Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Thoughts of the Pops
It's, ummm, Tuesday! And we didn't do this piece yesterday - though given our somewhat slapdash attitude towards this feature recently you should be surprised we're even doing it at all - as we spent Monday evening rushing towards Glasgow to see none other than Mark Owen perform at the Barfly, a venue somewhat more used to playing host to the sort of rubbish angsty emo indie rock bands who find favour in boys who proudly sport the sort of beards which demonstrate nothing more than their inability to grow one properly. Quite what they made of the more oestrogen based crowd that Mark tends to attract was unclear, but what the crowd themselves made of Mark was slightly more in the open, given that his every move, action, and note was greeted with an ear-splitting scream. As with the last time we saw him he was genuinely excellent, except this time he was even better, as not only where we there in a much less cynical frame of mind, but he also played a lot less of the ballady stuff this time and, if that wasn't enough, he also threw in a cover of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart which, yes, was exactly as fantastic as that sounds. It was a natural choice as, for both Mark and Ian Curtis, their career consisted of them being puppets of the music industry. Well, Ian danced like his limbs were being controlled by strings at any rate.So, with his cover of Joy Division coming before the encore, and Clementine and Four Minute Warning having already made an appearence, what on earth could he do to top all that for his finale? Well, a quick stroll down the chorus of Robbie's No Regrets, perhaps? Not in itself, that impressive, except when you remember that No Regrets is Robbie's song about his time in Take That, so could that mean Mark's planning on... No, he wouldn't.. would he? Damned right he would! The intro to Could it Be Magic kicks in, the crowd go wild, and we all go home happy, alhough it did briefly raise then dash our hopes that he might do a medley of Take That's greatest hits, but then, we always hope, no matter what gig we go and see, that the performer will launch into a medley of Take That's greatest hits. Invariably we're disappointed, of course, apart from the time we went to see Billy Bragg that is. It almost made up for out abject failure to get tickets for the Take That tour, but not entirely, so if anyone would like to send us a pair of tickets then, please, feel free to get in touch.
Anyway, we had a point when we started this, now what was it again? Oh yes. Here's what we learnt from this week's Top of the Pops:-
- Lovely Fearne Cotton, whose hair is now a lovely shade of ginger - sigh, etc - was joined this week by Rufus Hound. No, us neither.
- For a band who are apparently the sexy face of indie, The Strokes aren't half a bunch of ugly buggers.
- According to Charlotte Church, Even God Can't Change the Past. Neither, it seems, can Charlotte herself, which is presumably why she's releasing this insipid piece of balladry, more akin to her Voice of an Angel-esque back catalogue, as opposed to the feisty fabulousness she's been giving us recently.
- No Goodbyes, say The Subways on their latest single and, given it's complete lack of fanfare and any vague sort of attempt to imprint itself upon your memory, it's clear that "No hellos" is a rule they're strictly adhering to as well.
- Will Young's Keep On is a bit like a Daniel Bedingfield track. If Daniel was less hyperactive and more actually talented, that is. Fortunately there was no human beat-boxing from Mr Young.
- We had hoped that Nizlopi's JCB Song would sound a bit like Bob the Builder's Can We Fix It. It doesn't. It really, really doesn't.
- RETRO: The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl doing Fairytale of New York. A track that doesn't get any less lovely with each passing year. Unless, like Top of the Pops chose to, you cut it off halfway through. Grr.
- Mary J Blige is back with Be Without You, which is ironic, as we'd been quite happy being without her, so we're not quit sure why she had to spoil it by releasing another uninteresting record.
- Pussycat Dolls and Stickwitu are still at number one. Despite the song being only a few weeks old, it's getting an impressive number of nominations for our attempt to list the actual worst 100 records of all time. Remember, you've still got time to get your nominations in if you haven't already.
music tv totp mark owen
