Wednesday, October 24, 2007
What a Total Guit
Our look at Saturday’s X Factor is on its way but, as is pretty obvious and, indeed, regular, we’ve been overcome by a bout of laziness, but we have a good reason, and it’s not just that we’ve become addicted to the reruns of Whose Line is it Anyway on Dave, although that is a factor. No, instead it’s because we’ve recently got ourselves a guitar, with the sole intention of having some indie style hits. Well, we’ve heard the Enemy’s album so really, how hard can it be?
It’s a slightly bigger task than you might expect, so we’ve set ourselves the goal of learning The View‘s Same Jeans by Christmas time, after which we’ll change not a note of it, sing some slightly different words over it, claim it as an original song and we should easily get a top three hit out of it. It’s only fair, it is what they did to Cornershop‘s Brimful of Asha to get their hit, after all.
Our education is going well, though, our first song, currently entitled One Badly Played Chord is already better than anything The Pigeon Detectives have ever released. Certainly the adulation we’re receiving from our neighbours, who constantly bang on our flat’s walls in appreciation of our music, is giving us encouragement to keep going, although we do wish they’d wait until we finished playing before they offered up their applause substitute.
Giving that we now plan on living each day of our life like an international pop star, we’ve been taking an even closer interest in the charts and new release schedule than normal, and it’s safe to say that upcoming competition is pretty lacking. The biggest one is probably the new Spice Girls‘ track which is even more half arsed and unimaginative that we’d even dared to think. It’s for charity as well, so we can only feel sorry for the children in whose name this is being released.
Chico also crawled out from whatever rock he’s been lurking under to release Curvy Cola Bottle Body, a track which has caused the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary to order a mass recall of their reference work as they’re now forced to redefine the meaning of the word ‘awful’. His heart is almost in the right place, though, as this track rails against the trend towards slimming down to size 0, although it does ignore the fact that size zero doesn’t actually exist in the British sizing system, but size 4 isn’t quite as catchy a tabloid term. Unfortunately what Chico doesn’t realise is that by letting the world know that he prefers girls who are a bit curvier, every woman in the country is now desperately slimming down in the hope that they’ll never have to deal with his lecherous attentions.
We’re also not too sure about the new Girls Aloud track. But we’re sure it’ll prove to be a grower. Right? Right.
It’s a slightly bigger task than you might expect, so we’ve set ourselves the goal of learning The View‘s Same Jeans by Christmas time, after which we’ll change not a note of it, sing some slightly different words over it, claim it as an original song and we should easily get a top three hit out of it. It’s only fair, it is what they did to Cornershop‘s Brimful of Asha to get their hit, after all.
Our education is going well, though, our first song, currently entitled One Badly Played Chord is already better than anything The Pigeon Detectives have ever released. Certainly the adulation we’re receiving from our neighbours, who constantly bang on our flat’s walls in appreciation of our music, is giving us encouragement to keep going, although we do wish they’d wait until we finished playing before they offered up their applause substitute.
Giving that we now plan on living each day of our life like an international pop star, we’ve been taking an even closer interest in the charts and new release schedule than normal, and it’s safe to say that upcoming competition is pretty lacking. The biggest one is probably the new Spice Girls‘ track which is even more half arsed and unimaginative that we’d even dared to think. It’s for charity as well, so we can only feel sorry for the children in whose name this is being released.
Chico also crawled out from whatever rock he’s been lurking under to release Curvy Cola Bottle Body, a track which has caused the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary to order a mass recall of their reference work as they’re now forced to redefine the meaning of the word ‘awful’. His heart is almost in the right place, though, as this track rails against the trend towards slimming down to size 0, although it does ignore the fact that size zero doesn’t actually exist in the British sizing system, but size 4 isn’t quite as catchy a tabloid term. Unfortunately what Chico doesn’t realise is that by letting the world know that he prefers girls who are a bit curvier, every woman in the country is now desperately slimming down in the hope that they’ll never have to deal with his lecherous attentions.
We’re also not too sure about the new Girls Aloud track. But we’re sure it’ll prove to be a grower. Right? Right.
