Here we are again just about a year after the X Factor finalists last murdered a song the new batch of pop muppets are killing another classic. Last year it was Bowie’s “Heroes” and this year it’s Rose Royce’s 1978 hit “Wishing On A Star”. The only saving grace is that at least the proceeds go
to charity. However why not donate to the charity directly (use Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer) and not buy the single. That way the X Factor has a flop single on its hands and the charity gets more money. Let’s face it how many charity singles get played again after the first couple of weeks (or days even!) So if you’re thinking of buying this years X Factor charity single, it’s simple; don’t! Just make a donation directly to the charity. Click here to go to the ACT & Children’s Hospices UK website and do the right thing! I’ve made my donation to the value of 5 copies of the single!
Now enjoy the original of the Rose Royce song and an excellent cover version by Paul Weller too. Obviously as a big Bowie fan I have included the original of “Heroes” as well!
Rihanna has just gone to the summit of the UK singles chart once again with her 6th number one in 5 years, a record for a female solo artist. The song is “We Found Love” and it features Calvin Harris. It is even more of an achievement given that it was only released on Wednesday whereas most singles are released on a Monday. I can’t help thinking that there is a bizarre double entendre style headline in that story somewhere as well. Something like ‘RIHANNA DOES SIX NUMBER ONES IN SIX YEARS, BUT NO NUMBER TWOS!’
the accompanying story would ask how she has managed to stay so slim given the lack of number twos! If you are reading this outside the UK the number ones and number twos reference may not translate well, even elsewhere in the English-speaking world. If you’re confused and need an explanation let me know. OK let me leave the potty humour for now.
If only the farmer could have given her a little more time with his sheep then Rihanna could have finished knitting her sweater 😉
The news of her sixth number one must have cheered Rihanna up no end after she was told to put more clothes on by an Irish Farmer at a recent video shoot on a farm in Northern Ireland. The farmer, Alan Graham was quoted as saying that he did not “believe young ladies should have to take their clothes off to entertain”. Well maybe that’s true but personally I would have been entertained if a scantily clad Rihanna was cavorting around my farm! How about you?
I know he wasn’t a singer, musician or songwriter but Steve Jobs sure as hell left an incredible mark on the music industry. His genius, foresight and innovation has fundamentally changed the way we buy/ obtain our music and indeed how we listen to it. Are there many households, or even people, in the world that don’t have an Apple product that can play music? iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac even if you have none of those you may have iTunes on your pc. I think that names like iPod will become synonymous with portable music players in the same way that ball point pens are mostly called biros and vacuum cleaners are mostly called Hoovers (although Dyson may take that crown in the long run)
Back in my schooldays inventors and innovators were old, dead or probably wearing a white coat in a secret nondescript lab somewhere in the world. This generation of innovators, inventors and geniuses (or should that be genii?) are much more visible. For example are there any of these names that you don’t recognise; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg?
His life is also a lesson for those who focus on a formal qualification being the golden ticket to a successful career. Mr Jobs dropped out of college, did that stop him having a great career? I think not! In addition to the music related innovations that he was responsible for he also put a lot of money, time and effort into Pixar. So you could argue that he also helped to save Disney studios, who frankly would have been on their knees without Pixar.
Steve Jobs will be sadly missed. In my opinion whatever you may think of Apple from a corporate perspective it would be very difficult to argue that this wasn’t a truly great man. RIP Steve Jobs.
I have tried to think of the most appropriate music I could with which to mourn his passing and celebrate his life. I have chosen a few tracks from what the previously available Ping function on iTunes revealed as his favourite albums a few years ago. Enjoy and celebrate the life of a great man.
Apparently Queen‘s “We Are The Champions” is the catchiest song ever according to researchers from Goldsmiths University and the University of York (my hometown folks!). Now that sounds like a cushy job to me. Anyway the researchers observed a large number of people singing various songs and determined that there are four key components that make a catchy song; Long and detailed musical phrases, multiple pitch changes in a song’s ‘hook’, male vocalists, and higher male voices making a noticeable vocal effort. So bad news for all the great female singers then and whatever happened to a song being catchy if you heard your milkman or postman whistling it?
Regular readers of this blog know that I am not particularly fond of X Factor and all the crap that produces. I have taken a conscious decision to not watch it again. I saw 20 minutes of one episode of the new series and frankly it looks like the same old stuff yet again; a bunch of, at best, moderately talented individuals who might have a chance of a 12 month career in the music industry before being dropped. If you are a true music fan you probably never watch the show anyway. But for those of you who aren’t sure; The X Factor is NOT the future of rock ‘n’ roll. The X Factor DOES NOT produce or nurture great talent. The X Factor WOULD HAVE turned down the likes of Kate Bush or David Bowie. Olly Murs IS NOT rock ‘n’ roll (an appearance on Saturday Kitchen and on the bill at V Festival on the same day! A great reason to boycott the V Festival and go to Reading or Leeds instead) The X Factor IS JUST a light entertainment programme. I really mean all those kind of shows when I say X Factor; American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent etc.)
