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Saturdays and Strange Ways

Somehow or other, The Saturdays have managed to overcome at least half a dozen reasons why they should have flopped and will be 'crashing' into the top 10 this weekend. Let's have a look at how this has been achieved, and why it shouldn't have, everything considered.

1) They are a manufactured girlband.
Bear in mind that there has not been a successful British 'traditional girl group' launch in half a decade. Also bear in mind that of the last three major UK girl groups to be launched, The Saturdays seem a bit too old fashioned and safe, compared to the Sugababes (sullen teenagers who looked like they'd rather be shoplifting Max Factor in Superdrug than having a pop career), The Spice Girls (council estate girls done good) or Girls Aloud (council estate girls done better). hair done perfectly, matching clothes, cute dance routines. I'm not saying Overload was a call to arms for a generation sick of identikit pop groups or owt, but there was some sense of rebellion there. For a better comparison, look at the video for Wannabe, then the video for If This Is Love. Wannabe sets it's stall out, and tells the viewer who their protagonists are, and why you should give a rat's ass. Admittedly, we're in more cynical times, and a video where five girls go around terrifying residents of a hotel would either be seen as a lazy attempt to connect to an easily manipulated audience or (if you're a Daily Mail reader) a terrifying snippet of violent youff culture, akin to Justice's Stress clip or something. Look at the If This Is Love video though. What to The Saturdays do? They get their hair and make-up done. They walk down a corridor like they're about to get kicked out of America's Next Top Model. They perform in a shop window for their adoring fans/unwashed masses. All you need is for Alexa cunting Chung to turn up, and the whole thing could just be a special section of Gok's Fashion Fix. Oh look, they got their whole outfits for under £50 each. Wannabe encouraged the viewer to take part, join a gang. Not a literal gang. I'm not making another Daily Mail reference this early in. If This Is Love tells them to keep on watching.

2. They supported Girls Aloud
OK, so we're on the same label as Girls Aloud. There's five of us, like Girls Aloud. How do we mark ourselves out from other existing girlbands? Supporting Girls Aloud, obviously.
Joking aside, the GA's track record for support-act success is not great. Poor Frank delivered a solid album with a few great songs that literally sold less than 1000 copies. Rogue Traders couldn't quite, ahem, trade in on having their biggest song used on the BBC's most successful drama. And Billiam have half a dozen fans who spend the week one of their singles comes out going around the country, buying it on their extended family's iTunes. The Saturdays used to the exposure as well as they could have had, getting people interested without street teaming them with all the subtlety of a North Korean firing squad. It's easier to get people to like if they don't think they're being forced into it.

3. The song is a 7/10, max.
Right, I appreciate that i'm saying this in a week that Kid Rock may get a number one single, but the track ain't all that. It's got a decent Yazoo sample, alright verses (not as bland as some would have you believe) and a fairly amazing chorus. But there's nothing remarkably interesting about it, and it doesn't quite have the pull that something like I Kissed A Girl does. I've accepted I Kissed A Girl now, btw. In the same way a terminal cancer patient accepts the last few weeks will be their last and just tries to get on with it. Anyway, back to The Saturdays. I'm fairly confident that if Girls Aloud released this, it would be one of their lowest selling singles. They wouldn't release it, the chorus sounds too needy. Maybe that's what The Saturdays' USP is. Needy electro-pop. Well, whatever. It's quite lovely to have a new pop band in the charts, and even lovelier that they aren't totally shit and incompetent. It's made me quite hopeful that Little Boots might just be rewarded the Queen of British Pop 2008 award that she so badly deserves. Just a little bit, anyway.

Oh, and by the way, if you wanted to know how The Saturdays managed to overcome every obstacle, here's the secret:


Simple as, right?

People ain't no good: Big Brother 2008

You have to hand it to Big Brother for doing what very few British shows can do nowadays. It gets people massively obsessed. It goes beyond being water-cooler TV (a terrible term, but there's no UK equivalent, as whoever coined it clearly underestimated our demand for cold water) like the Apprentice. In it's ninth (NINTH!?! This means I was ten when it started. How terrible.) year, there's still people watching the nightly shows, the seven million spin-offs (coming soon- Big Brother's Big Crotch: what the housemate's genitals say about them), and the live feed. For thousands, hearing birdsong on a summer's day doesn't mean you're having a lovely day out, it means that some twat just said 'fuck' at 3pm, and E4 don't want their, frankly, insane viewers to be offended.

