Friday, December 23, 2005
Talent from a Previous Month: Part 2
The court is still out as to whether this feature best falls into the 'Lazy' or 'Self Indulgent' camp, but until they reach a verdict, why not join us as we take a look back at our thoughts, opinions, and peer pressure induced viewpoints on the second half of 2005
JULY - It was, as the opening Live 8 song informed us, twenty years ago today that the original Live Aid event took place, give or take a week or so, and, by the time we finished our live, blow by blow, coverage of the Live 8 gig, it felt like the start of the whole sorry affair was twenty hours ago. Even a good nights sleep failed to put us in a better mood about the whole affair, and we still stand by the fact that Joss Stone's dress was the best thing about the entire event. If Live 8 itself wasn't enough, we still had to contend with the line-up for the Edinburgh gig, but, despite expecting the whole affair to be a shit show of equal proportions, our home city's gig turned out to be the best of the bunch, probably because The Proclaimers were involved and UB40 weren't. Again we fell in love with a tune which failed to make the number one spot, Inaya Day's Nasty Girl in this case, while both Popjustice and the Mercury Music Prize attempted to tell us what the best records of the last year were. Popjustice got it most right, though both were flawed, mainly due to the fact that neither list gave even a passing nod to Fierce Girl's What Makes a Girl Fierce. Girls Aloud launched Long Hot Summer to a widespread chorus of "Come on, it's good, but you can do so much better", while Charlotte Church may or may not have been suffering from mental health issues. It was hard to worry too much about it though when she did insist on looking quite lovely on Top of the Pops.
AUGUST - As far as pop music was concerned, it was a dry month here at Talent in a Previous Life, as we were far too busy seeing Edinburgh Fringe shows to keep the site updated. While we found time to point out that, ummm, Mark Owen hadn't been shot, the bulk of our efforts were spent seeing nearly fifty shows over three weeks and, while we may not have contributed much to pop criticism, we did get to see Snoopy: The Musical which we think absolves us of any charges of laziness.
SEPTEMBER - The month started off with us being threatened with badly spelt violence from an aggrieved McFly fan, though as hate mail goes it failed to top the person who accused us of being racist as we were a bit lukewarm towards a Raghav single. The winners of both the Popjustice and Mercury music prize were announced, and both the winners turned out to be fully deserving of their respective accolades. Who'da thunk it? Speaking of Popjustice, we ripped off the site wholesale with our Ashes feature, but as we subtly rip them off on a daily basis this shouldn't have come as any surprise. Girls Aloud decided to show the world that they weren't just a plastic pop band by, umm, releasing a set of plastic representations of themselves, while Britney Spears gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, who has now achieved favoured fashion accessory status, just above one of her manky dogs.
October - Despite the fact that they dragged it out for so long it seems like it started in January, X Factor launched its live shows. If only we'd known how mediocre the whole sorry affair would have ended up. Equally disappointing was Lisa Scott-Lee's chart position. Legally she now has to leave the music industry thanks to her failure to get a top ten hit, but it's still under debate as to whether she was a part of it in the first place. Offering inspiration in the world of alternative employment was Adam Rickett, then we laughed at the thought of an inexperienced, yet charismatic and good-looking young man making his way in the Tory party. Now, of course, it seems that he'd be full qualified for the position of home secretary.
NOVEMBER - November found Girls Aloud announcing their second tour, and we found ourselves getting more excited than Ronan Keating when confronted by a country ballad, but our excitement for that was naught compared to the revelation that Take That were to tour. Unfortunately our ticket buying success varied inversely with our excitement level and we were left disappointed by our attempt to get tickets to see 4/5ths of the greatest boyband to ever dance aggressively towards the camera. Also leaving us weeping into our keyboard was the news that Maria got voted off of X Factor. The public are still, lest we forget, cunts. To take our minds of it we turned out attention towards Jenny Frost's appearance in I'm a Celebrity.. Get Me Out of Here, but given her apparent refusal to get involved in any way, shape or form, we'd have been as well turning our attention to a block of butter sitting in the fridge.
