T in the park's weak brew a national outrage

Drowned In Sound are suggesting that this year's T in the Park line-up is an affront to Scotland, with its Rage Against The Machine and Shed Seven and Newton Faulkner.

It might also just be an indication of how very, very thin the talent jam gets spread around the multiple festivals - especially if you sideline a couple of bigger acts with drugs problems, for example.

On the other hand: surely there's no schedule vacuum wide enough that would allow an excuse for having The Hoosiers and Bowling For Soup on a public platform, surely?

Chris Evans and Shed Seven will save the UK music scene

Chris Evans, of course, is back on radio these days, and now - making Helen Love's Long Live The UK Music Scene a contemporary commentary once more - Shed Seven are getting back together.

Like the Spice Girls, of course, they're doing it for the fans:

[Rick] Witter said: "We have almost constantly been asked by the loyal shed heads to reform for a few gigs since the split, but we felt we needed a well earned break.

"However, after four years we feel that going out for a two week tour, playing all the hits without any outside pressure will be a great way to end 2007, plus having Paul back in the line up for the first time in eight years will make it extra special. See you down the front."

The dates:
Aberdeen Music Hall – November 27
Inverness Ironworks - 28
Glasgow Barrowlands - 29
Newcastle Academy – December 1
Liverpool Academy - 2
Nottingham Rock City - 3
Sheffield Leadmill - 4
Birmingham Academy - 6
Manchester Academy - 7
Leeds Met Uni - 8
Norwich UEA - 10
Oxford Academy - 11
Portsmouth Pyramid - 12
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire - 14

This week just gone...

Seven days of No Rock and Roll Fun:

The ten most-fascinating stories according to page views:

1. Watch R Kelly "underage sex" video, court told
2. Beth Ditto gets naked, gets confused
3. Lily Allen changes on a train
4. Angelica Bell - from kids TV to near-naked photos
5. RIP: Tony Thompson
6. A year on, Heather Mills' porn past continues to attract attention
7. Blake Fielder-Civil, Mr. Winehouse, shares a toilet with Pete Doherty
8. Glastonbury 2007: The build up, the fall outs, the Birthday Honours
9. Microdiscussion of KT Tunstall's sexuality
10. Avril Lavigne explains she only looked like she'd got her tits out for Blender

Also this week: Kelly Clarkson canned her tour, citing lack of interest; David Sneddon resurfaced and Dodgy reformed; the bloke who the Stone Roses threw paint over threatened a guy for linking to a site which disagreed with the RIAA; and meeting Beyonce turned out to be a bust.

Five years ago: Bee Wilson's comments on Glastonbury's food ("But it is really about commerce, with all its concomitant lies and disappointments. What the vendors sell you is the 'counter-culture'. What you buy are just commodities") still ring true for the festival as a whole; Ken Barry, who cost 1,500 people their jobs during his time at the head of EMI, picked up six million quid for his efforts; Billy Joel went into rehab; a Moby lookalike was supposedly using his face for sex; Audiogalaxy settled with the RIAA and disappeared while the first lawsuits inspired by copy-proetected CDs hit the courts; and Ed Needham swapped US FHM for Rolling Stone. We thought it would end in tits and tears, and - as Needham wrote in MediaGuardian earlier this month, we weren't far off: "This is a convoluted way of saying I wanted to get sales up, and believed that more commercial covers didn't have to compromise the quality of the writing inside. One of my first covers was a picture of Christina Aguilera on a red sheet, with a guitar arranged artfully over her naked form. The magazine sold well above average, but proprietor Jann Wenner felt we'd tipped the balance too far. No more red backgrounds and no more women dressed in musical instruments, he decreed."

You can read the whole of last week on page
or skim last week in a single post.

These were the week's releases:


Tiny Dancers remember the warm, calcium-friendly days before Thatcher


Ghosts' debut album hopes to live up to their hottly-tipped-ness


Tiga's Sexor re-emerges in a collectors' edition, although collectors of what isn't mentioned


... while Calvin Harris is like Harry Enfield doing Tiga


Suzanne Vega. We're struggling a little this week.


A few weeks old now, but demanding your attention: Candie Payne's I Wish I Could Have Loved You More


The highlight of last week's Gideon Coe sessions: Simone White


ShakerMaker Daleks - through a special arrangement, everything you make will have its adventures recorded as canon

Wrong side of the Tracks

We've just had an email from James Waterson, recording the loss of another indie music store:

"Just popped over to Track Records, a fairly large independent store that's provided the backbone of York's music scene for the past 30 years. It's the sort of place that gets in every seven inch released by any tiny label in the country, where they have great stocks of obscure 80s indie and 60s r'n'b - in short, just what every music fan needs. A local group could press up a few hundred records and sell the whole lot to likeminded souls, anyone could write a fanzine, leave on the counter and guarentee that it would be read and appreciated. What's more, the staff encourage such actions for the greater good of the scene.

But it doesn't count for anything when the sales decline combines with rising rents. Moved from its high street location to a position on the edge of the city centre Track has finally run out of cash and as of this week launched a fire sale with a view to shutting down its once successful mail order business and shop with the month. The staff are distraught - when one pondered "what am I going to do?" he clarified it by meaning "about getting music, never mind my job". They are genuine fans of music, always recommending releases and assisting start up record labels such as myself. Within a month they will cease to exist and head the way of Spillers et al as our indie stores are subsumed.

Afterwards I wandered down to Virgin/HMV on our highstreet, the only remaining music shops in York. Only the latter made an attempt to stock singles, proffering a half shelf's worth of battered White Stripes seven inches and top 10 CDs. Local bands don't get a look in while trendy adverts try to convince me to buy Credit Cards and 'Entertainment packages' for my HDTV. The album selection is wide, but you're unlikely to find The Fall's entire back catalogue nestling between Felt reissues and current underground indie pop, let alone with staff who will provide honest appraisals. I've often scoffed at those who bemoan the 'death of the music industry' and the end of alternative culture. Yet today York's slowly-reviving-post-Shed-Seven music scene has been irrevocably damaged. Almost all of my current music taste was informed by rarities grabbed from the shop during my teenage years and yet, were in the same postion now, it's a good half hour on the train to the nearest non-highest music shop. Quite frankly, I simply wouldn't bother."

James tells us that the shop has been replaced with a sandwich shop. They'd better be bloody brilliant sandwiches.

Eurovision 2007: Blow by suck

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bookmarks: Some other things to read on the internet

Arcade Fire invite Paste to tea:

Where there are sidewalks they meet at ugly angles, and factories squat on almost every corner. Its biggest institutions are a peat bog, a large creamery and a beet-sugar refinery. “The studio is amazing for recording in,” Win tells me, “but when you actually want to do anything, being stuck in Farnham can drive a man crazy.”

As he prepares to fight for Marlyebone Hight Street, Dave Rowntree talks to Guardian:

The drummer doesn't want to talk about whether he agrees with Albarn on Iraq because he's standing in a local election. He sounds, for the first time, a bit like a politician. Then he changes his mind. "I want to give you an answer. I'm not a pacifist. I do think some things are worth fighting for."

