Friday, March 30, 2007 Is the new Joss Stone just a load of old shit?
No.
There I've said it. The new Joss Stone album is NOT - I repeat - IS NOT TERRIBLE. Don't let the lead single fool you! Yes, "Tell Me Bout It" IS a load of old shit and, judging by its release, one would not be a terrible person to assume the rest of the album wallops on in the same fashion. This is the exact reason I avoided "Introducing Joss Stone" like the plague (that and the fact I found her first two albums filled mainly with terrible songs - naturally excluding "You Had Me" - which is pretty much her "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" isn't it?), I even went as far as instructing the mail man to take back the promo package when he delivered it the other week. He would not.
But the other day, whilst observing a photograph of Joss and her new crazy hair-do, I figured seeing as the promo sat under paperwork and CD rubble on my desk and that she'd taken a lot of time and effort to reinvent her locks, I'd give her new album a quick go.
Low and behold: not a terrible long player. "Girl They Won't Believe It" truly needs to be a single, all with thanks to its delightful melody and charming lyrics. Certainly easier on everyone's ears than that offensive first single. Next single "Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now" sounds a bit like Jamelia's "Go" (which, granted, sounds like several thousand other songs), but with Common rapping over several assorted areas. EVEN WITH SAID RAPPING, this song is MUCH better than that first single, which I have WELL AND TRULY ESTABLISHED AS BEING THE SINGLE WORST RELEASE OF 2007 THUS FAR, Though Scooch may not want to get so comfortable sitting at the Number #2 spot just yet.
"Music" features guest vocals from everyone's favourite 90's recluse and MTV-Unplugged-serial-bawler Lauryn Hill. It is very good - funnily enough - until Lauryn's bit. However, this should still probably be a single but only AFTER "GIRL THEY WON'T BELIEVE IT" THANK YOU. (FYI: Everyone's favourite 80's recluse is, obviously, Agnetha Faltskog.)
There is an incredible amount of shouting during "Put Your Hands On Me", in which Stone channels a frighteningly loud Brandy vs Monica during their live showdown several years ago of "The Boy Is Mine", but times about a thousand. This is the only song on Stone's album that actually makes "Tell Me 'bout It" sound like gods gift to those with hearing ability.
There are also a few slow songs on this record which aren't too bad either, but not really worth talking about. Overall, the album's about a 6.5/7 out of 10. Really the final mark will depend on how well it ages for me over the next couple of weeks and whether Oprah will feature Joss on her show again. The album sold about 3 copies in Australia last week which guaranteed it a #15 debut. Seems our nation isn't too bothered with buying music these days. The US have embraced the album though, debuting at Number #2 this week after outselling her last album release over there; over 100k copies sold.
While we're on the subject of Joss, there is a fucking hilarious article up on The Daily Mail website, which claims Joss mistakenly gave a press conference to Security Guards after the Brit Awards. Sweet Jesus and Madonna almighty, you just cannot make this kind of shit up.
Will this be the very last time Stone's name is ever uttered on this here website? Most probably, yes.
And, just finally, in honour of the Faux-American's wondrous performance at this years Brit Awards, "Big Love" going out to all the people who've sent me emails or left comments offering their condolences after the loss of my beautiful canine Scully during the week. It has meant the absolute world to me, thank you so, so very much. xoxoxo
There probably wont be much blogging this week guys, I'm not in any mood for it to be honest. This morning at 12:30am, my beloved dog of 12 years old, Scully, passed away in her basket with herloving family huddled around her.
She had been looking quite unwell the past week, but last night was the first indication of serious problems. We took her to the vet and were told she not only had fluid around her lungs but also had a heart murmur. Being told your dog might not last the night was heartbreaking enough, seeing how terribly drawn for breath she was when coming home was even harder because I knew it was only a matter of minutes. My Mother, Father, 13 year old Brother and I sat in our lounge room, saying our final goodbye's with Scully sitting in her basket, dazed and confused but completely aware each of us was with her. Eventually, her difficult and drawn out breaths began to slow down before they finally stopped.
