociological Images has the graph and commentary.

Gordon in the morning: This won't hurt a bit

Gordon reports - in the "has read in this month's Esquire magazine" sense of reports - that Robbie Williams is getting a bit of help:

"To cut a long story short I went to get some HGH. It's what all the old fellas are on out there in LA that's making them look 40 instead of 60.

"It's improving their health, their memory, their hair, skin.

"Could give you cancer. I weighed that up. Thought I'd have it anyway. Went to see a Hollywood doctor. Had my blood tests. Went back. He said, 'You don't need HGH. You've got the testosterone of a 100-year-old man.'

"And then everything made sense. It was kind of an epiphany that day."

The testosterone of a 100 year-old man, and the outlook of a twelve year-old. Naturally, Williams has started to inject himself with testosterone. Oddly Smart doesn't seem to see any link between this dependency and Williams' previous use of drugs and alcohol.

And what effect is it having on Williams?

Esquire editor ALEX BILMES pushed him by asking if he would be unfaithful if he could guarantee it would remain a secret.

He replied: "Actually, no, because I don't want to break Ayda's heart. That's the last thing I want to do. I met Ayda, I fell in love, that's what happened.

"But I would be way more tempted because at the end of the day I am a man, with the stuff that makes you a man - go forth and multiply. And multiply with absolutely everyone."

Again, Smart doesn't seem to draw any sort of link between what Williams is putting in his body, and what's coming out of his mouth.

Courtney Love overshares again

Nobody would wish Courtney had remained in thrall to her appetites, but unfortunately getting herself straight hasn't stopped her from telling us things we don't, really, wish to know:

After I stopped doing drugs I started to fuck like a bunny! Before that I suffered from years of celibacy. I was on this whole Morrissey kick, no masturbation, no romance, no nothing! The store was completely closed. My self-imposed chastity was only scheduled to last for two years, but it went on for three years, eight months and six days.



If you're interested in getting to know Courtney a little better, you might want to check your bank balance:

Actually, these days I’m only interested in plutocrats. Like really, really rich guys. I’m determined to land one sooner or later. My favorite book these days is something called The Official Filthy Rich Handbook, which I study like the Talmud. The thing is, I think I can be a real asset to a wealthy man. I’ve always been a great girlfriend, but until recently I’ve struggled to stay single, because I had never been without a boyfriend before. It’s just my nature to couple up.

You know, I never was so thankful that I don't have a whole lot of money.

Sting: You might want to close your eyes and switch off the computer rather than read this

Oh, good lord:

In a frank and occasionally crude interview, [Sting] said: ‘When we see each other, it’s romance. I don’t think pedestrian sex is very interesting.

‘There’s a playfulness we have; I like the theatre of sex. I like to look good. I like her to dress up. I like to dress her up.’

'Her' being Trudi Styler, of course.

And when asked the most romantic thing they have ever done for each other, Sting replied: ‘Romantic? We like tawdry.’

Tawdry? Like sacking a woman simply because she was pregnant sort of tawdry, you mean?

It should be remembered that Sting once slammed on about the tantric sex sessions - indeed, the Daily Mail does:

Much to the embarrassment of their ­children, the yoga fanatics have already infamously suggested they enjoy tantric sex, swingers parties and strip clubs.

What the Mail seems to have forgotten is that Sting later admitted he'd made the whole thing up. There's no real reason to assume he's not doing the same this time. Because if he didn't make us all gag a little by talking about his great sex life, would anyone pay him any attention at all?

The Hucknall apology

This scattered itself round the internet yesterday, and I suspect accounted for a large portion of how unwell the entire world felt by the evening.

Mick Hucknall's public apology.

Now, there is much for Mick to apologise for. The cover of the Stars album, as a starter, screams the need for the sort of penitence only hitherto exhibited by the medieval saints. But it's not that which has him saying "sorry":

'I regret the philandering," says Mick Hucknall, a man who, by his own estimation, had sex with more than 3,000 women in a three-year stretch in the mid-80s. "In fact, can I issue a public apology through the Guardian? They know who they are and I'm truly sorry."

That's one of those 'sorry's that isn't really. Like "well, I'm sorry if my career earning thousands of pounds and allowing you to keep a roof over your head meant I missed the Christmas play at the school", it's much more about showing off about what you've done, and then trying to make yourself look better by 'regretting' it.

It's actually a shame that Hucknall had to drag up the thousands of presumably still traumatised women he claims to have left in his wake, as the glittering hook it provided the paper to hang the interview on obscured a lot more interesting things going on Rob Fitzpatrick's piece.