Labels: Chico, Girls Aloud, Guitar, News, Reviews, Spice Girls
Sunday, October 14, 2007
All the Zeroes
X Factor was supposed to go ‘live’ last night, but apparently the unappealing antics of a bunch of thick necked is considered to be more important. Although it is, admittedly, quite hard to think of many occasions where the X Factor would be given priority. Anyway, once it does go live, we’ll once again be bringing you our weekly look at each show’s events, although we may be somewhat hindered this year as, despite having watched all the audition and boot camp shows, we have only the vaguest idea who this year’s finalists actually are, which is a testament either to the dullards who’ve they’ve got lined up this year or the poor state of our concentration skills. Still, it’s not like our ignorance on a subject has ever stopped as having an opinion on it in the past. Indeed, it’s practically de rigueur.
Anyway, as we prepare for what will undoubtedly once again be the year’s biggest demonstration of how charisma free the nation likes its popstars to be, we’d like to give you our X Factor Bingo Card of Inevitability. Simply print off and, as the weeks go by, score off the events listed below as and when they happen and, once you get either four corners, a line or a full house, feel free to throw it away. We don't particularly care.
Anyway, as we prepare for what will undoubtedly once again be the year’s biggest demonstration of how charisma free the nation likes its popstars to be, we’d like to give you our X Factor Bingo Card of Inevitability. Simply print off and, as the weeks go by, score off the events listed below as and when they happen and, once you get either four corners, a line or a full house, feel free to throw it away. We don't particularly care.
| Sharon attempts to flirt with a male contestant in a rather uncomfortable, vomit inducing way. | Contestant declares that they “Really want it”, unaware that that reasoning didn’t wash with Santa when they were a kid and it certainly won’t wash now | Louis likens a black performer to be like a “Young Diana Ross”, regardless of who they are, how they sound or, indeed, what gender they are. | Audience boo and cheer on cue like a pack of Pavlovian dogs | Family members of contestant are in the audience wearing cheaply printed t-shirts declaring them to be part of Team Whoever as if dignity is nothing more than a passing concern for them. |
| Louis attempts to flirt with a female contestant in a rather unconvincing way | Someone spontaneously decides to do a Westlife song that just so happens to be released on the Monday after the show’s broadcast | Contestant gets chided for not stepping out of their comfort zone and playing it safe | Simon Cowell forgets where he is and calls a contestant a cunt | A special guest mentor is declared as a legend for no better reason than they’ve got a greatest hits coming out |
| Dannii Minogue sits there, looking like a spare wheel | Contestant mimes picking up the phone and sending a text message, unaware that in sign language they’ve just questioned the virtue of the viewing public’s mothers. | Contestant gets chided for stepping out of their comfort zone and cocking it up | The judges entirely spontaneously decide to throw water over each other | Contestant starts crying when Simon Cowell throws them a vague crumb of approval |
| ’Tension‘ is assumed to be the same thing as ‘Pausing‘ | The studio audience reach such an unbelievable fever pitch of excitement at the events unfolding that they’ve clearly been starved of any sort of entertainment since the age of 2 to get so much out of some vaguely competent singing. | No-one mentions Steve Brookstein. Or Kate. | Louis will labour under the delusion that people will vote for anyone, no matter how awful they might be, simply because they come from their local area | The X Factor tour will be heavily promoted early on in the series, long before the audience gets a chance to realise just how poor a night out that would be. |
| Louis and Simon bicker tediously in a manner only one step removed from saying “I know you are, but what am I?” | Any contestant with a child/death sob story/child death sob story will wheel it out at every opportunity in a cynical bid to manipulate the emotions of the audience. | Losing contestant declares that we haven’t seen the last of them, safe in the knowledge that there’s at least one week’s worth of appearances on the Xtra Factor and This Morning lined up before we get to see the last of them. | Choirs are used by Simon like an emotional Mr Muscle, reaching the parts that the contestant themselves can’t reach. | Slowly but surely, the viewing audience lose the will to live and commit suicide by swallowing the remote control and suffocating |
Labels: Bingo, TV, X Factor 2008
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Roll Titles
Is there anything more exciting than discovering what your favourite band’s latest release is going to be called?
Well, yes, clearly. Actually hearing the latest release for example, or going on a rollercoaster, or nearly getting knocked down by a motorbike, or picking away at a bit of dried up glue… the list goes on, and on. In fact, the only thing in the world that’s less exciting than discovering what your favourite band’s latest release is going to be called would be reading a list of every thing that’s more exciting than discovering what your favourite band’s latest release is going to be called, but as it’s the only news we’ve got to cover today we’ve gotta at least try and build it up.
