Commons the biffy!

Biffy Clyro became the first rock band to play the Houses of Parliament on Thursday, and yours truly witnessed it. The band played an intimate acoustic set to a selection of MPs, industry professionals and competition winners to celebrate Absolute radio achieving 50% of their audience...ah who cares why.

The biff played Mountains, Many of Horror, The Captain, Machines….all were absolutely awesome. It’s amazing to hear the songs stripped down and realise what the term “melodic” really means – when you turn of the distortion it still makes sense.

It was a really great night. Free booze and parliamentary canopes (including fish and chips in a cone!) and on top of that Frank Skinner pushed in front of me in the security queue, Dave Gorman let me through a door before him, I met Ben from the Biff at the urinals and shook Simon's hand in the Westminster entrance hall. As my friend said shortly after accidentally burping in Speaker of the Common’s Jon Bercow’s face:

“It’s probably the best Thursday night I’ve ever had.”


Pics are copyright of Jonny Garrett 2010

Guy Ritchie's House band sign to his new label

Tuesday saw the first official showcase of Guy Ritchie’s house band, The Punch Bowl Band, who have signed to Ritchie’s new label.

The Irish folk group played to a group of music professionals, executives and friends (including me) upstairs at Ritchie’s pub the Punch Bowl in Mayfair. Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics put in a brief appearance, but disappeared before the music actually started. Free food was laid out for the guests and the Guinness flowed freely, mostly put away by the band themselves.

The Punch Bowl Band have shot to fame after Ritchie set up Punchbowl records, a subsidiary Universal, solely to sign his house musicians. They now have their debut album Journey out on 1 March and a full UK pub tour being put together. It’s quite a turnaround for a house band that play together more out of accident than design.

Fiddle player Steve Mulhern says, “It only started because my friend asked me to cover a gig at the Punchbowl. I got some friends together and we played the night. At the end Guy [Ritchie] came up and said ‘Who are you and why aren’t you here every week? Are you free next Tuesday?’”

Since then the band have jammed with Justin Timberlake (who accordion player Daniel Gott said was the “quickest learner on a barrel drum I’ve ever known”) as well as Robert Downey Junior. More importantly Paris Hilton likes them. Horn and pipe player Brendan McAuley also worked on the soundtrack to Ritchie’s new film Sherlock Holmes with legendary film score composer Hans Zimmer. Such a history points to a bright future, but it is their more down to earth appeal that made Ritchie want to launch their career:

“It's exciting to venture into the world of the music industry. It's a tough place, but I've witnessed this band connect with people first hand. They have every chance of being embraced by a wider audience.”

The pub has had several battles with local residents who complain regularly about the pub noise levels. With the band going on tour, hopefully now they might get some peace.

Interview with Jon Morter the Rage in the Machine.

They say that you should never meet your heroes, so I didn't. I called him. Jon Morter, the man behind the Rage Against the Machine Christmas campaign, may not be everyones idea of a hero, but he certainly made my Christmas and for once stopped corporate culture pissing all over the masses. That's more heroic than I will ever be.

We chatted for about half an hour, and he came across as genuinely bemused by his new found status, delighted by people's reaction and childishly excited about the future.
His latest venture is a campaign to get Top of the Pops back to its weekly format. It's a much tougher task, but its the joy of trying that made the RATM campaign a real success. As he said:

“We thought if we got rage to number 1, let’s try something harder! Can we find enough people of the social networks to get TOTP back...yes I think we can! It’s definitely going to be a bigger challenge. How ever many people we get the BBC may still decide not to take the risk.”

The idea seems to make many people's eyes roll, but actually its a damned important campaign. We have no chart show whatsoever on TV - something noted by industry people like Mark Goodier, Paul Gambaccini and Dylan White.

"TOTP got me into lots of stuff I wouldn’t have known about. I remember watching White Snake when I was 7 and thinking, 'that’s good.' They weren’t pop and there wasn’t any internet back then so I couldn't have found them otherwise. It’s only X Factor that gives us a regular dose of music now. TOTP used to be the one stop off to see whats going on"

With a few format changes TOTP would make a very welcome return - particularly if the performances were live and the playlists a little more varied. Chart coverage no longer cuts the metaphorical mustard.

