Friday, October 08, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
Our TV seems to be on the blink. Tonight's Top of the Pops viewing was somewhat marred by lots of little red, green and blue dots flashing all over the screen. Initially we thought it might just have been a special effect they were using to liven up REM's performance but, given that it continued throughout the entire show, it's either something wrong at our end or they have a serious lack of imagination. Here's what else we learnt from this weeks show:-
- REM are back! And their new single, Leaving New York sounds exactly like what you'd expect the first single from their 13th album to sound like; i.e. nothing like the aceness of Stand and with an overwhelming feeling of "Haven't they already done this song before?".
- V are still releasing records! But as this is single number 3, they've had to turn their back on the boy-band-tastic pop of their first two singles and release the obligatory ballad. This would normally have lead us to mention that this would undo all the good work of their previous releases, but they performed it under a rain machine, thus restoring the natural balance. Hooray!
- The Manic Street Preachers are back! And we're off to see them at the end of the year. Had we heard The Love of Richard Nixon before phoning Ticketmaster and being charged a ridiculous amount for a booking fee, we might not have been quite so keen to go along. Still, there's a good chorus lurking in there, even it is being crushed by the weight of the Manics' sincerity. And their stomachs.
- Daniel Bedingfield is back! Except this time his role is being played by Jack Black of School of Rock, Tenacious D, and other such godawful projects fame. Daniel is currently of the view that Nothing Hurts Like Love, which we're not entirely convinced by. Surely, just to pluck an example from the air at random, fucking up your neck in a car crash is just that bit more painful?
- Ronan Keating is back! And he's still not lost his ability to sell skipfulls of records despite being the most boring man in pop and releasing songs that stick in your mind like Daniel Bedingfield sticks to a musical genre. We almost have to give him a grudging respect for that. But we won't.
- Usher and Alicia Keys are together! And they're releasing a song about how they, you know, quite like each other in that way. We reckon that the BBC must have edited the video, though, as there didn't appear to be any scene where Usher takes his top off for no apparent reason.
- Eric Prydz is still number one! "Oh, for fucks sake" doesn't really cover it any more. Clearly TotP are a bit bored with it as well though as, rather than show the same performance again, they showed the original video for Stevie Winwood's Valerie, which features less girls in unsuitable gym wear and more state of the art, "Let's make it look like a painting, that'll be cool" eighties style special effects. The original peaked at number 19, so we feel that there's an important lesson for all budding pop svengali's there.
