Bad news: the subhead basically says “despite being a pop vagrant”.

Other suggested Seventeen cover stories:

THE WANTED
Nice hair – shame about the new video but oh well!

THE SATURDAYS
Great new single – obviously the TV show’s not coming back LOL!!

ONE DIRECTION
World at their feet – pity about Louis’ sock allergy but that’s probably the least of his worries right?!!!

NB: The press release for this is all quite serious and says we need to include the phrase ‘For more on the girls from LITTLE MIX, go to www.seventeen.com/littlemix and pick up the Little Mix June/July issue of Seventeen, on newsstands at Wal-Mart stores nationwide on May 21st’, so there you go.

This rush to judge seems particularly unfair when it comes to struggling independent artists like Pitbull and J.Lo who, operating outside the mainstream, will rarely enjoy the luxury of royalties from worldwide music sales and airplay.

So please don’t see this guide to the product placement in Pitbull and J.Lo’s ‘Live It Up’ video as any sort of criticism. See it instead as a celebration. A celebration of two artists who are just doing what they have to do to get their important message out there.

What you’ll see below is each instance of product placement, along with any details we consider pertinent, plus an estimate of how much each deal will have brought in for J.Lo and Pitbull.

Here goes!

Brand: Swarovski
Notes: Sometimes product placement can look a bit crowbarred-in, but according to their website, “through the mastery of poetry and precision Swarovski Crystal continues to be the market leader who meets people’s desire for adornment and delight”. And who can argue with Pitbull’s reputation for poetry and precision?
Estimated revenue: $8.99

Brand: Nokia
Notes: This is sadly not up there with The Greatest Nokia Pop Video Product Placement Image Of All Time. Disappointing.
Estimated revenue: $27.50 and a Nokia stress toy

Brand: Ice
Notes: We like the way the time on this watch is the same on the phone. Good attention to detail.
Estimated revenue: $2.99

Brand: Argos
Notes: Argos have been struggling to reinvent themselves for a young demographic and this subtle promotion for their new range of self-assembly clothes rails is both relevant and aspirational.
Estimated revenue: $7

Brand: France
Notes: Pitbull certainly likes to travel – that’s why they call him ‘Mr Worldwide’. And when we say ‘they call him’ we mean ‘he calls himself’, but the point still stands.
Estimated revenue: $15

Brand: Jessops
Notes: As UK readers will know, the high street photographic ‘emporium’ has had a tough time of things recently, but the recent arrival of Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Peter Jones could be just what the doctor (OR PHOTOGRAPHER!) ordered. Peter’s fascination with celebrity was laid bare when he invested in Hamfatter a few years ago, and we applaud the forward-thinking nature of his choice to go with J.Lo and Pitbull to help rescue Jessops.
Estimated revenue: $75 and 20% of the business

Brand: Bird’s
Notes: Bird’s is another company struggling to make sense of its legacy in the digital age, and they’re keen to shake off custard’s old-fashioned image. Here we see Bird’s attempting to reposition custard as a high-end cosmetics product.
Estimated revenue: $3

Brand: Totalscaffoldingsupplies.co.uk
Notes: Totalscaffoldingsupplies.co.uk are among the most forward-thinking of all the UK scaffolding suppliers and their entry into the pop market could be crucial to the company’s future.
Estimated revenue: $40.03

Brand: Scaffoldingdirect.co.uk
Notes: This one won’t please Totalscaffolding.co.uk. THIS WON’T PLEASE THEM ONE BIT. Especially when they see how much less their rivals paid.
Estimated revenue: $40.00

Brand: Grape Marketing Board
Notes: The controversy surrounding so-called ‘grape apartheid’ has given grapes a bit of an image problem in recent years, so this shot of green and red grapes in the same bowl is an important step in the right direction. Sadly, it’s worth noting that the green and red grapes are very much separated within the bowl – a sad fact that could mean that the Grape Marketing Board’s original aim backfires.
Estimated revenue: $9 and a year’s supply of grapes

Brand: Beluga
Notes: Obviously when it comes to vodka Beluga isn’t a patch on delicious Voli, but when you see how much they paid to be in the ‘Live It Up’ video you’ll see why Pitbull put his own business interests to one side!
Estimated revenue: $28

Brand: Tits Marketing Board
Notes: This is just the latest promotion in a lengthy partnership between Pitbull and breasts. If you look back on previous Pitbull videos you’ll notice some VERY VERY SUBTLE examples of women not wearing very much. This is because Pitbull is a business visionary and not just the sort of man whose persistent lecherous gaze would get him thrown out of most nightclubs if he weren’t a popstar.
Estimated revenue: $80.08

Brand: Rymans
Notes: Well Theo Paphitis was hardly going to let his Dragons’ Den rival Peter Jones get all the glory! Here we have an example of Rymans’ exciting new clipboard. Despite this clipboard’s very brief appearance in the video, the key message is still communicated: it’s got a clip on it, and it’s a board.
Estimated revenue: $1

TOTAL REVENUE: $337.59

In summary

Like we said above, many people still think product placement is ‘naff’ or equates to ‘selling out’, but what you have to remember is that there is no way Pitbull and J.Lo could have afforded to make a video without this $337.59. And if they can help a few great brands out along the way, what’s the problem?

