Friday, October 31, 2003
Funny TotP Related Headline Here
In what is rapidly becoming a regular feature, here's what we learnt by watching Top of the Pops tonight.
- Liberty X have clearly heard Dirrrty on a number of occasions. We also finally discovered what it is the boys in the band do; they sing the lines that we originally thought were sung by the girls.
- When Mark Ronson goes "Ooh", we go "Wee".
- For reasons best known to himself, Ronan Keating has decided to go through the career door marked "Piss-poor Bryan Adams".
- While Obie Trice beleives in the importance of regular dental checks and good oral hygeine, his sidekick however only believes in the importance of pies.
- The new single by Miss-Teeq is nowhere near as good as Scandalous.
- There is absolutely no reason for the music carreer of Stacie Orrico.
- Blue have a new single out, though they failed to explain why.
- Fatman Scoop is number one. Oh, for fucks sake.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
What's the Story? Mourning Tory.
Well, in news that came as no surprise whatsover, Iain Duncan-Smith lost the vote of confidence and is no longer leader of the Conservative party. This is a good thing and we're not, despite our headline, mourning him (we just really liked the pun, thugh it would have been better if this news had happened in March, as then we could have had The IDS of March as our headline. Never mind). While we're not the worlds biggest fans of Labour (we're Socialists), our level of desire for a Conservative government is roughly equal to our desire to be eaten alive by a spider the size of a cat. However, for politics to suceed, we need to have an effective opposition and have a leader of said opposition that could be credible as a Prime Minister. IDS is about as credible a leader as the one out of Hanson that looked like a girl. They need a leader who can actually interest the public, a leader who can make people feel there is an alternative, a leader with charisma... Hell, even a leader with hair would be a good start. It's the only way that Blair might begin to realise that he can't just do what he likes and to hell with the consequences. Elections do need to actually mean something, you know...
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Belle Without Sebastian
Now, we realise that this week everyone will be rushing out to buy Three by The Sugababes. This is absolutely fine, we have no problem with that, and it's exactly what we're going to be doing this weekend. However, if you feel the urge to buy another album this week, can we point you in the direction of Amorino the new album by Isobel Campbell formerly of eighties hair-metal behemoths, Belle and Sebastian. It is, quite possibly, the most beautiful album that we've had the fortune of hearing this year. And besides, you'll definitely have at least a spare ten quid to spend on another album, seeing as you all completely ignored our pleas to buy Siobhan's album...
Sunday, October 26, 2003
...But Where's the Video For Bump in the Night?
Channel 4's countdown of the 100 Scariest Moments Ever concludes tonight, and seeing as here at TiaPL we're never ones to let a bandwagon go by without jumping on and holding tight for dear life, we've decided to present to you our list of The 7 Scariest Things of All Time... Ever. This list has been thoroughly researched, checked, double checked and tested on volunteers to make sure that it is truly full of frightening things, and definitely isn't the first 7 things that come into our head as we sit here typing this.
So, with no further ado, prepare to be truly horrified at the nightmarish things that we present to you...
Well! The thought of all of those things has certianly put a chill down our spines. Brr!
So, with no further ado, prepare to be truly horrified at the nightmarish things that we present to you...
- Herbie Goes Bananas
- Pink (The pop star, not the colour)
- Silly Putty
- The Pop Career of David Sneddon
- The possibility of cats and dolphins cross-breeding
- Blue (Not the pop band, the colour)
- The thought that true love doesn't actually exisit outside of the world of movies and music, and that, at best, we're all destined to die cold and alone, while at worst, we'll spend our last miserable years of existence with someone who we no longer have any feelings for, with whom we've had every conversation we're ever going to want to have, who's face is so familiar that even when we close our eyes, we can still see their features, features which have formed themselves into a cruel mockery of the youthful beauty that was once there, oh so many years ago. The only thing left to look forward to will be for death to finally arrive and let the agony of life come to an end so that we can break out of the ennui that we find ourselves forced to endure day after day after sodding day.
Well! The thought of all of those things has certianly put a chill down our spines. Brr!
Friday, October 24, 2003
It's Still Number Flum
We've finally managed to see/hear the new Britney Spears single, thanks to television institution (ie, out-dated programme) Top of the Pops. It's nice to be proved right, isn't it?
Other things we learnt by watching TotP:-
Other things we learnt by watching TotP:-
- Alex Parks' new single is rubbish. In a big long list of surprising things, this is roughly in equal position with 'The sun rising in the morning' and 'Kate Lawler makes a mistake on RI:SE'.
- Girls Aloud do have a rather good dance routine for Jump, but there are no tambourines. The highlight is the bit were each girl gets their own little signature dance move at the end of the song. Nicola's is, unsurprisingly, the best.
- REM haven't actually written any new material since 1994, and live in eternal fear of someone cottoning on to this fact.
- Richard Bacon peaked when he was hosting the Big Breakfast, (as opposed to when he hosted Blue Peter, which was when he was highest)
- Emma Bunton really can't do sexy, no matter how hard she tries
- Sophie Ellis-Bextor's dress designer thinks that the posh singer is much shorter than she actually is.