"I think a new show needs a new format, and amalgamate TOTP one and two – mix archive footage with live studio stuff. Why shouldn't Motorhead come after Leona Lewis?"

The campaign has started well, with a much quicker take up than the Rage Facebook group. Started at midnight on New Years Eve the group already has nearly 4,000 members and media the news has already hit the major papers (see my article in Music Week). In fact, our chat was cut short by Kerrang calling.

"THe last couple of weeks haven't really sunk in yet. I'm still working my way through the 7000 messages we received. The whole Rage thing isn't over yet. Simon Cowell has offered to take us out for a drink when he's next in London too."

I'm pretty sure it's Simon's round.

Rage Against The Machine and how Facebook saved Christmas

So Rage actually did it. Well, Rage didn't, we did. Killing the name sold 50,000 more copies than the Climb - the competition wasn't even close.

The reality is sinking in. Not only did hundreds of thousands of people rebel against mass markets, advertising, reality TV and rich corporations but they gave themselves a voice. Most of the buyers have probably never had much of a say in who rules the charts, but they have one now and the effects will go down in history as shitty teenage music channels are forced to play the black sheep of christmas singles - 2009.

Will we be shopping for our Turkeys in M&S to the tune of Killing in the Name next Christmas? I sincerely hope so.

A fitting end to a decade governed by the public's lack of imagination and action, this is genuinely a victory. It shows the power of crowd consciousness and emotion, the relevence of online media, music's ability to unite and empower and the fact that underneath a very consumerist layer lie people that are genuinely individual.

A sentence I never thought I'd say: Facebook just saved Christmas.

Mars Volta live at the HMV Forum, Kentish Town

Isn’t it refreshing when a band plays their best tracks, rather than cramming their new material down your throat? The Mars Volta gave the audience a master class in crowd pleasing at on a God forsaken winter evening in London.

Opening with the heart thumping “Son et Lumiere” and “Inertiatic Esp”, the band took in all four albums during their mammoth two hour set. As expected plenty of that was spent watching the band jam away as if no one was watching, but these breaks only served to make the climaxes more exciting. “Goliath”, from their formidable “Bedlam in Goliath” album, was jarring – forcing you to move and sway to the Hispanic grooves. Stood at the top of some stairs I was mesmerised by the sea of heads and hands below, moving like sound waves towards me.

The band still tore the stage up, echoing their more legendary sets as At the Drive In, but this was a band in complete control of their irrepressible talent. Cedric’s vocal range was unbelievable and Omar was like Hendrix incarnate, his fingers a blur as he jammed away.

The set highlight was “Cicatriz Esp”, where a break down took 10 minutes to reform into the song’s finale. When it did, however, I have never heard or felt an ovation like it. In an industry where intention spans are getting shorter than ever, The Mars Volta are a reminder of how much patience can pay off.

A dubstep Muse - What the world was waiting for?

http://www.myspace.com/kidadrift

You must check this band/man out - the music is simply stunning. Billed as a Dubstepping Muse (it really is the best way to describe it) and already tipped for the top, I would like to add my tip to that pile....

That sounded wrong.

Chrisgate - Why do we have to stick "gate" after every public airing of scandal?

In an inspired piece of article titling, the infamous (really?) Irish Times labelled a letter of complaint sent by Chris de Burgh "Chris de Burgh Sees Red". The paper then ruined this by calling the episode "Chrisgate".

The letter was in response to a review of his latest tour in Ireland, claiming that the writer was prejudiced. The truth is that reviewer, Peter Crawley, was prejudiced, but this is not the first time a musician has reacted to a bad review. This time it has hit the papers because...

a) because de Burgh has been so middle of the road for so long it's a miracle he hasn't been run over,
b) he is such a spanner it's a miracle no one has ever swerved to run him over,
c) because the Irish Times called it "Chrisgate".