Probably more talented than most recent winners and finalists of the X Factor
In addition have you heard the new Matt Cardle single? It sounds like a song that Coldplay or Snow Patrol have rejected. Yes I know it was written by Gary Barlow off of Take That; but it is a bit of a dirge isn’t it. As for the stranglehold the show has on the Christmas number one we really need to create another Rage Against The Machine moment to prevent this years Joe Cardle or Matt McElderry (yes I know the names are juxtaposed!) or whatever identikit pop muppet wins. I propose something like the first Public Image Limited single “Public Image”, “White Riot” by the Clash or perhaps the Ramones with “I Wanna Be Sedated” I would love to hear your thoughts on that one. Check out the videos for those songs below.
Simon Cowell; So talented he can make the shape of his signature with his arms
I know many of you will, if you can be bothered, comment with a list of all the major successes these shows have produced. But it really would be a short list wouldn’t it? Personally I would only include Will Young on that list. Also how can a show overhaul its judging panel so extensively and still leave Louis Walsh in place? He’s about as useful as a teapot made of dog turds.
Louis looking remarkably like a dog turd teapot in my opinion
And finally spending four hours or whatever the hell it is each weekend watching such mindless drivel as the X Factor is a whole stack of hours that I will never get back. So why don’t we all do something different, something real. Go to a music venue, even if it’s just live music at a pub. just don’t sit in and allow yourself to become addicted such crap. Let’s start hoisting the flag for real music not puerile, manufactured shite that the X Factor drip feeds you with.
OK hit me with your comments good people! I thought for little while about what song to finish with. It had to be X Factor related yet not X Factor related at the same time. So it had to be Lauryn Hill with “Ex Factor”
Once again I have some rather sad news to impart; Sylvia Robinson has died aged 76 of congestive heart failure. She was perhaps the first person to see the commercial potential of rap music. She had a long career in the music industry before her involvement in the development of rap.
Her first hit came in 1957 with partner Mickey Baker (they were billed as Mickey and Sylvia). The song was “Love Is Strange” which still gets a reasonable amount of airplay even today. I know that song very well but I particularly remember her for the classic 1973 single “Pillow Talk”. This was a stone cold classic sultry, sexy and soulful song which was probably a massive influence on Donna Summer’s early career. Notably her 1975 hit “Love To Love You Baby”
Sylvia was born in New York as Sylvia Vanterpool and she said that her first exposure to what I suppose you could call proto-rap was at a club gig by DJ Lovebug Starski. He was calling out over a set of R & B sounds and eliciting great responses from his audience. Similar to the Jamaican Dance Hall and Sound System DJs who were known as Toasters. Later she was quoted as saying “A spirit said to me, ‘Put a concept like that on a record and it will be the biggest
thing you ever had” So that is exactly what she did! In 1979 she pulled together a few DJs and MCs that at the time were not well-known outside of New York; Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike and Master Gee. She produced their first song “Rappers Delight” which made great use of a sample loop from Chic’s disco classic “Good Times”. It started life as a truly wonderful 15 minute epic tune and was then edited to around 7 minutes for release as a single. It was a massive hit in both the US and the UK. Whilst arguably it may not have been the first recorded rap song it was certainly the first commercially successful rap song. Robinson went on to co write the Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel hit “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”
She set up the Sugarhill record label in 1979 which sadly closed in 1986. Her New jersey studio burnt down in 2002. Someone so talented and influential will be sorely missed. My thoughts go to her family, friends and fans all over the world. To remember this great lady please enjoy some classic Sylvia and Sylvia related moments;
Apologies for the lack of any posts for the past few weeks, but I do have a good excuse; honest! I finally made an honest woman of Catherine (aka Catwoman). We got married on 3rd September in York and have just returned from a terrific honeymoon in Mauritius. There will be a few upcoming posts about the music we used at the wedding and maybe even a picture or two. But for now I would like to focus on a couple of recent news stories that have caught my eye.
