Spotify recently announced it’s top ten most played songs for 2011, but wait a minute it’s not over for a few more hours! Anyway I suspect that the Spotify plays on the last day of the year are unlikely to have a significant impact on the top tunes. Adele is top with “Rolling In The Deep“.
It’s an incredibly female dominated list too (on that note it also includes “S & M” from Rihanna). Eight of the songs are from the ladies. Rihanna has three entries, Jessie J and Adele have two each and Katy Perry has one. LMFAO and Bruno Mars make up the ten. “Pumped Up Kicks” from Foster The People was top in the USA.
Here is the full UK list and enjoy the top three below;
I always used to think that it was TV stars whose careers had faded considerably that turned up in pantomime roles each year. Maybe the Milkman from Eastenders or the Lollipop Lady from Coronation Street. That of course is still the case, but now the list includes a few music related stars. One of whom is very talented in my opinion the others are probably the most talentless act to have arisen in the entertainment industry.
Firstly the beautiful Clare Grogan once off of Altered Images has appeared in the Glasgow production of Sleeping Beauty at the Kings Theatre. Meanwhile those talentless pop muppet X Factor rejects Jedward are appearing in a version of Jack and the Beanstalk in Dublin. It is called Jedward and the Beanstalk. To be fair there may be some typecasting there as Jack was a bit thick wasn’t he? One half of Jedward even crowd surfed the young fans at the stage door. Oh what joy it would be for them to appear at Reading and Leeds in 2012. I can almost picture the bottles of piss being loaded as soon as that announcement is made!
Anyway to finish enjoy a couple of excellent songs from the beautiful Clare Grogan in her days with Altered Images and cover your ears for an excruciatingly bad cover of Blink 182’s “All The Small Things” by Jedward.
Now that the wind had changed direction Matt's face would remain like that
It’s that time of year when we reflect as individuals on the highs and lows of our year and more importantly we decided what the best album and song of the year was. Many publications take part in this annual festivity and my newspaper of choice, the Guardian, is no exception. I expected to see the top 2o albums and songs of 2011 as voted by Guardian readers (including me) to show a similar profile to the lists of other publications and possibly of the critics employed by the newspaper.
Matt sold all his clothes to buy votes in the Guardian poll
However thanks to what I would call (rather begrudgingly) and excellently executed piece of guerilla voting by all of Matt Cardle‘s fans which must number in the high hundreds (ok that was wishful thinking on my part). They have managed to succeed in voting him into first place in both lists. Regular readers of this blog will know the general disdain I show the X factor and all it spawns and for me Matt Cardle is no exception. I find him insipid, limp, lacking charisma and at best an ok karaoke singer. Before the devout fans get on their high horses let me say that I have listened to his album before forming this opinion. I am not like the Christian Fundamentalists in the USA who burned Harry Potter books without having the good grace and common sense to read them first.
Being beaten by Matt Cardle had hurt Polly very deeply
Fair play to the Matt Cardle fans, but in my humblest of opinions his stuff shouldn’t even be close to the top twenty for the year or even the top 50 for the year, unless of course we are talking about the turkey awards. The number two slot in the albums list was taken by Polly Harvey‘s ‘Let England Shake’ and for the songs it was the sublime “Video Games” from Lana Del Ray. Click here to read the Guardian report on what I will refer to as Cardlegate.
The full lists are shown below. I have 11 of the albums and 12 of the songs if you’d like to begin to understand my own eclectic tastes. My own favourite song for the year is “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People, which is in the list and my favourite album is ’50 Words For Snow’ from Kate Bush. The latter sadly isn’t in the list;
The Harrods Winter Sale begins at 9 a.m. on December 27th. Why am I telling you this on a music blog? Well it’s because Florence and the Machine will be playing an acoustic set at the opening, apparently at Door 5.
Clearly there was no room for presents in Florence's stockings
This surprises me on a couple of levels. Firstly isn’t this usually the domain of acts that are long past their sell by date, someone who finished fifth on the X Factor a few years ago or a boy band squeezing the last bit of cash they can out of a dull career. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Florence and the Machine fit in to any of those categories and I think they’re a great act, I’m just surprised. Secondly is there not a health and safety issue? We’ve all seen the film clips where the people who have queued outside the store all night charge in seemingly unaware of anyone else as soon as the door opens. I’m worried that Florence and the Machine could be trampled and have to rename themselves Flat Florence and the various broken machine parts. Incidentally àpropos of nothing, did you know that Florence Welch was often in trouble at school for impromptu singing?
the dreaded dark dandruff had returned!
I won’t be there unfortunately but I’d love to hear from anyone who is planning to attend or feel free to get in touch after the event.
Florence was struggling to pluck up the courage to kill the Christmas dinner bird
OK this is the third and final post about the missing footage of David Bowie doing “The Jean Genie” on Top of the Pops in 1973. Click here and here to see the earlier posts. The reason for this last post is that the video has now thankfully found its way onto YouTube. You can see it below.
This whole episode brought back one memory about the similarity between Bowie’s “Jean Genie” and the Sweet’s “Blockbuster“, in particular the riff. The latter made it to the top of the chart whilst “Jean Genie”, which only made number two, was still in the top ten. The Sweet‘s single, which was written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman was released shortly after the Bowie song. As a teenager and a big Bowie fan I could never bring myself to like “Blockbuster” but I have mellowed with age and I’m ok with it now, although I obviously prefer “Jean Genie” to “Blockbuster”.