Anyway you might have missed it because there wasn’t much coverage on Twitter but Eurovision happened over the weekend. ‘We’ did appallingly, obviously, but the best song of the night was clearly this one.

Well done, ‘The United Kingdom’, for not giving it any points.

As ever there’s an album out featuring 39 tunes ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, and we have 5-1 copies of the CD to give away. (We say ’5-1′ because it was meant to be five but we’re keeping on of them, apols.)

To be in with a chance of winning one of these compact disc releases, just use the form below to tell us what the United Kingdom should do for next year’s entry.

The competition closes at the end of today (ie when we piss off home at about 5pmish). Cheers!

Any new breakthrough (or about-to-breakthrough) artist is interesting to a certain degree, but despite his obvious talent – and a huge fanbase that he pretty much built himself - Elyar Fox is the sort of waiting-in-the-wings pop sensation whose imminent hugeness is seen to be so guaranteed that when people talk about him they do so with a certain sense of sadness. Maybe, from some quarters, it’s resentment from managers and artists whose own experiences with artist launches have been frustrating and unsuccessful.

But it’s also the case, as a lot of us discovered with Rita Ora (even if we didn’t realise it while it was happening), that there are times when you really miss the part of a popstar’s rise to fame when it feels like anything could (or couldn’t) happen. This sort of talk might be completely lost on anyone who works at a label. If you work at a label, or have any involvement with trying to break an artist, you’ll take any glimmer of success and cling onto it for dear life.

But for pop fans, with Rita Ora and a few other artists in recent years – Conor Maynard’s another – there was no real sense of jeopardy. Gameshows don’t work without jeopardy, nor does sport, and nor does pop. With Rita the label, the feature on a dance track, the guest rapper, the producers and songwriters, the PR campaign, the management, the whole package was so smoothly constructed that there was almost no narrative when Rita did, as planned, become very famous. When ‘How We Do (Party)’ hit Number One, it should have seemed impressive. Instead, it just felt like someone could tick another box.

Some of our favourite music comes to life in a manner that is more scientific than it is artistic, but when the launch of a new act is reduced to an equation it means we miss out on the best bit of falling in love with a new popstar: the excitement.

Anyway we are not here to talk about Rita Ora, and we’re not really here to talk about Elyar Fox’s equation for pop supremacy (in this case the brute force pop launch combines Polydor with Global Talent’s guaranteed airplay and Fox’s own impressive following on YouTube, Twitter etc), and we also don’t want it to seem like we’re down on Elyar Fox, because there’s lots of potential here for a bright and likeable new star in the pop cosmos. At the very least, his logo is good.

Anyway, what we’re really here to discuss is the lyric video Elyar has made for his rather good new song ‘Colourblind’ (which you can get as a download on his site), and the fact that the lyric video is completely ridiculous. It’s ridiculous because it’s not a lyric video at all, it’s just a video which happens to have some words in it.

We’ve loved lyric videos since they first started popping up a few years ago, and this one takes the ‘genre’ to absurd extremes. In a way we feel slightly upset that the purity of songwords flying around on a screen is lost with lyric videos like this. On the other hand, we always like seeing lyrics brought to life in different ways. This ‘lyric video’ chat isn’t as interesting as the popjeopardy thing, is it? Sorry about that.

Elyar Fox: further reading

» Facebook
» Twitter
» YouTube
» Official site (for free download)

The strange and amazing new Saturdays single ‘Gentleman’ has just leaked and one of the best bits – apart from a line about buying cows and another one about tasting a lady’s rainbow – is a kind of rap bit with ‘The Sats’ listing a load of men they want to do sex with. (Or maybe just have a kiss and cuddle with, because of course full-on rainbow tasting doesn’t need to happen on a first date.)

Anyway we thought it would be sensible to get an idea of which of the listed men is best. Please vote carefully and responsibly.

CHEERS.

Now when we say ‘first listen’ we don’t of course mean that we are the first people to listen to it because the song was just played on US radio, but here is a diary of what we heard when we listened to it for the first time.

You can listen along, if you like – the lyric video has just appeared.