DECEMBER - And so we turn to the current month, and if you really need reminded about what went on then frankly, you're a goldfish. Most of it's still on the front page for Nicola's sake, but we did go and see Rachel Stevens supplement her dole money by playing live. Girls Aloud released a new album, and whole new words had to be created to sum up it's genius while, proving that every ying has its yang, Shayne Ward wonPop Idol X Factor and promptly released one of the worst singles of all time. Perhaps he'll do a Will Young and improve, but it's more likely he'll do a Gareth Gates and stutter out of existence. Finally, Mutya Buena decided that nappy changing was preferable to hanging around with Keisha and Heidi and, so, decided to quit the Sugababes, to be quickly replaced by Amelle Berrabah. Our main disappointment with this news centered around the fact Mutya wasn't replaced by Big Bird. After all, if he joined the team then they'd certainly be taller in more ways. Arf.
music
JULY - It was, as the opening Live 8 song informed us, twenty years ago today that the original Live Aid event took place, give or take a week or so, and, by the time we finished our live, blow by blow, coverage of the Live 8 gig, it felt like the start of the whole sorry affair was twenty hours ago. Even a good nights sleep failed to put us in a better mood about the whole affair, and we still stand by the fact that Joss Stone's dress was the best thing about the entire event. If Live 8 itself wasn't enough, we still had to contend with the line-up for the Edinburgh gig, but, despite expecting the whole affair to be a shit show of equal proportions, our home city's gig turned out to be the best of the bunch, probably because The Proclaimers were involved and UB40 weren't. Again we fell in love with a tune which failed to make the number one spot, Inaya Day's Nasty Girl in this case, while both Popjustice and the Mercury Music Prize attempted to tell us what the best records of the last year were. Popjustice got it most right, though both were flawed, mainly due to the fact that neither list gave even a passing nod to Fierce Girl's What Makes a Girl Fierce. Girls Aloud launched Long Hot Summer to a widespread chorus of "Come on, it's good, but you can do so much better", while Charlotte Church may or may not have been suffering from mental health issues. It was hard to worry too much about it though when she did insist on looking quite lovely on Top of the Pops.
AUGUST - As far as pop music was concerned, it was a dry month here at Talent in a Previous Life, as we were far too busy seeing Edinburgh Fringe shows to keep the site updated. While we found time to point out that, ummm, Mark Owen hadn't been shot, the bulk of our efforts were spent seeing nearly fifty shows over three weeks and, while we may not have contributed much to pop criticism, we did get to see Snoopy: The Musical which we think absolves us of any charges of laziness.
SEPTEMBER - The month started off with us being threatened with badly spelt violence from an aggrieved McFly fan, though as hate mail goes it failed to top the person who accused us of being racist as we were a bit lukewarm towards a Raghav single. The winners of both the Popjustice and Mercury music prize were announced, and both the winners turned out to be fully deserving of their respective accolades. Who'da thunk it? Speaking of Popjustice, we ripped off the site wholesale with our Ashes feature, but as we subtly rip them off on a daily basis this shouldn't have come as any surprise. Girls Aloud decided to show the world that they weren't just a plastic pop band by, umm, releasing a set of plastic representations of themselves, while Britney Spears gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, who has now achieved favoured fashion accessory status, just above one of her manky dogs.
October - Despite the fact that they dragged it out for so long it seems like it started in January, X Factor launched its live shows. If only we'd known how mediocre the whole sorry affair would have ended up. Equally disappointing was Lisa Scott-Lee's chart position. Legally she now has to leave the music industry thanks to her failure to get a top ten hit, but it's still under debate as to whether she was a part of it in the first place. Offering inspiration in the world of alternative employment was Adam Rickett, then we laughed at the thought of an inexperienced, yet charismatic and good-looking young man making his way in the Tory party. Now, of course, it seems that he'd be full qualified for the position of home secretary.
NOVEMBER - November found Girls Aloud announcing their second tour, and we found ourselves getting more excited than Ronan Keating when confronted by a country ballad, but our excitement for that was naught compared to the revelation that Take That were to tour. Unfortunately our ticket buying success varied inversely with our excitement level and we were left disappointed by our attempt to get tickets to see 4/5ths of the greatest boyband to ever dance aggressively towards the camera. Also leaving us weeping into our keyboard was the news that Maria got voted off of X Factor. The public are still, lest we forget, cunts. To take our minds of it we turned out attention towards Jenny Frost's appearance in I'm a Celebrity.. Get Me Out of Here, but given her apparent refusal to get involved in any way, shape or form, we'd have been as well turning our attention to a block of butter sitting in the fridge.
DECEMBER - And so we turn to the current month, and if you really need reminded about what went on then frankly, you're a goldfish. Most of it's still on the front page for Nicola's sake, but we did go and see Rachel Stevens supplement her dole money by playing live. Girls Aloud released a new album, and whole new words had to be created to sum up it's genius while, proving that every ying has its yang, Shayne Ward won
music