Anyway, first to hit the - arf! - headlines are the Spice Girls, whose first single in, ooh, some years is going to be called Headlines. According to Geri, who has once again become the Girls’ de facto spokeswoman, by virtue of the fact that if anyone sticks a microphone in her general vicinity she’ll jabber away until she turns an unfetching shade of blue and collapses due to lack of oxygen. Not, of course, that lack of oxygen to the brain is generally something that Geri bothers about. And not, for that matter, that Geri requires a microphone to be in front of her to jabber nonsensically. But we digress. According to Geri, the single is “A big love song, a Spice Girls classic”, and it’s also the official single for this year’s Children in Need appeal, which means all know exactly what it’s going to sound like without even needing to hear it. If the video doesn’t feature long flowing dresses in soft focus then we’re a monkey’s uncle. And who wants to be related to Ian Brown?
Perhaps in an attempt to hint that Sunsilk isn’t all they’re claiming it is in the adverts, Girls Aloud have announced that their next album, out in the middle of November, is going to be called Tangled Up. Either that or Nicola is finally being allowed some input and has named it after the state of her favourite food, Pot Noodles. Either way we fully expect this to be the single greatest release of the year and you can look forward to our usual entirely biased, gushing and generally embarrassingly over effusive look at the album when it comes out. We may need to use a fractal representation of a star to indicate exactly how many stars we think it deserves.
Finally, assuming she doesn’t die, prolapse, or attempt to abduct her children, driving dangerously down the freeway, waving a shotgun and drinking moonshine before she has a chance to release it, Britney Spears is going to be calling her next album Blackout and not, despite what we’d been promised - in as much as the ramblings of a woman going through an alcohol enhanced breakdown on her website can be said to be a legally binding contract - OMG is Like Lindsay Lohan Like OK Like. To say we’re disappointed is an understatement. Indeed, we’ve hit such rock bottom with this news that our state will soon lead to someone calling their album OMG is Like Flum Like OK Like. Although not anyone that you’ve actually heard of. Or would actually care about. Blackout here presumably refers to the coverage Britney would prefer the tabloid media put her day to day existence of her, occasionally literally, car crash of a life under, although it possibly covers the fact that she’s suffered so many of them recently that the only way she knows what she’s been up to is thanks to the tabloid media that hounds her so. It saves her keeping a diary at any rate.
Well, yes, clearly. Actually hearing the latest release for example, or going on a rollercoaster, or nearly getting knocked down by a motorbike, or picking away at a bit of dried up glue… the list goes on, and on. In fact, the only thing in the world that’s less exciting than discovering what your favourite band’s latest release is going to be called would be reading a list of every thing that’s more exciting than discovering what your favourite band’s latest release is going to be called, but as it’s the only news we’ve got to cover today we’ve gotta at least try and build it up.
Anyway, first to hit the - arf! - headlines are the Spice Girls, whose first single in, ooh, some years is going to be called Headlines. According to Geri, who has once again become the Girls’ de facto spokeswoman, by virtue of the fact that if anyone sticks a microphone in her general vicinity she’ll jabber away until she turns an unfetching shade of blue and collapses due to lack of oxygen. Not, of course, that lack of oxygen to the brain is generally something that Geri bothers about. And not, for that matter, that Geri requires a microphone to be in front of her to jabber nonsensically. But we digress. According to Geri, the single is “A big love song, a Spice Girls classic”, and it’s also the official single for this year’s Children in Need appeal, which means all know exactly what it’s going to sound like without even needing to hear it. If the video doesn’t feature long flowing dresses in soft focus then we’re a monkey’s uncle. And who wants to be related to Ian Brown?
Perhaps in an attempt to hint that Sunsilk isn’t all they’re claiming it is in the adverts, Girls Aloud have announced that their next album, out in the middle of November, is going to be called Tangled Up. Either that or Nicola is finally being allowed some input and has named it after the state of her favourite food, Pot Noodles. Either way we fully expect this to be the single greatest release of the year and you can look forward to our usual entirely biased, gushing and generally embarrassingly over effusive look at the album when it comes out. We may need to use a fractal representation of a star to indicate exactly how many stars we think it deserves.