Firstly you are probably well aware of the impending crash of a NASA satellite into earth today. (In fact it has probably already crashed
as you read this post!). Apparently NASA are unable to say exactly where it will come down until a few hours before it does and even then there is a margin of error of up to 6,000 miles! But don’t worry as there is only a 3,200 to 1 chance that any of this space junk will actually hit a person. Which means that I still have more chance of having my head caved in by a component of a redundant satellite than I do of winning first prize in the UK National Lottery (odds for that lottery win are 14 million to 1. The BBC also quotes a NASA
spokesman as saying that there is even less to worry about despite the low odds of a person being hit as the odds of a specific person being hit are 21 trillion to 1. Confused? I am! Can anyone explain that in simple terms to me, I am just a blogger of very little brain; thanks to A. A. Milne for that quote)? I very much hope that none of us have body altering surgery as a result of a collision with a piece of space junk, but if you do here are a few related songs for you to enjoy while you recover;
Secondly it’s yet another science related story. Researchers at Cern in Switzerland may have found something that travels faster than the
speed of light. After thousands of experiments over three years it seems that some sub-atomic particles (Neutrinos I believe) may have the ability to break the science speed limit which was effectively set by Albert Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity. I wonder if that brings us closer to time travel or being able to build a Star Trek type transporter. Beam me up Albert! Before I bring you some science and scientist related songs I would like to state categorically that if any of the scientific elements in this post are incorrect then I apologise and hide behind the fact that I am not a scientist. I have documentation to prove this as well. I failed all my science GCSE O levels back in 1975! So onto those aforementioned songs;
A double dose of sad news comes to us music lovers today with the deaths of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Nicholas Ashford.
That's Jerry on the right with Mike Stoller on the left? Who's that in the middle then? 😉
Jerry Leiber was the lyric writing half of a massively successful song writing partnership with Mike Stoller. They wrote a number of songs which were recorded by Elvis Presley; notably “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock”. It has been alleged that they never liked Presley’s version of “Hound Dog” and preferred the first recording of the song by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton from 1953. They wrote one of my favourite songs, “Stand By Me” which was a massive hit for Ben E King and has also been covered by many other artists. They also had success with King’s old band the Drifters and the Coasters. Leiber died from a cardiopulmonary disorder aged 78, which by todays standards isn’t that old any more. RIP Jerry Leiber our thoughts go out to your family, friends and fans across the world.
Valerie Simpson with the sadly missed Nick Ashford
Nick Ashford forged a very successful career as a songwriter in partnership with his equally talented wife Valerie Simpson. The pair are probably most famous for the songs that they wrote for Motown, including the classics “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”. They also crafted Diana Ross’s hit “Reach Out And Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” But they also had success away from Motown; Chaka Khan recorded their song “I’m Every Woman”, another of my favourites. They also had a hit in their own right with their song “Solid”. The couple also have a co writing credit on Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own” which samples “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Nick died from cancer aged just 70, the age my Dad was when he passed away. RIP Nick Ashford our thoughts go out to your family, friends and fans across the world.
I will try and counter that sad news with something a little happier. I really am disappointed that I am a little late with this, but four days ago on August 19th, my favourite singer* Johnny Nash turned 71. Happy belated birthday Mr Nash! I want to know when all his albums will get a proper CD release. I have about 12 of his albums on vinyl and only three on CD, not including hits packages. Texan born Johnny I believe now resides in Jamaica. I will now have to go and listen to my favourite Nash album ‘My Merry Go-Round’ in celebration.
It was probably quite predictable really, but just like Elvis, John Lennon, Nirvana and Michael Jackson among others, Amy Winehouse’s albums and singles have sold phenomenally well since her sad death last weekend. ‘Back To Black‘ is this weeks UK number one album. It has also climbed to number 8 in the US Billboard album charts.Her first album ‘Frank’ is at number 5 in the UK. In fact with Adele at number 2 and 4 and Beyonce at number 3, the whole top 5 albums in the UK is ruled by women!
Amy also has 5 songs in the UK top 40 singles chart;
Sadly it wasn’t enough to keep JLS from the top of the singles chart, but not every cloud has a silver lining. In the meantime let’s enjoy a couple of Amy’s recordings that didn’t make the top 40 this week, including a brilliant festival appearance with the Specials;
Do you ever feel like Big Brother or simply the Nanny State is watching us or coming to get us even? Are there people and organisations out there that would like to control what we see, hear and read? I believe that there are. I guess the recent phone hacking debacle has gone some way to proving this. If scum tabloid newspapers can get away for years with listening to people voice messages (and who knows what else) then what the hell must the ‘powers that be’ get up to?
Spencer Elden recreates that classic album cover aged 17
So a small part of this kind of state is reflected in the recent action by Facebook. They removed a picture of the iconic cover of Nirvana’s classic album ‘Nevermind‘ from the album’s Facebook page. Presumably because it shows……..shock, horror…. a baby penis! They have apparently rectified what has been described as an administrative error, personally I see it as more of a cock-up. What do you think?
Spencer Elden in a TV appearance around the time he turned 20 earlier in 2011
Click here to read about it in the Guardian. Spencer Elden, now aged 20, was the baby in the picture. In 2008 he was quoted as saying “Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis, so that’s kinda cool.” He is the son of a friend of Nirvana’s photographer.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 