The most obvious sign of what a 'cultural phenomenon' BB is can be seen on Digital Spy. For those of you unfamiliar with the entertainment news site/FamousMales offshoot, for 3 months a year they go whacko for Big Brother. Every news story, no matter how trivial, is reported and given more space than, say, the death of Antony Minghella. Let's put that in perspective, in terms of how much coverage a story receives, the death of an award winning filmmaker, behind some of the most loved pictures of the last few decades, is deemed as important as Barry and Jen having a row about whether they want mushroom or tomato soup. And to top it off, there's the constant live news feed, with such highlights as '01:27: Dale is trying to make porridge with water and enlists Alexandra to help him. She says it's "rank"' or '23:17: Lisa and Mario are lying on the sofa talking about the birthday surprise earlier. Darnell is talking to Dennis about chicken and cooking.' There's so much coverage, so much pointless, useless, ultimately meaningless information to take in. It's become less a TV show and more of a grueling endurance test designed to find out how much irrelevant trivia one person can absorb before their brains start to dribble out of their nostrils.

To be fair to Endemol, this year's housemates at least seem like they're an interesting bunch. Among the least punchable are toy demonstrator Mohamed, whose key reason for wanting to enter the house was to show that not everyone called Mohamed is a suicide bomber. I'm sure that in week 6 when you get so hammered off White Strike that you end up plunging your face into Rebecca's bosom, you'll still be considered a great spokesperson for Muslims everywhere. And there's massage therapist Kathreya, whose dreams don't extend far beyond her next box of cookies, but doesn't seem to have a cynical bone in her body, which is nice when all the other contestants are talking about previous series and how they're planning to 'play the game'.

The ones who you'd gladly push through a blender than spend five minutes in their company include walking Gaydar profile Dennis, a cross between Perez Hilton and an accident in a Cuprinol factory, who seems to scream and bitch, but not much in between. He's the kind of person you almost wish was molested as a child, just so he'd have some kind of justification for his strange, vile behaviour. There's also Rebecca, who, upon entering the house saw her fight against millions of years of human evolution and revert to a series of excitable yelps and odd high pitched noises that made little sense, if any.

The rest are a mixed bunch- not outstandingly likeable, but not obviously smackable either. They're humans, basically. And whether, for the ninth year in a row, people being people is enough to keep viewers watching is still to be seen. Whether it's worth using up three months of nightly airtime on sixteen people in a house rather than airing US shows like The Wire, or home-grown productions like Boy A is up to Channel 4. But figures talk, and everyone's got bills to pay, right?

Lost in the plot

If you've never seen this before, try it now. Stare at the four dots in the middle of the picture for about 30 seconds, then tilt your head back with your eyes closed.
See, like everything in life you're ever instructed to do, this seems like an enormous chore now. The 30 seconds of staring are now equal to some Herculean feat of endurance. Think about what you could be doing. You could have gone for a really, really quick wank. Started your epic novel. Watched at least four Youtube clips of people pissing on children's birthday cakes. By the time you can finally find out what it's really all about, you'll have probably tried to plug yourself into the mains through sheer desperation. That's some indication as to how most Lost viewers, myself included, felt halfway through the third series.

The problem with any US drama, especially one that's as serialised as Lost is, is that they just keep bloody going. Shows like House, Criminal Minds and the several hundred CSI series'* are gold for the networks because they're formulaic, so don't need brand new sets every episode, and each episode stands well on it's own, so can be repeated over and over until humans become so used to sitting and watching crime procedurals all day long that when people try to go out and buy milk, their brains are unable to handle there not being a murder, so shut down through pure disbelief. (*CSI: Aldershot is currently in the early stages of production for ITV. David Westhead will play the no nonsense boss with a dark past and 50 miles of rural farmland he isn't really sure what to do with)

Even The X Files and Buffy, other shows with reams of mythology and back-story, can be generally be dipped into due to their 'monster of the week' formula. 'FBI agents solve spooky mysteries', 'teenage girl fights demons'. Pick an episode from season three or four of Lost at random, and you'd have a hard time getting a newcomer to understand what's going on just by describing it as a show 'about people stuck on an island'. You'd have an easier time starting someone three-quarters of the way through Crime and Punishment and telling them it's about 'this guy being a bit of a bastard'. There's so much back-story to get through in Lost, because that's essentially what the first three seasons were. To the point that a lot of the casual viewers were tired of staring at the four tiny dots, so went to watch Criminal Minds instead. But in the third season finale, Lindelof and Cuse did what nobody expected- they closed our eyes and shoved our head back, and suddenly the big picture started to become clear.

Season four of Lost has been as daft as ever, but rarely less that magnificent. The pace has gone from meandering to racing- a filler plot two years ago would have been Hurley building a golf course. Now, it's Jack having his appendix removed, whilst Jim Robinson's army comes to murder anyone whose name isn't after the opening titles. The flashbacks, which often felt like filler for the first three years, suddenly became an essential part of the show- hinting at what was going to happen, raising more questions, and occasionally, finally bloody answering some. We learnt that time travel is possible as long as you're a rabbit or have an increasingly puzzling Irish accent. And that Jack's dad is dead, but still has a living physical form. Possibly. Well, he can pick up babies, which a large amount of dead folks can't. Which is why they make rotten childminders.