0:02: It has taken precisely two seconds for Pitbull to talk about himself – with a cry of ‘Mr Worldwide!’. This is followed by a namecheck for RedOne, then a mention of ‘The Beautiful Jennifer Lopez’. Amazing.

0:10: “We don’t believe in de-feat,” Pitbull explains. “That’s why we’re back for a re-peat.” We like the fact that the grand(ish) tradition of The J.Lo & Pitbull Summer Song is being referenced in this song’s lyrics.

0:34: Pitbull’s still banging on. “I know it’s hard to understand how a boy grew to a man, man turns to a brand, but guess what here I am.” To be honest we think Pitbull is underestimating listeners’ ability to comprehend the concept of ‘growing up’, and we suspect that even the most casual Pitbullologist understands that the rapper’s main way of establishing himself as a brand was to keep banging on about being a brand until everyone just went “OH CHRIST PITBULL ALRIGHT WE GET IT YOU’RE A BRAND”. So that’s all a bit silly, but we do like the way Pitbull introduces J.Lo’s (eventual) appearance: “Jenny from the block – let’s rock”. This is a great line. (This is not really a rock song in any established sense of ‘rock’, and some may also query the ‘song’ factor too, but let’s not dwell on these points.)

0:40: J.Lo starts singing about “rocking body to body” and “let’s go insane”, then it sort of breaks down for some clattering drums and chanting about being in the spotlight. There are whistles. WHISTLES.

1:11: Time for the chorus. “Oh oh we can do anything we want – live it up, so live it up, live it up”. It’s all a bit lyrics-to-fill-space but it’s worth admiring J.Lo’s insistence that “we won’t stop until we’re done”. In other words, they’ll do it until they don’t. They’ll go out until they’re not out any more. In a world where will.i.am insists that we must either go hard or go home, props to J.Lo for showing that you can do both. The chorus ends with a brilliant “GO GO GO GO” bit.

1:30:  The chorus suddenly ends and Pitbull says “make love, don’t fight – let’s fuck tonight”. (Charming!) This is followed by either the sound of a champagne cork popping, or the sound of Pitbull’s penis ejaculating. If the latter, it’s worth wondering if this is an involuntary spasm that Pitbull endures every time he is in the vicinity of a hit record. Imagine that.

1:36: Massive grinding RedOne-esque electro bit.

1:50: Boring second verse, followed by another bridge (yes the whistles are still there), chorus, another Pitbull ejaculation, and another RedOne rave attack.

3:08: A rap from Pitbull in which it is stated that J.Lo has “done it” and that “she’s the reason women run it”. There’s a really brilliant “clap your hands to the beat” breakdown, then there’s a bit more chorus, some more RedOne rave attack, and the song finishes with one glorious final ejaculation from Pitbull. Say what you like about ‘Mr Worldwide’, three times in as many minutes is pretty impressive.

VERDICT: No sample, which is a shame, but the whistling and ejaculations are good. 7/10, with room to rise to an 8/10 as the summer progresses.

The internet is full of things that don’t really exist until the internet and computers, triggered by a human, make them happen.

Recently, for instance, Amazon was in the news over some terrible t-shirts whose slogans were, supposedly, created by an algorithm. The company responsible for the t-shirts floods Amazon with automated listings (over half a million when t-shirtgate kicked off)  for items that will be printed only when someone orders them. The logic is that, a bit like email spam, it only takes one person to make a purchase for the whole thing pay off.

There are parallels with the dozens of karaoke cover versions that appear on music streaming services, as soon as a single becomes popular, by artists called things like ‘Piano Tribute Players’ and ‘Pumped Up DJs’ and ‘The LA Fitness Crew’. Here’s what you’ll find on Spotify under ‘We Found Love’, for example.

Presumably the logic, again, is that if a musician (‘MUSICIAN’) floods Spotify with enough covers, they somehow stand to make enough money from people unintentionally streaming a shit version of a song to make the whole sorry enterprise worthwhile. Given the royalty payouts Spotify offers the margins must be absurdly tight, but there you go.

One of these weird projects stands out from all the others, and we’ve returned to it several times since we first somehow noticed on Spotify a couple of years ago.

It’s an album by an act called The Numbers One. Google doesn’t seem to offer any information beyond automatically generated listings from other streaming sites and services (it’s on Deezer, you’ll be pleased to hear). The album is called ‘Ranking Now’ – it was released in 2010 and features stupendously wrong-sounding covers of hits from that era. Our favourite is Taio Cruz’s ‘Dynamite’, although ‘California Girls’ and ‘Airplanes’ are both worth listening to as well.

This is the album.

It’s hard to explain exactly what makes ‘Ranking Now’ such a mysterious album.

