Saturday, February 28, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
We're off out tonight to see Easyworld. Not literally, the world, as any fool knows, is anything but easy and rejection, failure and heartbreak lies around every corner. No, instead we're off to see the indie band who's current album isn't quite as guitar pop fabulous as their debut (or the mini-album) but is still pretty decent, so we're expecting good things. Don't worry though, despite the indieness of tonights adventure, we still retain our pop heart and to prove this, here's what we learnt from last nights Top of the Pops:-
- Will Young is rubbish at hide and seek. It's clearly not his game as you could clearly tell by his sillhouette that he was hiding behind the screen, hence his very quick exposure.
- Goths are not as good at fighting as we'd expected. Clearly this is the only reason why Cure fans have yet to maul Jamie Cullum to death, which is what we'd hoped was going to happen.
- Keane really are rather fab, aren't they? Though new haircuts may be in order.
- George Michael seems to believe there is still a point in him releasing new records or, indeed, exsisting.
- The role of Raghav is being played by Federico from Big Brother 4. Despite this, it's a good song.
- Despite our thinking it was an impossibility, the interview with Brittany Murphy managed to plumb new depths of pointlessness.
- While I Like The Way You Move by Outkast is rather good, they do appear to have forgotten to include a tune.
- Busted are more keen on performing Teenage Kicks on every TV show going, rather than performing the actual single. At least they jumped this time though.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Top of the Popstars // Part 2
Well, The bottom half of the list of the Top 50 Popstars of all time wasn't exactly an awe-inspiring list of all that's good in music, was it? Never mind though, the top of half of the list must be something special if all the crap has already been dealt with, surely? You'd think so, wouldn't you...
- 25 // Boyzone // We own an album by a band called Oi-Zone. As the name suggests it consists of covers of Boyzone (and other pop bands) songs done in a noisy, messy 'Oi' stylee. At first it's really excellent, but over the course of an entire album, the novelty quickly pales and it becomes dull, samey and very boring. This is a good metaphor for the real Boyzone's career. Apart from the "excellent start" part, obviously.
- 24 // Blondie // Obviously given then main obsession of this site, we'd much prefer a band called "Ginger", but Blondie were rather ace and fully deserving of their place in this list, even if they are currently working on a "1 good song per album" template.
- 23 // Olivia Newton-John // She had a hit with Physical . Well, the second syllable just about describes how it makes us feel.
- 22 // Slade // The proud sons of Brum-land. Slade proved that being ugly and wearing ridiculous hats was no bar to pop success - advice which Craig David has clearly taken to heart.
- 21 // Boney M // The best thing about Boney M, apart from the "Sugar in a plum, plum-plum", bit, was the fact that the bloke, who's name is unimportant, didn't sing on the records. They were also number one on the day we were born, so we'll always have a soft spot for them.
- 20 // Status Quo // What can be said about Status Quo that hasn't been said before? Perhaps "What on earth is this song on the radio? It sounds like nothing I've ever heard before.". We are quite impressed by the denim clad straggly haired rockers, though. In particular we're impressed by the fact that they always manage to start and end playing the same tune, despite the ease in which it woudl be possible to get confused half way through.
- 19 // George Michael // The worlds favourite willy waggler comes in, for want of a better phrase, at number 19. As a solo artist George has, of course, only released one good song, Freedom!, which, equally obviously is 90% less good than the similarly monikered Wham! song. This clearly proves that Andrew Ridgely was the brains of the partnership and needs to make a pop comeback as soon as possible. Preferably with his Banarama missus.
- 18 // The Bee Gees // Ah, the irony, their position in this chart isn't as high as their vocal range.
- 17 // Whitney Houston She will always love us, apparantly. Shame that the feeling isn't reciprocated really, though I Wanna Dance With Somebody is really rather ace.
- 16 // Shakin' Stevens // The Welsh Elvis. If you thought Elvis was a slightly odd looking man with a strange unalluring knee-based dance. We still think it'd be funny if Mr Stevens was to suffer from Parkinson's later in life. He's certainly got more chance of that than actually getting interviewed by the man.
- 15 // The Spice Girls // Five feisty fabulous females, a quintet of quintessential quality. The Spice Girls were popstars as popstars should be. They sparkled, they talked nonsense, they danced, they mimed, but most of all they mimed to some of the finest pop songs ever written. They even managed to make the pop ballad sound good. Alas, everything got screwed up when Ginger decided to leave. The other girls then descended into a mature R&B influenced mess, but for a few years the world was theirs and we all gladly signed up to be Spice Cadets.
- 14 // Stevie Wonder // We never saw this one coming, but then, neither did he.
- 13 // Kylie Minogue // Our opinion on Kylie was that she peaked when she did Confide in Me and Some Kind of Bliss, i.e. the time when she was least successful, which doesn't say a great deal for ability to spot solid gold hits. Particularly as we don't really rate the current 'dance' Kylie image and thought Can't Get You Out of My Head was rubbish. Oh, and we don't find her attractive either. We think she should go back to Pete Waterman, now that would be ace.
- 12 // The Rolling Stones // Rubbish. One good song - Ruby Tuesday - and it's best moment was being used in a Carter the Unstoppable Sex machine song.
- 11 // Rod Stewart // Rod is the pop star it's OK for laddish types to like, as he is a lad himself. He likes birds, boozing and footie, and makes sure everyone knows about it. As a result of this, he is entirely rubbish as a popstar, so what's the point? other than someone for boozed up lager louts to shout along with at rubbish gigs in rugby stadiums.
- 10 // David Bowie // The chameleon of pop, so called due to his ability to flick out his tongue to catch flies and roll his eyes around.
- 9 // Paul McCartney // Just imagine how ace it would be if, when he headlines Glastonbury, Mr McCartney comes on stage, steps up to the microphone and opens his set by singing "Bum-bum-bum", not in an ode to anal sex, but the opening of The Frog Chorus, easily his finest moment. Alas, we'd put good money on this not happening though.
- 8 // ABBA // We're not quite sure where we stand on ABBA, for a long time we disliked them, partly because of Dancing Queen, which we detested, but mainly it's down to Erasure's absolutely dire ABBA-esque EP, which made us think that all ABBA songs must be rubbish. Since then, we've realised that the guitar part which comes into the second chorus of Mama Mia is really rather fab. Also, if Steps, B*Witched, Billie, Cleopatra and, ummm, Tina Cousins, want to thank ABBA for the music, then they must have something going for them.
- 7 // Queen // And from Dancing Queen we come to an actual dancing queen, Mr Freddie Mercury and his backing band. Queen are, obviously, the band The Darkness hope to become, though at the rate they're going, they'll be lucky if they end up being compared favourably with The Grumbleweeds.
- 6 // Michael Jackson // May soon be collaborating with Jonathon King
- 5 // Elton John // Elton has done some good stuff in his time, but this can all be ignored when we consider the fact that he is responsible for Candle in the Wind '97. Anything decent he's ever done is overshadowed by this travesty of music in much the same way that a rubbish tip overshadows a nearby beauty spot.
