SHUT UP, YOU'RE AN EMBARRASMENT: Thank god for that Christopher Walken video for the Fatboy Slim single. At least it means that that side of the single is getting the attention, rather than the dire *69... Talking of *69, which was also an REM, what on earth was that Peter Buck airrage incident all about? Clearly he must have got over-excited watching the Foo Fighters video or something. Are *69 the band still going? I liked them. My head hurts.

LISTENING POST: Our ears, our ears. Recently we've become fond of Dreampop Guitars and Girlsolider Radio over at Live365 - shoe and SHOO! respectively. When we're not burning the company cash, the newlook Music Choice alt rock channel is still as good as ever - although we could have done without 20 minutes of Semisonic last night. As we write, it's Madder Rose thats filling our cortex. Yum...

WE'RE #1, SO WHY TRY HARDER?: Sorry, Sleater-Kinney fans, XRRF is the number one return when you search No Rock And Roll Fun on Google. Which means, of course, yay for us.

AND MORE NAPSTER...: "Look, global sales of records have fallen" cries Music Week, "this proves how disatorous Napster has been..." Bollocks, if it proves anything its how shite music is now. The UK saw sales rise, helped mainly by another round of Beatles hawking, while although there was a huge decline in US singles sales, this could be because there was nothing of interest to the target singles market. Thats if there is a target singles market anymore. When I was a kid, I bought singles because I could just about stretch my pocket money to fit them. Albums were a rare treat, made possible by Christmas cash or allowing great aunties to kiss me without flinching or wiping. Kids born on the right sides of the tracks in the US these days have a greater weekly disposable income than many Independent sovereign states, and are just as able to go out and buy an album as a single. Providing there's something they want. They could just as easily buy a peregrine falcon or a discarded cattle-cull calf.
Anyway, US music sales were down just 1.5% year on year. In '98 and '99, they rose nine and four percent respectively. If a rising stock market trundled slightly backwards after ten years of continuous growth, it would be explained away as a "correction" rather than an indication of the end of the world, and so it would be here, were it not a handy stick to pass to the judge to beat Napster with. Set in the wider context of an American economy generally regarded as entering the "fucked" stage of the economic cycle, a small dip in sales should be praised as God smiling down on the industry. Not, of course, that it will.
Meanwhile:
Can copyright theft be constitutional? - FT article on Digital Millennium Copyright Act coming to court
FT reports ringtones seen as "new Napster" - yeah, because why would people buy a CD when they can have five seconds of something resembling the tune clanged out in tinny tones everytime someone rings for a chat?

MAYBE SHINK SHOULD HANDLE THE PRESS: Yes, forget the International Record Companies whining about Napster - they should just run off copies of Shinkansen's Why CDs cost money article and sit back...

CREATIVE THINKINGS: Nice to see Broadcast have been nominated in the Music Week creative awards, for their sleeve designs. Even if they probably will lose out to Robbie Williams and his lot of money but no idea teaser campaign type things...

AND WE'RE BACK: For those of you who care, you might have noticed xrrf has been quiet of late - I've been off doing things that are even more interesting than speculating on pop-related stuff. Sorry if you've felt abandoned. Things we've missed have included Robbie Williams claiming he'd lied about sex with Geri, Geri saying she was thinking of becoming a lesbian, and Scott Mills announcing he was gay. Yes you do, four am, on Radio One. Yes you do.

INDIE "NOT SCHMINDIE", SAYS MINISTRY: From the department of "We could have told you that", the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (or Ministry of things your parents dont believe are real jobs) has issued a report suggesting that indie labels who want to expand should explore other options rather than just getting into bed with a major. Next week: "Feeding cows to cows not that wise an idea", says Maff...

TRIBUTES BECOME EPITAPHS: We could almost forgive the good people at dotmusic for their clogging of the entire music world's email blocks with promo for the Dury tribute album, but the downside is that what will be recorded as Kirsty MacColl's last performance is included. To review her delivery of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick while simultaneously not speaking ill of the dead would be nigh on impossible. A drunk prison officer with mittens wearing sweatpants would have more chance of finding the right key... But its all, of course, for charity...
Gateway to dotmusic's mini site - thank god the panties are new...