To be fair the review is harsh, dismissive and breathtakingly prejudiced. Not once is the music mentioned, but constantly is de Burgh's short, pristine appearance and fondness for the crowd. It seems that it is not so much the music Crawley hates, but the man behind it. While the piece makes partially entertaining reading, it is a disgustingly lazy and predictable piece of journalism which leaves you in no way enriched, satisfied or vindicated. In fact it makes you like de Burgh a little more - surely not the point of the review.

De Burgh's letter is only slightly more mature, picking at critic cliches in the same way that Crawley does at middle aged, middle roaded pop stars. However, he manages to take the moral high ground by offering to meet and coming up with far more imaginative put downs (I particularly enjoy the part about Crawley "riffling through the garbage bins of despair".

Mr MOR as I like to refer to him is, of course, wrong in saying that Crawley was the only person at the concert that didn't want to be. I'd imagine none of the husbands did, but I bet at the end they went out singing "Spanish Train" or thinking of buying their wife a slutty red dress.

The horrible thing about MOR music, and the reason it sells well, is because deep down we all love it a little bit. The only exceptions are people that don't have anything "Deep down". Like most critics.

The review and response can be found if you click on this blogs title, or look at my previous post on a similar subject (but with a funnier title) by clicking here!

Thoughts on "Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring"

I was amazed, while watching deal or no deal the other day, to see an advert for Noah and the Whale. The band, who to me had always been a one hit wonder (with "5 Years Time"), appeared to have taken the critics by storm with their second album.

I decided to take a risk and buy it, largely because my girlfriend offered to pay. To my joy and surprise "The First Days of Spring" turned out not only to be a million miles away from the twee folk-pop of their debut, but actually a breath taking and intimate break up album. It was made even more personal by its featured break up, between singer Charlie Fink and solo singersongwriter Laura Marling.

The album opens with the first glimmer of hope in Charlie's eyes, the idea that spring brings new opportunity. But just as winter surely follows summer, so do hard times as the album flows. The lyrics, while occasionally predictable and cliche are so raw and matter of fact that they evoked in me an image of Laura sat listening to the album for the first time. It feels like the singer is reaching out to touch Laura, and in doing so accidently touching us too.

The story is told expertly, perhaps better than any break up album before, both lyrically and musically. A brief restitative in track two ("Our Window") that comes back as the focus in the albums break through moment ("Blue Skies") and the albums crest and trough nature shows that recovering from trauma is never as simple as an arching crescendo back to happiness.

Altogether the album is wide and expansive, but sometimes chokingly claustrophobic and personal. Indeed, Charlie seems to choke on his words as several points during his subtle and restrained vocal performance. There are no sickly harmonies and sunny refrains in this album. Strings, brass and timpani compete with reverb heavy, lightly disorted guitars that echo of early Sigur Ros without ever leaving very british shores and reaching the sky.

To call it ambitious is to miss the point (here's looking at you Mojo) it is intensely personal, and like all good music is meant as much for the creator as the listener. While the music is complicated, atmospheric and scrupulously put together I feel there was no ambition in its writing, save to get its message across, which it does beautifully.

Banks for Nothing

Art? Not according to Hackney Council.









So the Banks are in trouble again. This time it's the far more popular, but equally faceless artist Banksy. His cartoon of the Royal Family waving on a balcony, which was once used on a Blur single cover, has been painted over.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. One of his other works was painted over, simply because NOT removing it would be condoning graffiti.

The decision, made by Hackney council, stinks of passing the buck. At some point, somewhere along the command chain, someone said that Banksy's work is not art, which is a valid point of view (however wrong it may be). From that point onwards people started saying things like this:

"Hackney council does not make a judgment call on whether graffiti is art or not, our task is to keep Hackney's streets clean. We made four attempts to contact the owner of the property to inform her of our intention to remove the graffiti" (Alan "pass the buck" Laing, the Hackney council cabinet member).