There’s the fact that The Numbers One don’t seem to have existed before, or since, this solitary release. Then there’s the way the artwork gets the album title wrong, as if a computer has automatically spewed the title’s two words out in alphabetical order while pulling in a generic ‘music’ picture from Google Images. And of course, there’s the way the music itself sounds. It sounds as if it has been made by humans, because how could a machine get it this wrong, but what human would make this music? Could it be some sort of experiment into artificial intelligence? Or did the album not even exist at all until we pressed play for the first time?

It’s all a bit of a headfuck really but we’re just going to listen to ‘Dynamite’ one more time. At the very least, it’s better than the Loveable Rogues single.

Very good.

Despite some epic moaning from certain quarters of The Wanted’s fanbase…

…The Wanted indeed confirmed the news we reported yesterday – that the banter-bothering boyband’s new single is called ‘Walks Like Rihanna’.

‘WALKS LIKE RIHANNA’.

Even better, they have even chucked a 30-second clip online [most links now seem go have been deleted sadly] and we believe the full song is due to premiere at some point today.

Naturally the chorus lyrics – “she can’t sing, she can’t dance, but who cares – she walks like Rihanna” – are brilliantly terrible, but this is no easy instance of ‘so bad it’s good’. These lyrics are so terrible that they sort of propel themselves, and the entire song, beyond normal concepts of good and bad and into an entirely new value system.

The clip would be an unlistenable joke were it not for the fact that, as you can hear, the melody of the Dr Luke-produced single is absolutely fucking amazing. And this changes everything. This means that a single that could easily have been a tragic plea for attention from a boyband desperately trying to drum up attention as One Direction conquer this planet and most others could, in fact, be something that kickstarts a whole new ‘chapter’ in The Wanted’s career. It’s fantastically uncool and lacking in credibility, which is a bit strange considering how seriously The Wanted have usually taken themselves, but perhaps JUST LIGHTENING UP FOR A MINUTE is exactly what’s needed.

Seriously what a tune. This might even be the best chorus melody of The Wanted’s career to date.

(We’ll revisit this post when the whole track appears because this song seems impossible to second guess.)

The brussels sprout is a grotesque vegetablarian nightmare which pollutes otherwise acceptable dishes and causes widespread misery.

But at one particular time of year, and in a very specific context, it is acceptable and in fact quite enjoyable. That time of year is Christmas, and the very specific context is the Christmas lunch.

And (STICK WITH US ON THIS) that is a bit like Pitbull. In the summer months, and very specifically in the context of a J.Lo single, Pitbull is palatable.

Example One (2011)

Example Two (2012)

In our Top 45 Singles Of 2012 writeup of last year’s J.Lo and Pitbull single ‘Dance Again’ (which was amazing, and we were privileged to see performed live on stage in LA last year), we noted that “in an ideal world, ‘the Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull single’ will be an annual event, as seasonally predictable and amazing as the first Solero of summer”.

Well – praise be! – news now emerges that the Modern Day John & Olivia WILL return for a Summer 2013 ‘jam’. THE TRILOGY IS COMPLETE.

Here is the news:

• The new J.Lo feat Pitbull single is called ‘Live It Up’.
• Like its predecessors, ‘Live It Up’ IS PRODUCED BY REDONE.
• It might be debuted WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH on a live American Idol performance.
• It will obviously be amazing.

Incredible. All that remains is to pinpoint which song ‘Live It Up’ will sample. ‘On The Floor’, of course, sampled Kaoma’s ‘Lambada’ and conquered the planet, while ‘Dance Again’ sampled nothing and didn’t do quite so well, so a sample should definitely land somewhere in ‘Live It Up’.

Four songs the new J.Lo feat Pitbull prod by RedOne single could/should sample

1. Chilli feat Carrapicho – ‘Tic Tic Tac’

Steel drums could be the key to success here.

2. Paul Simon – ‘You Can Call Me Al’

DOO DO DO DO DOO DO DO DO. (On Twitter the other night we tried to convince Professor Green to sample this on his new album but he was frankly having none of it.)

3. Los Del Rio – ‘Macarena’

When in doubt, chuck in ‘Macarena’.

4. Mental As Anything – ‘Live It Up’

This song is called ‘Live It Up’. The J.Lo song is called ‘Live It Up’. Imagine this chorus done by J.Lo with Pitbull shouting over the top. IMAGINE.

We think you will agree that each of those four songs – plus J.Lo, plus Pitbull, plus RedOne – could result in MUSICAL GOLD, but what if they used all four songs? Now that would be quite something.

(If you have any other ideas for songs ‘Live It Up’ could/should sample, please post them in the comments below. We know that both Pitbull and J.Lo are regular readers so this is your chance to alter the course of pop history.)