A special mention has to go to Michael Emerson, who has been the highlight of the show this year. I wasn't too sure about Ben at first, he felt too much like a sleazy secondary villain who we'd be stuck with until the real baddie came along. Emerson's turned him into a fantastically complex anti-hero, who'll sweetly share a chocolate bar with Hurley, then condemn half the cast to being blown to buggery so he could avenge his daughter. One of the main questions that this season's brought up is whether Ben is a villain after all. After seeing what Jim Robinson can do, he could well be the lesser of two evils.

Mainly, season four will be remembered as the season that Lost changed it's game. It's no longer setting up and drip feeding answers that lead to more questions, there's genuine resolution going on. An ending was set up- 6 of them get off the island- and the rest of the season dealt with how, what happened and what the consequences were. Now that season five's aim has been made clear- they all need to go back to the island (and not in the same way the Vengaboys did), all that we have to do is wait. Six months. Oh shit. Of all the answers that Lost gave us in season four, the best thing is that they were never the easy ones. Which means that in two years time, when it's all over, the last episode won't end with a 'ZOMG THEY'RE REALLY ALL DEAD' moment. It'd be a crass, insulting way to finsh a series which respects the intelligence, loyalty and, let's face it, endurance of the viewer. It would make about as much sense as having some old soap actor be your big bad. Oh...

For the record, I don't think that Alan Dale is just some old soap actor. He's also one of the few people who can say 'John Barrowman shot in my face' and not have it be a terrible, scarring experience.

Sell-out special #1

In lieu of any actual content today, here's some MP3s of lovely songs. If you like them, buy the albums, yeah?

Zeitgeist- Tar Heart
Not loving the album yet. Imagine The Knife, but poppier and less rigid, and that'll go some way to describing this. Sounds a lot like Running Up That Hill. If that's a bad thing, i'm not sure I want to be alive anymore.
Album- 6/10

Alphabeat- What Is Happening?
From their predictably amazing debut (original Danish version, so whether it's been reswizzled for the UK release, i do not know), it's like The Arcade Fire writing a grand finale for an amateur musical.
Album- 8/10

Santogold- You'll Find A Way
Quite why nothing on the album is as good as Ay Ay Ay is something of a mystery. But yes, this is quite nice in a Blondie-meets-The Police sort of way. The middle-8 is fucking terrible though.
Album- 6/10

Three is a lovely number so i'll leave it there.

Chart Prediction Fun- Week Four: The Drums. The Drums. The Drums. The bloody Drums.

Only four songs this week, which is odd. Next week is hella busy, and we FINALLY get that Ashlee Simpson song. Seven words I never expected to write right there.

The Pigeon Detectives- This Is An Emergency
I wrote a rambling drunken comment on the Twisted Ear forums the other week about how Jay-Z at Glastonbury won't work, not because he's black or a rapper, but because "indie kids like big, stupid choruses as much as Hannah Montana fans". I'd like to think that This Is An Emergency isn't just more slightly catchy, but ultimately forgettable 'Now That's What I Call 2008 Indie' B-side fodder, but The Pigeon Detectives getting it. Realising that nobody cares how competent they are at playing guitar, or how curly their hair is- it's all smoke and mirrors for people who need something to sing along to, to shout and pretend it applies directly to their life, but don't want to hear it from a 'fake' band or someone with a vagina. So, another unremarkable middling guitar band from a city full of unremarkable middling guitar bands write a song that's actually a parody of the kind of track that gives these groups number one albums, but all the time knowing that the height of their career (pre-debut buzz) is over. Or maybe it's just that they don't know how to write anything else, and big stupid choruses are easier than, say, clever melodies or whatever. I've been listening to a lot of Buckingham-era Mac recently, and wondered why no modern rock band has made their Tusk. I guess it's because no modern band has made their Rumours. Or maybe i'm just being a bit Sandi Thom about the whole thing. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Chart prediction: Top 20

Hot Chip- One Pure Thought
Oh Hot Chip, why can't i love you? Why does the 'monkey with a miniature cymbal' line from Over and Over just make me go all cringey? And why can't i listen to anything by you and not think you're little more than a Happy Shopper LCD Soundsystem? Having already discussed the merits of Lindsey Buckingham, i'm veering dangerously towards 'male music fan' syndrome here, but do they have to sound so fucking reserved all the time? Have you ever noticed there's no climax, no resolution in any of their tracks? They always just go along, not sure what to do with themselves and only ending when someone remembers to press the fade out button. As is life, etc etc. Ho hum.
Chart prediction: 40-35

David Jordan- Move On
Interesting fact for fans of youtube tagging MAYHEM, this is tagged as 'Rihanna'. Y'know, if he tagged it a 'barely' and 'legal', he would probably get more views. Anyway, poor David Jordan. Ladyboy cheekbones, hair like Wanda Sykes, and that one dance move where he punches the camera but LOL NOT REALLY. The video looks like an advert for a mobile phone that plays music. I've not much more to say on this really.
Chart prediction: 75-60

The Ting Tings- That's Not My Name
Shouldn't like it. Should not like it. Again, it's the whole ethos of something deliberately stupid being rendered respectable and brilliant because it's done by people who play their own instruments. Like the Pigeon Detectives, but worse, much worse because this is almost out and out plagiarism. Seeing as Mickey features the second best use of a cheerleader chant in pop history, there's far worse places to nick from. And you get the feeling that unlike The Pigeon Detectives, The Ting Tings have never tried to cover Bob Dylan. Digital Spy said this could be number one. It doesn't sound like a number one record. But neither did Duffy. Or Estelle. Or Scooter. Get ready for Joanna Newsom's record breaking 11 week number one streak in 2009.
Chart prediction: Number 2.