- 4 // Madonna // What can be said about Madonna that hasn't been said before? "Have you read her new children's book? It's excellent", perhaps, or "Isn't she an excellent actress?". No matter, we reckon Madonna has done two good songs in her career and we doubt she's got any more left in there, no matter how much she might try and squeeze it out. Anyone that thinks marrying Guy Richie is a good idea is clearly not the best judge of quality.
- 3 // Elvis Presley // We're not a huge fan of Elvis's music, if the truth be told, but we are a big fan of him as a popstar, indeed, we're going to be visiting Gracelands later this year because of this. Elvis had charisma, he had style, he had grace, and much like Rita Hayworth, he gave good face. There's not much that can be said about him that isn't known by him that isn't known by anyone with even a vague interest in pop culture, so we won't bother.
- 2 // The Beatles // The Beatles are overrated. They're a band, much like Robbie, bought by people who don't actually like music, but who like to think that they do. The people who base their music purchases on TV advertisement campaigns. The people who think that somelike Jamie Cullum is breaking new ground. The people who think that music is only worth something if written by the people performing it. The people, in short, who were responsible for Toploader's brief brush with success. Don't let it continue. Break the cycle. The Beatles' albums do not amount to much these days, and the sooner people realise this, the better.
- 1 // Cliff Richard // Oh, for fucks sake
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Top of the Popstars // Part 1
Well, the show wasn't as bad as we were expecting - the links were amusing, the tone wasn't too sneering and they even played Ultrasound's Stay Young over the credits. Even though, it was still ultimately a pretty disappointing experience. This was mainly down to the fact that despite it being billed as being about the top 50 pop stars, it was just a list of the top selling artists based on total single sales, this means that some of the members of this list are somewhat, emm, interesting. Anyway, here's our look at the lower half of the chart.
- 50 // The Hollies // They weren't heavy. They weren't much cop either.
- 49 // Frank Sinatra // He didn't fly us to the moon. In our view he barely even managed to taxi down the runway. He did wear a hat in a rakish fashion though, so that earns him a few points.
- 48 // Bryan Adams // No, no, no, no, no! The first sign that this list is somewhat less than relevant. Mr Adams is many things, some of them are even utterable when children are around, hell, we'll even admit to really liking Summer of '69, but one thing he certainly isn't is a pop star. Pop stars are pinned up to bedroom walls and lusted over. We doubt anyone's ever had a naughty thought about the pock-marked Canadian rocker, and if we have we feel they should be sent for psychiatric study to try and discover the cause of their unusual perversion.
- 47 // U2 // Bono dreams of a perfect world. One where poverty is eradicated. One were equality and justice prevails. One where the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few. We agree with him, we want a perfect world as well. That's why we want U2 to bugger off and take their overwrought rock-with-a-conscience-nonsense with them.
- 46 // Engelbert Humperdinck // They don't make pop stars like this nowadays. Hooray for progress!
- 45 // Westlife // What can be said about Westlife that hasn't been said before? "Westlife are the greatest band to ever grace the hit parade", perhaps, and it's not something that we're going to say, we'll stick with the tried and tested view that they are one of the worst groups to ever sully the good name of pop and should get put down at the first availiable opportunity.
- 44 // Gary Glitter // And what can be said about Mr Glitter that hasn't been said before? "I've got the name of a highly reccommended babysitter", perhaps.
- 43 // The Shadows // Does anyone remember when they were exposed in The Sun?
- 42 // The Everly Brothers // The sort of pop band that would whip their audience into a frenzy of polite clapping, before they collapsed into an orgy of quietly waiting for the next number.
- 41 // Duran Duran // Seriously, The Reflex is fucking ace. It far outshines the rest of their, admittedly rather fab, repertoire.
- 40 // Wet Wet Wet // The world is still waiting for a Wet Wet Wet reunion. If by 'world', you mean 'our mum' and by 'waiting' you mean 'not that bothered, but would probably go if she wasn't doing anything else'. Wet Wet Wet were apparantly pop-soul, but managed to fulfill neither category satisfactory, they basically fell between two stools, and the sort of stench that two stools gives off was pretty similar to the stink given off by their music.
- 39 // Phil Collins // You can't hurry love, or so he claims. Clearly he's never been with a prostitute who charges by the minute. Not that we have either. Right? Right.
- 38 // Pet Shop Boys // Finally! 12 artists in and we finally get to a duo that deserves their place amongst the pantheon of pop gods. Pet Shop Boys are ace, while their newer stuff hasn't been quite as glittery fabulous as their earlier material (though You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk is gorgeous), they are still releasing songs that would make lesser bands eat their own noses if they thought it would help them write a tune even half that good. It wouldn't, of course, but we do like the thought of a noseless pop band. They could be called the Spiteful Faces. Anyway, clearly with PSB appearing, this chart is now only going to be filled with geniuses who have star quality rushing through their veins and looks that could stop a bus. And we mean in the good way.
- 37 // Robbie Williams // Oh, for fucks sake. We dislike Robbie a lot. In fact, despise is probably a better word for the disdain in which we hold him. Some people may say that we're only jealous because he's better looking, a better singer and generally more successful than we are, but these people are wrong. The reason that we'd rather put superglue in our ears than go to a Robbie Williams concert is because Robbie is not a pop star. He is what a marketing department thinks a pop star should be. Everything about him is so contrived, so forced, so unnatural that he ceases to be anything of any note. While a good pop star plays a role, it's a role that is an extension of who they are, a caricature of their personality. Robbie has no voice of his own, he has no unique style, he sells to people who aren't buying the music, they're buying into a mass-cultural experience. They buy it because they feel they should, because everyone else is, because society expects it. And because musically he has some vaguely pleasant melodies that aren't totally unlistenable they can fool themselves into thinking that they actually like it. Robbie represents all that is wrong about the music industry, and the sooner he finally has his nervous breakdown and fucks off, the better.
- 36 // Frankie Goes To Hollywood // TiaPL Say: We always felt that Frankie made better t-shirts than they made music. Two Tribes was quite good though.
- 35 // The Jam // We preferred Marmalade.
- 34 // Adam And The Ants // We reckon that it's time for an Adam Ant revival. We feel that the best way to achieve this is by having Girls Aloud cover Stand and Deliver. This could work, it would just need a few minor lyric changes, something like giving Nicola the lead vocal and having her sing "I'm the ginger highway girl, you'd be so scared you'd back down / I earn my cash by looking flash and standing in the background"
- 33 // Wham! // The piano part to Freedom is one of the best bits of pop music... ever! It's just a shame that George Michael decided to walk down the road towards Serious Artist Town, twinned with Dullsville.
- 32 // Diana Ross // She was a Diva, which seems to us to be a nicer way of saying "horribly obnoxious woman". We don't rate her as a solo artist, but The Supremes had their moments.
- 31 // Madness // We'll give them Our House, Wings of a Dove and Michael Caine, but we'll never forgive them for Driving in My Car, no matter how much Suggs has tried to earn redemption by hosting Night Fever.
- 30 // The Police // Every single thing they do is tragic.