AT LEAST WE NOW KNOW...: So, that's why there ain't no party like an S Club Party. The sad thing is, the obvious set-up publicity scam is so creaky, they'd even have rejected it as a plot for Miami 7 - even down to the bone thrown (oh yes) to that lucrative gay audience - c'mon, they were found with a spliff - whats with the strip search if not to provide gay pop boys with a few days worth of punchlines?

BITTER, ME?: The catty pay-off of Alan McGee's review of David Cavanagh's Creation book has been well-reported (Martin Carr is rubbish! Nyah!) but the whole piece is worth reading, if only for the repeated mantra of "Paolo Hewitt's Book" - apparently the Bible to Cavanagh's Story of O. Surely McGee can't be trying to diss the book because its not always positive? Surely not...
Poptones - the McGee review - so, was Creation about selling out to Sony Records and retiring with a big fat cheque, Al? And that The Legend! jibe - thats just going too far...

Popstars: Why? In god's name, why?

ACTS IN THE COURT: As if all the ongoing Napster fun isn't enough to make you actually believe that Record Companies are the spawn of Satan, and so on, more court action this week offers further evidence. Garbage are joining Courtney Love in attempting to use California Labour laws to break contracts with Universal, while Dave and Helen Balfe, co-founders of Food, are in London's busy High Court alledging sharp practice on the part of EMI. The Balfes claim that EMI released limited run Japanese only CDs by Blur and Shampoo to avoid having to pay them their share of royalties on full-run albums. When Food was sold to EMI, the deal being that the Balfes would receive a share in the first two albums by each band released by EMI. Regardless of what the High Court finds in terms of contract law, this sort of manoeuvering is worth writing down on a prompt card to bring out the next time record companies sob into their chianti about how they're only worried about their talent's income when they attack Napster. Winningly, news also broke this week that Mainics drummer Sean Moore - the sexy alternative to Real Paul Merton - was one of the Napster users blocked ont he orders of Sony for having copies of erm, his own ,music on his own computer.

THE BRITS: Its taken a while before I could actually even acknowledge the horror of this botched awards ceremony. If Coldplay are the best band in Britain, then clearly we might as well embrace European integration as quickly as we possibly can, don't you think? Still, nice to see both sides now won a Grammy...

THE LITTLE GIRLS UNDERSTAND: More on Eminem, as we compile this, Any Answers is taking calls - the first on Marshall starts with the words "I have never heard his records, but as a gay man..."; then another makes the statement "Either he's homophobic and misogynistic, or he's not..." - or, how about, he's playing a part and ACTING? D'oh. Thank god they found space to read out emails from a couple of teenage girls who basically DO get it - yes, his lyrics are ugly, isn't life the same, though?

BRAGG ON EMINEM: "[Eminem is] the authentic voice of the schoolyard bully. Thats what he is, a loudmouthed bully" - Billy Bragg on Any Questions, BBC Radio 4, 23-2-01. Asked if he'd ever written a song with lyrics that people might find offensive, Bragg replied "Tories, hopefully"

KITTENS AGAIN?: Atomic Kitten are number one for the third week running, which probably comes as much of a surprise to them as it does to us, don't you think? Even though the market has been fairly slow, and the Argos Appletons (thanks, popbitch) are probably getting sales that would only have guaranteed a top thirty slot and a quick trip back to working Hope Street before Christmas, to hang on to the slot for three weeks is a remarkable achievement. They're busily re-recording their stiffkitten debut album with yummy new material featuring interchangable new member in the hope that this snow-in-July success may actually feed through to some sort of profit centre...

Passing observation, number 455: That new Turin Brakes single is good, but not a patch on The Boss

NOBODY MAKES the EFFORT: Even with the Maker dead, the NME has still managed to lose nearly one in ten of its readers in the past six months - and if we assume that at least some MM people have transferred to the big brother, that would imply the flight from NME has been even greater. Mike Soutar has said that the magazine will "broaden" its appeal (Atomic Kitten posters? Patsy's tits?) and that after two years of looking after nme.com, it's time to give some attention to the magazine. This we take as an admission of how shit the paper's been for the last couple of years.
Media Guardian - you're a monopoly, so why head for the overcrowded dance market?