Rowntree's position on Iraq is equally personal. His girlfriend, Michelle de Vries, is the daughter of Daphne Parish, the nurse who was arrested by Saddam Hussein with the Observer journalist, Farzad Bazoft, on the cusp of the first Gulf war. Bazoft was executed; Parish was freed. "My girlfriend flew round the Middle East and got her mother released. She'd met all the people involved - Saddam and the psychopaths Uday and Qusay [Saddam's sons]. In the war, I was getting a very different view of what was going on in Iraq from a lot of people."

Jack Wilson tells The Stranger about the man who filled his iPod:

And that one lyric, the one about having once roared, keeps coming back to me. It seems to describe him. He was charismatic, entertaining, and charming. He could have been an awesome salesman—the product wouldn't have mattered—and he was great with computers. Did he torture himself with thoughts about what he could have been? Did he long for the years before he had fucked up his life, when he was free and the world was open to him?

Then I realized I was thinking more about Rowan than I was about Rebecca, the woman he'd slain. Listening to his music put me inside Rowan's head; it made me consider things through his eyes. I wanted to throw up.

The New York Post discovers Jarvis Cocker's life in France involves gestures, shouting:

He's lived in the City of Light for four years, but he's not fluent in French, although he says he can make himself understood. His job, songwriting, doesn't really call for being fluent. That's one excuse. His other is that his brain's hard drive is full.

"You can't chose what you want to delete from your brain," he says. "I'm supposed to be a writer. I don't want to lose my English."

Simon Reynolds sets off in the Observer Music Monthly to reclaim Tangerine Dream's place in electropop history:

At its most abstract - solo albums by Klaus Schulze and by Tangerine Dream's leader Edgar Froese - these were clouds of sounds to lose yourself in, a Rorschach mindscreen for projecting fantasies onto. Yet unlike the hipster-credible Krautrock of Can, Faust and Neu!, or more esoteric (ie unsuccessful) Sixties electronic outfits like Silver Apples, the cosmic synth voyagers have never been named by contemporary bands as a cool reference point.

Brownstorm

On his interview with ten year-olds, part of the celebration of Channel Five's ten viewers ("years on air"), Gordon Brown reveals the truth about his love of the Arctic Monkeys.

Someone asked him "do you like the Arctic Monkeys?"; he said "they're so loud, at least they'd get you up in the morning"; which, by the time it arrived in the papers, was "Gordon Brown says he wakes up to the Arctic Monkeys."

So... Shed Seven, is it, Gordon?

Joss Stone hit by Dallas' arsey growl

After the seven-page Joss Stone thanks comes a full-force Joss Stone attack. Dallas Austin popped up on YouTube detailing how great it is to work with her:

"It's not my problem that she was fucking Novel and then she fucking Saadiq. You go in the studio and girls like Joss are just trying to get as much attention as they can from producers. The girls in studios and producers are known to have relationships. Beau rang me every five minutes saying she was the most wonderful girl in the world, I said, 'Don't fall for that shit'."

The video seems to have vanished, apparently after Joss Stone's camp asked for it to go. They're afraid this sort of thing might make Joss look even lamer than she'd already managed to make herself seem. The Mirror have rustled up an "insider" to push the the point:

A musicbiz insider said: "This is the last thing Joss needs. There are concerns that the people she's hanging around with might be leading her astray.

"But to hear such a well-respected producer slagging her off in such a public manner will devastate her. She will be humiliated by her private life being exposed in such a tawdry way."

Dallas, you'll note, isn't thanked on the current iteration of the Joss Stone thank you page.

More little Gallaghers

Happy news - if can pull your thoughts away from the moment of conception - from Noel Gallagher: He's about to become a father again with the news that Sara MacDonald is three months pregnant. Cue Victoria McDonald shoehorning in an Oasis pun so lame and pointless, we wonder if she was doing it for a joke:

[I]t was the lack of champagne or vodka in her glass which gave the game away. The pair have been dating for seven years. Most of that time they have been living the life of Riley, partying hard and travelling All Around The World.

She might have just got away with it if she'd not put it at the end of an equally meaningless sentence. (Is it even true? Doesn't Noel's ambit consist mainly of the posher parts of London?)

Meanwhile, Noel - presumably mellowed by fatherhood - has withdrawn his criticism of the Klaxons. It turns out he quite likes them:

"They think I hate them, so you can right this wrong for me. I like Golden Skans. "I don't know much about them, except I was with KASABIAN at Ibiza Rocks last summer, fucking it off, and got dragged in to see them and I was like 'What the fuck was all that about?' "We were happily breezing away on the dancefloor and the next thing they were on, so I wasn't ready for it. But I do like that tune."

Poor Noel, his head turned by Kasabian - who knows what they were busily talking about? Politics? The... then on came... Klaxon... Ibiza... zeeba... zebras first, I think...

Madonna's baby blues

Madonna's attempt to add an African baby to her collection (project codenamed "In your face, Michael Jackson") has run into more grief. Not only have some of David's family spoken to the BBC saying how they want to be sure they can continue to see their relative, but now it seems David;s father didn't realise he was handing his baby over for good:

"I had taken David to the orphanage because my wife had died and he was sick and we could not care for him.

"My other two sons had passed away from malaria while they were still young.

"When David became sick, I didn't know how to cope.

"I' have no experience of these things. My in-laws did not want him and my extended family are too poor to take him in.

"I was scared he would die like my other children so I took him where he could be looked after.

"I felt very sore in my heart but I could think of no other way.

"He was one month and seven days old. The orphanage made me sign a letter to show I was handing him over to their charge.

"I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he was better, or I had another wife, I would go and take him back. I did not think anyone would want to take him away for good."

To make matters worse, it seems people haven't been straight with him about who is exactly adopting the child:

"I was told she was a good Christian lady who does a lot of charity work and supported the orphanage."

They didn't mention that actually she was a member of a cult who was such a good Christian she managed to piss off the Vatican and the entire Russian Orthodox Church?

Still, at least you had time to think things through, properly, didn't you, Yohane?

"It has all been very crazy. Everything has happened so fast. I can't believe what is happening."

Of course... the whole waiving of the usual rules sped up the process to something like 100 times faster than normal.

It's interesting that someone's finally managed to think of asking the "orphan's" father if he's happy about the adoption. It might have stopped The Observer's Carol Sarler from making herself look quite so awful yesterday if she'd thought to do the same.

Why vilify Madonna's generosity? wailed Carol, confusing "generosity" with whatever it is Madonna thinks she's doing.

Sarler starts out by using the orphans of the Romanian revolution as an example of what international adoption really means, thereby inadvertently proving the point a worried mother made on Channel 4 News at the weekend: Madonna's grubby child grab is going to make all cross-border adoption seem seedy. Romania had been a country full of children with nobody, without the means to care for them, living in terrible conditions. It's not quite the same case as here, where the child has family who can't quite cope, who had only put the child into care as a way of finding breathing space.

No sooner did we learn of her plans to adopt an African child than the bitching began - just as it did with fellow adopters Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie and Meg Ryan before her. Even Jon Snow, who should know better, inquired whether this is a 'fashion', as if the labour involved in nurturing babies is akin to that of carrying a new handbag, and the consensus, from right and left, is that there is something sinister in Madonna's decision.