Nicky Chinn has said that all the writers, including Bowie, were convinced that the whole thing was a coincidence. However Chinn has mentioned a conversation with Bowie about the coincidence. He said Bowie “looked at me completely deadpan and said ‘Cunt!’ And then he got up and gave me a hug and said, ‘Congratulations’.
Anyway now you can enjoy that clip (along with the Sweet and an old clip of Bowie doing “The Jean Genie” on the US TV Special ‘The 1980 Floor Show’ recorded in 1973 which regular readers will have seen before) and I promise I won’t post about it again………probably!
Regular readers and Bowie fans who have found their way here by accident will know that footage of Mr Bowie performing “The Jean Genie” on Top Of The Pops in 1973 has recently been unearthed. I posted about it on December 13th, just click here to read that one.
Anyway, first reports said that the BBC would air the film on BBC4 next year. Then last week some news reports suggested that it would be shown today at 19.30 UK time on BBC4. Then on Monday it was confirmed that it would be included in the Top Of The Pops 2 Christmas special broadcast at 19.30 on BBC2 earlier today.
I’m pleased to say that the song appeared reasonably early in the 90 minute show and it was superb. It was recorded live in the BBC studios on January 3rd 1973 and broadcast the following day. Bowie was backed by the Spiders; Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey, Trevor Bolder and the late great Mick Ronson. Bowie wore something far less loud than you might expect for the period; a very glam era jacket and trousers combo. Ronson had the jump suit and Bolder had those amazingly ridiculous sideburns. Mr Bowie also showed his prowess on the harmonica, even throwing in a short burst from a Beatles tune. Was it “Love Me Do“. It’s amazing that this is almost 39 years to the day that the single entered the UK charts. It went on to become his biggest hit up to that point when it peaked at number 2.
Bowie was sporting the classic Ziggy cut, the only time a slightly mullet style has ever been cool in my opinion. Was this the last TV appearance by the Spiders? Does anyone know? Bear in mind that this was just a few months away from the famous Hammersmith Odeon gig ‘retired’ and broke up the band. I’d love to hear what you thought of the clip and hopefully if you’re not in the UK you won’t have too long to wait. In the meantime click here to hear an interview with cameraman John Henshall (apologies for saying that he was retired in my earlier post about this story, apparently he isn’t) on BBC Radio Oxford and the audio of “The Jean Genie” from that show.
Jon Bon Jovi has been the subject of a death hoax this week. It was falsely claimed that the 49-year-old had died of a heart attack. He went so far as to post a picture of himself posing in front of a Christmas tree on-line with a card reading “Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey Dec 10th 2011 6.00″
There have been many music related death hoaxes. Perhaps the most famous was the Paul McCartney is dead stories in the 60s. Apparently one of the clues to this was the fact that Paul was barefoot on the cover of the ‘Abbey Road’ album. There have been a couple this year too. Mick Jagger and Justin Bieber. It was claimed that the Biebertron had been shot by a publicist and killed in a car crash. As far as I know Jon, Paul, Mick and Justin are all alive and well. But perhaps Jon Bon Jovi is just “Living On A Prayer” or maybe he is “Wanted Dead Or Alive” anyway he has now declared “It’s My Life”
This will be really old news for many of you, but it passed me by when it happens. It relates to Lady Gaga’s appearance as a mentor on American Idol in May of this year. Well specifically it concerns her footwear. The shoes had a large platform sole and heels made from dildos.
There is an allegation that the TV show producers blurred the shoes out from the broadcast. Personally I think it would have been quite amusing had she worn them when presented to the Queen. That would have wound up a large number of Tory MPs from the shires wouldn’t it?
I wonder what kind of ‘vibe’ she was going for? Maybe it was just a cock-up? Or maybe she wanted Dido to be a part of her shoes but couldn’t spell? I’d love to hear what you folks think of the shoes.
Regular readers of this blog know that I really do despise the X Factor and all it stands for. I chose not to watch it this year and a couple of people said to me “you have to watch it, you write a music blog” my response was “that is true, but first and foremost I am a music fan, not a Saturday primetime TV karaoke fan”
Anyway the festival for those of limited talent is over for another year and has launched a whole troupe of pop muppets on the world in the shape of Little Mix. Their first single is a truly awful cover of Damien Rice‘s “Cannonball”. But the good news is that it is not the current favourite for UK Christmas number one. That honour sits with “Wherever You Are” by the Military Wives Choir the new choir project put together by the immensely talented Gareth Malone. Whilst this is not my favourite type of music it is a really beautiful song and vocally it’s a million times better than Little Mix.
The next two favourites across the UK bookmakers are Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Damien Rice with the original version of “Cannonball”. So I think you know what to do don’t you? Go and buy the Military Wives song and if you must buy Little Mix make sure you buy Military Wives as well. Anyone who is a music fan should do whatever they can to keep the X Factor muppets from the Christmas number one spot. I hope I can count on you to do this!
Country singer Billie Jo Spears has passed away aged 74 after losing her battle with cancer. She was one of my Mum and Dad’s favourite singers. They especially loved “Blanket On The Ground“. She first appeared as a professional on stage aged just 13, she also appeared on the famous Louisiana Hayride show aged 13. That age was obviously very productive for her as she also released her first single then. She used the name Billie Jean Moore and the song was called “Too Old For Toys, Too Young For Boys”.
I would like to pass on my condolences to her family, friends and fans. Here are a couple of songs to remember her by. Billie Jo Spears RIP.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 