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Arctic Monkeys Up For Mercury Prize, Again

by Stuart Heritage

Ah, the Mercury Prize, the award where a bunch of music experts in black polo-neck sweaters try to pick the best album of the year but end up picking the fourth-best album that nobody’s heard of because it makes them look cooler.

The shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize was announced yesterday. Well, at least we think it was the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize, but in fairness the organisers might have just made a mistake and read out last year’s shortlist again. It’s hard to tell, because this year’s Mercury Prize shortlist contains exactly the same mix of good, daring new albums that won’t win, wayward fringe genre albums that nobody actually likes but got included in the shortlist because they make the Mercury Prize look more elitist and cool that won’t win, a bunch of generic indie albums that won’t win. And Arctic Monkeys. That, you know, will win.

Ah, the Mercury Prize, the award where a bunch of music experts in black polo-neck sweaters try to pick the best album of the year but end up picking the fourth-best album that nobody's heard of because it makes them look cooler. The shortlist for this year's Mercury Prize was announced yesterday. Well, at least we think it was the shortlist for this year's Mercury Prize, but in fairness the organisers might have just made a mistake and read out last year's shortlist again. It's hard to tell, because this year's Mercury Prize shortlist contains exactly the same mix of good, daring new albums that won't win, wayward fringe genre albums that nobody actually likes but got included in the shortlist because they make the Mercury Prize look more elitist and cool that won't win, a bunch of generic indie albums that won't win. And Arctic Monkeys. That, you know, will win.
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Disturbing Friday Fun: I Wanna Love You Tender

by Stuart Heritage

Music videos these days suffer from such a dearth of imagination, don’t they? If it isn’t girls in bikinis writhing around on top of a car it’s angry boys playing guitars. Why can’t someone – anyone – make a video as good as I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni?

I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni is very much a product of its time – Star Wars was popular back then, so they’ve filmed the video in space. Saturday Night Fever was popular then, so they’ve made the video a bit disco. Lanky goonish blond European men awkwardly singing sub-Eurovision songs to women who just hope he “not pretenda” were popu… no, wait, that’s never been popular. Still, I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni is a masterpiece of badly thought-out costumes, horrific choreography – our personal favourite dancemove comes at either 1:48 or 2:00 – and nightmarish melody. In fact, the whole thing seems purposefully designed to haunt every waking hour of the rest of your lives. Enjoy.

PS: When hecklerspray has a party it looks exactly like this. We’ll leave it up to you to guess which writer does what.

Music videos these days suffer from such a dearth of imagination, don't they? If it isn't girls in bikinis writhing around on top of a car it's angry boys playing guitars. Why can't someone - anyone - make a video as good as I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni? I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni is very much a product of its time - Star Wars was popular back then, so they've filmed the video in space. Saturday Night Fever was popular then, so they've made the video a bit disco. Lanky goonish blond European men awkwardly singing sub-Eurovision songs to women who just hope he "not pretenda" were popu... no, wait, that's never been popular. Still, I Wanna Love You Tender by Armi And Danni is a masterpiece of badly thought-out costumes, horrific choreography - our personal favourite dancemove comes at either 1:48 or 2:00 - and nightmarish melody. In fact, the whole thing seems purposefully designed to haunt every waking hour of the rest of your lives. Enjoy. PS: When hecklerspray has a party it looks exactly like this. We'll leave it up to you to guess which writer does what.
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Now Avril Lavigne Rips Off Peaches?

by Stuart Heritage

Avril Lavigne is slap-bang in the middle of the biggest critical thumping of her life at the moment, thanks to The Rubinoos claiming that one of their songs was stolen by Avril Lavigne for her super annoyo-hit Girlfriend – but that’s not the end.

Because now it seems as if Avril Lavigne has been borrowing bits of other songs to use as her own, also. Following the claim by The Rubinoos that the “Hey! Hey! You! You!” hook from Avril’s Girlfriend was stolen from the “Hey! Hey! You! You!” hook from their I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, it’s now emerged that Avril Lavigne’s I Don’t Have To Try seems to be a carbon copy of I’m The Kinda by bearded sex-kraken Peaches. Avril Lavigne has yet to respond to this new ripping-off claim, but the question remains – if Avril Lavigne does keep ripping off other people’s songs, then why can’t she make any of them sound any good?