I am so, so sad. It's beyond words how much I loved Scully. She was our little angel, and I will never, ever forget her.
Rest In Peace my dear Scully, you were loved unconditionally by your family and your friends.
According to a source that is probably not very reliable, Big Brother is set to return to Australian television sets in JUST OVER A MONTH'S TIME. Forget the contestants, forget the Diary-room drama's, forget the weekly task, forget Bree, Fryzie and Mike, and FORGET the up-late game show, for this season - as is the case EVERY SINGLE YEAR - is to be all about the shows wondrous host, Gretel Killeen.
Admire her brilliance. Look at her perfectly flowing hair, the jovial stance she produces with her hands on her hips combined with a knock-out smile, look at those fabulous breasts, those marvellous teeth, et bloody cetera. Isn't she just AMAZING? Haven't you MISSED HER OH SO MUCH?
We've had so many memorable Gretel moments over the last 7 years, but none more so than last year when Gretel got stuck into contestant Michael when he made a comment about clever editing...
"Listen mate, if you're going to tell me when I've worked on a show for six years, that we have edited something..."
And then there was 2005's Grand Finale frock. You may recall it ABSOLUTELY STOLE THE SHOW THAT NIGHT, alongside Vesna's fabulous breasts almost popping out of her top.
Thursday, March 22, 2007 Future Music Festival 2007
Out of place and off their face. If I never see a girl (or, for that matter, a guy) with fanta-orange tanned skin for the rest of my life, I will die a happy man. I was sent just over a week ago through work to review Future Entertainment's Future Music Festival, a day-time dance party held at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. To say I was absolutely swimming through a sea of orange would be an understatement. I was actually surprised to find there were no fake-tanning booths set up as market stalls to be honest. I guess the organisers knew no one would be on the dancefloor if such a thing had been implemented.
The crowd were... um, unbelievable. Unbelievable in the sense that I never knew that many self-obsessed gimps could actually co-exist - let alone were able to congregate - in the one large concert space. It was like partying with wild, untamed zoo animals half the time. A total of zero people were apologetic when bumping into me, people stood on mine (and others) toes - and in place of an apology, one actually said "watch where you're going". Unfuckingbelievable. Had I not been completely out of it on Mercyndol Forte for my agonising migraine, I would have headbutted the cunt. In lines for the toilets people were abusive to poor random others just waiting to hang a piss. In lines for food, general manners in saying "please" and "Thank you" before and after the order was placed went out the window, in place of grunts and vacant stares. A friend of mine managed to witness an entire garbage rolley-bin being THROWN/PUNCHED into the face of an unsuspecting male near the toilets. Next thing we know, there's a stretcher and an ambulance cutting through the market stalls.
The complete rudeness continued in front of the stages. One girl, whilst I had been up the front for hours waiting for Princess Superstar (pictured, top right) to begin, came up and pushed her way into a position next to me. Her giant handbag, more than likely filled with 78 kilograms of lip gloss, was so heavy that it knocked my feet off my floor space at the front and had squished me up the point I thought I was going to fall flat on my back. She then stood NEXT to the bag, and darted a look at me as if to say "I really don't care that I'm pushing in". After asking her politely if she could move her bag, she filthily glanced at me, lifted her foot and moved the bag about a millimetre away from me. Now, I'm a large guy. Her minuscule movement of the handbag did fuck all for my feet, let alone my body size, and she very well knew this was the case. There was no fucking way I was to let this $2 Crack whore who was quite obviously coked up to her eyeballs thrash me around. I don't care how much you're enjoying your high, if you insist on being an absolute cock-muncher than I'm going to say something. Her filthy glance was quite swiftly thrown out the door when I then returned her gaze and - quite calmly - told her to put her bag in front of her own fucking feet or it'd be thrown into the audience behind us. She then grabbed her bag and moved a good half a metre away. That'll fucking teach her.