Finally, assuming she doesn’t die, prolapse, or attempt to abduct her children, driving dangerously down the freeway, waving a shotgun and drinking moonshine before she has a chance to release it, Britney Spears is going to be calling her next album Blackout and not, despite what we’d been promised - in as much as the ramblings of a woman going through an alcohol enhanced breakdown on her website can be said to be a legally binding contract - OMG is Like Lindsay Lohan Like OK Like. To say we’re disappointed is an understatement. Indeed, we’ve hit such rock bottom with this news that our state will soon lead to someone calling their album OMG is Like Flum Like OK Like. Although not anyone that you’ve actually heard of. Or would actually care about. Blackout here presumably refers to the coverage Britney would prefer the tabloid media put her day to day existence of her, occasionally literally, car crash of a life under, although it possibly covers the fact that she’s suffered so many of them recently that the only way she knows what she’s been up to is thanks to the tabloid media that hounds her so. It saves her keeping a diary at any rate.
Labels: britney spears, Girls Aloud, News, Spice Girls
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The A to Z of Nicola Roberts
It’s Nicola Roberts birthday tomorrow! Not, of course, that you’d know this from the official Girls Aloud calendar, where they’ve listed this momentous, historic date as Cheryl‘s birthday. How rude! And if we were Cheryl we wouldn’t be in quite so much of a rush to be ageing so quickly. Anyway, we’re going out to celebrate tomorrow but not before we mark the occasion by scraping the barrel of our already exhausted stock of material and presenting The A to Z of Nicola Roberts:-
- A is for Articulate. Which she may or may not be. We never get a chance to find out. She could be articulated for all we know.
- B is for Background. Which is normally where you’ll find her lurking.
- C is for Carefully. Which is how you have to listen if you want to hear the contributions she’s made to their albums.
- D is for David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Whose near hit Ginger must be Nicola’s debut solo single.
- E is for Elfin. Of which Nicola’s features are comparable. And in the sense that with the lack of reported sightings of her, many people consider her to be equally as mythical.
- F is for Five. The number of members in the band. Not Four, as some people seem to believe. Although in a very real sense there are zero members in the band.
- G is for Ginger. The natural, default state of Nicola’s hair, although the natural, default state of Nicola seems to involve doing her level best to disguise it.
- H is for Happiness. An emotion Nicola isn’t famed for expressing.
- I is for Inspired. Which the decision to let Nicola have lead vocals in their cover of Teenage Dirtbag certainly was.
- J is for Jail Bait. Thankfully Nicola is now well into her twenties.
- K is for Kitty Cat. Please do not give Nicola a gift wrapped kitty-cat as a present. Not only does it distress the animal, but also Nic already has umpteen of these and has taken to throwing them straight in the bin, unopened.
- L is for Lead Vocals. Even though Lead Balloon is a slightly more common occurrence in this world.
- M is for Magazine Articles. Nicola loves doing these. Sorry, ‘reading’, not doing, reading.
- N is for No, No, No. Not only part of the title of Girls Aloud’s most recent single, but also the response she gets whenever she suggests having a more prominent role in photoshoots.
- O is for Outside. Which, judging by her paleness, Nicola doesn’t get to see a lot of, which adds credence to our theory that the other girls are evil and keep her in a box.
- P is for Poor Lighting. Occasionally employed by photographers taking solo shots of Nicola, which we assume is because she would otherwise outshine the other girls so much it’d be embarrassing for them.
- Q is for Quick. Which you have to be if you want to catch a glimpse of her in the band’s early videos.
- R is for Rude Ginger Bitch. Botherd.
- S is for Sarah. One of Nicola’s bandmates. It is definitely for Solo Lines.
- T is for Token. Which her presence occasionally feels like.
- U is for Underwear. Often used for hanging around the kitchen in. Mainly because Nic hasn’t been told where the photoshoot is so is doing her own anyway.
- V is for Vital. Because Nicola is vital to the band, it is also for her vital statistics, which are impressive.
- W is for Wedding. Nicola is apparently planning for hers, which some readers have e-mailed us to offer their condolences for, but we don’t mind. She can plan it as much as she wants. It’s the actual having of such an event which would upset us.
- X is for Xylophone. She sometimes gets given one to play with during recording sessions. It keeps her busy while the other girls are recording their vocals.