- 29 // Celine Dion // We're quite happy with the fact that she's currently doing a residency in Vegas in a custom built theatre. It means she's locked away from the rest of us and won't be troubling the charts with what she, in complete ignorance of the Trades Description Act describes as 'music'.
- 28 // Tom Jones // The leather faced voice from the valleys, and also a man who, if you believe the video for Baby, It's Cold Outside, and we personally believe everything we see on televison, keeps Cerys Matthews locked in a cage for his personal enjoyment. Tom Jones current career seems to exist on leeching off of other people's talents, and not particularly impressive talents at that, given he's dueted with both the Stereophonics and The Girl With The Big Hair from M People. He too performs in Vegas, though he doesn't have a custom built theatre. We like to think that he does have a custom built tool shed instead which he uses for thinking deep thoughs. Oh, and occasional masterbation.
- 27 // UB40 // Something else to blame Thatcher for. Just think, if this lot had had jobs then they wouldn't have had the time, or the inclination, to get together and make this god-awful racket.
- 26 // Oasis // Their position here is clearly proof of exactly how easy it is to sell slightly noisy guitar records to 14 year old boys who are trying to be rebellious. Though it is somewhat impressive that they've managed to be together for ten years, release 5 albums and have yet to show any sign of noticeable improvement. Oh, and Liam isn't some sort of iconic figure - he's a twat.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Four What It's Worth
This evening Channel 4 will be showing The Ultimate Pop Star, a countdown of the 50 best pop stars... ever! We don't have high hopes for this programme - it's hosted by Smashie and Nicey, which doesn't bode hugely well, and they're basing their list on sales. Just because someone's sold a lot of records doesn't necessarily imply they're a great pop star; look at Dido, she's sold more records than we've had hot dinners (3 by the way, we never got the hang of using an oven) but even her biggest fan would be hard pushed to describe her as a pop star, but then, Dido's biggest fan would be hard pushed to string a sentence together. Equally, not selling many records doesn't make you a rubbish pop star, just an unsuccessful one. Look at Pete Burns of Dead or Alive fame for proof of that.
Anyway, despite the expected rubbishness of the show, we'll still be watching it. Over the next few days not only will we giving our views on their top 50, but we'll also be providing our own list of the top ten pop stars... ever! Ignoring sales, this will partly be based on important factors such as glitteryness, aceness of songs, general "Fuck me!" factor, and, on a similar note, how attractive we find them. Mainly though, our list will be based around the first ten names that come into our head when we sit down to write it, which means it'll probably be slightly more meaningful than the real one.
Anyway, despite the expected rubbishness of the show, we'll still be watching it. Over the next few days not only will we giving our views on their top 50, but we'll also be providing our own list of the top ten pop stars... ever! Ignoring sales, this will partly be based on important factors such as glitteryness, aceness of songs, general "Fuck me!" factor, and, on a similar note, how attractive we find them. Mainly though, our list will be based around the first ten names that come into our head when we sit down to write it, which means it'll probably be slightly more meaningful than the real one.
I Yam What I Sam (and Mark)
In a response to our claims of same-sex sexual tension in the Sam and Mark performance on Top of the Pops, Atom suggests that should the unthinkable happen and they get allowed to release a second single, they should dress up in sailor costumes. We agree, and we imagine that the results would look something like this:-
They did come from Pop Eye-dol, after all.
They did come from Pop Eye-dol, after all.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
It's come to our attention that Jordan may be about to sign to BMG and release a record. We're not big fans of Jordan here at TiaPL, mainly as the only reason she appears to be considered attractive is the fact that she has large breasts. That alone does not make someone attractive, if it did then Fatman Scoop would be the considered the most gorgeous person to ever walk the earth. But that's by the by - mainly as we don't wish to entertain the image of Mr Scoop in a thong bikini - Jordan releasing a record isn't necessarily a bad thing, if it's anything like the description that can be found at the bottom of this page then it would likely be one of the 117 Acest Things in the World... Ever! (and we'd like to point out that there's also an excellent description of a potential Nicola Roberts single on page 2 of that thread). Unfortunately though, it's more likely that it'll be a dull dance-lite number with more emphasis on the video than any sort of musical fabness. We also expect that the video will feature a number of high camera shots. But anyway, if Peter Andre can get back onto Top of the Pops thanks to I'm a Celebrity... then why can't she? Here's what we learnt from Peter, and the others, on this weeks show.
- Kylie Minogue is a red blooded woman. This apparantly this involves substituting the word 'freak' for 'fuck', a subtle tactic last employed by Another Level. If Kylie continues down this road then we strongly expect to see her collaborating with Victoria Beckham in the near future, which we reckon would be a rather ace idea as this single is exactly what we wanted Victoria's new stuff to sound like.
- When the performance by Black Eyed Peas featuring Tippa Irie was announced by talent vacuum Tim Kash we misheard and thought it was featuring T'Pau. By the end of the song we were extremely disappointed that this wasn't the case.
- The N*E*R*D track seems a bit rubbish to us, but then, we're clearly not exactly at the cutting edge given our dreams of T'Pau sampling.
- Worryingly Peter Andre was probably the best thing on the show. Despite the fact that Bubbler Ranx couldn't be arsed turning up and despite the fact that it is still a clear rip off of Inner Circle's Sweat, it is a really fab little summery pop song. Just a shame it's being released in February, really.
- Ferry Corsten of Rock Your Body Rock 'fame' is (or are) too ugly to appear on Top of the Pops, hence the use of the video over the chart countdown.
- If 50 Cent can't do it, it can't be done. This presumably includes "avoiding being shot"
- Sam and Mark are clearly angling to become the male tATu, the homo-erotic tension in this performance was tangible - witness the start of the performance as Sam walks up with a girl, before pulling away from her, and a group of girls waiting for them, to go and walk side by side with his buddy Mark. While they didn't actually hold hands, you could see it was only because they were worried what society would think of them. They exchanged sly little glances, sang about needing someone to love, and basically just about mangaged to resist indulging in a little controversy causing hanky-panky on the Top of the Pops stage. And don't get us started on the subtext of turning a song called Measure of a man into a duet, it certainly lets us understand exactly what they get up to when they're bored with only a ruler for entertainment.
Actually, no, ignore that. It's clearly nonsense. If Mark was gay then it might actually add a sheen of interest to his personality, and we all know that that's non-existent, much like any redeeming features of this single. We do like the fact that they teamed up together though. Both of them feeling that they had something to offer the other, after all, Mark had half a talent, Sam had half a talent, who was to blame them for thinking that by teaming up together they could form one whole talent? Alas, as any mathematician will tell you, multiplying two halves together simply gives you a quarter, which explains why this release is so much direr than anyone dared to expect. Still, at least we've reached the year's musical nadir already, it's got to be up, up up all the way now, hasn't it? Please?