As for the music, Princess Superstar was the obvious winner. If you want to actually read the article in which I talk about the, er, music side of things (the one I was sent to the event to write), you can read it here. I was lucky enough to have a chat with her after the gig. She remembered me from last years gig at Famous, and even remembered the Geelong gig from 2002. Grabbed a photo with her which you can gaze over once I upload it over the weekend. Speaking of, er, hem hem, celebs, I managed to spot John - the guy with tourettes - from last years Big Brother. You know, the one that got kicked out with Ashley for turkey slapping Camilla? How exciting. Um...
Survival of the fittest: That's the way things go at these gliteratti type dance parties. Here's a couple of tips to keep in mind the next time you attend a dance party/function with the ugly-pretty people... Some of them are actual tips worth taking note of, the others, more tips on how to blend in with the majority.
* The one trick with these types of parties is to make sure you walk in with the thought that you are actually a much nicer and overall better person than anyone else in attendance. 98% of the time, this thought process is actually correct, but you need to walk in KNOWING it is 100%. Quite frankly, it's a survival technique, and the only possible way you'll be able to resist swapping your overly-sized sunglasses during a dancefloor moment with a munted metrosexual. Remember, no matter how many drugs you've consumed, apparently there is just no excuse to be nice to anyone. So if you feel an urge to say "please" or "thank you" at all during the day, it's quite obviously time to shut up and have another line of coke instead.
* Do not touch skin with anyone, particularly if you are wearing white. If you walk away after an "incident" at the front of the dancefloor, you are more than guaranteed of having to endure the rest of the party covered in blotches of orange fake tan. This - no matter what Donatella Versace would have you believe - is not a good look.
* Be on the look out for so called "celebrity" reality show contestants, especially if you are a girl and the celebrity is a male. That shot of you with your arm around them and their eyes desperately wanting to return back to your orange cleavage is the PERFECT addition to your MySpace profile. And if you ask nicely, they might even whack their cock about your face a bit later. This is the only time during the day the words "please" and "Thank you" would be deemed acceptable for use.
* There is no such thing as too much lip gloss. Even if it does look like you've just gone down on an extremely fat, greasy pig.
* Wear your sunglasses if you plan on gurning your face off whilst under the influence. If you have glasses on, no one will take any notice of your chattering teeth, or the gnawing of your tongue on the dancefloor. None at all.
There is probably a lot more, but I've suddenly grown very, very tired. That said, contrary to all this nonsense, I did actually have a bloody good time. It just would have been an even better day had the crown not been made up of absolute morons, that's all.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Australia: This is your chart.
Oh would you look at that? It's the Australian ARIA Singles and Albums charts. For the first time in exactly 36 years, both of the charts are almost interesting enough to discuss this week. Let's take a look at some of the more, er, notable entries...
SINGLES
#01 - SILVERCHAIR - STRAIGHT LINES Debuting at number #1 this week, and easily Silverchair's (Chris Joannou, bassist, pictured right) strongest single to date. First studio album in over 5 years is on its way this month... March 31st could not come any quicker.
#03 - HINDER - LIPS OF AN ANGEL Australia, what is going on here?
#06 - MIKA - GRACE KELLY Australia catches onto the Mika craze. Album out this week - will it find a spot on the top 40?
#13 - GIA FARREL - HIT ME UP As if Rihanna's "Pon De Replay" wasn't tedious enough the first time around, Gia Farrel's here to provide us all with an extremely watered down poor man's version of the song.
#17 - JAMELIA - SOMETHING ABOUT YOU Something Jamelia's not used to these days, her single's managed to rise up 2 places from 19 to 17 this week. "Beware Of The Dog" is already being played on Nova.
#27 - SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM - PICTURES New single please!
