Remember Sunday Girl, the rather good new Jim Eliot-produced songstrel we wrote about back in March? Well, there’s more to come – and some pretty big stuff at that – but to keep things ticking over she’s covered Laura Branigan’s ‘Self Control’.

Yes we know that the last thing the world needs is another cover version by an up-and-coming artist but at least it’s not acoustic. It is, in fact, all rather listenable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaoHrqc04Cs

Her website, which it’s worth bookmarking because some of what’s coming up from this artist really is quite spectacular, is full of amusingly well-judged comments like “Iv just rediscovered this Elvis song. Iv added it to my dj set” and “It was my friends birthday so i made him this deer card” and “So far i have done all of Sunday Girl art work. My inspiration for
these were elongated bodies of fashion drawings, Art Nouveau, 60s and
science prints of tissue and muscles”.

You get the general idea, right?

» Paul Epworth will pick up Best Producer at next week’s Brits, and quite right too. (NME)

» The Killers aren’t splitting up, according to The Killers. (Radio 1 Newsbeat) They should do, though – who’s going to be interested in the other ones once Brandon’s established himself as the world’s greatest solo performer since Elvis Presley? Nobody.

» Uffie would rather not get into a slanging match about Ke$ha sounding a bit like her. (Digital Spy)

» The Boyzone album is a bit of a blubfest. (Daily Star)

» It’s a bad week for popstar cats. Earlier this week it was reported that Susan Boyle had offloaded her cat to someone from her record label, now comes the distressing news that Amy Winehouse has given hers to a cattery. Apparently she had up to 11 cats at one point. Imagine the smell in that house. (The Sun) THE SMELL.

» William Orbit is just finishing off Katie Melua‘s new album. (Daily Star)

» A song by Boyzone’s Mikey Graham might represent Ireland at Eurovision. (Digital Spy)

» Google’s deletion of several music blogs has caused a bit of a furore. (The Register) We’re a little confused by the slightly fluffy claim by one blogger that “everything I’ve posted for, let’s say, the past two years, has either been provided by a promotional company, came directly from the record label, or came directly from the artist”. We’ve got a pile of similarly sourced CDs on our desk this morning – that doesn’t really mean that putting them online for downloading by others is the logical next step. We are sure this one will ‘run and run’.

And that’s your lot. Except to say…

» Fred Morrison, the inventor of the Frisbee, has died aged 90. (Washington Post) We will think of Fred every time we hurl a disappointing or downright terrible compact disc across the office, which on recent form means about six times a day.

Alex Gardner‘s been a one to watch* since the start of last year and while a black and white photo of a man playing an acoustic guitar might not exactly set your pop pulse racing WAIT A MINUTE because his music sounds like THIS…

…(which is today’s Song Of The Day) AND THIS:

…(which might be a Song Of The Day at some point in the future) and is the consequence of this Edinburgh-raised teenager working with the green-fingered Xenomania team on a series of tracks that veer from the electronic to the acoustic but never too far away from Alex’s seductively melodic ‘brand values’.

Over the four or five times we’ve seen him on stage he’s developed (you could say things have gone ‘uphill’) into
a very promising live performer with a strange stage presence that’s at
once confidently relaxed and fanatically precise. The acoustic stuff isn’t quite as much to our tastes to be honest but that’s ‘instruments that don’t plug in’ for you and even then there’s a nice one called ‘There Goes My Heart’ which we are sure you will hear in due course.

There’s more music and a brilliantly overblown biog (“the pop-writing craft of George Michael [and] the looks of a young Elvis”) on his MySpace, and here is what might reappear in December in a shortlist of 2010′s most boring Twitter pages. Finally, moving pictures and a free download on his official site.

* Please feel free to come round and kill us dead if you see that phrase on Popjustice again. See also ‘on the up’, ‘tastemaker tip’, ‘destined for greatness’ etc etc etc.

After warmup from Bobby Davro (sample ‘gag’: “Martina will win I’m A Celebrity – she’s been eating out of the bush for years”) Manno came on stage to the sound of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ’2 Tribes’ mixed with Wizard Of Oz samples – we don’t know what statement was being made with this – then banged out hit after hit after hit.

» He loosened his tie – audience went mental.
» He followed upbeat numbers with “calm down, that was just the foreplay” – audience went mental.
» He thrusted his pelvis – audience went mental.

Some songs were only there for the time it took to sing a verse and a chorus – it was a bit like an Eminem concert in that respect – while others formed sensational set-pieces. ‘I Made It Through The Rain’ was really amazing, with Barry stopping the song in the middle to tell the story of how, during his childhood growing up in Brooklyn, he would travel to Times Square with his late grandfather. Barry explained that his grandfather was the only family member who recognised young Barry’s musicality and that there was a slot machine in Times Square where you could record your voice onto vinyl. Barry played us an excerpt of one of these old recordings – it was basically his grandfather trying to get him to sing. Barry continued his story, telling us how he wouldn’t be where he is today without his grandfather and as he did so ‘I Made It Through The Rain’ began to swell again in the background, meaning that by the time Barry got to the triumphant end of his story (in summary: “I am here and I am amazing”) the song came crashing back in, complete with samples of his dead grandfather’s encouraging voice thrown into the mix. It was IMMENSE.

