Saturday, September 06, 2014

Linkin Park versus all of Malta

Malta were stood on the pitch, ready to play Slovakia. But first, their anthem.

Except the anthem wasn't played in. Linkin Park blasted through the speakers instead.

Digital Spy reckons less than a second of Linkin Park played before the correct tune was found - in the olden days, that would have been preceded by that 'needle scratching over a record' sound.

To be honest, looking at the Maltese anthem's lyrics:

Guard, Lord, forever, as you´ve done erst and ceasing never,

This land whose name we received, our motherly-named Mother.

Her you have draped with a light whose grace exceeds all other.

On those who govern, sovereign God, bestow understanding,

Grant wellness to those who work, largesse to those employing,

Make firm, make just all our bonds, the peace we are enjoying.
... I kind of wish every time Linkin Park appeared on a speaker they get rapidly preempted by that instead.


How Kate Bush has won music

A handy guide from Ampp3d


Friday, September 05, 2014

Chris Brown: still reeks

To be fair, the full story from the Chris Brown/Billboard interview isn't released until later today, so perhaps it will be less painful than the cover makes it look:

But the 'maybe I was out of control' strapline doesn't give one hope.

Maybe you were out of control, Chris Brown.

Or maybe you're a violent, beat-first asshat who is now trying to salvage some sort of career with a minor concession that perhaps - just maybe you were out of control.

Or maybe you knew exactly what you were doing when you pulped Rihanna's face that time.

Maybe that.


Thursday, September 04, 2014

IPC subeditors no longer dictate our youth; no longer IPC subeditors

IPC is IPC no more. The NME publisher is rebranding as Time Inc UK.

It's unlikely the new brand will ever inspire anything as glorious as this Clinic track, though:


Kpopobit: Go Eun-Bi

Go Eun-bi, member of KPop group Ladies' Code and known professionally as EunB, has died after the band were in a traffic collision.

The band was formed last year and released two albums. They were travelling between gigs when the accident happened; two other members were seriously injured.



Go Eun-bi, a graduate of South Korea's Hanlim Multi Art School, was 22.


See ya, CeeLo

The only disappointing thing about TBS cancelling CeeLo Green's TV show is that they decided to do it because they realised nobody wants to watch CeeLo Green doing a TV show, rather than because of his apparent belief that simply not being awake is a way to consent to sex:

According to screen shots of his Twitter page, Green reportedly wrote, "People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!" He added, " "If someone is passed out they're not even WITH you consciously! so WITH Implies consent."

Another tweet noted: "Let me 1st praise god for exoneration fairness & freedom! Secondly I sincerely apologize for my comments being taken so far out of context."
Yeah. I'm not sure there's any context you could put those comments in which would make them suddenly sound ok. Unless you lived in some sort of society which regularly turned a blind eye to rape.

Yeah, I know. I know.

To be fair, CeeLo did suddenly try again to apologise:
I truly and deeply apologize for the comments attributed to me on Twitter. Those comments were idiotic, untrue and not what I believe.
Although the earlier CeeLo was reportedly furious with this later CeeLo, claiming that later CeeLo's suggestion his comments were idiotic and wrong was taking them out of context. "Later CeeLo just doesn't understand" complained earlier CeeLo. "Why is he treating me so unfairly? Why is he impinging on my freedom to suggest that if someone falls asleep on your sofa they're saying it's okay to rape me? What's wrong with later me? Did I take a panicky call from someone in my management team or something?"

CeeLo, genuinely, is currently working on an album called Girl Power.


Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Gary Barlow would quite like to apologise

It's now three months since Gary Barlow and some of his chums were found to be "avoiding" tax by putting their money into a made-up scheme to allow rich people to shirk their responsibilities.

Gary has finally got around to sort-of-muttering an apology.

After three months. It's true, there are some operations you'd wait longer for on the NHS, but that's partly because rich people like Gary Barlow put their cash into dubious schemes to avoid paying their share of taxes.

Still, three months in the making, so let's hear it, Gary:

Three months. Two tweets. He's been writing his apology at 35 characters a week.

Three months. And what do we get?
I want to apologise to anyone who was offended by the tax stories earlier this year
There's no need, Gary. Genuninely no need to apologise, as nobody was offended by "the tax stories". In fact, we were grateful for the tax stories.

It's your tax affairs you ought to be apologising for, chuckles. The idea of very, very wealthy men investing in a company designed to lose money just so they could keep a few extra pennies out of paying for the police, and roads, and schools - that's what was offensive.

Not that you were found out and some people wrote about it.

And what does "working to settle things with all parties ASAP" even mean? Maybe you're going to write a cheque to the Exchequer - although I suspect if you were, you'd be a bit more explicit about that - but that doesn't "settle things", because it doesn't undo the fact that, when the nation was passing the hat round to pay for things we all share, your first thought was to try and avoid chipping in.

And you can't even bring yourself to say 'sorry' properly.

Leave your OBE on the hall table and sod off back to your mansion, Barlow.


James Blunt does a nice thing

It's not often there's a James Blunt story which everyone can read an enjoy. But here's one.

James Blunt played a festival which gives some of its takings to a local homeless charity, and as a result that charity got twice the size of the donation as the year before.