Singles wotsit- Week Three: There Is Not One

Due to the fact that I am dealing with 70 wedding guests tomorrow night until 2AM, and 6000 screaming children and their overbearing parents on Sunday*, I can't predict where the singles will end up this week. Madonna ftw is your best bet though.

*This makes my life sound a lot more interesting than it actually is. Normally, it's just old people who complain their tea isn't hot enough.

Chart Prediction Fun- Week Two: The Week Of Horns

Adele- Cold Shoulder
Stringier than most of Ronson's productions, presumably because Madonna was borrowing all the trumpets this week. I've still got an awful lot of residual affection from Hometown Glory, so maybe I'm a bit biased when I say it's by no means the least crappy single of the week. But if Adele wants to maintain the whole 'nu-soul diva' hype, she's going to need something a little more showstopping than this. The video is a bit meh too. Ice statues, Adele shot a flattering, well lit angles. It would be wise to attempt a Rihanna-style work rate until she becomes relevent again.
Chart prediction: 15-20

The Wombats- Backfire at the Disco
A bit of light indie misogyny for a Sunday afternoon. Look kids, they're like you! They go to 'discos'! (read: indie shitholes with unisex toilets and barmen with £65 haircuts) They try to have sex with people! They have crazy, kooky band names! What a load of cunts. Hopefully, Los Campesinos' "four sweaty boys with guitars say nothing about my life' comment will go down as the defining statement of this decade's music scene. The video is a total shitshow too. Oh, they can play guitar. Colour me fucking impressed.
Chart prediction: 20-30

The Feeling- Without You
Crikey, this is a bit 'Magic FM', even by The Feeling's standards. And how long has Dan-thingy-wotsit had that strange country-esque accent? As songs about American tragedies go, it owns Alan Jackson's 9/11 schmaltzfest, at least. The bit that rhymes 'gunman' with 'London' actually had me reaching for the sick bucket. And does he not know that most mobile phones can tell you what time it is anywhere in the world? Seeing as it's about three months to late to cash in on the tragedy, and it is generally quite a shit song, this is an odd choice for single, don'tcha think?
Chart prediction: 15-20

The Hoosiers- Cops and Robbers
Why does everything that The Hoosiers release sound like the set up for a dramatic scene in some amateurishly written musical? Maybe it's because all their songs sound the same anyway, I dunno. In the current piano-MOR scene, The Hoosiers are Steps to The Feeling's Spice Girls, right? Obviously a bit shit, but they know that, and don't really mind, and it's all just a bit of fun, etc etc. Scouting For Girls are Scooch, obviously. So, yes, it's rubbish, but The Hoosiers are easily one of the least hateable bands around these days (even though the singer looks like a children's entertainer), and if that can be considered an endorsement, then do.
Chart prediction: 10-15

Madonna- 4 Minutes
I'm still not sure how I feel about this at all. It sounds HUGE. But it spends so much time sounding HUGE that it forgets to go anywhere, really. And like a lot of Timbaland productions, it's all chorus, and not much tune. But SexyBack made Metal Machine Music sound positively melodic, so it's hard to complain about that. I just wish Madonna would a) stop writing all her own lyrics, and b) realise that she doesn't need to follow trends, and concentrate on making a record as amazing as Ray Of Light. It's looking increasingly likely that she never will.
Chart prediction: Number 1

My eyes, my eyes

Congratulations, Closer, you've put the entire population of Britain off food and women forever. The country will be full of anorexic bummers. So, it'll be G-A-Y, but bigger, really.

Chart Prediction Fun- Week One: The Week That Kind of Rhymed

Right folks, seeing as how actually reviewing singles seems so...formal, I thought it'd be more fun to just write a bit about them and then predict where they'll end up in the charts. The charts, as in the Top 40. Not the download charts, or airplay charts or whatever else is more 'important' these days, yeah? Okay.