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
What a Load of Brit
| So. The Brits then. Before the event we weren't exactly too optimistic about the excitement value of these awards. Some might say that it's a bit ignorant to have an opinion before the event, but we disagree as we find it saves time in the long run, something which was proved tonight by the 'entertainment' spectacle of what we just witnessed. So, lets have a post-mortem then, shall we? | |
| Opening the evening's entertainment we had the Black Eyed Peas doing Shut Up. This started off with live strings, which was possibly the most excited we got during the show. The American 'street' scene which they were performing on was about as convincing as a dog dressed up as a housewife walking on its hindlegs. There was also, for reasons which were never adequetely made clear, a mini-basketball court at the far back left of their set. The only plausible explanation we have for it is that it was to give everyone sometihng fun to do during the rest of the event. Their performance was, to be fair, decent enough, but it's hardly a big sparkly, guns blazing start to what is supposed the UK's biggest music event.
After this Cat Deeley appeared sitting astride a giant champagne bottle. Reasons for her hosting the event were never adequately made clear either. We did consider offering commentary on the outfits that she wore over the course of the programme, but we'll save time by summing them all up in two words - "ill" and "advised". | |
| Best International male
Beck Damien Rice 50 Cent Sean Paul Justin Timberlake | First award and it's presented by Shania Twain. Jesus wept. As the nominations were being announced the crowd remained distinctly silent until 50 Cent got a mention which was about as surprising as discovering your foot hiding inside your shoe. Justin won, again, not a surprise given the mediocrity of the shortlist, and gave a speech which we were going to describe as the dullest ever, but was on a par with the rest of the speeches we have to come on this night of a thousand yawns. |
| Best British Group
Sugababes The Darkness Radiohead The Coral Busted | Presented by Martin Kemp, presumably because... actually, no, we can think of no reason why he was presenting this, and despite the geniusness of Gold we can't really see Spandau Ballet collecting an Outstanding Contribution to Music award, though we did see Tony Hadley collecting his dole money on a regular basis up until his appearence of Reborn in the USA. Sugababes should really have won this, but as the main point of the ceremony appeared to be to try and boost the credibility of the joke-now-worn-thin cod-rockers The Darkness, they were awarded the prize. Modest as always, they declared that they "probably are the Best British Group". The deluded fools. |
| Busted were up next performing their cover of Teenage Kicks, in doing so they completely managed to stamp their own individual stamp on it and... no, actually, it sounded much the same as the original, but with 3 people singing, somehow turning the song into a paean to a gang-bang. We were extremely disappointed that they never did their trademark Busted jump in time to the "alright" bit in the chorus. We'll be writing a strongly worded letter to their mothers as a result of this. | |
| Best Pop
Christina Aguilera Black Eyed Peas Justin Timberlake Busted Daniel Bedingfield | There was clearly some sort of technical fault when this was broadcast, as not only did Girls Aloud not win this, but they didn't even appear to be on the shortlist. Clearly heads will roll once this mistake is discovered. Anyway, the current winners, until it gets taken off them, are Busted who dressed up smart in suits, what with it being on the telly, like, and all their family watching at home. They seemed quite chuffed, although no doubt serious indie rocker Charlie wasn't too happy with winning best pop and will be running home to put on his Fierce Panda sampler to make him feel a bit less embarassed about his choice of profession. Oh, this award was presented by Avid Merion dressed as Mel B. the humiliating silence around the auditorium at his attempts at humour should maybe tell him that it's time to get a new schtick. |
| Best British Dance
Groove Armada Basement Jaxx Lemon Jelly Kosheen Goldfrapp | Yawn. Who cares? Not much to say here. The most exciting thing was Dermot O'Leary informing us that "Dancing is ace". He's quite correct, but you'd be hard pushed to prove it using this lot as evidence. |
| Up next is introduced as a "once in a lifetime" collaboration between Outkast and Beyonce, though we're pretty sure that they teamed up for a performance at the Grammys, so it's an interesting use of the word "once". It's also an interesting use of the word "collaboration", as in these circumstances it apparantly means "performing one after the other with some slightly dodgy mixing between them". Crazy in Love still sounds ace, though Andre 3000's performance of Hey Ya! wasn't exactly ice-cold, more kinda room temperature. The skeleton suit he wore was rather ace though. | |
| Best British Rock
Stereophonics The Darkness Feeder Muse Primal Scream | Alternatively known as the "Band least likely to get you strutting your funky thang and generally making you smile" award, we're actually quite glad that this went to The Darkness, mainly because it should piss off all the proper rock fans, but partly because any prize that doesn't go to the Stereophonics has some redeeming features. The crowd were distinctly unimpressed by this award, giving no cheers whatsoever to any of the nominees. Hooray! |
| Best British Male
Daniel Bedingfield David Bowie Badly Drawn Boy Will Young Dizzee Rascal | Normally we'd be expressing shock at the fact that they gave Daniel Bedingfield a prize, but we were still in a state of mild disbelief after Kerry McFadden walked on stage and happily announced to the watching public that she'd just farted. Though this was probably no more of a bad smell than that caused by a Bedingfield related victory. |
| Should Cat Deeley's lack of presenting skills ever be discoverd, and it's not like she does a lot to keep it a secret, then she should consider a career in acting, as she showed a similar level of talent in that field as she informed us that we had to go to the news room for some breaking news. Cut to an embarassing skit involving claims that 50 Cent had been detained on his way to the Brits for questioning and would be unlikely to be performing at the event. We then see a police interrogation room where 50 is being questioned about what he's doing in the country. We suspect, and if true this makes the whole sorry sequence one of the most humiliating ever seen on television, that the coppers doing the questioning were cast members from The Bill. 50 attempts to explain that he's just here to rap, cause it's all about the music, man, though the foolish police people don't believe him, thinking he's up to no good. And given the constant furore over race-relations in the Police force, we're sure they're ecstatic about being portrayed in such a way. Anyway, naturally 50 is a bit pissed off about this, so he busts out and goes to perform anyway. Had any of this actually been real, we're not sure that performing on national television in front of a massive backdrop spelling out your name is really the best way to remain undercover and avoid re-capture. | |
| Best British Urban
Lemar Mis-Teeq Big Brovaz Dizzee Rascal Amy Winehouse | Or alternatively the "Lets throw all the vaguely black sounding artists into a group to try and make people think we are with it" award. Lemar won, we'd have prefered Mis-Teeq, but we found it hard to get too excited over this one. We look forward to them introducing Best British Rural act next year, as we already have a fiver on The Wurzels. |
| Best British Single
Dido - White Flag Mis-Teeq - Scandalous Jamelia - Superstar Rachel Stevens - Sweet Dreams: My LA-EX Gareth Gates - Spirit in the Sky | And once again, this list appears to be lacking in Girls Aloud-ness. We'd claim it was a fix, but Phixx aren't even in this either! Something is very much amiss when a crappy charity cover gets into the shortlist but one of the greatest pop record of recent times doesn't even get a sniff of the glory. This award was won, for reasons that will escape us, even if we devote the rest of our lives to trying to find out why, by Dido. In her acceptence speech she informs us that she was "pretty surprised to be winning", something which we easily related to. She also claimed that White Flag was "not the easiest song to write or to sing". Which is a big coincidence as it's not the easiest song to listen to either.