The fact is though Alan, you HAVE made a judgement - you called it "graffiti" the above quote, and more importantly you removed the bloody painting. Even when it is put in councillor speak the decision makes no sense - The piece is estimated to have brought in £10,000,000 to the local area and attracted 300,000 visitors in the last 3 months. How many pieces of graffiti do that, and how many are as artistically styled or culturally astute as Bansky's efforts?

There will always be arguments about what is art and what is not, but this occurs all the time in art galleries and those that lose the battle aren't painted over or dismantled. Graffiti is an anti-establishment activity, and thus the harder you suppress it the more people will attempt to undermine the laws and do it anyway. Instead, show that artistically integrous painting, in suitable places, will be accepted with open arms.

Will it cure the problem? Hell no, but it might eventually improve upon the countless "Trevor luvs Sharon" spatterings that blight our walls. Trevor will just have to tell Sharon in a text.

The meaning of life...

...can be found half way down your arm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLJBL1uW37A&feature=related

This is the single most emotive piece of music ever written by mankind. You must watch it.

Music Journalism for Toddlers.

After deciding that the real world was...well just a tad too real I am about to start an MA at City University in the field of Magazine Journalism. Last week I received my (frightningly long) reading list. On said reading list was a title that caught my eye, and I decided I would begin with this book.

Good Writing for Journalists by Angela Phillips promises a lot in the title, and whether it fulfilled its actual purpose is now completely irrelevant because it has saved my life. I wish I could say I had it in my jacket pocket and it stopped a bullet. Being rather thin I'm glad to say it never had to try. Instead it pointed to me (metaphorically) and said "Jonny, one day you will be a damn fine music journalist, and work for whatever magazine/website you choose".

And how did it tell me this? By pointing out the obvious - That music journalism today is, by and large, and in the style of a music journo.

"Like the bastard child of a dyslexic and a Jeremy Clarkson impersonator." (read poorly written, self important tripe)

Despite being among the most popular forms of journalism and, in my opinion, one of the most important, the quality of writing is nowhere near the standard of other cultural journalisms.

All to often we try to be witty, cutting, original, subversive and offensive. I believe this is because to be a music journalist you don't necessarily have to have a journalist background. If you have an ear and a passion for music, and know a few people in the industry you are half way there. I understand that a slating review is exciting to read and an absolute must for music enzines, but the need for such reviews has overtaken the need for balanced, contextual and factual reviewing. Opinion seems to be far more important than eloquence (to put that in context, taxi drivers have opinions, should they be allowed to air them in print?) Like bulldogs bread to have noses so flat many couldn't breath, NME has recruited writers gradually more and more hateful to the point where when they hear bad music they choke and gasp out a review of such malignance that it makes readers react with pure venom themselves (see here - http://www.nme.com/reviews/sam-isaac/10733 and make sure you read the comments.)

Music journalism of old used to be written for its love of bands, festivals, gigs and albums. Now we take as much pleasure in hating bands as we do loving them, and as journalists we have to rise above this or at the very least justify ourselves when we can't. By writing on the manner of the article I have linked we take away the ability to debate, to critique and to enjoy. There is no music in the world that deserves the slamming that Sam Isaac got (even the schiztophrenic NME seem to think so, having given his single a glowing review). NME, by recruiting these lamtentable and hateful "free spirits" are slowly destroying music journalism, people's interest in it and the forum for the furtherment of musical brilliance.

Knowing this means that I can endevour to be a better journalist than all the "journalists" at NME, who ultimately have jobs that many writers would kill for. Reviewers have a unique opportunity, and therefore responsibility, to write and be a positive part of the world of music. When they waste it they become part of the problem they seek to slate, and to be a honest a toddler could write better reviews than most of them.

Paid Content rears its ugly head.

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good journalism,” - Rupert Murdoch 2009.

So the hours of debate, rolls of blog and endless tweets have finally resulted in something tangible. Murdoch has decided to charge for his site's content, starting sometime next summer. This means if you read the Times or the Sun (God help you) Fox news then you will have to chip in for the privilege in the future.