Jack Johnson- Hope
Presumably shortened from the original title 'Hope (to God it Ends Soon Or I'm Reaching For The Cyanide)'. It's wallpaper, innit? Dinner party music for people who think Norah Jones is a bit too sonically dynamic. That's not a diss at Norah Jones, by the way, she's ace. There's absolutely no effort put in here, i mean all of his tracks sound like the last thing Johnson and 'the band' recorded at the end of the day a self satisfied pat on the back, drinks all round, but this is exceptionally lazy, even by his standards. You can imagine it being described as 'just something we came up with when we were jamming'. Urgh
Chart prediction- 30-40

Akon- I Can't Wait
Okay, hands up who knew T-Pain could play piano? This is a weird one, it sounds like a minute long intro to another track, but stretched out over a full song. Given the right context (The Sweet Escape, essentially), Akon's voice isn't entirely unpleasant. And T-Pain does all he can to help along with Autotune, but there's still something unnerving about a dude who had a song about people put their arses on the floor or whatever, trying to be all romantic. It's all a bit...rapey.
Chart prediction- 20-30

September- Cry For You
One of those big gay dance songs that Radio 1 playlists roughly 6 months after it becomes popular. There's a shiny penny for whoever can tell me what other dance song that main hook is taken from, 'cos it's really bloody bugging me. It's de rigeur to compare every popular/dancey Scandinavian popstress to Robyn (because, let's be honest, there's not that many other reference points in the British charts, really), but this is probably too big 'n' stupid to give her the longer term success that the Robyn album has had. Infernal learnt this the hard way, and they had at least four amazing tracks on theirs.
Chart prediction- top 5

Keyshia Cole- Let It Go
The video for this is amazing. Keyshia gets pwned by Missy Elliott at the start in a way no one has since Lil' Mama got told how to wear lip gloss by, erm, Big Mama(?). The song is sweet in a very nondescript way, and talks about 'loving the right way', which is presumably about bumming. Which is nice, because we've not had a good bumming song in the charts since Rachel Stevens let indie boys in her back door. The bit where Missy pronounces 'damn' with roughly eighteen 'y's is good too. That's about it really.
Chart prediction- 30-20

Goldfrapp- Happiness
Maybe it's because A&E seems to last all of 30 seconds, and then you have to put it on repeat for the next two hours, but this goes on for quite some time, doesn't it? Personally, i'd have gone with Caravan Girl or Little Bird as the next single from Seventh Tree, but I don't work at Mute, so there you go (to be honest, this is probably a good thing, since Mute are part of EMI, and i would probably be unemployed at this point). Hands down the best use of 'bom-ba-bom's in a song this year. Is there much higher praise than that?
Chart prediction- 10-15

The Last Shadow Puppets- The Age of the Understatement
'Galloping' would probably be the best word to describe this. More grandiose, but at the same time more subtle than any of the Arctic Monkey's output, it's probably not aimed for the bored teen NME set, but that's not really a problem. I hope Alex Turner's happy that he's doomed us to Reverend and the Maker's inevitable side-project with the singer from Milburn, featuring whoever does strings for Razorlight.
Chart prediction- top 10

Britney Spears- Break The Ice
It's depressing that Britney's best record (and the second best pop album of 2007) is doomed to be 'that one with the crap cover she did when she went mental'. Like everything on Blackout, Break The Ice is fucking brilliant- catchy, well produced, autotuned to within an inch of it's life and with enough batshit moments (the cat shriek sounds?) to keep it interesting. The video looks like someone with too much Hello Kitty! merchandise made it for Youtube, but we can let that one slide, given the circumstances, i think. The girl done good, again.
Chart prediction- 20-25

Mrs. Oh My God those Brits are heinous- The Brits 2008

2007 was a hell of a year for music, wasn’t it? M.I.A., LCD Soundsystem, Robyn, Patrick Wolf, Britney, Jens Lekman, Miranda Lambert, etc, etc. Well, forget all that old shit, because it’s time for The Brits 2008. If you think this is exciting, it’s going to be nothing compared to The Hoosiers sweeping the board next year. Anyway, here goes…

7.55- Matt Willis’ girlfriend said that the Brits were going live now, but Corrie is still on. If the writers think Anthony Cotton’s getting any sympathy whatsoever, they must be fucking joking.

8.00- For the second year in a row, it’s live! There’s skulls and stuff. Clearly they’ve stolen tonight’s theme from the artwork off Avril Lavigne’s last album. Mika’s the first act on. Fair dos, he’s not had an entirely unsuccessful year, but he really is fucking shit, isn’t he? There’s a good reason jingle writers rarely beak into the pop scene. Love Today should be soundtracking images of Findus Crispy Pancakes, not opening the biggest UK pop ceremony of the year.

8.01- Beth Ditto is in the building. You can tell because everyone’s drinks are trembling like in Jurassic Park. Standing In The Way of Control loses its lustre once you take the fit, naked teens away. They’re going to do bloody Big Girl, aren’t they?

8.03- Oh, he’s doing Grace Kelly. Slightly better, but not much. When all of your songs sound the same, a megamix is generally quite easy to do. He ends it on a big guitar breakdown, cos he’s rock and fucking roll. We get the popstars we deserve.