Essentially, if Hucknall hadn't made Simply Red records but done the other things he did, he'd probably be regarded warmly as one of the UK's foremost musical enthusiasts, winding a tale from Eric's, through Punk, and releasing and revitalising long-lost reggae tracks on his small label. It's Hucknall's curse that none of that ever really came through in his public face of soupy ballads and fairground lite jazz. It's broadly similar to what happened to Elton John, who still has much of the bloke who used to pop behind the counter in small London record shops to riffle the new releases trapped in the body of the bloke dripping out paeans to dead Princesses.

It's more healthy to reflect on that, than the supposed strike rate of one woman every eight hours.

Nadine Coyle: Too sexy for TV. Apparently.

The suggestion that Nadine Coyle's video was "too sexy for TV" is the absolute god's honest truth, and not merely a desperate ploy to try and get people interested in Nadine Coyle's solo career.

The Irish singer flashes the flesh as she writhes around in a tiny black dress in the promo for Insatiable, but TV viewers won't be able to see the saucy scenes after the footage "failed" a standards test.

Coyle admits producers will now attempt to re-edit the video to make it suitable for TV audiences.

In a post on her Twitter.com page, the singer writes, "Crunch time on the video front, apparently it has failed a test for TV. We have to go back and re-edit or you can't see it!"

Actually, that makes it sound like the video didn't pass the test for photosensitive epilepsy, doesn't it?

JLS want to wrap up your penis

Oh, god. It turns out that the much-talked-up JLS condom range has turned into an actual product:

And not only do the four different packs of extra safe condoms feature each band member's individual colour, they also are branded with the boys' faces.

Having Marvin JLS peering out at you is going to ensure safer sex - who's going to be able to maintain an erection under those conditions?

You can hear the grinding of PR strategists trying to market a product for the sexually active using a band whose fans tends towards the prepubescent:

Marvin, who is dating The Saturdays star Rochelle Wiseman, added: 'We came up with the idea of Just Love Safe as we wanted to send a clear message out to fans that are over 16 and sexually active - and that is to always use a condom during sex.'

It's not clear if Marvin thinks that fans under the age of 16 shouldn't use a condom, or if you don't need to worry about it if you can't stand the band.

Nor why, if they're that bothered, they're flogging condoms and taking a licensing fee rather than, say, giving condoms away for free at their gigs.

Don't get me wrong, anything that stops JLS fans from creating a new generation has to be a good thing. But I can't help feeling that if you're the sort of person who buys condoms because they've got JLS on, you might want to ask if you're quite mature enough to be making decisions about sex in the first place.

Katy Perry says 'hands off Jesus'

Given that Katy Perry is the daughter of a hyper-Christian, she should have an interesting perspective on the use of church imagery in pop.

She doesn't, though.

Shortly after Lady GaGa did her rosary-swallowing video, Perry tweeted:

"Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke."

Ha! Yes, it's like doing a fart joke. Or, you know, a young pop singer throwing faux-lesbianism into a song in a bid to try and make good the shortcomings in her talent. That sort of thing.

Anyway, the jibe was obviously aimed at GaGa. Wasn't it?

"What's funny is that everybody was assuming I was directing it completely towards her, and if I was directing something I would write their '@,' " she told a French radio station. "Lately, I've just been seeing some things that are kind of like, I don't know, in my own personal feelings, a little bit like not something I would do, I guess."

Experts tell us that it looks like Perry had opened the oven of her mouth before the souffle of thoughts had finished cooking.

"Actually" clarified the experts, "looking again, it's more as if she's just thrown some eggs straight into the oven and hoped that somehow it might end up as a souffle. Metaphorically speaking."

But, you might be wondering, how can a please-buy-sexual throw stones? Perry has an answer to that:

"Yes, I said I kissed a girl. But I didn't say I kissed a girl while f---ing a crucifix."

I'm not sure you actually can fuck a crucifix. I suppose if it was large enough you might be able to do some sort of frottage. Or maybe Perry meant something along the lines of crucifix masturbation along the lines of The Exorcist. But she didn't do it. Because in her own personal feelings it's a little bit like something she wouldn't do, we guess.

Gordon in the morning: He's easily shocked

Given that his newspaper churns out article after article about teenage mothers, can Gordon really be as shocked by what he read about Cheryl Cole in Glamour magazine as he seems?:

GIRLS ALOUD beauty CHERYL COLE has revealed she first had sex when she was just 15.

The Geordie lass - who is married to Chelsea ace ASHLEY COLE - made the shock revelation in a new interview with Glamour magazine.

Seriously, Gordon? You're shocked by that? Jesus, someone needs to get out more.