- The Sugababes really are rather fantastic, aren't they?
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Tell Us What you Think, What you Really, Really Think
Ooh look, we have comment boxes now. This either means that we'll get lots of nice messages from people telling us that we're wrong about every opinion we've ever posted on the site, or they'll be completely ignored, meaning that the time spent getting them set up will be totally wasted. Who knows, you decide.
IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Youth
We'd like to recommend that everyone pick up a copy of this weeks NME, you know, the one that has gone for the surprising and risk-taking move of having the Strokes on the cover. Again. Anyway, the current issue is actually quite good this week. The letters page, in particular, has some extremely insightful and witty views...
Monday, October 20, 2003
TiaPL Against The Music
It's come to our attention that Miss Britney Spears is about to release a new single entitled Me Against The Music. Now, we haven't actually heard this track yet, but details like that have never stopped us having an opinion on things in the past, and we see no reason why this should change now, so we've decided that it's rubbish and is one of the worst things that we've never heard. Why? Well let us explain.
First up, it features Madonna, so is therefore one of the bottom 28 rubbish things in the world ever. Madonna is an untalented loon, she has a reverse Midas touch in the sense that everything she comes near turns to shite. Except for shite itself, which turns into a Madonna single, and thus the cycle continues, much in a Happy Days style, but with out the 'happy' part. Obviously.
Secondly Britney hasn't done anything good since ...Baby, One More Time, a song which is still heart-stoppingly and hip-shakingly excellent in every way, shape and form. Unfortunately since then she's decided to become a bit serious and mature, which is not what we want from our popstars. We still want them dressed in schoolgirl uniforms going "aow". Oh, and that means everyone, don't think you're getting out of it D-Side... it's about the only chance you've got to rescue your career. The only thing she's done that has been even close to the genius of her debut is the "what, what, what I wanna" bit from Overprotected. Unless the chorus to MATM goes "Hit me baby one, one, one-a-more-a time" then it will be as dire as discovering that no, not everyone has a tail, and that yes, your parents are wolves.
Still, we do expect it to be better than the new Holly Valance single, which is clearly her attempting to sound like Kylie, but she doesn't even come out of it as a Dannii.
First up, it features Madonna, so is therefore one of the bottom 28 rubbish things in the world ever. Madonna is an untalented loon, she has a reverse Midas touch in the sense that everything she comes near turns to shite. Except for shite itself, which turns into a Madonna single, and thus the cycle continues, much in a Happy Days style, but with out the 'happy' part. Obviously.
Secondly Britney hasn't done anything good since ...Baby, One More Time, a song which is still heart-stoppingly and hip-shakingly excellent in every way, shape and form. Unfortunately since then she's decided to become a bit serious and mature, which is not what we want from our popstars. We still want them dressed in schoolgirl uniforms going "aow". Oh, and that means everyone, don't think you're getting out of it D-Side... it's about the only chance you've got to rescue your career. The only thing she's done that has been even close to the genius of her debut is the "what, what, what I wanna" bit from Overprotected. Unless the chorus to MATM goes "Hit me baby one, one, one-a-more-a time" then it will be as dire as discovering that no, not everyone has a tail, and that yes, your parents are wolves.
Still, we do expect it to be better than the new Holly Valance single, which is clearly her attempting to sound like Kylie, but she doesn't even come out of it as a Dannii.
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Sheesh is the Word
At TiaPL, we live the sort of life that mere mortals can only dream of. Well, we do if mere mortals have really rubbish dreams about pretty ordinary, but slightly music-obsessed lives. It as a result of this that we found ourselves sitting in tonight watching Greasemania on ITV1, a tribute to a film who's underlying message is, lest we forget, that it's better to become a slut and get your man, than stay who you are and don't, which is a clearly a great message to be passed on to teenage girls all over the world. And we mean proper teenagers, not teenagers of the 'actually in their twenties' kind that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were. Nowadays anyone in their twenties pretending to be a teenager is likely to find themselves on the paedophiles register quicker than you can say "But officer, conducting choir practice in the nude makes for better acoustics". Anyway, watching this was not a wise choice as it's an hour of our lives we're not going to get back again in a hurry.
This is not to say that there were no highlights. We were amused by the title sequence which clearly had some inspiration from Jordan as Gareth Gates's billing appeared under a sign declaring that he was "Coming Soon". Girls Aloud also appeared and looked fabulous, and, even more excitingly, they also let Nicola sing a whole verse. The downside of this is that Nicola has now used up her singing quota for the year and will quickly be returned to her twilight world of backing vocals and being out of focus at the back. We also have to admit, and saying this pains us in a similar way to cutting our arms with a sharpened pepperami, that the Cheeky Girls came out of it surprisingly well. Not well in a 'Hmm, I must rush out and buy their album' kinda way, but in a 'Well the show was crap, but at least they looked like they were enjoying themselves and the song suited the Cheeky style' way.