But surely, with Jolie, Ryan and Ciccone queueing up at developing world departure gates with a charming carved giraffe under one arm and a mewling bundle of local child under the other, asking if there's a fashion impulse to all this adoption is precisely the right question? It's not as if asking a question suggests the answer, nor if Snow had come up with the idea himself. He was reflecting a question that a lot of people are asking. Which is sort of the point of his job, isn't it, Carol?

The willies from the right, as vigorous now as when Virginia Bottomley helped to staunch the flow of Romanian orphans in the mid-1990s, appear to stem from a suspicion that this is just another route for foreigners to 'flood' into the country and be a 'drain' on resources; too monstrous to address, save perhaps to point out that the kind of parents who pursue these adoptions are precisely the kind of parents who will produce the most efficacious taxpayers of the future.

We might not read the thoughts of the right-wing as closely as Sarler, but this seems to be an unfair vilification - the sort of thing you might say they'd think if you were going for a lazy caricature. If there are any rightwards leaning commentators of any credibility who really believe there are hundreds of would-be immigrants preparing to disguise themselves as orphans to be smuggled past customs under Madonna's bustle, they must have the good sense to keep quiet. Likewise, even the most rabid of BNP supporters would find it hard to argue that Madonna's just after the tax credits and the baby bonds.

The liberal left is at least as shocking. Pundit after pundit drones on about the perils of 'snatching' children from their 'culture'.

Nice work, Carol - the liberals are "droning", are they? And African people don't have culture, you'll note - they only have something that requires speech marks.

To that I say, go and stand in the poorest orphanages of the world's most dispossessed; look, sniff, smell and don't - don't you dare - tell me that, in such a context, the word 'culture' is other than an obscenity. Any identity problems the child might develop are risibly slight beside the certain problems that would otherwise have been their lot.

Well, perhaps. But are you saying this orphanage was like that, Carol? Or are you just assuming because it's in Africa it has to be? Nobody would pretend that the place is Hampstead, but to just dismiss someone's home because it's not as nice as yours is a little sweeping, don't you think?

Yeah but, no but, continue the pundits:

Do you see? Like Vicky Pollard! Off the television. Ho-ho. They're not just droning, these liberals, but they're inarticulate too.

the money would be better spent in donations to the child's place of birth. To that I say, whoever suggested this as an either/or? In fact, Madonna - like many inter-country adopters - has also donated lavishly to baby David's community. Yet she knows, as we know, that sometimes no amount of financial support will persuade a local family to rescue a child from an orphanage (think, for instance, of baby girls in China); furthermore, by the time the money has filtered down, it might help another David, another decade. But not this one.

Two things here - the money that Madonna is giving to this orphanage seems to be part of the quid pro quo for the fast-track adoption; secondly, Sarler clearly has no idea how economies outside of her own work. Putting money into a small village has an almost instantaneous effect; it's not like in the UK, where the payment would kick-start a process of planning, procurement, trusteeships being established and blueprints drawn up. In poor places, money tends to get spent quite quickly. For example, for the cost of the five thousand pound rocking horse Madonna has bought for David according to this morning's Sun, she could have paid the wages of two nurses for the village.

It might not have given David a showy toy, but it could have helped save lots of children.

I hold no particular brief for Madonna, her music or her faith. As a mother, however, based on what we know, she is diligent, hot on proper food and the banning of, say, improper TV, and I have no reason to suppose that her motives for this adoption are different from my friend's on the plane from Bucharest. The only difference is that Madonna's fame, as with that of Misses Farrow, Jolie and Ryan, has made her an easier target for the snipers, even though it is also the means by which she can afford to do it in the first place...

Well, it is only her money which has meant she's so far been able to ignore all the rules and laws which are in place to protect children from spur-of-the-moment adoptions and precisely the sort of situation we seem to be in now, where a child has been promised the world and might not get it. And, of course, there's all the world of difference between adopting a baby which has no choice, no family, no future and one which seems to have a family who hoped to welcome him back when they were able.

There's the other important difference that your "friend" who adopted from Bucharest probably couldn't have rustled up a million or two by selling one of her London homes ; offering a home to a single child probably meant as much sacrifice as she had to give. Madonna, on the other hand... well, Madonna does have a London house to spare, if she was serious about making a difference.

and - precisely because the cameras will continue to monitor her and her family - the means through which she might even be able to help to keep the scandal of the needs of Africa in the public eye.

Yes, I must admit I hadn't heard of this Affycar until Madonna went there.

Incidently, does anyone else find the provision of an expensive rocking horse reminds them of the first episode of Diffrent Strokes?

music madonna

MILLS MAKES A MOVIE

We were interested in this little quote from the Sun's podcast:

"He's afraid that his phones are being bugged, so he's changed all the locks" - Its odd that Victoria Newton doesn't quite get how phone tapping works, what with her colleague from Wapping being up on those charges relating to the royal phone-tapping, but maybe she needs to warn Paul that you don't change the locks to stop people listening to your phone calls; only the foil hats can save you.

Meanwhile, Heather's apparent making of a video diary of the split has prompted yet another dreadful Sun headline based on their flop nickname:

You making Mucca movie?

Eh? What does that even mean.

Nobody seems to have thought that, just maybe, Heather's filming stuff because cheap cameras and cheap storeage means everyone films everything all the time now.

Meanwhile, "friends of Paul McCartney" are telling anyone who'll listen how heartbroken he is at the forthcoming legal break with his money. Sorry, with his wife:

One close pal said: "Paul has been left heartbroken by everything that has happened.

"He is not angry or bitter or full of rage. It's much, much sadder than that. He is upset, confused and lonely.

"He can't believe the way it has all turned out. As far as he is concerned, he always wanted their divorce to be conducted with dignity, diplomacy and discretion."

The Mirror stresses how keen Paul was to keep the split all civil and friendly:

But his attitude changed abruptly when the contents of a legal letter sent to Heather accusing her of taking three bottles of cleaning fluid were made public.

"That moment was a turning point for Paul," confided another friend, who has known the singer for several years.

"He became convinced that the level of detail must have come from one place - and that wasn't his own team of aides and lawyers. It dawned on him that the gloves were off."

We love the idea that Paul collapsed in sobs, feeling betrayed that his attempts to keep things nice had been thrown back in his face: "Honestly, you'd have thought she'd have been thanking me for not making a fuss about the half-box of Brillo pads she had away as well..."

More astonishingly, Fiona Cummin's piece for the paper seems to have been ghosted by Dame Sylvie Krinn:

PAUL McCartney sank back into his first-class seat on flight BA113 to New York and closed his eyes.

He sighed deeply. He had just endured one of the worst weeks of his life, leaving him emotionally battered and bruised.

His increasingly bitter divorce battle with Heather Mills had been played out in painfully public detail over the previous seven days.

Just three hours earlier, he had handed his two-year-old daughter Beatrice back into the care of her mother and was feeling horribly bereft.

Macca, who was travelling alone, contemplated his fate as the plane taxied down the runway last Tuesday.

Single again at 64 and embroiled in a scramble to protect his millions, the music legend should have been enjoying the fruits of labour instead of fighting to preserve them.

We imagine only a sub-editor stood between us and a chapter in which he removed his shirt.

music heather mills paul mccartney

TOP OF THE POPS UNLOADED: A NATION MOURNS

It's hardest, of course, for the Top of the Pops site to deal with the news, as it admits:

OK, not the most upbeat news story we've ever run, but the BBC has announced that Top Of The Pops is to close, after a run of 42 years on TV.