This award was present by Doctor Fox who, for those of you who aren't aware, is an amusing comedy character in this country. His gimmick is that no matter what he says, it's always completely wrong, with hilarious consequences. Who could forget him on Pop idol telling Michelle "You're a great pop star, you're gonna go far", or on his chart show telling the listeners "We've got a great number one for you this week", despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. He surpassed himself tonight by saying "These are the best Brits ever". Oh, the crazy loon! |
| As if to prove his point, next up on stage were Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua who decided that the best thing to do on national television was to take Lovecats by The Cure, a great little pop song, and murder it, then fuck the corpse, before setting fire to it, and then, as a final act of indignity, piss all over it. While laughing. This was, without a doubt, the worst thing we have experienced in all our years of listening to music. We were close to tears at what they decided to do to it. Surely someone must have heard their version before it went to air and could have told them just how painfully dire and horrible it was? We've still not recovered from the mangling we experienced and probably never will.
Seriously, it was really fucking bad. | |
| Following them, and we can't imagine that anyone wanted to follow that, quite how people managed to resist throwing things - eggs, fruit, glass bottles, their own limbs - we don't quite know, but it was fortunate for Muse as it meant they dind't have a slippy slidey stage to contend with. What they did have to deal with, though, was the fact that the show's organisers feared for the ugly-factor of rock's most proggy sons, and insisted of flooding the stage with green and white light so that you couldn't make out the wasted facial features of a life devoted to guitar histrionics. A blessing, we feel. | |
| Best International Female
Beyonce Alicia Keys Christina Aguilera Kylie Minogue Missy Elliot | Certainly a better shortlist than the scraped together group we get for the British list, this should have gone to Christina as, and we cannot stress this fact enough, and we're going to put it in italics to try and hammer this point home, Beyonce only has one good song. To claim she's the best female because of that is like trying to claim that The Bloodhound Gang are the finest songwriters of their generation on the basis that The Bad Touch was really quite good. |
| Best International Group
Black Eyed Peas The White Stripes Outkast Kings of Leon The Strokes | We dunno what Jack White is on, but we'd quite like to have some, given their acceptence video. Other than that, there's not much to say about this category, other than "what the fuck are Kings of Leon doing being nominated". So we will. What the fuck are Kings of Leon doing being nominated? |
| Up next to try and take this awards ceremony out of the level of rubbishness which, thus far, has been equivelent tof "waking up to discover your nose has fallen off", are Alicia Keys, Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliot. They give us a version of Kiss which, to it's credit, featured kissing noises leading up to the "Kiss!" bit. To it's discredit though, there was no "I think I'm gonna dance now" bit, and the change from the "girl/world" rhyme to "boy/toy" was very unsatisfying. Still, it was better than Melua/Cullum, but then eating slugs would be better than that. | |
| Best British Breakthrough
The Darkness Busted Jamie Cullum Lemar Dizzee Rascal | Had Jamie Cullum actually won this we would currently be a gibbering wreck sitting in a corner of a room rocking slowly back and forth muttering "thrown into the sea" over and over again, possibly even including a few snatches of "do-do-de-do-do" skatting as well, while sharp objects were kept well out of our vicinity. Fortunately though, insanity was kept at bay as Busted won this one. Though we're not quite sure whether they strictly count as being a breakthrough act, being, as they are, on their second album.
This award was presented by Chris Moyles. The twat. |
| Best British Female
Jamelia Sophie Ellis-Bextor Annie Lennox Amy Winehouse Dido | Not so much a case of scraping the bottom of the barrel, but more scraping the bottom of the barrel that you used to hold all your previous barrel bottom scrapings in, which you've now emptied. This is a very sorry list of contenders, we wanted Sophie to win by default really, and that's only because we loved Murder on the Dancefloor. We'd have rather seen Amy Studt on there anyway. As it turned out though, Dido won, which is another nail in the coffin for good pop. Though the Brits seem to be not only providing the nails, but a special power hammer and is cheerfully banging them in without any care for anything that gets in the way, be that glitter, excitement or thumbs. Everything gets flattened into blandness with them around. |
| Outstanding Contribution to Music Award is up next, and while we were holding on the slim thread of hope that this might be the year that B*Witched finally get the recognition they deserve, it ended up being awarded to Duran Duran. Justin Timberlake presented the award, giving a speech that he was in no way reading from an autocue. The band themselves seemed suitably humble, though not hugely impressed at having Justin present their award to them, before launching into a 3 song set that did not include Reflex, so was therefore immediatly slightly rubbish. Instead they did a good version of Hungry Like the Wolf, a piss-poor passionless version of Ordinary World and an OK version of Wild Boys, which is a lot less convincing when performed by a bunch of middle-aged men. We were pleased to note, however, that they had electric pads on the drumkit. That is a sound which really needs a comeback, we're fed up of realistically synthised beats, we want to be reminded that it's fake. We like fake. | |
| Best International Breakthrough
Evanesence 50 Cent Sean Paul The Thrills Kings of Leon | To be quite honest, we'd begun to lose interest at this point, though we did briefly get interested when we thought that Lemonescent were up for an award, though this dissapated quickly. We don't really understand the excitement about 50 Cent - if we wanted to hear someone slur their way through a song, we'd head to a karaoke bar at midnight - but he's not Kings of Leon so we fully support his victory. |
| Best International Album
Justin Timberlake - Justified Beyonce - Dangerously in Love Christina Aguilera - Stripped The White Stripes - Elephant Outkast - The Love Below/Speakerboxx | Nothing unexpected here, prize went to Justin. Fair play to him, we say. It's good to see that someone he's managed to carve out a successful career after playing Screech in TV's Saved by the Bell, unlike the rest of his co-stars, who went on to form 2wo Third3. |
| Final performance of the night and it comes from The Darkness. They do a decent enough version of I Beleive in a Thing Called Love and end it with Justin astride a massive pillar which rose out of the ground. Unfortunately though, the same lighting effects that Muse had were not used here, and we had to deal with the ugly fizzogs in terrible close-up detail, each wrinkle and line clearly visible. Fortunately it was after the watershed otherwise small children may have been freaked. | |
| Best British Album
The Darkness - Permission to Land The Coral - Magic and Medicine Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This Blur - Think Tank Dido - Life for Rent | A list containing absolutely zero inspiring titles, there are two good things about The Darkness winning though. Firstly, and most importantly, they aren't Dido, and secondly their success tonight should hopefully send the value of our copy of the original release of I Believe in a Thing Called Love through the roof. Please send all offers to the usual address. |
| And, with that, the show came to an end, The Darkness performed a second song, so clearly there was no plan to give them as many awards as possible right from the planning stages, then the credits rolled and we sat back and wondered just why we put ourselves through the torture. Have we learnt anything from this? Well, no, other than the fact it took us longer to type this all up than it did to watch the show. We never learn from our mistakes, we can only hope that the organisers do. British pop is in a healthier state than these awards make out, and it's depressing that this is a showcase for the rest of the world to see our wares. We need to highlight our gems and stop showcasing our coal. Pop is precious, don't lets see it go the way of our film industry, we already have Dido as the equivelent of Love Actually. Don't let it go any further. | |
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Ace of Blades
Yesterday we said that we'd be overjoyed if the Scissor Sisters came on stage and told us all to fuck off, so you can probably imagine how stupidly euphoric it made us when they came on stage and played lots of fabulous glitter-fuelled pop gems, looked like stars and generally set fire to the Venue in a way that should really have caused the sprinkler system to set itself off. We were even throwing some shapes as we danced like a fool. Not particularly good or stylish or rhythmic shapes, it must be said, but that didn't really matter, it was that sorta gig.