Right, now the lowlights:-
And the biggest lowlight of all is that we now have a burning desire to buy Grease on DVD so that we can hear all the songs done properly, which is exactly the point of this whole sorry exercise. Curse you marketing men and your evil plots!
Still, we can only hope that Rocky Horror-Mania is currently in the pipeline, Busted already appear to be putting themselves in the frame to perform Sweet Transvestite, so there's hope, though they'll probably have to fight Pete Burns for the privilege.
This is not to say that there were no highlights. We were amused by the title sequence which clearly had some inspiration from Jordan as Gareth Gates's billing appeared under a sign declaring that he was "Coming Soon". Girls Aloud also appeared and looked fabulous, and, even more excitingly, they also let Nicola sing a whole verse. The downside of this is that Nicola has now used up her singing quota for the year and will quickly be returned to her twilight world of backing vocals and being out of focus at the back. We also have to admit, and saying this pains us in a similar way to cutting our arms with a sharpened pepperami, that the Cheeky Girls came out of it surprisingly well. Not well in a 'Hmm, I must rush out and buy their album' kinda way, but in a 'Well the show was crap, but at least they looked like they were enjoying themselves and the song suited the Cheeky style' way.
Right, now the lowlights:-
- Amanda Holden // No-one else in the entire world has embarrassed themselves quite as much on television as you did with your 'hosting' of this show tonight, except possibly your cuckolded husband Les Dennis, when he went slightly mad during his time on Celebrity Big Brother. And to be quite honest, the only reason we're bringing that up as a comparison is that we really like using the word 'cuckolded'.
- Westlife // They do an upbeat number with a well known dance routine, and do they do anything other than sit on a piss-poor prop car? Do they buggery.
- Tony Hadley // We liked Tony Hadley when he was in Spandau Ballet. He's not in Spandau Ballet anymore. We don't care about him now.
- Gareth Gates // Who essentially performed the same dance routine he did for Sunshine, but just moved his lips to different words.
- Robbie Williams Flatmate and Some Girl From Coronation Street // Oh, for fucks sake.
And the biggest lowlight of all is that we now have a burning desire to buy Grease on DVD so that we can hear all the songs done properly, which is exactly the point of this whole sorry exercise. Curse you marketing men and your evil plots!
Still, we can only hope that Rocky Horror-Mania is currently in the pipeline, Busted already appear to be putting themselves in the frame to perform Sweet Transvestite, so there's hope, though they'll probably have to fight Pete Burns for the privilege.
Saturday, October 11, 2003
Kill Bill Communication
Aren't the posters for Kill Bill incredibly excellent? They're so good that if it wasn't for the fact that we consider Tarantino to be a vastly overrated director who has produced one good film in his entire career, i.e. Reservoir Dogs, who has nothing new to say about any of the subjects he deals with, and who is possibly the worst actor the world has ever seen, we'd probably go and see it. But we do, so we won't.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Schwarzenegger Elected Governor of California
Oh, for fucks sake.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Where's me Jump? Err...
Well, we've heard the new Girls Aloud single, and while we should point out that we heard while at work, which is hardly the best listening enviroment, it seems to be a bit, and it pains me to say this, kinda rubbish.
It's a shame, as it could well have been something fantastic, to be more particular, it could have been a cover of Van Halen's Jump and this, even as a concept, is already in the top 33 acest things of all time, so just imagine how high the reality would have charted. Alas, they have, for reasons best known to themselves (and the person in charge of marketing demographics), decided to do a cover of the quite frankly piss-poor Pointer Sisters' Jump, and it's not even a particularly good cover either, rather characterless to be honest. It's going to take more than a tambourine based dance routine to save this one. Though we do really hope that the tambourines come out again. If only so that we can imagine just how utterly amazing a Girls Aloud cover of Van Halen featuring tambourines would be. And then we'd imagine Nicola on lead vocals for it. Ahh... that's better.
It's a shame, as it could well have been something fantastic, to be more particular, it could have been a cover of Van Halen's Jump and this, even as a concept, is already in the top 33 acest things of all time, so just imagine how high the reality would have charted. Alas, they have, for reasons best known to themselves (and the person in charge of marketing demographics), decided to do a cover of the quite frankly piss-poor Pointer Sisters' Jump, and it's not even a particularly good cover either, rather characterless to be honest. It's going to take more than a tambourine based dance routine to save this one. Though we do really hope that the tambourines come out again. If only so that we can imagine just how utterly amazing a Girls Aloud cover of Van Halen featuring tambourines would be. And then we'd imagine Nicola on lead vocals for it. Ahh... that's better.
Sunday, October 05, 2003
It's Not the Same For Her
Today is a monumental day in pop, nay, world history. A day that will, in the very near future become a national holiday. Yes, it is Nicola Roberts birthday. Hooray! Champagne flows, joy is spread and little cute bunny rabbits appear by your feet while cartoon bluebirds tweet and chirp around your head. We reccommend that everyone wears their hair in a side ponytail in honour of the most fantastic and beautiful woman to have ever walked upon this earth.
