With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

BBC Music Awards 2014 – December 11th 2014 December 11, 2014


Awards-Logo640December 11th 2014 saw the first ever BBC Music Awards. The show was broadcast live from Earls Court in London. Whilst there were only four awards there were plenty of live acts including; Coldplay (Stunning), Labrinth with Ella Henderson (Class), Clean Bandit (is there anyone that doesn’t love them?), Gregory Porter (why does he wear that balaclava?), George Ezra (a proper Buddha Pest), Wand Erection (whisper this, but I thought that they were alright!), Ed Sheeran (how can one man with a guitar be that bloody good?), Calvin Harris (super Scot) with John Newman (voice of the year and pearly king) and Ellie Goulding (sublime disco), Catfish and the Bottlemen (best newcomers and 70s fashion aficionados), Paloma Faith (quirky and wonderful), Take That (now known as Taxdodge That), Will.i.am (a bit Bollywood Disco, not a bad song, still.a.twat) with Cody Wise (better.than.will.i.am)

bbc musicThe first award was for Best International Artist. Chris Evans who co-hosted the show with Fearne Cotton picked a young Welsh lass from the audience to announce the winner, which was Pharrell Williams. He was presented with his award live in LA by Gwen Stefani.

pharrell-williams-grammy-hat-has-a-hip-hop-historyIdris Elba presented the award for Song Of The Year and guess what? There was another trip to LA for Gwen Stefani to present yet another award to Pharrell Williams. This time for the stupendous “Happy”.

CF1-e1386329747254The BBC Introducing Award for Best Newcomer went to Catfish And The Bottlemen. A good choice methinks. I am really keen to see them play live now. The award was presented by Fearne Cotton after they played live.

Ed SheeranFuck me, Bowie was nominated for Best British artist but sadly he didn’t win it. Tom Jones presented the award to Ed Sheeran. I was surprised that Pharrell hadn’t been quickly given British citizenship. But then Sheeran’s “Sing” was a collaboration with Pharrell though.

Was this a better show than the Brits? Probably, but they need more awards. Also I thought Paloma Faith and Tom Jones finale had so much promise until they strangled “God Only Knows”. Was that as bad a cover of the song as David Bowie’s version in the 80s? Probably!

 

“I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited” April 14, 2013


adele-has-it-all

A few days ago the one billionth song was downloaded in the UK only ten years after the legal download was first launched. Now that is quite a phenomenal performance isn’t it? The top 10 most downloaded songs in the UK are;

1. Adele – Someone Like You

2. Maroon 5 ft Christina Aguilera – Moves Like Jagger

3. Gotye ft Kimbra – Somebody I Used To Know

4. Black Eyed PeasI Gotta Feeling

5. Rihanna ft Calvin Harris – We Found Love

6. Kings Of Leon – Sex On Fire

7. Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe

8. LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem

9. Bruno Mars – Just The Way You Are (Amazing)

10. Jessie J – Price Tag

No real surprises there really, all artists of the modern age. Of course there have been the campaigns to get old songs in the chart via downloads. Some of these have been successful and many haven’t. We now have the annual let’s stop X Factor getting to the top at Christmas. That probably peaked with the success of Rage Against The Machine‘s “Killing In The Name”. There have also been the slightly more ridiculous campaigns which probably culminated in the arrival of Judy Garland’s “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” from the Wizard Of Oz at number two in the charts this week aimed at ‘celebrating’ the death of Margaret Thatcher. I was in two minds about this plan, but frankly right now I don’t think it feels right. The whole idea of celebrating anyones death is odd. Why not just get out on the streets to protest against what the current government is doing to the country. That makes more sense doesn’t it?

9gag-adele-funny-haha-lol-Favim.com-247593

 

“Yellow diamonds in the light and we’re standing side by side” October 11, 2011


Rihanna now employs Catwoman as her stylist

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?

 

“No sitting down on your butt, the world don’t owe you” October 2, 2009


So after all those rumours from Blogland that Mr Bowie would come out of retirement and headline New Zealand’s Big Day Out Festival next year it has finally been announced that he was apparently ‘never really an option’. In other Bowie news I can report that his has a new album released in January 2010, well you can guess how excited I was when I read that only to find that it is not a new album but a double CD compilation drawn from shows on the Reality Tour from 2003………. Oh well one can always hope! Incidentally if you’re interested in the line up for the Big Day Out here is a summary of the biggies; Muse, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Kasabian, The Mars Volta, Rise Against, Peaches, Horrors, Girl Talk and Mastodon.

Lily Allen follows the advice of this blog or probably not!

Lily Allen follows the advice of this blog or probably not!