The charity is Two Saints, who help hundreds of people in the South of England.


Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Rockobit: Jimi Jamison

Jimi Jamison, singer with both Survivor and Cobra, has died.

He wasn't with the band for Survivor's greatest hit - he joined just after Eye Of The Tiger, when original singer David Bickler for polyps on his vocal chords. He was singing for the diminishing-returns Rocky IV hook-up Burning Heart.

When Bickler recovered, the original members of Survivor reunited with him, although that didn't stop Jamison from also touring as Survivor. Naturally, a lot of money was wasted on legal squabbles as a result; eventually both sets of Survivor came back together and the band toured with two lead singers.

Jamison also found time for a solid solo career - including writing and performing one of the many Baywatch theme tunes.

His family have issued a statement:

"Jimi was a friend to everyone he met. He was a loving father and grandfather and was always a person who valued people more than anything else."
Jimi Jamison was 63, and died September 1st in Raleigh. The cause of death hasn't yet been determined.


Monday, September 01, 2014

Atlantic 25-2

Twenty five years ago today, Atlantic 252 - the station based in Ireland which attempted to take on Radio One by broadcasts aimed solidly at the UK - went on air for the first time. Radio Today have got the documentary about the station which went out on the day it closed.

Long Wave music radio. It's a miracle that never caught on...


Miley Cyrus' historic struggle struggles with history

Miley Cyrus almost has a point here:

Speaking on Australian TV show Sunday Night, the Wrecking Ball singer said: "Elvis, he wasn't wearing the outfits I was wearing, but he was coming out and he was doing like the OG twerking... Like, no one wants to admit that he was twerking, he was.

"He was like sex. He was a symbol of sex but no one would have ever called Elvis a shit because he wasn't a girl.

Cyrus continued to say that she believes she is helping to empower women in the music industry. She said: "It's that double standard and I think I'm doing something for the double standard."
Well, up to a point. For his time, Presley's gyrations were quite extreme, although I'm not sure 'rubbing your arse in the crotch of a man singing a song about how it's difficult to know when you're actually raping someone' is quite what you'd get if you multiplied Presley's pelvis by the social change of the last sixty years.

Leaving that aside, the very fact that Presley gave an interview to the Charlotte Observer in 1956 addressing how people, erm, attacked him for dancing all sexy on stage disproves Miley's claim:
“When I sang hymns back home with Mom and Pop I stood still and look like you feel when you sing a hymn,” Elvis told the Charlotte Observer in June 1956. “When I sing this rock and roll, my eyes won’t stay open and my legs won’t stand still. I don’t care what they say, it ain’t nasty."
But, oh boy, they called him nasty:
Another Christian condemnation of Elvis appeared in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel on April 13, 1957. In it a Rhode Island Roman Catholic bishop deplored “youth’s lionization of a ‘pelvic contortionist.’” Without mentioning Elvis’s name, Bishop Russell McVinney of Providence denounced rock ’n’ roll as “a musical fad which is leading its young devotees back to the jungle and animalism.” Referring to the unnamed ‘pelvic contortionist,’ Bishop McVinney stated that, “his stage antics are intended to arouse the lower instincts. Apparently he is succeeding.”
But why would Miley need to try and reach back to the dawn of rock and roll to uncover a double standard? She could, obviously, just point at how Robin Thicke got away with Blurred Lines. Although having shared a stage with him, that might be a more difficult front to open.


Miley Cyrus suggests self-googling worse than bong-hitting

'Miley Cyrus says Facebook, Google, Instagram worse than drugs' shocker, right?

Well, not quite:

In an interview with Australian news magazine program Sunday Night ahead of a tour down under, Cyrus was asked whether her use of marijuana has deleterious effects on her health. Her response was to dismiss the notion and instead offer the following pearls of wisdom:

“You know what hurts your brain? Googling yourself. You know what hurts your brain? Instagram. You know what hurts your brain? Reading comments on Facebook. You know what hurts your brain? Reading US Weekly."
To be fair, since 1994 US Weekly has carried a surgeon general's health warning on the front page.

But if Cyrus really believes that Instagram is bad for you, should she really have an account with seven million followers? Isn't she effectively destroying brains by the dozen?

NB: This question is rhetorical.

UPDATE: Jesus, I can't tell the difference between Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry any more, even when it's just their name written down. Thanks, Frank.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

This week just gone

Most-read August stories:

1. Beyonce crosses the Madonna horizon
2. Morrissey and label come apart
3. ... and the label pulls the Morrissey album
4. Drummer in Pink tribute act sues "Pink" for ten million dollars
5. Canadian radio station decides three minutes is too long for a pop song
6. Remember that time Kate Thornton kicked up a shitstorm for Pulp?
7. Kate Bush: first night reviews
8. David Thomas Broughton film seeks funding
9. That guy who wants to buy all the vinyl
10. RIP: Michael Johns

These new releases. Surely one of them must excite you?


The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers


Download Brill Bruisers



Ty Segall - Manipulator


Download Manipulator



Robyn Hitchcock - The Man Upstairs


Download The Man Upstairs



J Mascis - Tied To A Star


Download Tied To A Star



The Wytches - Annabel Dream Reader


Download Annabel Dream Reader



Tina Dico - Whispers