THINGS YOU CAN'T FIND ON NAPSTER:
Bradford - Boys Will Be Boys
anything by The Siddeleys
Brighton and Hove Albion's FA Cup single
anything by The Charlottes
Ride - Ride Mindfuck

MAYO'S GONE OFF: Today, really, marks the end of some sort of era as Simon Mayo - the only major player to have survived the Bannister years unscathed - removed his headphones for the last time prior to his move from Radio One to Five Live. Amongst the 'surprises' on his last show was Diane Oxenberry and Rod McKenzie - erstwhile brekafast show cohosts - reappearing, and, good god, The Proclaimers doing their first live programme on Radio One since, ooh, the days of Liz Kershaw at the very least. Sniff. I'll miss you, Simon...

LOU BOOKS: Lou Wener - yes, you do, out of Sleeper is apparently re-inventing herself as a novelist. Her new publisher has been quoted as saying that she's "not laddish, but more like Nick Hornby." So, that'd be not laddish in the style of a writer who specialises in football, record shops and commitmentphobia, then.

Just said to me, as I play Clare Grogan: "These are all student bands that you're playing..." Sigh. If only...

LOVE MISSILE ON CHICKEN IN THE BASKET: Nice to see Sigue Sigue Sputnik back, especially since their self-aggrandisment is still in place despite having taken something of a knock having been laughed off the face of the charts back in the 80's. Talking to the press at the weekend, Degville and co claimed their resurrection came when they discovered in 1996 that there were "5,000" Sigue Sigue Sputnik sites on the web. Bizarrely, accoding to Yahoo!, 4,993 of these must have gone out of business in the past five years - maybe they were all hosted on redhotant or something. What's quite sweet is the Sputniks are clearly hoping that nobody will notice the band is playing on the same circuit as The Christians and Tony Hadley.

YOU'RE NOT JUST BUYING A STEPS ALBUM, YOU'RE PAYING FOR OUR MISTAKES: The DTI has followed the European Commission and announced another investigation into the pricing of CDs in the UK. While the EC is staring beadily at how come little silver discs cost so much more on this side of the Atlantic, the DTI are investigating the discrepancy between UK and continental prices. The BPI is blowing dust off the "subsidising new artists" argument even as we speak, we expect.

DECEPTIVE ENDING: Deceptive records, home to the lax-emperors Elastica and others, has decided to call it a day. Presumably couldn't face another five year wait for Justine to cobble some tracks together again.
Deceptive online - hey, we've closed, why worry about misfiring frames?
also calling it a day is the Internet Underground Music Achive, which is unplugging its equipment following parent eMusic's cash crisis.
Announcement of closure - though check out the front page. They use a picture of Titanic, because, in our sense of proportion, the closure of an MP3 dump is akin the to drowning of hundreds of people

NO ANGLE: Dido, interviewed on Smash Hits TV, and asked about being nominated for a Brit, admitted that the whole thing was ridiculous -"the album wasn't even out", she observed. Which is pretty much what we said, so Dido gets a 'too honest for her own good' ten out of ten rating.

YOU'RE OLDER THAN YOU THINK: Walking into work this morning, I was listening to a randomy selected tape, which turned out to be the 1996 Festive Fifty. It's five years, then, since Bis' debut single Kandy Pop and Underworld did Born Slippy. The grave is calling, louder than you thought...

EXCITING THING: In the course of this page, you'll get a chance to see the words "one", "first" and "single" all in a row - marked with an asterisk. How cool is that?

SITE UPDATE: bothsidesnow, the briefs inside which this and sister blog conduct unbecoming swing, has just sprung online with a full new look for 2001, and a much expanded service. The first 22 entries in Village of the Band are now online, the gallery has been expanded and the links section has had a major overhaul. Along the way, there's pictures of Norman Cook - the bus, Sarah Record's farewell kiss and other delights and surprises.