On the subject of Lily Allen those regular readers among you will be familiar with this blogs ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment. The objective of which was to expand the number of blog views by attracting people who were searching for ‘Lily Allen Naked’. Obviously I have felt guilty about this for some time as there were never any naked Lily Allen pictures here, despite the fact that more than 600 people had arrived here seeking them. Although of course it might have been one person arriving 600 times, come on Tom own up! So if you’re among that group or you are that person or if it was you Tom then please accept my apologies and let me also give you some good news. Lily was clearly influenced by our experiment because she recently completed a rather tasteful nude photo shoot for GQ magazine. Click here to see a selection of those, rather good, pictures. I would also like to mention the countless other searches for naked pictures of; Eminem, Sting, Kate Bush, Katy Perry, Ronan Keating, Bryan Ferry among others and perhaps most bizarrely of all a handful of people arrived here while searching for Meatloaf naked…………….I mean COME ON! That is so wrong in many ways…………..WHY????? So in my humble opinion that brings the ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment to a close. So now all we need to do is think of what the next experiment will be. Any suggestions? I have a few on my mind;

1) Calvin Harris Underpants (Acceptable In The 80s)

2) Sugababes lingerie (Get Sexy)

3) Mick Jaggers Athletic Support (Let’s Work)

Mick Jagger, very much in touch with his camp side

Mick Jagger, very much in touch with his camp side

4) George Michael flashing (I Want Your Sex)

George flashes his ring ;-)

George flashes his ring 😉

Although to be fair the last one has probably been done to death already! Anyway I do look forward to receiving your own ideas. I would also like to state categorically that I really haven’t been thinking about these for long. While you ponder them why don’t you enjoy the fabulous Lily Allen with “It’s Not Fair” Lily I know you have some very strong and indeed valid views abot downloading, but whatever your thoughts I and many others would rather you carried on recording!

As this is somewhat of a random post let me continue with a jolly good link that was passed to me by my good friend Nick H from the parish of Marlow. It’s a piece that the NME are running on line about the best gig you ever saw. Now that’s a really tough one for me. Obviously I would select at least one Bowie gig (probably 1976 at Wembley) plus Radiohead (at Lancashire County Cricket ground in 2008), Suede at the Reading Rivermead (hmmmmm when was that? Late 90’s methinks), Gene (the Old Trout in Windsor 1994). But if my life depended upon it I would have to say Parliament/ Funkadelic at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978 a truly unforgettable concert experience! George Clinton and Bootsy Collins two cast iron geniuses in my opinion! Anyway to check out the NME link click here. What was the greatest gig you ever saw, I think we’d all like to know, wouldn’t we?

And finally for today I must draw your attention to the rather excellent C’Mon Son posts, if you click here you can see number 4 and boy does he deal brilliantly with uber twat Mr Kanye West for barging into into Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech recently! What do you think?

 

NME Shockwaves Awards special! February 26, 2009


As many of you know tonight saw the music fraternity out once again for an annual awards/ lovefest. This time the NME Shockwaves Awards, mostly seen as a good alternative to the Brits and indeed often called the Brats. It has been argued by some that the NME awards have become too commercial these days. never as commercial as the Brits though, surely?

Anyway the results for tonight are

Godlike Genius Award goes to the Cure, but then we all knew that didn’t we? seeing as how it was announced weeks ago. There is a great free CD of Cure covers with this weeks NME

Outstanding Contribution to Music goes to Mercury Award and Brit winners, the fabulous Elbow. Oasis won Best British Band, no real surprise there, but to me they sound a little old and tired these days, especially on the new single “Falling Down” what do you think?
Noel Gallagher also won best blog, hey I’m going for that next year 😉

The magnificent Muse won Best Live Band and also Best Album Artwork for their excellent live album “HAARP” Have you heard it? On top of those two awards Matt Bellamy also won the sexiest man award. I love the band but Matt doesn’t really do it for me in that way, but then again I’m straight. Ladies (and gay men) was Matt Bellamy a good choice for sexiest man?

MGMT won two awards; Best New Band and Best Track for “Time To Pretend” I saw them supporting Radiohead last summer and they were bloody good

Alex Turner was the recipient of two awards; Best DVD for the “Arctic Monkeys Live At The Apollo” and Best Video for The Last Shadow Puppets “My Mistakes Were Made For You” However he did lose out in the Best Dressed award to his girlfriend Alexa Chung

Even those nice boys the Jonas Brothers won two awards, mind you those were Worst Album (“A Little Bit Longer”) and Worst Band

Barack Obama rather unsurprisingly won Hero Of The Year, now that is one I certainly agree with.

His predecessor in the White House George W Bush also won a well deserved award, for the 6th year in a row too, the Villain Of The Year. I wonder who it will go to next year now that Dubya won’t be around?

The Killers deservedly won Best International Band with fellow countrymen the Kings Of Leon getting the Best Album gong for the superb “Only By The Night”

Hayley Williams from Paramore won the Sexiest Woman prize and yes I can agree with that. Another woman, Amy Winehouse won the Worst Dressed award. Was she really that bad?

One of Amy’s buddies, Mr Pete Doherty won Best Solo Artist, well do forgive me but has he done that much from a solo point of view yet?

Best Dancefloor Filler was the rather good “Dance Wiv Me” by Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris

The rest of the awards were; Best Live Event – Glastonbury, Best TV Show – The Mighty Boosh, Best Website – youtube.com (well at least that proves the vote wasn’t rigged otherwise it would have gone to nme.com!)
, Best Venue – London Astoria and lastly the Philip Hall Radar Award – The Big Pink

Check out the pictures and post awards party news at the NME