Another brilliant bit started with the video screens showing a 1978 recording of Barry performing ‘Mandy’ at the London Palladium. By the time the chorus rolled around 2008 Barry was on stage at the piano, duetting with his younger self on the video screens. Then it went into ‘Could It Be Magic?’ and everyone went bonkers.

He has performed these songs a million times – he’s probably performed this exact show, ad-libs and all, a million times – but there is something about a performer like Barry which you don’t get in any other sort of modern popstar. You don’t get it in your Kylies and Madonnas, you don’t get it in your Girls Alouds and you don’t get it in your Oasises, although to be fair Noel Gallagher’s certainly heading down that road. If you’ve never been to a show like this get along to one before all the peformers retire or kick the bucket: Barry’s got some more UK dates left on this tour and if you time it so that you miss Bobby Davro you’ll have a great night out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7BksvFznqw

CAREER REINVENTION IDEAS FOR MANNO

1. Flo Rida and T-Pain collaboration along the lines of “Manilow-low-low-low-low-low-low-low”
2. Chromeo collaboration along the lines of “Manil-ow-e-o-e-o”
3. Something involving Rick Rubin
4. Etc

» In an unusual twist, Estelle
talks about her pal Kanye West in an interview. (The Telegraph)  

» That thing about Tesco
wanting to make more money by paying less for things was untrue,
apparently. (Billboard)  

» Someone who was a bigwig at Google is now a
bigwig at EMI,
no doubt encouraged by the label’s ‘I’m feeling lucky’ approach to
A&R. (Yahoo)  

» Mariah Carey
has overtaken Elvis in terms of US Number One singles, and
Madonna has
overtaken Elvis regarding some other sort of record, which will throw
another spanner in the works of the endless ‘who’s biggest/who’s sold
most’ arguments enjoyed by fans of Mariah, Madonna and Celine Dion. (Hip Hop Elements)  

» Headlines such as ‘Return Of The Mac’, ‘Mac. Back! BACK!’
and a million others have been cruelly ignored in favour of ‘Fleetwood Mac‘s
Back’. (The Guardian)  

» The B-52s
talk about their art in an interview accompanied by a picture of the
Scissor Sisters in twenty years. (The Telegraph)  

» Supergrass
are very upset that EMI got rid of music ‘exec’ Tony Wadsworth. Gaz
from the band reckons EMI needs some Tonys around because “he wasn’t
too biz about the whole thing”. ‘Biz’ in the sense of ‘looking at a
band who are totally past it and wondering whether EMI might be better
off not spunking money in their direction’, we presume. (Gigwise)  

» Jay-Z
is the latest artist to be in talks with Live Nation. Live Nation are
definitely onto a winner with this scheme – what with Madonna, U2 and
now Jay Z, they’re really picking up artists whose best work is
definitely ahead of them. (New York Times)  

Blimey.

»
Forget your Madonnas or your Kylie Minogues, Mariah Carey is officially the biggest selling female artist of all time. (‘Carey Closes In On Elvis And The Beatles’ – Yahoo)

»
Rihanna hopes to make a move from singing to acting, no doubt employing some of that brilliant emotion range she can’t help but show off in all her TV interviews. (‘Singer Rihanna Determined To Be An Actress’ – The Mirror)

»
Sugababes seem keen to persuade everyone that they are quite happy and not planning to split anytime soon. (‘We’re The Biggest…’ The Guardian)

»
Pete Tong ruined a big posh house. (‘Mother’s Plea After Party Chaos’ – BBC)

»
Ashlee Simpson has announced some bits and pieces about definitely releasing a new album. (‘Ashlee Simpson Sets Date For Third Album’ – Billboard)

»
Leona Lewis is doing quite well in America etc. (‘Leona Lewis’ – The Mirror)

»
Duffy is hoping to convince people she is doing well in America too. She played at a festival there recently. (‘Soul Babe Is U.S. Cracker’ – Daily Star)

Blimey.

The UK Top 10′s pretty good at the moment, isn’t it? Sort of…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3_p15RJY

The clip from last year (via here via here) is from 'Before The Music Dies', a documentary film in which some people with too many Mars Volta albums in their vinyl collections state the obvious – that it is possible to make people appear to be able to sing – to such an astonishing degree that "if you eat nothing but burgers for a month you might get ill" suddenly sounds like an unusual revelation.

We haven't seen the whole film but we suspect that its fish-in-a-barrel approach opts not to cover the countless supposedly 'authentic' guitar bands and troubadours who couldn't live without Auto-Tune, or the fact that the Americanidolisation of the pop industry has revived the concept of pop singers who actually can sing.

Unbelievably, it gets worse. If you are not already in a complete fury, check out the supercilious cunt patronising music fans at the start of this other trailer for the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGbosEWlytc

We've been through this argument once every eight days for the last fifteen years and we're not going to get into it again but JESUS CHRIST these people judging Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, Frank Sinatra and Diana Ross on the merits of Ashlee Simpson is like judging their own beloved Bob Dylan on the work of Rick Witter.

(Although that comparison doesn't quite work because Shed 7's 'Disco Down' is better than Bob Dylan's entire back catalogue. But you know what we mean.)