Oh, bum.

Generally, though, the coverage of the axing of the Pops amongst people whose jobs aren't tied to the brand is summed up by a nostalgic tear, coupled with a grim sense of the inevitable.

It's Chop of the Pops barks The Sun:

For decades TOTP, with its theme tune of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love, was compulsory viewing for kids.

Well, no; they never used Led Zep actually, but never mind.

But audiences dwindled away. Beeb chiefs considered axing it in 2003, but it was saved by a revamp which brought in star interviews and non-chart acts.
That failed to stop the rot and last July it was shunted from its high-profile Friday BBC1 slot to a Sunday night slot on BBC2. Viewers halved.
Actually, it wasn't in a high-profile Friday slot on BBC1; it was going out opposite Coronation Street and so in the worst slot in primetime broadcasting. And the non-chart acts had started appearing long before 2003 and… oh, never mind. Jimmy Saville pops up with a quote or two – we imagine he's been waiting a long time for this day – and Mike Read offers his scintillating take on the axing:
"It was a situation that was obviously coming. The show could have done with creative thinking. They needed to woo people back.”

They needed to bring the audience back, did they? What a pity you'd not been taken on as executive producer, Mike. That would have been a useful insight.

Meanwhile, the Mirror goes with Stop of the Pops:

In recent years TOTP has had several facelifts and relaunches. But ratings continued to plummet and last year BBC1 chiefs shunted it into a Sunday night graveyard slot on BBC2 where even fewer tuned in.

The graveyard slot of, erm, seven in the evening.

Jimmy Saville turns up to offer his opinion, but the paper manages to connect much more directly with the show's history:

Former Pan's People dancer Babs Powell said: "It's the end of an era but sometimes it is best to remember things fondly."

Babs, sadly, doesn't mention which things it's better to remember with pain and hatred and disgust – although the era of the Zoo dancetroupe might fall into that, we guess.

If you really want a considered opinion, of course, you need to ask a former pipe man of the year:

Dave Lee Travis, host into the 80s, said: "There are plenty of outlets - MTV, iPods, videos, a million ways to access music. It's no wonder it was squeezed out of the modern world."

"Are we going to watch Top of the Pops tonight? No, I've got an iPod."

It's the Daily Mail which gives us the first sighting of the Jackie/Jocky Wilson story.

The Mail manages to get through to Jimmy Saville – he appears so often in the papers today we suspect that he might have had to get the bloke from the Grumbleweeds to pretend to be him on the other line – but Tony Blackburn actually manages to offer an opinion based on having watched the programme at some point in the last ten years:

'I remember seeing a show with Jeremy Clarkson who was very, very funny,' he said.

'But he had a rap act on and said, "Well, that was really awful." And I thought, "The kids won't like him saying that." Then they had Bucks Fizz on.
'It went down well with the mums and dads but they were trying to be all things to all people.'

He's not entirely right, of course – the strength of the Pops was that it used to have a democratic approach to who got on the television – if you sold enough records, you were in. It was the all-things-to-all-people approach which meant it worked, because the rules which brought you Ken Dodd also offered up the New Model Army; and if one show might wind up with three football teams doing their records on, the same structure could bring the famous multi-Madchester edition. I can't think of any other TV show in the pre-multi-channel era which (providing you didn't say anything rude about the Queen or mention sex) was quite so simple for people to aspire to appear on.

Later revamps lost that, and the problem with the show cited by Blackburn isn't that it had Bucks Fizz next to a rapper, but that somebody was making those choices rather than relying on the caprice of the charts to create that sort of gear-shift by accident.

The Daily Telegraph seems sad to see the back of the programme, even although for much of its 42 years on air TOTP has surely been the sort of thing the paper rails against:

Iit is almost inevitable that the moments seared on your cerebral cortex correspond with your own teenage awakening, that special period when pop suddenly flares in the adolescent psyche.

Luckily, though, Neil 'My mate Bono' McCormick comes to his outraged senses:

Mostly, of course, it was a sea of dross in which genuine pop idols fought to stay afloat among the flotsam and jetsam of the hit parade while being insulted by self-glorifying presenters patently out of touch with the music (whoever imagined that David "Diddy" Hamilton was an appropriate host in the era of punk rock?).

But July 30 will be a sad day for all of us who grew up under its spell; for every overgrown teenager who secretly dreamed of the day when they, too, might be at the centre of that set, surrounded by gawky teenage dancers and sneered at by DJs in dubious knitwear while cameras zoomed frenetically in and out and your lips moved, almost in sync with the song.

At least we've still got a month and a half to fulfil our ambitions.

Neil, nobody is going to buy your People I Don't Know Are Trying To Kill Me single.
Not even if it gets a personal endorsement from Ian Blair, telling us that purchasing it is the only way to ensure our freedoms. The date with Fearne Cotton isn't going to happen.

(We noticed while we were waiting for the telegraph to serve up the page that it was calling in data from bs.serving-sys, which seems to be a surprising level of self-awareness on the part of the paper.)

The Times headline is pretty poor: The fat lady gets ready to sing for Top of the Pops - it's not an opera programme, is it?

Arctic Monkeys refused to appear recently, believing that the show had little relevance to fans who had discovered them through internet file-sharing.

Not, of course, that The Times has any reason to even imply that MySpace has killed the Pops, oh no. Right, boss?

Last night Chris Cowey, one of the show’s former producers, said: “ToTP doesn’t belong to the BBC — it belongs to the nation. It hasn’t been given the respect it deserves.”

This is true, to an extent – it has been thrown into dark corners and hidden in the schedules – but it's not solely the BBC's fault the audience for it has slipped away.

The nation, of course, cannot be relied upon to value the things which make it what it is.

The Guardian's Culture Vulture worries over what this, and the death of Smash Hits, means for our pop health:

today's pubescents have no dribbling recollections of Pan's People, the literal-minded dance troupe who acted out songs as artists sang them.

But that's their loss. Naff or not, TOTP provided the rest of us with lasting memories. My definitive one is being newly arrived in London and watching it for the first time, when Wham! were on doing their first hit, Young Guns. They wore espadrilles without socks, a fashion revelation to me.

Okay, so the implication is that the end of the show might kill off our souls, but at least our chiropodists will be less outraged.

Meanwhile, the media-centric Organ Grinder also sheds a tear or two:
Nobody really cares anymore but its legend will live on.

There's a shed load of stuff in the Guardian webpages and on their blogs, to say nothing of the other papers, which hardly feels like nobody actually cares.

For an international readership, Reuters tries to explain the show, by calling upon Paul Gambaccini to sketch in the background:

Former host Paul Gambaccini said it was required listening for generations of pop fans, but has suffered because famous artists are releasing fewer hits each year.

"It was the news of pop music," he told BBC radio. "Nowadays, the major artists don't release hit records more than once every two years -- consequently the news isn't very interesting."

Yes, there have been months where presenters had little more to do than turn up, look into the camera and say "No new Eric Clapton record this week, either. So now, Top Gear…"

Perhaps surprisingly, The Independent didn't bother contacting Jimmy Saville and instead spoke to Janice Long:

"My memories are just feeling so incredibly lucky. For me, the main thing was to be standing there next to the bands you'd worshipped for such a long time."