Or not. Murdoch is the first mogul to make this decision, and the rest of the industry is still umming and erring, so for now all you need to do is switch you online site for a different free one, there by giving Murdoch the biggest headache of his career. Or indeed wait for unhappy readers to log in, copy the content and give it away for free.

It seems he's made a tentative step towards paid content - no dates, no details, just a proverbial toe on the water. He has seen the NYTs failed attempt to charge for comment (they lost a large share of their readership), and although he must recognise its implications, has decided his model will work. He just doesn't seem to know what it is yet.

As Matthew Wells of the Guardian correctly points out, a major problem with the model is that however many companies take on such a model there will always be those that never will, and their share of online readership will come to dominate the market. In fact some already do - the BBC.

Comment sections are natures way of pointing out the weak.

I worry for the world. Not because of global warming, not because of terrorism or the super volcano under yellowstone national park...not even because of football hooliganism. I worry because some people in the world can watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQtKnDGhxmk&NR=1 - and then feel the need to say this:

"AAHAHAHAHAHA THIS SHIT ISFCKN FUNNY LFMAO not like i would do that to a baby but this is funny x)"

Firstly learn to type, secondly learn real english, thirdly stop using abbreviations no one understands, fourthly stop feeding the paedophilia-fear flame and fourthly stop and think and realise that you would never do that to a baby because you would never put your hands together with your 10 year old mate in a crowded park, give birth to a live child then be asked to play football.

It's not about music I know - but its got to be said - comment sections are breeding grounds for idiots. If you aren't self aware enough to see your stupidity, even when its written for the whole world to see then please do the world a favour: unplug you computer, lick your fingers and shove your fingers in said socket.

The Archbishop has no (facebook) friends

I'm sick of people telling the younger generation that technology is going to ruin our social abilities. Does the Archbishop (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8180115.stm) really think that, when we step out squinting into the natural light and have to interact with a real person, we will lose our power of empathy without the persons "status" being plastered across their forehead? Or is he just reacting to something he doesn't truly understand?

If he has ever used such sites (and I sincerely doubt he has) he clearly has not realised the brilliant and powerful connections such sites can forge. I can keep in contact with friends all over the world, for free. When my friends go travelling I can see their photos, videos, blogs and messages all in real time. Now tell me how that reduces my ability to make and maintain friends. His Holiness would know what the Pope gets up to when he's not telling Africans that condoms spread AIDS. In fact I think we'd all like to know what man that stupid, blind and destructive does with his day.

The Archbishop claims that facebook specifically encourages quantity over quality in terms of relationships, but I have neither gained nor lost friends as a result of the online revolution. I have the same best friends I have had for 10 years. Yes I am in contact with more people than I would be if all I had was a phone, and yes those relationships are somewhat shallow and transient, but they an addition to my social circle, not a replacement for my core friends.

I find such claims so ridiculous I have to ask, are the Archbishop's comments just born out of jealousy of everyone else's friend count?

“It’s like a crazy contest between an orange and a spaceship and a potted plant and a spoon - which one do you like better?”

Imagine, and it wont take much imagination, that you get a bunch of musos together in a room. Someone gives them too much coffee and some sandwiches on those bendy, tacky tinfoil platters and then ask them to pick their favourite 12 albums of 2008, from a selection of (very, very roughly) 30,000. Then, take the albums they choose and call them "Albums of the Year". Then get them to choose one, and call it the winner.

I would not for a second imply that this is a pointless exercise. I can't pretend to have heard all the nominated albums this year, but I'm sure that they are all stirling efforts and more than worth their nomination (actually I'm not, but its not up to me). However, I do have to question the task the judges put themselves up for. Regardless of genre, they decide one album is better than another, something that, at this level, clearly cant be judged on anything but a subjective level. As 2005 winner Anthony and the Johnsons (who?) wisely said “It’s like a crazy contest between an orange and a spaceship and a potted plant and a spoon - which one do you like better?” Now obviously we'd all choose the spaceship, but his point is clear. Its a hopeless exercise, but not a pointless cause.