Avril Lavigne is slap-bang in the middle of the biggest critical thumping of her life at the moment, thanks to The Rubinoos claiming that one of their songs was stolen by Avril Lavigne for her super annoyo-hit Girlfriend - but that's not the end. Because now it seems as if Avril Lavigne has been borrowing bits of other songs to use as her own, also. Following the claim by The Rubinoos that the "Hey! Hey! You! You!" hook from Avril's Girlfriend was stolen from the "Hey! Hey! You! You!" hook from their I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, it's now emerged that Avril Lavigne's I Don't Have To Try seems to be a carbon copy of I'm The Kinda by bearded sex-kraken Peaches. Avril Lavigne has yet to respond to this new ripping-off claim, but the question remains - if Avril Lavigne does keep ripping off other people's songs, then why can't she make any of them sound any good?
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Useless Old Madonna Film To Become Probably Useless Musical

by Stuart Heritage

Remember Desperately Seeking Susan, the 22-year-old Madonna film about a woman pretending to be Madonna until she realises how rubbish it is to be Madonna? Yeah, someone’s decided to make a musical out of it.

Desperately Seeking Susan is being turned into one of those awful artistically-bankrupt stage musicals where as many of one artist’s songs are shoehorned into an absurdly loose plot as possible. You’re expecting us to say that Madonna’s songs will be used in the Desperately Seeking Susan musical, aren’t you? Well you’re wrong – the Desperately Seeking Susan West End musical will feature music and lyrics by Blondie. Yes, we admit that it seems like a strange fit at first, but trust us – the scene where Susan randomly decides see if she can hang on a telephone only to suddenly burst into song about it is simply spine-tingling.

Remember Desperately Seeking Susan, the 22-year-old Madonna film about a woman pretending to be Madonna until she realises how rubbish it is to be Madonna? Yeah, someone's decided to make a musical out of it. Desperately Seeking Susan is being turned into one of those awful artistically-bankrupt stage musicals where as many of one artist's songs are shoehorned into an absurdly loose plot as possible. You're expecting us to say that Madonna's songs will be used in the Desperately Seeking Susan musical, aren't you? Well you're wrong - the Desperately Seeking Susan West End musical will feature music and lyrics by Blondie. Yes, we admit that it seems like a strange fit at first, but trust us - the scene where Susan randomly decides see if she can hang on a telephone only to suddenly burst into song about it is simply spine-tingling.
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Avril Lavigne Denies Ripping Off The Song That Sounds Like Hers

by Stuart Heritage

It’s clear to everyone that the only things Avril Lavigne has ever ripped off are her name and wardrobe – from the French word for April and Wee Jimmy Krankie respectively – because Avril Lavigne certainly doesn’t rip off any old songs.

That’s what Avril Lavigne has said on her website, anyway. Avril Lavigne is currently being sued by the songwriter from forgotten 1970s band The Rubinoos because he says that the “Hey! Hey! You! You! I don’t like your girlfriend” bit from Avril’s hit single Girlfriend was stolen from the “Hey! Hey! You! You! I wanna be your boyfriend” bit from Rubinoos song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. But the new statement on Avril Lavigne’s website means that she’s ready to take on The Rubinoos as hard as she can, possibly settling the score with a gum-chewing match or by seeing who’s married to the most rubber-faced member of a pretend punk boyband. Or something.

It's clear to everyone that the only things Avril Lavigne has ever ripped off are her name and wardrobe - from the French word for April and Wee Jimmy Krankie respectively - because Avril Lavigne certainly doesn't rip off any old songs. That's what Avril Lavigne has said on her website, anyway. Avril Lavigne is currently being sued by the songwriter from forgotten 1970s band The Rubinoos because he says that the "Hey! Hey! You! You! I don't like your girlfriend" bit from Avril's hit single Girlfriend was stolen from the "Hey! Hey! You! You! I wanna be your boyfriend" bit from Rubinoos song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. But the new statement on Avril Lavigne's website means that she's ready to take on The Rubinoos as hard as she can, possibly settling the score with a gum-chewing match or by seeing who's married to the most rubber-faced member of a pretend punk boyband. Or something.
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Live Earth: Dead Posh Women More Popular Than Climate-Change

by Stuart Heritage

Saturday’s Live Earth concerts were meant to be planet Earth’s wake-up call to the irreversible damage that we’re doing to the environment, so it’s a shame that most of the world hit the snooze button and then went out to play in the sun.