- Y is for Yes she is!. Which we find ourselves forced to utter after we tell people she’s our favourite member.
- Z is for Zebra. Nicola would never wear Zebra skin, but would look good in faux zebra shoes.
Labels: A to Z, Girls Aloud, Nicola Roberts
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Thought for the Day
Just exactly how bad a mother do you have to be when Kevin Federline is considered to be a more responsible and suitable parent than you are? It's like weighing up all the options and deciding that you'd get the best medical care by appointing Harold Shipman as your local GP.
Labels: britney spears
Monday, October 01, 2007
News Round Round
The Sugababes have just scored their second number one with About You Now, surprisingly beating off Shayne Ward to claim the top spot, the surprise being that few people either knew or, indeed, cared that Shayne actually had a new single out.
We weren’t sure about their new track the first time we heard it, but its turned out to be one hell of a grower and, after repeated listens, we know how we feel about it now. Arf. It’s a catchy slice of harmonious pop, which is quite ironic given that harmony is generally the last thing that springs to mind when you think of the ‘Babes, second only to “Hit with the ugly stick” in its lack of relevance to their day to day existence.
In other music news Radiohead have announced that anyone who wants to buy their latest album - In Rainbows, a collection of unique interpretations of the songs of Rod, Jane and Freddy, available on the 10th Oct - will get to choose how much they want to pay for it, although it’s not yet been made clear whether you decide on its value before or after you actually listen to the thing. It’ll be interesting if this sort of pricing scheme - although can a lack of one really be called a scheme? - takes off, even if a lot of bands might suddenly find themselves bankrupt as many people start to cash in on the “I would only listen to X if you actually paid me to” policy. Gym Class Heroes, we’re looking at you here.
Also finding out how much people are willing to pay for their product, albeit via the medium of eBay and ticket touts, rather than the slightly more honest method which Radiohead are employing are the Spice Girls whose London gig sold out in just 38 seconds, and might have done so even quicker had they actually bothered e-mailing everyone that registered, like us, for example, whose inbox contains no news of how to apply for tickets, just news of roughly two billions pounds worth of prizes that we’ve won in lotteries we haven’t even entered and a surprising number of people who seem to believe that we’re in need of both penis and breast enlargement. Not that we really wanted to go to the gig anyway, as we’ve already said we think it’ll just be a bit of an embarrassment, dripping with irony and “Gosh, what were we like!” style japery, but it would have nice to have been able to confirm this first hand, rather than having to waiting for Victoria Newton to do so.
We weren’t sure about their new track the first time we heard it, but its turned out to be one hell of a grower and, after repeated listens, we know how we feel about it now. Arf. It’s a catchy slice of harmonious pop, which is quite ironic given that harmony is generally the last thing that springs to mind when you think of the ‘Babes, second only to “Hit with the ugly stick” in its lack of relevance to their day to day existence.
In other music news Radiohead have announced that anyone who wants to buy their latest album - In Rainbows, a collection of unique interpretations of the songs of Rod, Jane and Freddy, available on the 10th Oct - will get to choose how much they want to pay for it, although it’s not yet been made clear whether you decide on its value before or after you actually listen to the thing. It’ll be interesting if this sort of pricing scheme - although can a lack of one really be called a scheme? - takes off, even if a lot of bands might suddenly find themselves bankrupt as many people start to cash in on the “I would only listen to X if you actually paid me to” policy. Gym Class Heroes, we’re looking at you here.
Also finding out how much people are willing to pay for their product, albeit via the medium of eBay and ticket touts, rather than the slightly more honest method which Radiohead are employing are the Spice Girls whose London gig sold out in just 38 seconds, and might have done so even quicker had they actually bothered e-mailing everyone that registered, like us, for example, whose inbox contains no news of how to apply for tickets, just news of roughly two billions pounds worth of prizes that we’ve won in lotteries we haven’t even entered and a surprising number of people who seem to believe that we’re in need of both penis and breast enlargement. Not that we really wanted to go to the gig anyway, as we’ve already said we think it’ll just be a bit of an embarrassment, dripping with irony and “Gosh, what were we like!” style japery, but it would have nice to have been able to confirm this first hand, rather than having to waiting for Victoria Newton to do so.
Labels: News, Radiohead, Spice Girls, Sugababes