The most astonishing thing is that Janice was, apparently, the first woman to present the show – and they reckon it used to be behind the times.

Obviously, most of the papers have reached for a fact-box of great TOTP moments, most culled from TV Cream's Pops feature, we'd imagine.

Meanwhile, the blogs mark the news in their own way:

Through Chromewaves we learn of Tripwire's flowers-in-clingfilm instant YouTube memorial to the show.

"If it means we don't see Jimmy Saville on TV any more, even better" comments a visitor the The Pie Shop, apparently not noticing that the only time in the last five years Saville has been near a camera has been to deliver eulogies to TOTP. (Alright, and Celeb Big Brother).

Lost In London fixes the axing in a context both pop-cultural (Smash Hits, The Face) and televisual (Grandstand, most notably – actually, at this rate, there aren't going to be any sacred cows left for future executives to axe.)

Out of touch, bumbling and puzzled as to what makes teens tick; the BBC's 'Auntie' tag has never seemed so apt.

Really? But most of the people who are upset at the end of the show are amongst the nasal-haired and waistline-expanded of middle-age; the teens aren't really that bothered. Dumping a format older than their parents which they don't watch is hardly going to upset them, is it?

We were very taken with Interstate4Jamming conflating the Pops sunset with Dan Rather's exit from NBC. Even the summation of Dan's leaving could fit the slow, two-month wind down of TOTP:

"Almost everyone I heard Tuesday said that while Rather had likely stayed longer that he should have at Black Rock, the company's decision was a classless move, at least the way it was done."

FreakyTrigger's Do You See squirms at having to agree with Noel Edmonds:

Top Of The Pops, as a show, may not be packing them in like it used to. And much of that is due to the music television on demand. Nevertheless it was THE music chart show, and as such it lent far more legitimacy to the Official Radio One chart than just being on Radio One did. Radio One is a silly pop radio station, Top Of The Pops was on BBCTV, after the news, and as (shudder) Paul Gambacini says rightly, it was the News Of Pop. So its very existence lends a degree of legitimacy to pop music. Maybe pop music itself does not need this legitimacy, but the BBC does: if it wants to hold on Radio One and even Radio Two. By completely ditching pop to the commercial broadcasters, it is signing the death knell of Radio One. Again not necessarily a bad thing - but probably a bad thing for the BBC.

It's a strong point – the weekly round-up of singles sales could be seen as providing a public service, in the same way the classified football results or the stock market closing figures are, and broadcasting it in the face of apparent apathy could even have made the Pops claim a position on a par with BBC Parliament, which broadcasts non-stop coverage of MPs you don't recognise discussing things that don't affect you. Although they do have a dance troupe to liven up the Agricultural select committee these days.

However, the BBC isn't abandoning pop – there's the Jools Holland thing still, the coverage of Glastonbury, 1Xtra, Radio 2's slow journey across the musical landscape. I don't think you can say that taking TOTP off the air is going to harm the Corporation's claims to cover pop music in a serious way, and certainly not that it leads from that that Radio One must be doomed. Indeed, it illustrates nicely why Radio One is so distinct from its commercial rivals – it's changed, adapted, grown and expanded over the last forty years in a way that TOTP has failed to do. Back in 1980, you couldn't really explain what the difference between the bulk of Radio One and the TOTP worlds were. But imagine, say, Ras Kwame or Gilles Peterson trying to be pressed into presenting the TV show in the way that, for example, Peel, Long or Jensen were able to be. Radio One no longer expects its presenters to be able to put in a turn as light entertainers, and is happy to leave them to what they're good at.

Popjustice is just heartbroken at the waste:
But it is mostly a bad thing because - unlike Smash Hits - it could have been turned around. It wouldn't have been easy, but it was possible.
Oddly, nobody seemed this upset when Big World Café was axed.

music tv top fo the pops

EUROVISION LIVE: 2006

So, here we are again... last year, we were off in Wiltshire and missed a big chunk of Eurovision, but this year... we're not going to miss a single glowing moment.

8.00 - A woman in a golden dress is singing to a big gold ball. Mind that long skirt on those steps, love. Oh, christ, and a big, silver, emotionless man. That'll scare off the few kids who weren't already firmly stuck behind the sofa after the cybermen...

8.04 - Here are this year's hosts, then - a woman with scary hair who probably counts as "sexy" in the host country, and a snarky looking bloke who probably thinks he's quite witty. We're told everyone is "amazing" (apart, presumably, from Belguim's already-beaten entrants). Last year's winner is back to do her stuff. She's not really had much of a year, has she? Maybe they should find a job for Eurovision winners to keep them busy until they have to appear again in the following contest - in the same way that Miss World and convicted tax fraudsters have to do community service for twelve months.

8.08 - The hosts tell us she was "amazing." The word of the year, then, would seem to be amazing.

The voting rules are up on screen - calls, apparently, are charged at EBU rate - that's presumably not used very often, then.

The between songs films are the usual "look at our nation" tourist information film fare.

First contestants are Switzerland - Ulrika Jonson and Mickey from Dr Who... oh, hang on, it's a sextet, also featuring a bloke in a hat, and Cher from her Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves period. They're called Six4One (remember, those numbers are charged at EBU rate) and ponder what could happen if we all give a little. Switzerland's successful policy of remaining neutral in world wars should be extended to song contests.

8.13 - "Digital viewers press their right button... red button..." - Wogan's already pissed.

Moldova: Asenium feat. Natalia Gordienko and Connect-R.

The song is called Loca, and it's being sung by a Britney Spears impersonator - if she was any more similar, she'd be throwing babies on the floor - and the Moldovan S Club 7. We suspect this might be the entire collection of musical professionals the country has to offer. The only-to-be-expected rap bit is delivered by a bloke who comes to the front of the stage on a scooter. A kid's one, not a mod's one.

Overall, it sounds like something you might hear coming from a beach as you say "let's try the next beach along."

8.20 - Israel: Together We Are One by Eddie Butler

Every year, Israel enter a song of peace, love and hope - usually the hope being that nobody will ask what part of Europe Israel is actually in. Eddie is straining at the edges of his white suit; many of his backing singers - and there are hundreds - are bursting out of theirs. Presumably the cleavage show is to try and stop people asking awkward questions about walls and things.

8.22 - Latvia: I Hear Your Heart by Vocal Group Cosmos

"It's acapela" warns Wogan. And so it is. It looks like a counselling centre has pulled together a glee club as one of its activities. Imagine the Kings Singers had decided to try and go after the Boyzone audience.

Bloody hell, they've got a robot - a rubbish robot; all it does is sit up and wave. That explains why it looks like they've got a bloke from IT support in the back row.

One of them had hidden a helium balloon in his pocket for the song. That's quite sweet.

8.25 - Norway: Alvedansen by Christine Guldbrandsen

A blonde woman in her wedding dress ("Buffy the Eurovision Slayer" suggests my wife.) Like all the bands so far, despite being a solo artist she's taken the stage with a bunch of white-clad supporters. No robots, no balloons, and no song; instead she just goes "aaah-iii-aaah-eee-aaah..."