The ratings for the BBC coverage of Live Earth are in, and it’s not a pretty sight – towards its climax, just 3.1 million people watched Live Earth, compared to 11.4 million last week for the Princess Diana concert. While it’s interesting to see that Live Earth, part of a worldwide campaign to kind of somehow save the world, still isn’t as important to the British public as a concert about a posh bulimic chick who’s been dead for a decade, one recurring reason for Live Earth’s dismal ratings seems to be public fatigue over all-star charity concerts held at Wembley and broadcast on BBC1. And that more or less spells disaster for this Saturday’s televised charity Wembley concert to raise awareness about enlarged ferret spleens headlined by Richard Blackwood.

Saturday's Live Earth concerts were meant to be planet Earth's wake-up call to the irreversible damage that we're doing to the environment, so it's a shame that most of the world hit the snooze button and then went out to play in the sun. The ratings for the BBC coverage of Live Earth are in, and it's not a pretty sight - towards its climax, just 3.1 million people watched Live Earth, compared to 11.4 million last week for the Princess Diana concert. While it's interesting to see that Live Earth, part of a worldwide campaign to kind of somehow save the world, still isn't as important to the British public as a concert about a posh bulimic chick who's been dead for a decade, one recurring reason for Live Earth's dismal ratings seems to be public fatigue over all-star charity concerts held at Wembley and broadcast on BBC1. And that more or less spells disaster for this Saturday's televised charity Wembley concert to raise awareness about enlarged ferret spleens headlined by Richard Blackwood.
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Live Earth Saves The World With Mostly Bad Music

by Stuart Heritage

At Wembley Stadium on Saturday evening The Pussycat Dolls sang a song about clitoral masturbation as part of the global series of Live Earth concerts, and because of that climate change was never a problem ever again.

Oh, who are we kidding. The Sun dislikes The Pussycat Dolls just as much as we do, and probably melted the ice-caps a little bit faster than usual after hearing it out of spite. But that didn’t stop Live Earth from being the focus of the whole world on Saturday because, via a handful of global concerts in every continent on Earth, Live Earth managed to fully establish itself as the daddy of charity concerts that don’t really have any properly-defined goals, actually go quite a long way to damage the exact thing it claims to want to protect and make everyone think the whole thing is merely a back-slapping circle-jerk for a gang of preachy famous people.

At Wembley Stadium on Saturday evening The Pussycat Dolls sang a song about clitoral masturbation as part of the global series of Live Earth concerts, and because of that climate change was never a problem ever again. Oh, who are we kidding. The Sun dislikes The Pussycat Dolls just as much as we do, and probably melted the ice-caps a little bit faster than usual after hearing it out of spite. But that didn't stop Live Earth from being the focus of the whole world on Saturday because, via a handful of global concerts in every continent on Earth, Live Earth managed to fully establish itself as the daddy of charity concerts that don't really have any properly-defined goals, actually go quite a long way to damage the exact thing it claims to want to protect and make everyone think the whole thing is merely a back-slapping circle-jerk for a gang of preachy famous people.
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Joss Stone: No One Likes Her, She Don’t Care

by Stuart Heritage

Like many people, we hate it when the press forces us to stumble onstage during a music awards show, mumble incomprehensibly in a weird fake American accent, blurt out bits of Amy Winehouse songs and then release rubbish albums.

It’s a widespread problem, so thank baby Jesus that Joss Stone has finally decided to speak out about it. Joss Stone, you see, has realised that nobody in the UK actually likes her very much, thanks to the two-punch combo of an appearance at this year’s Brit Awards where she staggered around slurring things like “big love to Robbie Williams” in an inexplicable redneck accent and her last album, which wasn’t very good. But it’s not Joss Stone’s fault that she’s unable to a) talk normally or b) sing good songs – it’s all apparently the fault of the “wanker newspapers.” Quite right too – how dare newspapers report things that actually happened. Bastards.

