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Story filed Sunday, 11 October 2009 |
We're very sad to hear of Stephen Gately's death at the age of 33.
As a 1990s boyband member it wasn't Stephen's job to redefine pop music or to inspire millions of musicians to make deep and meaningful music in subsequent decades, so the usual pop obituary platitudes we're all used to reading (and writing) have to go out of the window. Instead, it's useful to tihnk that for the generation whose teenage years he helped soundtrack, his death will likely inspire the reawakening of a far more direct emotional connection. Even a decade later, the memory of a poster hastily Blu-Tacked to a bedroom wall or a photo Sellotaped to the inside front page of a Tricolore textbook will always be more personally significant than someone on the news banging on about how they were inspired to rip off a bassline. Whether they've moved on or whether they stumped up for tickets to the Boyzone reunion tour, Stephen's fans will find that today's news might result in a very strong, and maybe even quite unexpected, emotional reaction.
More details at BBC News.
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Story filed Saturday, 10 October 2009 |
As the X Factor live finals roll around again, it's time to get out the felt tipped pens for another round of Popjustice X Factor playsheets. Download yours now in time for tonight's live show and, if the mood takes you, send Twitpics of your completed sheets over to @popjustice during or after the show.
Have fun!
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Story filed Saturday, 10 October 2009 |
These two brilliant images are the Hedi Slimane-shot covers to Lady Gaga's 'The Fame Monster'.
So totally brilliant.
Time for an 'apols': you may recall that back in July we said that if this...
...wasn't the cover for 'The Fame Monster' we would require an Interscope employee to be sacked. As it turns out we now call for a promotion. Sorry for any confusion.
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Story filed Friday, 09 October 2009 |
After a very quick listen through the tracks: it's pretty weak. Proper review on Monday.
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Story filed Friday, 09 October 2009 |
We're gruesomely fascinated by Beardsmith, the winners of GMTV's 'No 1 Family' competition. From the GMTV website: "Neil set up the band with his family 10 years ago. He was a scout leader and his children were scouts and guides. The local village wanted the scouts to take part in a local fair, so he got his children together and formed a band. Everyone said how brilliant they were and they have been playing in a band together ever since."
The 'No 1 Family' judging panel included The Saturdays' A&R 'guru' Jordan Jay, a Nolan, and 'music impresario' Jonathan Shalit. Shalit is the walking, talking, contract-negotiating embodiment of everything people talk about when they discuss 'music industry men in suits'. He is 'the man' young artists are told to avoid. If you think about all the self-appointed music revolution warriors bleating on about brave new futures for the world of recorded and unrecorded music, and if you think about all the blogs, and thinktanks, and conferences and podcasts they're involved with, and if you think about all these ways they advise new artists to take control of their careers instead of signing their lives away to 'the man', and if you then think of Jonathan Shalit, you begin to wonder whether Shalit's retirement or sudden and of course very sad death might actually calm everyone down a bit. You wonder whether Shalit disappearing from the world of mainstream music might make all the DIY evangelists suddenly go, 'well the current music industry model is outdated and needs some work, but actually with him out of the way it's about five times less terrible than it was this time last week, maybe give it a try'.
Anyway you can get the general feel of 'No 1 Family' and Beardsmith in this clip.
Our favourite bit is at the two minute forty five point when Shalit is really hamming up the tension and drama and, behind him, some old love's having trouble with a Mint Imperial. Brilliant.
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Story filed Friday, 09 October 2009 |
A quick catch-up on the latest musical bits of bobs from the last week or so in the world of Lady Gaga.
1. New single.
'Bad Romance' was premiered at Alexander McQueen's Paris Fashion Week show. It's very much a 'core brand values' sort of affair. It is also very much amazing.
2. New song.
'No Way' is a new song that has leaked and it's lovely.
3. New album.
In a shock move by Universal Music, Lady Gaga's 'The Fame' re-release - 'The Fame Monster' - isn't going to be a total cash-in job. In a statement press-released last night, Lady Gaga explains that the second disc of new tracks is something quite special. "On my re-release 'The Fame Monster', I wrote about everything I didn't write on 'The Fame'. While traveling the world for two years, I've encountered several monsters, each represented by a different song on the new record: my ‘Fear of Sex Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Alcohol Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Love Monster’, my ‘Fear of Death Monster’, my ‘Fear of Loneliness Monster’, etc. I spent a lot of nights in Eastern Europe, and this album is a pop experimentation with industrial/goth beats, 90s dance melodies, an obsession with the lyrical genius of 80s melancholic pop, and the runway. I wrote while watching muted fashion shows and I am compelled to say my music was scored for them. I also composed a ballad for the album - 'Speechless', a song for my father, and it's my favorite work of all. I wrote every piece on the road - no songs about money, no songs about fame. I wrote it for my fans, so I wrote everything in between".
It's fascinating, isn't it, how Lady Gaga has such a clear but also stylised way of describing what she does - it comes in very subtle flashes but it's a quality that none of her contemporaries or peers can really match.
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Story filed Friday, 09 October 2009 |
 The new Leona Lewis version might have the bells and the whistles.
The Oasis version may be the original.
But the Rowetta recording is now and will forever be the definitive reading of 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out'. Drama, a cheap backing track and the voice of a woman who's very much on the verge of literally having had enough.
Amazing.
Rowetta a-warblin' 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' on iTunes.
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Story filed Thursday, 08 October 2009 |
During the judging for the 2009 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize, judges were asked to draw pictures of Lady Gaga.
We found some of them in a box the other day and thought you might like to see them, a thought which led to us creating what will stand - through climate change, the fall of civilisations, the erosion of Planet Earth as we know it and more than fifty future Sugababes lineup changes - as the worst piece of video content ever created for the internet.
On the plus side, the video also includes a haunting rendition of 'Poker Face'.
'Apols.'
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Story filed Thursday, 08 October 2009 |
You might have missed it amid the blur of fresh exciting content being posted on Popjustice over the last couple of days but Ali Love's new single, 'Diminishing Returns', was Song Of The Day on Tuesday.
It's a gently Italo-flavoured tune and this is a clip of it.
A lot of Ali's new stuff is on a similar tip actually - our favourite of the new songs is 'Show Me' ("out on these streets there ain't a love of love") which has a big proper Italo synth riff and there's another great one by the name of 'Smoke & Mirrors' ("smoke and mirrors on the dancefloor tonight") which, we are sure you will agree, is a reasonably clever take on disco balls and dry ice machines. Actually, another one of the tunes, 'Moscow Girl', is pretty fun too.
So basically all's good in Ali Love world again. *World breathes sigh of relief*
Further reading:
» Ali Love on MySpace
» Ali Love on Twitter
» No quick fire fix for Irish Sea cod problems
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Story filed Tuesday, 06 October 2009 |
The whole idea of chucking any old useless artwork on blogs and going 'here's some artwork, what do you think' is such a workmanlike, uninspiring way to spend your time that it's a happy day when Actually Unarguably Brilliant album sleeves like this come along. Apart from the dodgy 'outer glow' effect on the 'Leona Lewis' lettering this is such a brilliantly executed sleeve. Very good.
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