8.30 - Spain: Bloody Mary by Las Ketchup

Bloody hell - Las Ketchup? It's not quite entering Tatu, but this is as close as Spain can come to pulling in their big international hit guns, isn't it? It makes a nice change for a band to appear in something other than white - they're in red, of course; and they've built a dance around, um, some office chairs. At the same time, they've got two modern ballet dancers writhing about, making it a bit like the Brassneck video. A bit. "Look at me, look at me, look at me" is the only discernable lyric. It goes on way too long, but isn't too bad. Not as bad as that novelty hit they had a few years back, anyway, but we can't support them because of that hit.

8.33 - Malta: I Do by Fabrizio Faniello

With a name like that, we're betting he's going to have big teeth and hair.

Hair? Check. Teeth? Check. We didn't guess the goatee beard, though. He looks very clean-cut, though, and it's probably the lack of carnal thoughts which gives him the confidence to carry off trousers that tight. The song, unfortunately, is lost entirely in its own Miaimi Vice style electronic drumbeat, and may never escape.

One his backing dancers looks like daughter of bird-killer Emma B. Surely she's not relocated to Malta?

8.36 - Germany: No No Never by Texas Lightning

Cactuses - oh, god, it's Teutonic Country. Imagine country music sung by emotionless robots. That would be Shania Twain, actually, wouldn't it?

Oh, indeed it is.

With a backing band who look as if they took no persuading to wear the six-gallon hats. In fact, they probably started from the hats and developed their act in that direction.

"I'm never ever gonna not go and pick up the phone" runs the words - what? You're not going to call? Or you'd never not call, which means you'll always call? You're going to be constantly ringing me? Like a stalker?

8.40 - Denmark: Twist of Love by Sidsel Ben Semmane

This sounds promising - surely a Scandanvian singing about a twist of love can only be getting fruity, right?

Wrong. It's Sonia's Copenhagen cousin doing what sounds like a skiffle reworking of the Fat Boys version of The Twist. She's doing Donald Rumsfeld style pointing, too.

Ah... Blogger's gone to sleep now, too. Always a service to rise to the occasion.

A dancer has come from nowhere to push his face round the floor - something Chubby Checker never included in the rules for "it going like this."

8.45 - Russia: Never Let You Go by Dima Bilan

Dima seems to have come hot foot from gym class, where he's spent too long working on heavy lifting and given no attention to his sparrow chest. In a similar fashion, he probably could carry a tune, but doesn't have anything with which to lift one.

Oh god, a scary mime-faced dancer has just crawled out the piano. Dima doesn't look like he knew she was in there, but has made a good hand of ignoring her anyway.

8.48 - FYR Macedona: Ninanajna by Elena Risteska

"Give me what you're waiting for" instructs Elena from within her tiny denim hotpants. But if we're waiting for it, how can we give it to you? Never mind, because it turns out she wants to give it to us anyway. If you try and walk in those shorts, love, we'll all be getting it.

8.52 - "Last year was naval" says Terry, "this year, the legs have it."

Romania: Tornero by Mihai Träistariu

Yet more interpretative dancing, this time by a woman in an Ethel Austin blouse trying to keep up with Mihai's over-frenetic bounce-along. Mihai looks a little like a stage hypnotist.

Oh, now there are some lads in flat caps doing basic dance moves behind him. They're lucky they didn't get him on a normal show, he'd have convinced them they were talking to a beautiful woman and made them kiss a mop.

One of the cap lads is spinning on his head on a podium now - this year, it's like the Rock Steady Crew have taken on the choreography.

Half way already? Bloody hell. Nothing so far has really tickled us.

8.58 - Lady presenter has changed from a horrible yellow into a silver and white bridesmaid's dress; the bloke hasn't changed the stupid look on his face. But to be fair, they don't seem to be doing quite as much plodding two-handed comedy knockabout stuff as usual this year.

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Lejla by Hari Mata Hari

Not the Mata Hari, we presume. Ooh, this is quite nice, although perhaps a little bit too close to the sort of "sounds of the Pan Pipes" CDs you hear on constant test loops in garden centres. And Hari does have an unfortunate stance for singing, like a man desperate to poo, but afraid to actually put his bottom on the toilet seat lest he catches something.

He's got a stack of white-dressed supporting singers, too.

9.03 - Terry has made his first comment about how the Balkans will block-vote. That's taken nearly an hour, though, which is the closest this man comes to self-restraint.

Lithuania: We are the winners by LT United

In rather a bold move, the lyric consists of a statement that "we are the winners of Eurovision". Perhaps they wrote that on a flipchart when they were coming up with ideas, and forgot to replace it with a proper song. They do look as if they might have been put together by a Lithuanian Alan Sugar for The Apprentice, and they even have someone singing through a loud hailer, Saira style.

David Yelland comes forward to do a dance.

Nobody wants to point out they're just doing an old Gary Glitter song, though.

It might be mind control, but they're the best so far.

9.06: UK - Teenage Life by Daz Simpson

Our finest hour. This isn't it. Daz has all the charm of a drivetime host on BBC Radio Surrey, and his song is like a poor hybrid of Grocer Jack and Smiley Culture's Schooltime Chronicle. It's debatable if Eurovision is yet ready for a proper rap song, but if it is, then why not give it a proper one, rather than something Tony Hawkes would have baulked at for Morris Minor and the Majors.

And who knew it was possible to dress adults up as schoolgirls and reduce their sex appeal?

"What did you learn at school today/ that's what the teachers used to say" -- eh? Surely that's what parents say; teachers, erm, do the teaching.

Mind you, it seems to have gone down really well.

9.11 Or maybe they were just excited because the home girl was up next.

Greece: Everything by Anna Vissi

Is she using a wind machine, or is that just a natural eddy being caused by her flapping dress-wings? Someone has put a lot of work into sewing the details and sequins onto the outfit. Presumably they were also meant to be writing the song, and ran out of time for that bit.

9.14 Finland: Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi

Hot favourites, but their death metal killalotness has been seriously undermined by Mr Lordi's decision to wear a comedy Finnish flag hat.

Actually, this whole thing looks like a gag dreamed up by Joss Whedon for a throwaway scene in an early season of Angel.

Still, it's the look the kids will be trying for tomorrow.

Mr. Lordi has wings which open out, to allow him to present like a peacock. Presumably the ass-shake will be held in reserve for if they have to do it as winners.

Everyone must vote for them. They simply must.

Wogan asks if it's Roy Wood doing the singing.

9.18: Ukraine - Show Me Your Love by Tina Karol

Ukraine try to pull off a Ruslana by thowing in a lot of traditional cossackyness into this, but Tina is no Ruslana. If you want to make the rock-cossack work, you have to give off a vibe that anyone who crosses your path is going to be enslaved in a land-army of sex demons. Tina's not dressed for dragging whelps across the Urals. Indeed, in that skirt she won't be getting on any horsebacks.

Actually, whatever did happen to Tracy Shaw?

9.22: France - Il Est Temps by Virginie Pouchin

Wogan is obsessed this year by "Greek fisherman's caps."

Oh, there's a proper double bass. A signal from the off that France are, once again, going for serious, sweeping balladgs rather than jolly, bouncy pop. Or plastic-faced death metal, come to that. She tries hard, but Virginie's lost it.

She should, though, try singing some of the Sundays' back catalogue. She'd suit that quite well. And they deserve a few extra points for not padding out the stage with interprative dancers.