As a result of their general geniusness, we have decided not only to award the band a place in the 117 Acest Things Of All Time... Ever! list, but to award each member a place as well, so here, in order of aceness, is why:-
- Ana Matronic - Goddess of the band, we may well have fallen in love with her after last nights performance. She sings, she dances, she stances with style, she has lovely hair and, in a move that easily clinches her the position of acest member of the band, she uses a tambourine with such panache it made us smile as like gleeful idiots.
- Jake Shears - He too sings, dances and stances with style, but he drops out of pole position partly due to having less good hair, but mainly due to his faux-pas when he informed the people of Edinburgh how happy he was to be in England. The cheers turned instantly to boos and he seemed somewhat taken aback. Fortunately the lovely Ana managed to rescue the situation, another reason why she's very ace indeed.
- Babydaddy - Despite our normally very firmly held view that all hats and facial hair are wrong, Babydaddy gets into third place as his black shirt/red braces combo was very funky and he made us think that we could possibly get away with wearing a hat.
- Del Marquis - for his guitar hero antics during Comfortably Numb. Oh, and for rocking the rarely seen shirt, tie and zip-up jacket look.
- Paddy Boom - who ends up in last place by default as he's the drummer. Sorry. He is still far acer than virtually everyone else in the world, but, you know, he's still a drummer so is therefore just that little bit more unace.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Cutting Edge
We're off out tonight to see Scissor Sisters. Not literally, though there may well be some ladies of the lesbitarian persuasion there. No, instead we're off to see the extremely fab and glittery band that you may well have heard of, especially seeing that they've been hyped to buggery over the last few weeks. We have high-hopes for this gig, indeed, we're so up about it that we're currently of the view that they could come on stage, say "Fuck the lot of you" and we'd still be claiming it to be the greatest gig that we ever did see. Seriously, we've not been this excited about seeing a band live since we went to see Half Man Half Biscuit last year, and we reckon that that is probably the only time that those two bands will ever be compared to each other.
No Good Adv-Ice Cream
This is a picture of Girls Aloud. Now, as you look at it many thoughts are likely to be passing through your head, for example, the first one that entered our brain-space was "Wow! Nicola is actually in the centre of a picture for once". However, of all the ideas and impressions that flit through your mind as you look at the photo, it's very unlikely that you're thinking "What a bunch of porkers, those girls certainly need to lose weight from their lardy frames". Not, that is, unless you're the slimline and hugely attractive Victoria Newton, the Sun's resident gossip writer who despite having no discernible talent is still given two pages to fill every day. She decided to use this picture to illustrate this story, claiming that the band are being forced to go on a strict training regime to make them lose weight.
Now, anyone of a reasonably intelligent frame of mind would use this as a launchpad to take a stand and lambast the image obsessed music industry for making perfectly fit, healthy and normal sized young girls go thrrough a programme designed to turn them into anorexic looking sticks, thus encouraging the myth that you have to be a rake to be attractive. And given the rise of eating disorders among teenage girls, this is not a good thing. So, what does Miss Newton do? Well, she describes the girls as porky, and informs us that she likes the idea of seeing popstarts sweat. She positively revels in the complete evilness of what their management are doing. In short, she acts like a jealous cow who will hopefully be lambasted by the medical profession for the utter stupidity of what she's saying. Presumably she sees Atomic Kitten as being outstanding examples of feminine beauty, and not just a substitute for skeletons in anatomy classes.
Is This Desire?
Love is everywhere, everwhere you look around. Well, it is if you belive love to be pink, heart-shaped, made out of cheap card and wilting slightly in the heat. We're not a big fan of Valentines Day here at TiaPL, not because we never recieved any cards and as a result are rather bitter, but because it encourages the radio stations across the land to play love songs, a style of music which is best suited to only being played in a soundproof bunker well away from human ears. Lyrically trite and musically unadventurous, they speak not of the raw passion and excitement that love brings, but instead they cover the dullness of being in a relationship that's past it's sell-by date, the sort of love that only exists because you realise that you'll be unable to get anyone better. In short, the emotions that you normally feel for a comfy pair of slippers, slightly warmed in the microwave. Oh, and while we're at it, "I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes" - That's not love. That's the initial stages of hypothermia.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
Another awards ceremony has been and gone, but it was only the NME one and any event that thinks that giving any sort of prize to Kings of Leon, let alone one involving the word 'best', is a good idea can safely be filed away under "irrelevant, pointless and, quite frankly, laughable". Still, never mind, there must be some gems of musical enjoyment lurking in this weeks Top of the Pops? Surely? Ah well, never mind. Here's what we learnt from this weeks show:-
- The more we see of Busted the more we miss North and South
- Ronan Keating's new song, presumably about his manager, has the lyrics "She believes in me, I'll never know what she sees in me". For the first time ever we can relate to what he sings.
- Unless Hyrise represent us, we have more chance of turning into anthropmorphic diamonds overnight than we do of winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
- Either there was a wind fan directly in front of Jamelia or she had a terrible case of flatulance. Also, her new single amounts to exactly what Christina said in Fighter, only about a hundred and twenty-three times worse.
- Judging by the amount of times Blazin' Squad have appeared on TotP since the relaunch, we can only surmise that they are blackmailing the productions staff.
- Judging by the fact that Tim Kash is still presenting the show, despite showing no obvious signs of improvement, we can only surmise that he, too, is blackmailing the production staff.
- LMC are still at number one. Normally at this point we'd say "Oh, for fucks sake" and be done with it, but instead we're going to count our blessings as we're horribly aware of what's going to be hitting the top spot on Sunday...
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Infernal Organ
Once again it's time for dangerous invasive surgery to be carried out as we remove the TiaPL Splen from it's resting place inside the body and force it to dispense its pop knowledge in the way that only a lymphoid organ can. Here's the latest question:-
Ooh, boy, do you miss me like a hole in the head?
Scottie
Well, it depends on exactly what hole you mean; if the hole you're talking about is that caused by a bullet, nail or any miscellaneous sharpened object, then no, I wouldn't miss you very much at all. And the metaphorical scarring that would appear after the hole had healed wouldn't exactly put me in a better frame of mind. On the other hand, if the hole you're talking about is that of the nostril, ear, mouth or eye variety, then yes, I'd miss you lots, though I wouldn't be able to articulate my pleas for your return. Something which would be rather academic given that I wouldn't see you to know when to plead, and wouldn't hear any response anyway. Oh, and I'd be dead due to being unable to breathe. The other, final possibility (though not as final as the previous one) is that you're wondering whether I'd miss you as much as I'd miss having one of Courtney Love's old band's songs going around my head. If that's the case then we would miss you a lot, after all Pretty on the Inside is definitely something that an internal organ can relate to.