8.05- The Osbournes are presenting. The Brits are usually at least three years behind major trends, but, really? Wasn’t Anne Robinson available? I hear that Weakest link show is quite the hit nowadays.

8.07- Chris Moyles, who should really be writing for Nuts, not controlling the nation’s music tastes is giving out the first award, Best Live Act. Take That should walk this, just for Ricky Wilson’s reaction if they do. They do, but there’s no ‘real live band’ reaction shock, which is a shame. Anyone who thinks they don’t deserve this, bear in mind they spend 40 nights a year dealing with thousands of 30-something women who've had one too many Lambruscos, and would love to take home a piece of the group's clothing. There's prisoners of war that have dealt with less.

8.12- Rihanna and the Klaxons are on. This will either be really good, or absolutely shit. I’m slightly worried about Rihanna, she seems to be dressed up as Remi Nicole. The mix of Golden Skans and Umbrella isn’t going to give Richard X any sleepless nights, but it’s still going to end up as the night’s best performance. Probably.

8.16- Hooray! Fearne Cotton’s back! She’s got one of those reflector jackets on, so a truck won’t mow her down on the way home. Shame, that. There’s still time to vote in the British Single category. It’s going to be Leona either way, but whatevs. Fearne is actually on the verge of fellating Take That’s award.

8.22- Adele’s won the Critic’s Choice award, something brand new and meaningless for 2008. Isn’t it good that we’ve got some great, non-reality acts in the charts? Funny how they’re all coming out of the Brits School, isn’t it? Duffy’s way better, anyway, even with her old lady vocal stylings. The Brits obviously just hate the Welsh. When was the last time you saw Goldie Lookin’ Chain at the Brits? Exactly.

8.26- British Breakthrough Act time. What’s the betting Adele will win this next year? God, Sharon Osbourne should never try to be sexy, ever. Mika’s won, and celebrates with some weird tribal call. Come on Mika, tell us whether you’re straight or gay. We’re simply dying to know.

8.30- Apparantly Kylie’s only been making pop since the 90’s. This seems odd, Kelly Osbourne should be well informed about 80’s music. It’s where she nicked most of her songs for, anyway. Kylie’s doing Wow, a track which sounds like Kylie doing an impression of Kylie. Although she probably asked for the dancers to be Daft Punk-y, they ended up looking like gayed up Securicor guards.

8.33- Mika plans to take a holiday for a few weeks. Darfur is nice this time of year.

8.39: QUESTION! It’s Kelly fucking Rowland! Best international male is up next. Kanye West should get this one, if we’re running by X-Factor rules. HIS. MUM. IS. DEAD, you see. He does win, and he’s talking. And not saying much at all, really.

8.42: Oh, Beth Ditto, fuck the fuck off. She’s wearing the Evans version of the dress Leona had in the Bleeding Love video. Oh, there’s actually an award here. If Mika wins this one, with Beth Ditto on the stage, I’m actually going to be reaching for the sick bucket. Mark Ronson’s won. He’s starstruck by Beth Ditto. His standards are obviously lower than his quality control over what he releases.

8.46: Apparently, the Kaiser Chiefs actually believe that Ruby is the best single of the year. It’s not even the best song of last year on Guitar Hero 3. Earlier, their set was described as the weirdest ever. It looks like it’s from that episode of Arrested Development with the Japanese investors.

8.50: There’s still still time to vote in the Best British Single category. The Hoosiers are nominated. Who’d have thought that in 2007, the future of pop would sound something like an ELO tribute band?

8.55: OMG, Pushing Daises advert. Watch it, watch it, WATCH IT.

8.56: Sharon Osbourne is now doing her tribute to Morticia Addams. Best International Female time. I think I’m actually in love with Feist, but that’s another story. Kylie has won, despite the fact that X is patchy as owt. There’s a huge elephant in the room, but no one’s going to address it because it’s impossible to bitch about Kylie without sounding like a total cunt.

9.00- Right, it’s Leona’s turn to perform. She’s still bleeding, still, still bleeding love.

9.04- The Best International Group is next, and Foo Fighters will win it because they always do. As a side note, the Kings Of Leon’s Glasto performance will be interesting this year. Are they going to do a Bassey, and run out of songs halfway through, so just do The Bucket twice?

9.07- In this day and age, is there anyone who still cares about James Nesbitt? Best British Female now. It’s obviously going to be Bats For Lashes or PJ Harvey, isn’t it? Shit the bed, Kate Nash won. On the positive side, she looks lovely and indie. On the negative, perhaps she should learn to write pop songs rather than a couple of catchy bits coupled with lyrics about ‘real life and shit’. Also, the second Brits School graduate who won an award tonight. I’m calling shenanigans.

9.11- Best International Album will be the Foo Fighters too. It fucking is. Dave Grohl is ripping on Shakespeare’s Sister. He can fuck right off, Stay is ace, and so is You’re History, to a lesser extent.