It creates educated, balanced debate, highlights talent, encourages broad music tastes and makes you feel vindicated when surprise winners fade to nothingness while your champion is still charting. The Mercury Prize is flawed and wonderful as all music competitions are (except T4 unsigned), and thus I will put my educated, balanced debate out there:

Why the fuck are Kasabian nominated, and Doves not?

The other nominations are (with William Hills predictable odds on):

Florence and the Machine – Lungs 5/1
Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum 5/1
Bat for Lashes – Two Suns 6/1
La Roux – La Roux 6/1
Glasvegas – Glasvegas 6/1
Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy 8/1
Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires 8/1
The Horrors – Primary Colours 8/1
Lisa Hannigan – Sea Sew 8/1
The Invisible – The Invisible 10/1
Led Bib – Sensible Shoes 10/1
Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Twice Born Men 10/1

Desert Island Discs

There seems to be a trend in declaring the death of mediums at the moment. Just yesterday I had a long, semi-concious and fully drunken chat with my bassists father who called me "niave" for thinking the media could survive the recession.

One such medium, that in my opinion would have already died a death if it weren't for car stereos, is Radio. Those god awful afternoon dramas, annoying DJs, terrible playlists, amatuer adverts and the fucking Archers aside, it is simply a medium that filled the gap between social cohesion and TV.

The fact is that everything Radio can do, TV can do better. With a few exceptions - one being Desert Island Discs. There is something so inherently sonic about the show that the idea of adding the visual seems completely destructive. Music is an Aural pleasure, and thus a TV or live version of it would leave one not knowing where to look. In fact I think most people would close their eyes and pretend it is a radio show.

I listened to Desert Island Discs for the first time in years today, because the hero that is David Mitchell was on. As a self confused non-muso he chose a wonderfully mixed bag including, amongst others, "Rainbow Connection" sung by Kermit the Frog, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Major and Radiohead's "creep". He also chose "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, stating that is would be the perfect song to go mad to on a desert Island. To watch David Jiggle about to the Spanish Flea on TV would be too much to bear.

Listening to Radio still has its pleasures, ones I forgot until this morning. It makes you concentrate on the music (thus why Dizzy Rascal's "Bonkers" is so completely intolerable in this form....actually any form) and also listen to what it's speakers say, rather than gawp at how the camera adds ten pounds to David Mitchell (although less cameras must be on him recently). Radio still has it's place, it's just that that place has moved, and it needs to remember why it is different to TV not why TV is better than it.

Long live Desert Island Discs, and long live Radio.

Fern Cotton's feet are a little too small in my opinion.

Radio presenters are a classic English target. Awkward conversations about the weather are often followed by a scathing appraisal of the "idiots on the radio". Jo Whiley managed to escape this kind of criticism, but largely only because she managed to avoid public conciousness by being (feel free to stop talking about anti-seasonal precipitation and disagree) pretty inoffensive.

Caitlin Moran however, very much hates the woman, and in her own enviable style puts her down like an old dog: "her on-screen style that seems to inspire the main rage — a decades-long, squirming awkwardness that makes her look as if she’s about to corkscrew right off her chair and start drilling into the ground. This awkwardness extends into her conversational rhythm, which is angular — possibly free-jazz — in origin."

But Caitlin - you must be preparing your razor sharp tongue once again, because a much easier target has swaggered in front of the sniperscope. Fearne Cotton will now be doing the midmorning slot. As a young, attractive and slightly trashy sounding lady she is bound to be victim to some highbrow brow raising. I as a young, virile young man have no problem with her. Except she's shit.

How can she now present the Live Lounge when she dated a Fame Academy offshoot and the Lostprophet singer (the only man alive to exclusively sing through his nose). How can she take over the £250,000 a year salary off the back of a career on Top of the Pops and Red Nose Day?

Whiley, for all her sins, was a music lover, a recognisable voice, a live lounge co-creator and the voice of reason on T4 unsigned (if that exists). Fearne, they may not be massive shoes to fill but at the moment you look like you have very small feet.

So you want free music do you?