9.26: Croatia - Moja ·tikla by Severina

It starts out like Private Lives by Grace Jones, but only for the briefest of moments. Severina looks like Gaynor Faye, and spends a lot of time with her arms outstretched - presumably to lay forever the old lie about European women's armpits.

She's backed up by what might be men in Croatian dress.

Oh, she's ripped her skirt off, although she still looks like she's a little overheated.

9.30 Ireland - Every Song Is A Cry For Love by Brian Kennedy

Every song? What about You Should All Be Murdered? Or I Hate Nerys Hughes?

Brian Kennedy's haircut, though, is a cry for a barber. Ireland apparently feel ready to start winning again, but seems to have forgotten how. You can imagine this dirge was written, then compared with a Johnny Logan song, and even they could see why it didn't quite match up, but were unable to tell what was missing.

If this song is a cry for love, it's going to be a terrible sort of love - the sort of love which ends up with someone locked in a closet.

Kennedy did sing better than any of the other blokes so far, though.

9.34 Sweden - Invincible by Carola

Have the auditions for WonderWoman closed yet? Carola is singing with metal leggings and a six-foot flowing top, which shows she could manage anything the part might demand. The song is a bit by-numbers, but the attention to hair detail might swing the gay vote behind her.

9.37 Turkey - Super Star by A. Sibel Tüzün

Umlauts! Umlauts! Shit tattoos that you can't tell if she's midway through having removed or have just faded really badly! A cony-flesh coloured top that looks like a Madonna knockoff. Can it fail?

Unfortunately, yes, because she sings the title as if she was singing "Suicide" rather than Superstar.

Her dancers try and take away from her poor diction and crappier body art by doing some human pyramid stuff.

9.41 Armenia: Without Your Love - Andre

Ooh, Andre looks right mean, like one of those lads who hangs around the market smoking roll-ups with their hooded tops up because the butcher's laid them off and they're waiting for a job mixing cement for the bloke rebuilding the Civic Centre. You know the sort. He does have his position at the end of the contest going for him, as people will be able to remember his song as they come to vote. On the other hand, people will be able to remember his song as they come to vote, and its so empty, that's not an advantage.

9.46 That's the singing over with, then.

She's back in a short, spangly silver number, but the bloke has traded up, too - he's wearing a gold lame jacket. While we're being "amazing" and voting, we're going to be entertained by Member of the European Parliament Nana Mouskouri.

Is she going to sing? Or just babble on about great everyone has been?

These days, she looks more like Ronnie Barker's impression of her than ever.

"There are no losers" insists Nana, which may comfort Daz Sampson who looks like a loser if we've ever seen one.

The giant heart-shaped egg timer which was meant to control voting time slips back on itself, and everyone looks more than a little bemused as what they should do. We don't know the Greek for "plough on regardless and stop standing like you've got a frozen turd in your buttcheeks", but we imagine that's what the presenters were hearing.

The dramatic shots of the sand running out through the eggtimer during the intermission song are slightly redundant now we know it's not actually the control clock at all.

9.58 "An amazing night" says the bloke-presenter, as the audience countdown the end of voting from, erm, 11.

"What an amazing, amazing night" testifies the she-presenter (now in black, by the way.)

The votes are now going to be counted, apparently, although since its all electronic, we're a little at a loss to why it takes the length of a mini-Olympic opening ceremony musical number (based on Aristophanes, apparently) before we can get to the voting.

10.10 Slovenia start the voting and give maximum marks to Bosnia. That's Terry off on his block voting grumps, then.

This year, they've sped up the process by not making the countries go through all their votes - the first seven marks are just flashed up on screen. Finland are leading after the first few countries - if they win, presumably everyone will enter a death metal song next year.

10.15 Does Terry really believe Latvia give Russia twelve points to stop Putin re-invading them?

Lordi are holding up "We Love You" signs; Daz Sampson has got stuck on seven points for the longest time.

Because Finland don't give any marks to Sweden, rather than saying "oh, there isn't block voting at all", Wogan suggests "Sweden won't like that."

10.20 Terry has at least found another obsession, worrying over how hot it must be for Lordi in all that make-up.

Ireland have given twelve points to Lithuania, suggesting they might be the most suggestable nation in Europe.

Daz has by now managed a mid-table ranking, which means he's done better than Javine. Javine might want to think about what that means for her career.

Finland are running away with it, though. Helsinki next year...

10.30 The Dutch Chris Moyles is delivering their votes live from Weesp, and trying to be a character; it's a race for second. Mind you, he's upsetting Terry Wogan so he's not all bad.

Terry also has the hump about there being 37 countries involved in the voting process. But it gives us the chance to discover that, for example, Stephen Colbert is doing the Polish results.

Fearne Cotton is giving our results. Not her finest hour. But she does make rock hands when she gives 12 to Finland, so we forgive her.

10.40 Israel are still on zero - doubtless this is part of some terrible conspiracy being orchestrated by Iran, rather than because their song sucked.

France have just given Israel four. That leaves Malta on the bottom alone.

"This is not a great scoreboard... you need fifty-fifty vision to see the score" says Wogan, before greeting the arrival of the German results with a snarky "who do you think you are, Lord Haw-Haw?" Mmm, what was that you were saying about countries stuck in years-old patterns, Tel?

Iceland give their maximum to Finland - the only nation to do so because they thought some death metalling demons were a natural Eurovision choice rather than a giant cosmic joke. "I'm only surprised it took them so long to find a troll to enter" said the Icelandic people, as one.

10.50 Daz is slipping down the table quite rapidly - it might be a little too soon for him to send that "in your face" text to Javine; 25 points seemed a solid start but he's not had a single point for about twelve rounds of voting.

Finland have it in the bag - along with their giant mallets and spare horn-cleaner by now; the only question is if the rapidly disintegrating grip on affairs held by the production team can make it through the rest of the show.

10.55 The Finns have done it. Which is lovely, because it's a sign that the contest isn't quite as dull and predictable affair as it could have been. And Hard Rock Hallelujah beats the hell out of Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Lay.

And who doesn't love seeing a man-troll being presented with a bunch of flowers?

music lordi eurovision song contest greece finland

GIRL ON FILM

It's a pity its the start of March, as this day will surely be declared a public holiday for all eternity, a day of public celebration and private joy.

When you return home tonight, and your family look at you with tears in their eyes and say "is it true? Is it true?" , you can tell them, yes: Madonna has quit acting:

She fears her terrible acting reputation will condemn any film.

That sentence didn't actually need 'reputation' in there, did it?

According to IOL.com she said: "What film can survive people saying it's going to be a bomb from the second it's announced?

"Making movies is such an effort, and to do that over and over again, with the possibility that I am going to get the shit kicked out of me - and they really enjoy doing it - I mean, it doesn't make sense.

"I have sort of let it go."

What Madonna seems to have missed isn't that people say the films are going to bomb from the off - it's that people who see them say they're going to bomb.

Lets review that career in full, then:

A Certain Sacrifice (1979) - Madonna is caught up in a bizarre cult (ooh, spooky) and spends her time without many clothes on; the film only got a genuine release - oddly - after Madonna started to sell records.