9.13- Adele and Mark Ronson do a Coldplay cover. It’s about as gripping as KY jelly. And anyone who wanted to know what the bloke who sings on his Smiths cover looked like is in luck. Anyone else, meh. Ronson’s talented, but that he gets a hugely hyped up performance whilst Brian Higgins doesn’t even get so much as a Xenomaniamania ITV2 special is a little bit shit, really.

9.16- Amy Winehouse is on stage, which would feel like a big pop moment, if she hadn’t have done just fine at the Grammys about a week ago. It was more fun last year when she was just a loveable alcoholic, wasn’t it? Her beehive was better then, too.

9.23- Best Group, and Girls Aloud are nominated, but won’t win. Yep, Girls Aloud didn’t win, but the Arctic Monkeys did, so it could have gone much, much worse. The Tangled Up for the Mercury Prize 2008 campaign starts here.

9.28- Winehouse is back on, doing the same song she did at the Mercury ceremony last year. She gives a shout out to Blake, which the audience fucking loves. ITV are endorsing criminal activity! Call Ofcom!

9.31- Alan Carr is here to present the Best British Single, which should shut Fearne up until next year. Take That won, which tells you something about the power of having a huge female fanbase who each have 500 free texts a month to waste. Mark Owen is dressed as that mental doctor who cuts up dead bodies on Channel 4.

9.35- Vic Reeves seems to be pulling a Joss Stone (not literally, but let's be honest, it wouldn't take much, would it?). What is it about the Brit awards that turns people into total wankers? The Arctic Monkeys win again. Are the next few years going to be nothing but Take That and the Arctic Monkeys? The Arctic Monkeys are rather tipsy, and are causing ‘anarchy’. Get on the NME website tomorrow to see the words ‘total fucking legends’ to be written roughly 3000 times.

9.43- Sir Paul McCartney, who is famous for the video he did that had Gareth from The Office in it has won the Brit for being successful for a very long time and being available to appear at the ceremony this year. Paul thinks British music is the best. Presumably he’s not witnessed the previous 100 minutes. Anyway, the last performance of the night is always the longest, which can be a good thing (Prince) or a bad thing (basically everyone else who has ever done it).

Paul has a mandolin. He plays it all night long. Whether it makes him want to kill his self is yet to be confirmed. If Scouting For Girls had written Dance Tonight, they’d be ripped to shreds, and rightly so. Ironically, the prize which should be the most celebratory (rewarding an artist for their oeuvre, rather than just a single or an album) is actually the most cynical. McCartney was offered the award over a decade ago, but refused. If he hadn’t got an album out, would he have really appeared? Shouldn’t it be about ‘the music’, anyway, not about who can appear? And in that case, are Duran Duran more deserving of a lifetime achievement award than a man without whom half of the bands nominated this year wouldn’t even exist? If the Brits really want to take a risk, they don’t need to hire ‘edgy’ presenters, or have drunken acceptance speeches, they should just not broadcast the ceremony. Let’s see if Universal and EMI are so interested in their acts performing when there’s less chance it’ll boost post-Christmas sales.

But, in the words of Kyle Broflovski, I’ve learnt something today. Kate Nash gives as boring an acceptance speech as Leona Lewis would have done (and at least hers wouldn’t have been half as preachy). Whilst she’s not the most interesting or genuine character, Leona Lewis is a better pop star than any of the Kaiser Chiefs will ever be. Yes, mostly, I’ve learnt things about Leona Lewis. Christ knows she’ll be one of the few nominees who’ll actually have a career in ten years time.

The Singles Review, 21/01/2008

Jack Johnson- If I Had Eyes
Is he trying to outdo Melua in terms of absurd metaphors here? Her sailboat comparisons seem positively Wilde-esque compared to "if i had eyes in the back of my head, i would have told you that you looked good as you walked away". Johnson's got about eight flavours, all of them bland. Oh look, he's actually talking about breaking up with someone. This will totally reverse my opinion of him and his shitty musical stylings. Fucking spare me.
2/10

Jennifer Lopez- Hold It Don't Drop It
So by the numbers it might as well be an algebra textbook. Lopez's whole 'career renaissance' thing isn't going as well as planned really, is it? Perhaps somewhere between putting out the gayest album cover of all time and releasing her second single in a row that sounds like a watered-down Amerie album track, the public realised that, half a decade after Jenny From The Block, there's probably no need for a new J.Lo single. I'm sure she'll make back all the money she lost from the album by making diamante-covered baby grows or something.
4/10

Bodies Without Organs- Sunshine In The Rain
The original is a camp as tits sorta-ballad with perfect perfect handclaps, the Soul Seekerz remix is an equally camp as tits dance version. Short of a major pop revival and Amy Diamond topping the BBC's Sound of 2009 poll, it's hard to see a place for either in the British charts, which is a shame because BWO are a great pop band, and as such it's kind of upsetting that Alexander Bard's songs won't be greeted with anything more than a "LOL, Eurovision entry" reception from UK audiences.
6/10