Despite the occasional cameo from Piratebay, it seems the ugly head of illegal downloading has gone back beneath the surface. That is not to say it is no longer an issue, but that the media has decided that something that isn't new...isn't news.

I would love to say that another reason is that people have found more legal ways to enjoy free music, but that would be niave. So here I am, a one man army saying that I am totally against illegal downloading, and even more against it now I have stopped doing it. That is because I have discovered Spotify.

Spotify, in its most basic form, is like a jukebox with almost every song in the world on it that you can access whenever you have an internet connection. For a small monthly fee you get advert free music on a scale never before thought possible. You can also pay one measily pound and get a day's worth of free music. Or even better, don't pay at all and every 20 minutes of so get a 30 second add.

Its all ad and link funded, so the conscience is left untainted, even if it gets a little nervous every time you find a really good album you'll never have to buy. I personally think it outshines the wonder that is Last.fm, which does offer the musical scope and media variation, but not the ease of use or simple playlist ability. Spotify also seems far more reliable for streaming, though this may be due to the numb er of listeners involved.

So for you thieves - start borrowing music instead. Its free, easy, legal, supportive of bands and a hell of a lot quicker at finding the tracks you want. It also has loads of kareoke tracks...I've checked - You've Lost That Loving Feeling is there.

Black or white, rest in Peace Michael Jackson.

In 9 hours the UK will wake up to a world changing news item. Yes world changing. For years he has been a rag doll, or voodoo doll for the popular media. Stick a needle in the idea of paedophilia and it was Michael Jackson who felt the pain.

I hope those people that did thrust that pin are now biting their lips and wringing their hands, because if justice works then Michael was proven not guilty and should therefore be mourned and loved as any other good person. But he should also be mourned as a genius, and king, a god, a creator, a legend, an innovator and a million other words that he deserves.

He showed us in his own unique and dysfunctional way that racism is absurd, poverty unjust and politics merely the means to an end. He defied not only colour but age, money, sanity, and class. He questioned our morals positively and negatively. He changed music forever, the industry for years. He reinvented choreography, music videos and the idea of pop idols. He was a great man, like all great men: flawed, but ultimately still great.

Without meaning to end this post on a severe example of bathos, I will fight anyone that says differently.

Rest in peace Michael.

Music Cluedo: It was Jonny Blog, in his bedroom, with his Wii Fit.

I have just read an excellent piece on the guardian website about the decline of sales in the music industry(http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/09/games-dvd-music-downloads-piracy) and have to agree with Charles Arthur whole heartedly. I think that the increase in games sales does indeed relate to the decrease in music, and that we have obviously found a more fulfilling (read economical) way to spend our money. That is not to say that people no longer love music, but that we can download the individual tracks we want (illegally or legally) and then spend the money we save on computer games (or DVDs). Add to that the drop in price for albums and you put more money in the pocket of an entertainment-whore of a consumer.

It's not so much the music business but the musicians who have shot themselves in the foot. For years mainstream bands have released woeful albums of the back of decent singles through the combination of laziness, cockiness and lack of real talent in the first place. Now that the consumer doesn't have to buy the whole album to get the good tracks musicians shouldn't be left wondering why their album sales have dropped off. The truth is that illegally downloaded tracks don't themselves represent a "lost sale" because if people had to pay for these extra tracks, they wouldn't download them. These albums that were knocked of in 3 months, all sounding the same and being slightly less catchy carbon copies of the "single" tracks have stopped selling (just look at the Kaiser Chiefs. Oh wait, you cant, they've disappeared).

Lack of "artistic endevour", so evident in other entertainment industries, has cost the major labels dearly. Notice how smaller, less MOR bands have been making waves recently as their heads show above the ocean of mediocrity, selling and gigging as well as ever. Changes in the industry (downloads, increase in festival numbers/sizes, music channels, youtube etc) have in fact helped the least commerical bands get their sound out. The music industry's thirst for money has been its biggest commercial mistake, and speed over quality has smashed them over the head with a wii fit in the living room.