#29 - TAKE THAT - PATIENCE Debuting at Number 29 thanks to their (somewhat) extensive promo tour of Australia last week. Most radio stations across the country have decided to start playing this even though it was originally released here in November last year - four whole months ago. Melbourne radio were quite happy to interview the boys last week on their top-rating programs, but the song's still not good enough for the airwaves of Melbourne, with neither Fox or Nova adding "Patience" to their playlists. Even though they had the boys in last week. Go figure. The Hit lift-out in tomorrows Herald Sun Newspaper is going to have an alarmingly telling figure as to what peoples thoughts are in relation to Take That's lack of airplay in Melbourne. Keep an eye out for it...
#34 - STEPHANIE MCINTOSH - SO DO I SAY SORRY FIRST Up one spot after a disappointing debut last week, Steph's strongest song and single to date barely cuts the lower end of the charts. Pity, both the song and clip have been the first real indication of McIntosh actually being quite serious about this whole pop thing. Time for a new album then...
#41 - DIXIE CHICKS - NOT READY TO MAKE NICE Hanging around on downloads alone, this is quite probably the 13th greatest song of all time.
ALBUMS
#12 - JESSICA MAUBOY - THE JOURNEY Guess who got this from work to review this week? SonyBMG have been a bit tight on providing any press with the DVD particle of the package, obviously quite aware that no one wishes to relive Australian Idol 2006 with visual aid at all.
#16 - DIXIE CHICKS - TAKING THE LONG WAY I have a lot of time for the Dixie Chicks. They're very clever young women with an incredibly strong back catalogue worthy of further praise on this website. You have been warned.
#21 - AMY WINEHOUSE - BACK TO BLACK Down two spots this week after spending its second week at Number #19, Amy's got her album in the wanted parts of the chart without having an active single on radio or without any promo on her part. Apparently we should be expecting her down under quite soon though.
#26 - ROGUE TRADERS - HERE COME THE DRUMS 68 weeks in the top 50 and counting. Natalie Bassingthwaighte revives her Neighbours character of Izzy Hoyland this week on Australian television
#27 - SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM - SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM Vocalist Miss Connie's musical background includes fronting defunct ace Pop/Rock/Alternative outfit Primal in the late 90's.
#32 - TAKE THAT - BEAUTIFUL WORLD Is this going to rise next week? The boys pretty much confirmed that the only reason we're not getting a tour in 2007 is because they want to test the waters here first. A stupidly cancelled appearance on Channel 7's Dancing With The Stars could have been their meal ticket into the homes and hearts of the nation again. If singing one lousy song on that show got Westlife to Number 1 here, Take That would have had not a problem at all in doing so. But apparently due to confusion on managements part (No!?), the schedule was changed to fit in more radio interviews (pfft) and Dancing With The Stars was given the boot. Even though the night of Dancing With the Stars the boys were lounging in their hotel lobby, rather than doing any radio interviews. Universal Music Australia waving that magical wand of incompetence all over again it seems.
#35 - JEFF BUCKLEY - GRACE Unbelievable. Surely everyone (who would want it) owns this by now?
#41 - XTINA - BACK TO BASICS Christina's very boring, serious and funless album manages to climb back into the albums top 50 with thanks to radio playing "Candyman", the albums only strong point.
#45 - KORN - MTV UNPLUGGED Let's hope their cover of "Word Up" was forgotten about for this one.
#46 - YOUNG DIVAS - YOUNG DIVAS Everyone's favourite homegrown(ish) dairy farmers are going on tour in May. Without Ricki-Lee. Who will be Lee's replacement? AND - more importantly - when do we get a new album of covers? I insist that Sabrina's "Boys Boys Boys" gets a go on the next record.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Time goes by quite quickly actually Madge.
So much for the things I promised "over the next seven days". I suck, I know, but I have genuinely been busy. Today I had the option of either writing a bunch of stuff to put up on the site, or to spend my free afternoon working on the design of the new, upcoming site. Obviously, I opted for the latter.
HOWEVER. I am back at work tomorrow which means some extra time for blogging. I know, it shouldn't really work like that, but there are definite advantages to working on the specific days your boss isn't around - especially when there's just so much un-monitored free broadband Internet going around.