Joss Stone- Baby Baby Baby
Oh, fuck off. Fuck off and die. It's pissing it down outside, there's floods all over Leeds and no amount off lite-soul and you singing about being on the beach and dancing or whatever will make it feel like summer. Some people can't take the hint.
3/10

Adele- Chasing Pavements
I'm not subscribing to the backlash, Adele's voice is a thing of absolute beauty, it's just a shame that her first major release is the one most makes her seem geared towards Radio 2. Even at her weakest though, there's still something real that doesn't come from Duffy or Foals or most acts of any genre. Anyway, i'll just be listening to Hometown Glory and ignoring the bitching from the Popjustice forums until this whole thing blows over and she becomes the biggest thing since Winehouse. Hopefully.
7/10

Robyn- Be Mine!
If you think this is getting less than full marks, you're reading the wrong blog. It's Robyn's big number, the dream audition showreel- she's heartbroken, defiant, ballsy, and even though it sounds like she's on top of things, by the time we get to the middle-8, it's revealed how fragile these things really are. It was perfect this time three years ago, it's only improved since then. I'm disqualifying it from the end of year singles top 40, because it absolutely fucking trounces almost every other song this decade. And does it with amazing string bits too.

Alison Goldfrapp and her amazing tent

Usually, this is where we'd embed Goldfrapp's video for A&E, but since the Youtube lifespan of the clip is generally about two hours before Mute yank it off the site, we won't bother. You've probably seen it anyway- Alison dances with some leaf people, there's an owl, etc, etc.

Anyway, we could talk about how the video is wonderful, looks lovely, and also pretty much encapsulates the feel of their new album (not that i've heard it. Ahem). Or how A&E is possibly their best single ever. But we won't. No, this space is reserved for Goldfrapp's lovely tent. Let's have a look...

Some people will say "but wouldn't it be nicer if the tent was covered in glitter? of if Alison and Will Gemagic'd it a bit? How about a few strobe lights? It's a bit bare, isn't it?". Perhaps they don't realise that Goldfrapp didn't want a big gay glitter tent, they wanted a nice orange one they could sit in the woods with. Yes, it's quite different from what they're used to, but the saying doesn't go "variety is the spice of life" for no reason now, does it? If anything, Goldfrapp's lovely tent has made us love the band even more, and look forward to whatever mode of shelter they choose next. The song's not too bad either, eh?

Some nice words for you to read

They call it manufactured pop, as if that were something to be ashamed of - but we are a manufacturing country. Down our conveyor belts come cars, and shoes, and biscuits, and guns, and pop bands. Useful things and beautiful things. Things that make us go faster, and things that make us feel like we are going faster. Things that we love passionately for a day, and then throw away, and things that we love passionately for a day, and then keep forever.

Being able to plan for and make our necessary things - instead of relying on accidents, or nature, to supply them - is one of the first signs that a society has achieved civilization. And what could be more necessary than pop? What else should we aim to pump out in such greedy, thrilling, giddying amounts?

The factory is a democratic place. Sometimes, the people working on the floor come cruising in on a Monday morning, still wearing Saturday night’s make-up and Sunday morning’s smile, and say, “Sod this.” They pull off their hair-nets, and jump on the conveyor belt themselves. They announce that they are pop stars, now. They make a band.

That’s allowed, in the factory, because we are a manufacturing country, and that means we are also allowed to manufacture ourselves. We are allowed to change our futures. We are Girls Aloud.

And in the band we manufacture, we don’t have to smile, if we don’t want to. We won’t have dance routines that ruin our hair. We don’t sing songs where we pretend that we’re scared, or that we can’t run in our heels, or that we don’t know exactly what we want. We don’t need no beauty sleep. We think you’re off your head. We text as we eat. We flirt while we work. We flick our finger at the world below. If we’d know, or if we’d cared, we would have stood around in the kitchen in our underwear.

When Jack Kerouac wrote On The Road in 1957, he said the people he loved the most were the Fabulous Yellow Roman Candles, who were mad to live, mad to talk, . We saw it on a t-shirt once. But anyone who was mad to live wouldn’t want to be a Roman Candle. Roman Candles are the rubbish ones. They’re over in thirty seconds. They don’t even spin, or fly. If we were a firework, we’d be a limousine full of dynamite. And we’d put the fire out with vodka. If we could be bothered.

If you know someone who sounds like us, we’ll give you a tenner. If you like someone better than us, frankly, we don’t care. We’re Girls Aloud. We’re Made In Britain.


Lovely

The first great single of 2008

They're really going for the whole 'new Mika' schtick, aren't they? It's working though, since Alphabeat are actually listenable. It's too early to say whether it'll be a hit- they're probably too Pop! (concept, not the shitty band) for Radio 1 and too dayglo for Radio 2. It all depends on how the BBC Sound of 2008 thing goes.

Watch this space...