Vision Quest (1985) - another film made while the money for Jell-o and peanut butter was hard to come by; mercifully, Madonna keeps her clothes on and restricts herself to a small role as a club singer while Matthew Modine struggles to keep his enormous hair in check and romance Linda Fiorentino. Even repackaged and renamed to share a title with Madonna's hit from the film, Crazy For You, it did nothing.


Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
The film which made us think she might be able to bestride two forms of popular entertainment - look, it never occured to us that she was just being herself and the awkward, stilted bits weren't her trying to convey the iculture-clash screwball mismatchage, but her just being stilted. Still, if she'd called it a day after this, we'd be saying "wasn't it a shame she never made any more movies, eh?"


Shanghai Surprise (1986)
"A romantic adventure for the dangerous at heart" brazens the box, although "a misbegotten trump through a third-rate Romancing the Stone" might have been more honest. Madonna is a nun-cum-nurse who's trying to source some heroin to help her patients. Sean Penn is a gun for hire. It's believed that the famous incident where Penn apparently tied Madonna to a chair for several days was done in an attempt to stop her ever making a film ever again.


Who's That Girl (1987)
Most famous for landing Madonna with the "where's the cougar, matey" question for the next few years whenever she appeared in Smash Hits, this pairing with Griffin Dunne promises "a funny thing happened on the way to the bus station", although an hour and a half breathing in fumes at Victoria Coach Terminus might be more amusing. Madonna plays Nikki Finn, fresh out of prison for a crime she - obviously - didn't commit. Dunne plays a preppy lawyer who gets caught up in her attempts to prove herself innocent. Cultures clash, teeth grind.


Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989)
Even Madonna probably admits this one stinks - when it first went nationwide in the US, it was sent out with one of its reels missing. Nobody noticed. Reworked from Damon Runyon's novels, the kindest thing you can say is it kept Randy Quaid off the streets for a few weeks making it.


Dick Tracy (1990)
Adapting comic books to the big screen can work incredibly well - as Sin City so ably demonstrated. On the other hand, you sometimes end up with a Tank Girl, although that would be over kind to Warren Beatty's pointless attempt to covert Dick Tracy into box office gold. Besides setting up one of the most queasy relationships in Madonna's long career of falling for wrong 'uns (it must have been like kissing your grandad) it also spun off the single Hanky Panky, the first time, musically, Madonna was indefensible.


Shadows and Fog (1992)
Talking of kissing your grandad, here's Madonna's attempt to take a step closer to the arthouse by accepting a small role in a Woody Allen movie. To be fair to Madonna, that this one plummeted like a goose with avian flu was down more to the difficulties in bringing gags about mid-Century German expressionism to the multiplex.


A League of Their Own (1992)
If the American public won't buy a nod to nosferatu, surely you can't go wrong with a baseball movie? Madonna and Geena Davis play feuding sisters who set aside their differences to enter the first ever female baseball league. In other words: a film built around rounders.


Body of Evidence (1992)
Having tried highbrow, and folksy, Madonna reverted to type to try playing sexy in this attempt to ride the post-Sharon Stone wave (a wave not even Sharon Stone could keep afloat on, of course). Madonna played the part of a gallery owner accused of, literally, fucking a guy to death. It would have been more interesting if - in a Tales of the Unexpected plot twist - she had then eaten the evidence. Part of the problem was the trouble in trying to match the supposedly raunchy storyline (hot wax sex toys; cocking yourself out of existence) with a mimsy pussy-footing trying to please the censor and sensibilities (Madonna wouldn't allow any nudity to make the final cut; the language was bowlderised to the point where the line 'have you ever watched animals making love?' is used as a seduction technique). The other big problem was that Madonna can't act.


Dangerous Game (1993)
Madonna does best when she sticks to what she's good at – singing, being a diva, or, in this case, playing the part of second-rate jobbing actress. Indeed, this is one of her better film performances and she could have tried claiming that the previous half-dozen had merely been Hoffmanesque attempts to get in the part as a struggling soap opera actress. Trouble is, the plot of this one – Harvey Keitel attempts to screw with people's heads, using lots of hand-held cameras – made for one gloomy evening at the movies.


Blue In The Face (1995)
The less-successful improv follow-up to the more successful Smoke, Madonna's involvement in this (as a Singing Telegram) is brief enough to leave her coming across as one of the more polished performers in the affair.


Four Rooms (1995)
They call this a portmanteau movie because anyone involved with it should have been discovered in an abandoned packing case at Brighton Station. Madonna – alongside Amanda DeCadanet and Ione Skye – finds herself in one-quarter of a multi-authored tale of going-ons in a high-class hotel. Basically, it's Blame It On The Bellboy reimagined by Tarantino.


Girl 6 (1996)
Spike Lee's recent moan that movies constantly portray black women as sexually hypercharged and sexually available probably had just this sort of movie in mind. His 1996 film only had a small role for Madonna – as a boss, rather than sexline worker, because the idea that anyone would pay Maddy to talk them into a frenzy was already starting to look unlikely a decade ago. It also featured Naomi Campbell, which suggests Lee wasn't that fussy at the audition stage. Notably, it's unavailable on DVD in the UK.


Evita (1996)
"And as for fortune, and as for fame, I never invited them in, though it seemed to world they were all I desired…" Full credit to the woman for singing that with a straight face. Ciccone was pregnant during the filming of this, which appears to have taken her mind off the process of acting for long enough to allow her to turn in a half-decent performance. Added to which, it’s got Don't Cry For Me, Argentina in it. Hard to go wrong, so had she turned a corner at last?


The Next Best Thing (2000)
Or Fag-Hag Surprise, as it's also known. Having completed a half-decent film, Madonna retired to motherhood and cultdom and re-emerged to make this with her chum Rupert Everett. He's gay – you can tell he's gay, he's a landscape gardener - she's not getting any younger but desperate for a baby; oddly, despite Everett's homosexuality, he somehow gets Madonna pregnant while drunk (memo to those US churches offering a cure for homosexuality – apparently it's six Malibu and cokes) and so they all live together happily until Madonna falls in love with a man. It could have been an interesting idea, but the script was written by the bloke who did the third Look Who's Talking movie – the one with the talking dog in it.

The Hire: Star (2001)
Madonna's first movie with Guy Ritchie was this seven minute short in which she plays an un-named hotshot rockstar being driven about by Clive Owen. We haven't seen this, but – genuinely – there's a director's cut available on DVD in America which adds an extra three minutes of previously unseen material.



Swept Away (2002)
Ah, if only Guy and Madge had kept all their marital collaborations so brief as The Hire, or his appearance at the Brit awards. Instead, this nasty bit of 'look, I'm filming my wife being raped' business rolled on for ninety minutes of confused surf-edged misery and never quite got as far as the cinema in the UK.


Die Another Day (2002)
Blink and you'll miss it bit of uncredited Madonna action in this Bond; sadly, you'd have to keep your hands over your ears chanting for quite a bit longer to avoid her contribution to the soundtrack.

Arthur and the Minimoys (2006)
So this is to be the end, then – Madonna's acting career (if she's true to her word) will be capped by her voicing a cartoon princess in a film about Arthur (we think it's meant to be an shortsighted aardvark, but we're really not sure). In a bid to close the circle, Princess Selenia is to be held captive by a weird sex cult and initiates Arthur into the ways of love.

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