Separating the sweet, juicy flesh from the stone and skin of this week’s major label releases.

There have been many songs written about Monday, but they all seem to use the working week’s start as a metaphor for sadness, despair, and classroom shooting rampages.

Well, no more: your Mango thinks this is a pretty damn fine day, actually (much better than stupid Thursday. More like ‘Turdday’ if you ask us) and we have done a little song of our own to show you how brilliant it is. Come follow us to the post-jump world, where we’ll show it off…Oh, Monday: you’re the one day,
When we really come alive.
Oh, Monday: such a fun day!
Makes us want to jive.

With your football and your horseplay,
And of course the Mango: fine art!
Stupid Thursday is like Michael Bublé,
To your Django Reihnardt.

Quite brilliant, you’ll agree. If you’d like to contribute to the nascent pop masterwork (we’ve got a band name and everything: Floating The Mango), then do leave your lyrics and/or the instrument you play in the comments box (bear in mind we already have a drummer, an accordonist, and a bloke in our local pub who can fart a middle C that would make you weep).

Alright, we must drag ourselves to consider this week’s trio of releases.

Firstly: If On A Winter’s Night, Sting. The tiny tantrist from 80s pop pioneers The Police has decided to go medieval on our asses, releasing an album of lute-backed songs about winter. If the Twelfth Century had middle-ranking sales executives called Steve, this is what they’d play at their dinner parties, as the guests tucked into a delicious hedgehog soufflé.

It is, incredibly, even more terrible than you’d think, beginning with the song titles. Only one of the following is made up: There Is No Rose Of Such Virtue; The Snow It Melts The Soonest; Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming; Lawks Me Bum’s On Fire (Then Sit Thee ‘Pon The Snow, Sire).

And the music…oh, the music. Every song has a different vocal style, like Sting thought they were so boring he’d better perform each as a different zany character. Check out Soul Cake (sung by a medieval Bob Marley). Or Cold Song (Frank Sinatra singing opera very, very slowly). Or Cherry Tree Carol (sung by a castrato who’s being tickled).

Our favourite: Lullaby For An Anxious Child, which seems to be sung from the point of view of an asthmatic Italian pervert peering through the anxious child’s bedroom window.

This album is represented by the thought:

Forsooth, thine dinner party is surely proceeding in most merry a way, Sir Steve. I congratulate mineself. But shouldst I perchance play now the sounds of Sting? No, not his new one, for it doth give mine ears much anger. Just go with Fields Of Gold, for the ladies do so love it.

I want my friends to think I am sensitive, please take me to Sting.

Secondly, Bad Boys, Bryn Terfel. Grrrrrrr. Bryn is angry. He’s pissed off. He’s up for a fight. Just look at that album cover: Bryn, up close and in yer face, looking ANGRY. Looking PISSED OFF. Looking LIKE A STATUE OF ROSS KEMP MADE OUT OF GRIZZLY BEARS AND CROWBARS. Blimey, this is going to be a thrilling album: probably some kind of hard’n'fast thrash metal? Or house music so deep and intense it’ll make your ears resign, jump off your head and go live in a Trappist monastery?

Can’t wait for this one, let’s see..

WTF? We can only repeat: WTF?

It Ain’t Necessarily So from Porgy And Bess, sung by a tortured bison? Stars from Les Miserables, sung by Africa’s gayest hippopotamus? And a load of operatic toss sung badly by a fat bloke from Wales who looks like Meatloaf‘s uglier brother’s ballbag? WTF?

This album is represented by the thought:

Right, let’s stick this one. Look at that cover! I am going to look so fricking awesome walking away from the jukebox here in The Ruptured Spleen pub when they hear what will surely be some pounding speed metal, or some other tough-sounding genre of music.

WTF?

I want my friends to think I am cultured and that, please take me to Bryn.

Thirdly: Slow Attack, Brett Anderson. Hooray! As a sweet antidote to the poison of Sumner and Terfel, please welcome swoopy-voiced androgynous 90s hearthrob, Mr Anderson!

Well, nearly. It’s certainly not a terrible album – just make sure to skip past the first track, Hymm, which is a bit too close to Coldplay for aural comfort – but it does leave us with the feeling that it’s not all it could be. Like sitting down for a meal in a posh restaurant, then being told by the waiter that your dinner will be cooked by some work experience boys from Walsall.

It’s fey, it’s folky, but it’s a sad waste of a fine voice.

Oh, Brett: this could have been wonderful. Consider yourself lucky to have landed in a week such as this, where you are the cleanest piece of sweetcorn in the musical turd.

This album is represented by the thought:

Just my luck. The wife pays for a birthday meal at the Ritz, and it turns out that, in an improbable turn of events, they have asked some completely unsuitable boys from an industrial town to be the cooks tonight. Could it get any wor…oh, tosspants, they’ve just put Slow Attack on.

Screw my friends, there’s no way I’m buying either of those. Brett, please.

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So you played online poker for three hours and won a sum that a Polish minimum wage employee would snort derisively at.

The disappointment you feel could not compare to that of these fine gentlemen of film after learning what the wardrobe department had in store for them. We’ve all had to wear tights for one reason or another in our life, but even the butchest of men struggle to pull off these fashion faux pas.

So kick-starting the list is a man who drinks ugly and craps failure…

5: Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Wearing some sort of contortion device normally found in David Carridine‘s wardrobe, Mickey Rourke seems to be going bondage in next year’s Iron Man 2.

4: Sylvester Stallone – Rocky III

More a tragic reminder of a time when this sort of fitness fashion was acceptable than anything else! Still, Stallone manages to put some camp into the third Rocky film numerous times during the montage as he changes his vest, each time getting smaller and more colourful *shudder*.