Thanks again Spleen! If you have a pop-related question for the TiaPL Spleen then either mail us at talentinapreviouslife@hotmail.com or leave it in the comment box below. And remember, your own spleen is unlikely to be able to help you solve your pop conundrums. Why not ask one of your kidneys instead?
Ooh, boy, do you miss me like a hole in the head?
Scottie
Well, it depends on exactly what hole you mean; if the hole you're talking about is that caused by a bullet, nail or any miscellaneous sharpened object, then no, I wouldn't miss you very much at all. And the metaphorical scarring that would appear after the hole had healed wouldn't exactly put me in a better frame of mind. On the other hand, if the hole you're talking about is that of the nostril, ear, mouth or eye variety, then yes, I'd miss you lots, though I wouldn't be able to articulate my pleas for your return. Something which would be rather academic given that I wouldn't see you to know when to plead, and wouldn't hear any response anyway. Oh, and I'd be dead due to being unable to breathe. The other, final possibility (though not as final as the previous one) is that you're wondering whether I'd miss you as much as I'd miss having one of Courtney Love's old band's songs going around my head. If that's the case then we would miss you a lot, after all Pretty on the Inside is definitely something that an internal organ can relate to.
Thanks again Spleen! If you have a pop-related question for the TiaPL Spleen then either mail us at talentinapreviouslife@hotmail.com or leave it in the comment box below. And remember, your own spleen is unlikely to be able to help you solve your pop conundrums. Why not ask one of your kidneys instead?
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Hearse The Plan
We're off out tonight to see Death Cab For Cutie. Not literally of course; we have no desire to see Nicola in a hearse. Instead it's the American indie band who were named after a Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band song who are going to be entertaining us, though we'd rather see a band called Noises for the Leg to be honest. We imagine they'd sound like The Thigh Fidelity. Anyway, we're not sure if we're going to enjoy the band or not, but we did love the I Was a Kaleidoscope single, so we have reasonably high hopes for this gig. Support comes from The Silver Pill - presumably the one they have in mind is of the sleeping variety as the last time we saw them do a gig we were bored to tears.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Top Kat
Kerry Katona, ex-Kitten, has just been crowned Queen of the Jungle in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, thus proving conclusively that girl-pop is better than punk, glamour modelling, pec-enhanced boy pop, football and whatever else the other so-called celebs did for their so-called living. This obviously comes as no surprise to most of us, but it's always good for the rest of the population to be reminded of this fact.
During her time in the jungle, Kerry spent much of her time squealing, putting unpleasant and foul tasting things in her mouth and living her day to day existence based on the whims of the Great British public, always aware that she could get dropped at a moments notice - an existence very similar to that of your average girl band member, which probably explains why she was so successful in this competition.
Kerry was, of course, a founder member of Atomic Kitten. While we can often be quite mocking of the Kittens on these pages, we do accept that for a while they were very good. Unfortunately after releasing Right Now, See Ya and I Want Your Love they visted the well of the pop ballad and drank deeply from it, becoming bloated and overloaded with the bland tasting nonsense that goes with it. Fortunately for Kerry though, she became bloated with a baby instead and left the band, so she was never quite tainted with the same blurred out lack of identity the other girls have. Even if she did make the mistake of marrying the ugly one out of Westlife, i.e. any one of them.
So, yay for Miss Katona. If Mysterious Girl is getting a re-release thanks to Mr Andre's appearance in the show, surely the time is right for I Want Your Love to re-enter the nations hearts? For anything else to happen would simply be insania.
During her time in the jungle, Kerry spent much of her time squealing, putting unpleasant and foul tasting things in her mouth and living her day to day existence based on the whims of the Great British public, always aware that she could get dropped at a moments notice - an existence very similar to that of your average girl band member, which probably explains why she was so successful in this competition.
Kerry was, of course, a founder member of Atomic Kitten. While we can often be quite mocking of the Kittens on these pages, we do accept that for a while they were very good. Unfortunately after releasing Right Now, See Ya and I Want Your Love they visted the well of the pop ballad and drank deeply from it, becoming bloated and overloaded with the bland tasting nonsense that goes with it. Fortunately for Kerry though, she became bloated with a baby instead and left the band, so she was never quite tainted with the same blurred out lack of identity the other girls have. Even if she did make the mistake of marrying the ugly one out of Westlife, i.e. any one of them.
So, yay for Miss Katona. If Mysterious Girl is getting a re-release thanks to Mr Andre's appearance in the show, surely the time is right for I Want Your Love to re-enter the nations hearts? For anything else to happen would simply be insania.
Grammy: Miffed
The winners of this years Grammys, officially the worlds dullest music awards, have been announced, and excitement, interest or any event of any note whatsoever is very hard to come by. Somehow Clocks by Coldplay managed to beat Beyonce's Crazy in Love for record of the year, though she did win some prizes for said tune in the R&B category. She also managed to win best R&B album for Dangerously in Love despite the fact that it only has one good song on it, which doesn't say a great deal for the state of modern R&B. Thankfully though, Coldplay managed to avoid winning any other prizes, though with the ultra-literal award categories that the audience have to endure, we felt that they'd have been a shoe-in for Dullest Band (Group or Duo) To Achieve Worldwide Fame, Despite Their Unquestionable Rubbishness. As it turned out though, they were beaten by The White Stripes. Actually, no. That's wrong. Thinking about it, it was The Von Bondies that they beat.
Other awards on the night went to Sting and The Dave Matthews Band. Probably. We can't really be bothered going to check to be honest, but that'd probably be about right. We did notice that Justin Timberlake was there, this time resisting the temptation to free pop-ladies from their restrictive brassieres. Clearly the shame of being known as a man that has touched Janet Jackson's breast is going to be hard to live down. But other than that it was all rather dull really. Still, The Brits are coming up soon, won't they be exciting?! Oh, right. Never mind.
EDIT: Apparantly Prince performed as well. This would probably have been quite exciting, though we must bear in mind that Prince is now religious and has removed all inappropriatly sexual songs from his live set, which is a move similar in wiseness to EMF reforming and not playing Unbelievable, so we'll remain somewhat sceptical about just how good it was.
Other awards on the night went to Sting and The Dave Matthews Band. Probably. We can't really be bothered going to check to be honest, but that'd probably be about right. We did notice that Justin Timberlake was there, this time resisting the temptation to free pop-ladies from their restrictive brassieres. Clearly the shame of being known as a man that has touched Janet Jackson's breast is going to be hard to live down. But other than that it was all rather dull really. Still, The Brits are coming up soon, won't they be exciting?! Oh, right. Never mind.