Like many people, we hate it when the press forces us to stumble onstage during a music awards show, mumble incomprehensibly in a weird fake American accent, blurt out bits of Amy Winehouse songs and then release rubbish albums. It's a widespread problem, so thank baby Jesus that Joss Stone has finally decided to speak out about it. Joss Stone, you see, has realised that nobody in the UK actually likes her very much, thanks to the two-punch combo of an appearance at this year's Brit Awards where she staggered around slurring things like "big love to Robbie Williams" in an inexplicable redneck accent and her last album, which wasn't very good. But it's not Joss Stone's fault that she's unable to a) talk normally or b) sing good songs - it's all apparently the fault of the "wanker newspapers." Quite right too - how dare newspapers report things that actually happened. Bastards.
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A Plea: Please Stop Buying The Rihanna Single

by Matthew Laidlow

It’s now July and, according to meteorologists, this means that the sun will have his hat on and beat down his warm rays so everyone on planet Earth can give ourselves a nice tan. Well that’s the plan anyway.

Unfortunately summer hasn’t quite made it to the UK yet. In fact it’s been chucking it down for weeks now and we’re getting quite sick of the crap weather. We want a change, and quickly. With all this talk of global warming and the planet getting warmer due to us belting out more carbon emissions, it was assumed we’d be basking in heatwaves that mirrored those of Brazil. Sadly not. Instead, the UK has been battered by storms that have destroyed homes across the country. And we believe it’s down to one evil force far greater than global warmer – the Umbrella song by Rihanna and Jay-Z.

It's now July and, according to meteorologists, this means that the sun will have his hat on and beat down his warm rays so everyone on planet Earth can give ourselves a nice tan. Well that’s the plan anyway. Unfortunately summer hasn’t quite made it to the UK yet. In fact it’s been chucking it down for weeks now and we’re getting quite sick of the crap weather. We want a change, and quickly. With all this talk of global warming and the planet getting warmer due to us belting out more carbon emissions, it was assumed we’d be basking in heatwaves that mirrored those of Brazil. Sadly not. Instead, the UK has been battered by storms that have destroyed homes across the country. And we believe it’s down to one evil force far greater than global warmer - the Umbrella song by Rihanna and Jay-Z.
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Shh – Super Secret Live Earth Concert Planned For Tomorrow

by Stuart Heritage

Climate change, your time has come – tomorrow, some of the world’s most environmentally-aware acts are going to perform at the Live Earth concerts, and they’ve all promised not to stop playing until the polar ice caps have frozen up again.

There’s probably not a lot you don’t already know about Live Earth – Al Gore’s slightly confusing plan to reduce global carbon emissions by asking performers, concert crowds and television viewers to gang together and use up more carbon than anyone else in history ever – but you probably didn’t know that Live Earth will start with a top-secret show in Washington DC. The Washington Live Earth show, codenamed Mother Earth, hasn’t been formally announced yet so we still don’t know what it’ll be like. However, since it’s safe to say that the Washington Live Earth concert won’t feature slots by David Gray, Keane, Razorlight or Madonna, we’re willing to bet that it’ll be better than the London show.

Climate change, your time has come - tomorrow, some of the world's most environmentally-aware acts are going to perform at the Live Earth concerts, and they've all promised not to stop playing until the polar ice caps have frozen up again. There's probably not a lot you don't already know about Live Earth - Al Gore's slightly confusing plan to reduce global carbon emissions by asking performers, concert crowds and television viewers to gang together and use up more carbon than anyone else in history ever - but you probably didn't know that Live Earth will start with a top-secret show in Washington DC. The Washington Live Earth show, codenamed Mother Earth, hasn't been formally announced yet so we still don't know what it'll be like. However, since it's safe to say that the Washington Live Earth concert won't feature slots by David Gray, Keane, Razorlight or Madonna, we're willing to bet that it'll be better than the London show.
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