Number 3: Sting – Dune

Some valid debate as to whether Sting qualifies as ‘manly’ in the first place. Either way this costume made Sting look like a ginger, bullied, repressed homosexual Gollum.

Number 2: George Clooney – Batman and Robin

We doth my cap to the costume designer on this film – she made Schwarzenegger look like a (Ice) berk but that doesn’t compare to Clooney’s horrific ordeal. Is it cold in the Batsuit? It must be with those razor-sharp nips flying out! Matching codpiece doesn’t help matters, thus turning comic’s most feared Dark Knight into a bigger camp icon than Robin.

Number 1: Sean Connery - Zardoz

It was an obvious choice but the Scotsman has formed a career on his dripping bravado with misogynistic glee. Then came this costume choice from the (thankfully) forgotten Zardoz. Rumours of Connery being incontinent at the time of filming prompting this choice remain unfounded…

Agree? Disagree? Think there is a man more deserved of the crown than these bunch of camp crusaders? Let us know below…

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A guest blog by Josh from Interestment…

It’s a strange time for Planet Earth, what with bank managers rooting through bins for scraps of food, and everyone pointing missiles at one another.

So thank Christ for Sting. Everyone loves Sting, and if they don’t, someone should really talk to them. At last presumption, this guy had single-handedly rebuilt forests, made love to his woman for weeks at a time, and every morning he heads to the hills to practice shadow kung fu in just a pair of pants.

With his unbelievable amazingness in mind, we thought it high time we located our four favourite Sting moments, and celebrated them. It was easy. Here they are.

1. Sting experiments, like, facially

He’s been around for so long that it’s almost impossible to remember what makes Sting so appealing to women. Is it the taut throbbing body that he’s created from hours of press-ups in his back garden? Or perhaps it’s the mane of minty blond hair that makes him look ever-so-slightly Aryan? Actually, sisters, it’s neither of those things. It’s the bold fashion statements he makes, like the time he thought to hell with it, and turned up in a television studio wearing exactly the same kind of moustache that men have been taught to avoid. Unless they’re going to a club for consenting adults. What a brave, brave balladeer. Nice one, Sting.

2. Sting dances in a film

They do say that if you really want to live life to the full, you should dance like no one is watching. And God bless Sting, because that is exactly what he did in Quadrophenia, during the club scene. His jerky, almost childlike, movements were the musical interpretations of a man in the zone, literally letting go as if no one could see him. Yet, in a bizarre twist of irony, absolutely millions of people have since enjoyed his hilarious impression of a terrible terrible dancer. Nice one, Sting.

3. Sting takes his top off… relentlessly

For an uncomfortably long window a year or so ago, Sting couldn’t mount a stage without peeling off his clothes the minute music started playing. This was presumably a bad habit picked up from his years practising hysterical tantric intercourse whilst playing old Police records in the background. He took his nips out in front of millions at the Brit Awards, but that wasn’t the first time. We found even more proof of his incessant toplessness. Nice one, Sting.

4. Sting sings with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart

For years, everyone had debated over what a trio of singers, all suffering from crippling throat diseases, might sound like. Sting, bless him, decided to find out. The day Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart joined him to sing All For One – a song about muskateering in the olden times – soft rock planets collided, creating an even more thrillingly flaccid sound than the world had ever known. It literally killed erections. Nice one, Sting.

This insanely wonderful post has been a guest blog by Josh Burt from Interestment.co.uk. Nice one, Josh.

To us, Ozzy Osbourne is a funny old man. Despite not being able to string a sentence together properly, he is still idolised by millions across the world.

But Ozzy is more then just a rock clown married to a woman possibly on a par with Michael Jackson for the amount of plastic surgery she’s had. In fact, Ozzy Osbourne is a man who's just got himself involved with the law, even though he knew nothing about it and and now he's all annoyed at the police over it. This is a confusing one.

So Ozzy Osbourne has helped to catch 30 criminals. However, as much as it breaks our hearts to admit it, Ozzy didn’t actually get to don his best Sherlock Holmes gear and browse the streets looking for clues to crack the case that had been leaving the force scratching their heads for months. In fact it's bollocks to say that Ozzy actually did anything at all.  

What actually happened is the result of North Dakota sheriff Paul Laney, who invited 500 criminals over for a party where it was claimed that Ozzy would perform. This prompts two questions: Are the police over in the States too lazy to get a criminal's address, knock on their door and arrest them? Or are the American bad boys and girls really stupid enough to believe that Osbourne would welcome them with open arms so they could spend an entire night ant-snorting and dove-chewing together? 

Anyway, it appears that some people were actually dumb enough to believe Laney's set-up. Around 30 people turned up to his sting and were consequently arrested for stealing jars of mayonnaise or something. You might be wondering why the criminals thought Ozzy Osbourne would be appearing in a nightclub in Fargo, North Dakota. The simple reason being that the rock legend was due to play at a nearby arena around the same time. Using this information, the police set up a simple sting operation. 

Consequently, this move by the police force hasn’t actually pleased the Prince Of Darkness, who said: 

“Instead of holding a press conference to pat himself on the back, Sheriff Laney should be apologising to me for using my name in connection with these arrests. It is insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job." 

You get the insinuation here – that Sheriff Laney figures all Ozzy Osbourne fans are criminals while Ozzy Osbourne knows his fans, although all possessed with suspect personal hygiene, are law-abiding citizens of the highest order.

While these tactics may seem like lazy policing, it could help to influence our own trigger-happy police force to do the same. Heroin addicts could be duped into attending an intimate performance by Amy Winehouse, serial golddiggers could have a seminar with Heather Mills and illegal firearm owners could have a day in the forest brushing up on their aiming skills with Phil Spector.