EDIT: Apparantly Prince performed as well. This would probably have been quite exciting, though we must bear in mind that Prince is now religious and has removed all inappropriatly sexual songs from his live set, which is a move similar in wiseness to EMF reforming and not playing Unbelievable, so we'll remain somewhat sceptical about just how good it was.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Pet Rescue
This is Whistle the kitten. We first came across him when the bonza girls at CFB Goes Pop used him to illustrate an article about Atomic Kitten splitting up, presumably because it was the only way to get any feelings of sadness related to the news. The story which the girls It doesn't have to be like this though, we're joining The Pop's campaign to save Whistle and other kittens like him. Only kittens though, once they stop looking cute and potentially fluffy, we lose interest. Anyway, we're planning on releasing a charity single to help save Whistle. Our original aim was to get The Cure to re-record their classic hit Lovecats, but with a space between the "e" and the "c". Unfortunately though, when we called Robert Smith to ask for his help, he didn't seem too enamoured with the idea. Indeed, his exact quote was "How the hell did you get hold of this number? Who are you? If you don't stop bothering me I'll call the police, now fuck off" - which wasn't very encouraging. A similar reaction occured when we we contacted Nelly Furtado to see if she'd be interested in recording I'm, like, a cat. Don't worry though, whenever there is profile raising charity work to be done, there's always someone desperate enough to try and cling on to the last vestiges of their fame so, ladies and gentlemen, we present Ace of Base with Life in a Shower (Save Whistle From the Bin):-
We just need to free him
Save Whistle from the bin
He should be smiling
But instead he looks like poo
Life in a shower
Bedraggled in your hand
Hotline be dialing
And your cash will help him too
When every kitty's spurned
And his cage is closing in
You don't care about his world
So please notice his plight
I cried for him today, ah-ah ah...
We just need to free him
Save Whistle from the bin
Then we'll be smiling
And Whistle will smile too
Life in a shower
He needs a loving hand,
Some proper styling
And a nice fish flavoured chew
You cannot be his judge
Evil Jailier is his host
He's keeping him inside
And hides him from the world
Just look into his eyes
And you can't help yourself
You want to free him
Save Whistle from the bin
Just please keep dialing
And send your cash real soon
Life in a shower
A hairdryer would help
Cause he's just whiling
His life away, it's true.
Please Mr. Cat Catcher
Release him for a while
Teach him the reality of
A purring, happy life
We just need to free him
Save Whistle from the bin
He should be smiling
But instead he looks like poo
Life in a shower
Bedraggled in your hand
Hotline be dialing
And your cash will help him too
(repeat & fade)
A song that will melt the icy heart of even the coldest, evilist, kitten hating person, we're sure you'll agree, so this, alongside Busted's I'm Glad That I Saved Whistle will surely gurantee safety for all Whistle's, everywhere. Now, if only Girls Aloud return our call regarding releasing "No Good Mice", never again will a kitten need to live in fear. Unless they get given a home with the coldest, evilist, kitten hating person we mentioned earlier, that is.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
Well, our prediction about February being the start of lots of exciting pop related things has, sadly, been proved pretty wrong. The only things that have happened this week of any note are that the Scissor Sisters album has been released, which is so obviously ace we don't really need to mention it and that Janet Jackson flashed a breast on television. Something which, to be honest, is pretty dull in and of itself, but also serves only to remind us of the rubbishness of the new Top of the Pops logo. Speaking of which, here's what we learnt from this weeks show:-
- Despite being a pop star for many, many years Britney Spears has yet to learn how to mime convincingly.
- The TotP producers clearly believe that Exclusive means Something No Other Bugger Would Touch With a Ten Foot Barge Poll, given the use of this tag for a Blink-182 performance.
- Lost Prophets should really have dressed up smart for their performance, after all, it was for the telly, like.
- Due to the amount of jumping around Fatman Scoop does, he really shouldn't be living up to his moniker quite as well as he does. We reckon he's on an even less healthy version of the Atkins Diet.
- Emma Bunton got a free holiday to Detroit thanks to the BBC, she also seems to believe she's on a song-writing par with Smokey Robinson.
- Despite being involved in what will no doubt be the highlight of their career, i.e. appearing on Top of the Pops, not the song itself, Snow Patrol looked and sounded as bored as someone watching Graham Norton's new chatshow.
- LMC vs U2 are number one. Come back Michelle, all is forgiven.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Mr Spleen Shines Umpteen Things Clean
We weren't planning on doing a Spleen piece this week, but as we were sitting pondering upon which was better, a house shaped like a peacock or chicken nuggets cut into dinosaur shapes, when our disfiguiring wound opened and the spleen popped out onto the floor much like a lump of uncooked meat. After we regained consciousness, we discovered that the spleen was back in it's rightful place, our wound was stapled togetther and a piece of disturbingly moist paper was lying next to us with this weeks question on it so, without further ado, and while we try and shake off the light-headedness we're currently feeling, here's the latest question
How do you say Deeee-groovy?
How do you say Deeee-gorgeous?
How do you say Deeee-Liiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttteeeeeeee?
Younger readers unfamiliar with "Groove Is In The Heart" may not fully be able to answer that question....
Alyson Tamara Guard-Matheson
So, it's Groove O'Clock then is it? What the young Oz-ian is referring to is their song, What is Love? Not to be confused with the Haddaway song of the same name. In this they start by asking us how we say many words beginning with 'de'. A conceit with starts well with "delicious", "delectable" and "define", is falling away slightly by the time we get to the misspelt "devine" and has collapsed intoa mess of building materials and word roots as we get asked the correct pronounciation of "delovely", "degorgoues", "degroovy" and the totally clutching at straws "dewith it". Anyway, the answer to your question is, undoubtably, "Groove is in the Heart is one of the best records ever made.".
The Spleen
So, there we go, despite his unexpected appearence, The TiaPL Spleen still comes up with the goods. We're heading off to hospital to get a tetanus shot now, as we're pretty sure these staples are doing us no good whatsoever. If you'd like to leave a question for The Spleen then feel free to leave it in the comment box below or e-mail us at talentinapreviouslife@hotmail.com.
How do you say Deeee-groovy?
How do you say Deeee-gorgeous?
How do you say Deeee-Liiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttteeeeeeee?
Younger readers unfamiliar with "Groove Is In The Heart" may not fully be able to answer that question....
Alyson Tamara Guard-Matheson
So, it's Groove O'Clock then is it? What the young Oz-ian is referring to is their song, What is Love? Not to be confused with the Haddaway song of the same name. In this they start by asking us how we say many words beginning with 'de'. A conceit with starts well with "delicious", "delectable" and "define", is falling away slightly by the time we get to the misspelt "devine" and has collapsed intoa mess of building materials and word roots as we get asked the correct pronounciation of "delovely", "degorgoues", "degroovy" and the totally clutching at straws "dewith it". Anyway, the answer to your question is, undoubtably, "Groove is in the Heart is one of the best records ever made.".
The Spleen
So, there we go, despite his unexpected appearence, The TiaPL Spleen still comes up with the goods. We're heading off to hospital to get a tetanus shot now, as we're pretty sure these staples are doing us no good whatsoever. If you'd like to leave a question for The Spleen then feel free to leave it in the comment box below or e-mail us at talentinapreviouslife@hotmail.com.