I was observing this weeks Australian ARIA singles & albums charts. For the first time in - fuck me - years, the chart is actually somewhat interesting. Almost interesting enough to bother with a summary of sorts. We'll see.
I also need to discuss the brilliance of Simon Curtis, and this lovely 10th Anniversary Edition of the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack over the next couple of days. Both things I was going to mention about 3 weeks ago. And I'm trying to launch a new look?!
I THINK THIS VERY WELL MAY BE THE FINAL POST ON THIS WEBSITE FOR A WHILE THAT USES A CONFESSIONS ERA PIC OF HER MADGESTY. THE PICTURES ARE JUST SO PRETTY THOUGH, AREN'T THEY?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Coming Over the next 7 days...
REVIEW : The Future Music Festival was held at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, with acts such as Princess Superstar, Rex The Dog (previously known as JX), TV Rock & The Midnight Juggernauts, just to name a few. I just happened to be there on Important Employment Business, and have a review of sorts coming up on that.
EMAIL : The results have been tallied for the My Favourite Pop Record thing I've been banging on about the past few months. To those fabulous pop bloggers who've agreed to be on the Commentary Panel - you should be getting an email with the full results some time this week. You - the reader - will have to wait till early April.
DETAILS : The greatest day of my life came in the form of a morning spent with Gary FUCKING Barlow. Oh yes.
...I've been waiting five years for this. And on March 31st, the wait for a brand new album from silverchair will be over. I don't know about you, but I'm really very excited.
First of all, let me talk about this album to your left. It's by an Alternative (!) band from Ireland called La Rocca, and it is titled "The Truth". One of the greatest songs to ever feature a piano, "Non Believer", features on this very album, and it is seriously breathtaking. If you like the first-album Keane stuff, really enjoy a heartfelt piano riff that comes from absolutely nowhere, or really quite enjoy the mellow-ish guitar strummings heard on One Tree Hill, then you are going to love not only La Rocca's best song, but their whole album too.
Before I go on, PLEASE visit their MySpace and listen to "Non Believer", the first song included on their MySpazz Music Player. The fabulous piano bit comes in just a bit after the 3:15 mark, and goes till about 4:00. Absolutely amazing stuff.
"Non Believer" was introduced to me through an episode of One Tree Hill, which I mentioned last week has become a serious obsession of mine during non-study periods of my day. A song so bloody beautiful, it encouraged me to investigate the group further. After listening to an, um, hem-hem, totally legal download of the album, it had engaged me so much that I promptly whipped out a credit card (apologies to whomever's card I used), and am now awaiting a proper copy of the album to arrive in my mailbox from the UK. And had this record actually been released THIS year rather than in August 2006, it would probably be sitting at about Number 4 on my albums of the year thus far.
NOW THAT'S OUT OF THE WAY - The tallying for the My Favourite Pop Record is almost over. I spent a large portion of my weekend counting up print outs, and will spend the next couple of days doing more of that. Hopefully by the start of April, I'll have the complete results - with added Blogerati commentary - online and ready to roll.
Speaking of the Blogerati, Paul from The Zapping has relocated his swishy site to an even swishy-er (?!) domain home. All of Paul's ace scribblings can now be found at www.thezapping.com.
It seems the All Saints have been dropped by Parlophone after 4 people bought their Studio 1 album. Oh dear. More at The Hotstuff and at Bop Pop...
The ace Popalastic seems to have returned, and disappeared again. COME BACK FOR GOODNESS SAKES!
Paul from The Zapping has contributed a piece about Love on Pinkie's A Kind Of Love In. And in a legendary turn of events, he (briefly) mentions De'Lacey's "Hideaway" in said piece. DO YOU REMEMBER HOW GREAT THAT SONG WAS? I sure do folks.
Popjustice has finally mentioned Van She - well, their on-the-side, remix project Vanshe Tech - on the front page. Now to attempt for the six millionth time: getting people interested in Van She's original material...
No, seriously. The COMPLETELY forgotten about "Reality Television", er, "stars", seem to still have some kind of a record deal with SonyBMG, even after their first single "Party Girl" managed to sell half a copy last year. For those of you that don't remember what "Party Girl" sounded like, think of the Aloud's "Sound Of The Underground" the morning after a night on Speed and Heroin. Let's throw in a lethal dosage of GHB as well for "good measure". An absolute mess of a song, with a chorus that was not far off from being similar to the sound of nails down a chalkboard, rather than one of the underground.
The girls were introduced to no more than 7 people on a television show in Australia, imaginatively titled Girlband, which aired on Sunday Nights for about 2 weeks, and was then moved to Sunday Mornings at about 4am 10am for the remaining few. In the very first episode, the people behind this masterful creation pretty much said "We liked the success and overall package of Girls Aloud in the U.K. - we wanted to make something like that here." They even showed a clip of the "Biology" video. I was all for this happening, and when the press releases hinted at it being a bit of Rogue Traders-esque sound, I thought the girls would do really well. But as the show progressed, the poor girls who'd been roped into this job were meek, boring and very dull shadows of the Girls their Management were trying to turn them into. Girls Aloud or Rogue Traders they were not, in fact, nor were they even close to Clea. These were four girls who just didn't fit together. It didn't help matters that the songs heard on the show and first single were all nothing short of terrible.
But things seem to have continued for them. The Girls have just returned from India after recording the theme song for an upcoming Bollywood Movie horrifically titled "Heyy Babyy". Still no word on if they'll ever be releasing that album though, which was news I searched for on their MySpace (which if you go visit, you'll actually find a fairly good track called "Stand Up"). So whilst I was snooping around, I noticed their latest publicity shot. It reminded me of something, so I thought I would share it around.
Look familiar?
For the first time ever, Nicola is not the one who looks out of place.
For those of you who've not gotten your 10 selections for Favourite Pop Record of All Time in, you have until Saturday the 3rd of March, even though today is your day of deadline... this is simply because I am feeling generous/there are at least 5 more episodes of One Tree Hill for me to watch before I've caught up with Season 4 and album chart tallying would prevent that from happening tonight. However, the tally calculations WILL BEGIN on Sunday the 4th of March, so any votes that come through after then shall be binned. You can do so by emailing them through before 11pm, Saturday the 3rd of March Melbourne Daylight Savings EST.
I venture out of University Hiatus to discuss television. But if you think there is going to be some kind of enlightening "point" by the end of this scribbling, you are very wrong. This is merely an outlet for my insanity to spew forth. In fact, reading this, you may even get a grasp on where my head is at after my first stressful and exciting few days at University.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been catching up on my viewing of One Tree Hill on DVD. As a - hem hem - break from homework and education, I've been fitting in a couple of episodes in between studying and over the weekend found myself finishing Season 3.
There are QUITE LITERALLY a mere FIVE EPISODES LEFT until I am up to date with the life of Peyton Sawyer, a young lady who I have developed quite a totally-normal "but I'm still a homosexual, promise" crush on. But I am becoming sad. After dedicating every second of my spare time away from University to my friends at Tree Hill, I've nought an idea as to what I'll do once it's over. And by over I mean, once I've caught up with the current U.S. season (IN 5 EPISODES TIME), what will I do with hours to spare, being left to watch the show on a weekly, one hour basis JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE *GRASPS FOR ASTHMA PUMP*.
THANKFULLY - there are no less than 765 Television Shows on DVD waiting to be watched/caught up on by myself, and now that I am a "struggling Student", there is (strangely) plenty more time now to balance study, a formerly full time job which is now part time, with television and friends (the real ones, not the ones from Tree Hill High).
I swear to god it's like High School all over again except, you know, with actual commitment this time. Thanks heaps for all the emails of encouragement over the past week too, it's been greatly appreciated. So yes, University life is beginningto feel quite marvellous. I'll get back to you in Term 4 when I start studying Politics though...
