Girls Aloud- 'The Promise'

Cool vid. Sarah looks fierce, Nicola like a Barbie and Chezza is impossibly pretty. Kimba and Nadine look cute as well.



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'5 Rebeccas'

New single from The View, featuring brief nudity from an unnamed Wee The View lad and Owen Morris shooting off fireworks in his garden.

I initially thought it was cute indie pop, nothing memorable, then caught myself humming the chorus, oh, 15 TIMES this weekend...

'The Promise'- Girls Aloud

I wasn't initially that blown away by the single, but I have a feeling it's going to grow on me. The "You're gonna make me, make me love you" chorus is BRILLIANT.

And damn, they actually gave my girl, Sarah, a bigger part than usual. Fierce bitch knocks it out of the park.

R.I.P. Mr Wexler

US record producer Jerry Wexler, who influenced the careers of singers including Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan, has died aged 91.

David Ritz, co-author of Mr Wexler's memoirs, said the producer passed away at his home in Sarasota, Florida.

Mr Wexler rose to fame as a partner in the influential Atlantic Records label with the late Ahmet Ertegun.

He also coined the term "rhythm and blues" while writing for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s.

Mr Wexler produced the hugely popular Aretha Franklin hit Respect, itself a re-working of an Otis Redding song.

He also produced the Wilson Pickett song, In the Midnight Hour and helped Bob Dylan win his first Grammy award by producing the 1979 album, Slow Train Coming.

Excuse me, I need to go listen to some Aretha...

Now this is interesting

Xenomania* (Brian Higgins et al) is producing Franz's new album? REALLY? That is so cool!

Indie-rock purists might be shocked by Franz’s likely choice of producer: They’ve recorded tracks with Brian Higgins, a British pop hitmaker who’s previously worked with Kylie Minogue, Cher and the girl group Girls Aloud. “It appeals to my contrary side,” says Kapranos. “And I don’t like the distance between bands and pop music there is now. Dr. Dre or Timbaland or the Neptunes are making the songs you’ve never heard before, not the indie kids strumming their fucking guitars.”**

*producers of Girls Aloud's brand of innovative pop music
**may I point out that I have absolutely nothing against indie kids strumming their guitars, fucking or otherwise.....

Christmas #1

As addressed in 'Love, Actually,' having the number one single on Christmas is a rather big deal in Blighty. Today, Stereogum posted a list of all the songs to achieve this since 1952.

I must confess, I am completely wild to hear the entry from 1980, 'There's No One Quite Like Grandma.' Martin Hannett allegedly once snorted some illicit substance off its gold record. And I don't know what Stereogum is smoking, dissing the entries since 1999. 'Sound Of The Underground' is an AMAZING single.

OOOOOOO!

The amazing rock snobs at The Guardian love Girls Aloud's new album.....I want!

You're left pondering an album that by any standards seems pretty irresistible. It's witty, diverse, experimental and viscerally thrilling: what more do you want pop music to be? Frankly, the sort of person who claims they find nothing to love here is like the sort of person who claims to hate the Beatles: they're either posturing or they're an idiot. Either way, you should pay them no mind.

Obsessions

As of November 2007

-"Evening Breeze" Colonial Candles

-Jaqua Girls "Buttercream Frosting" Hand Creme

-Kicking Chuck Shumer in the ass

-This picture of Wee Kieren















-Kicking Nancy Pelosi in the ass

-This picture of Drew McConnell

Well, this sounds promising

The pop snobs at Popjustice have heard the new Girls Aloud album, and LOVE IT.

Story filed Wednesday, 31 October 2007
1. This is the sleeve for the promo

2. 'Girl Overboard' is a massive Euro rave-up extravaganza and should be a single unless there is a tragic event involving a girl falling off a boat or maybe if there is some sort of real-life version of the hilarious Goldie Hawn film 'Overboard' in which Goldie Hawn actually died instead of just amusingly lost her memory because then Radio One wouldn't play it due to 'concerns over the public mood etc'.

3. Every time it's been on in the office 'Sexy! No No No...' has been mercilessly skipped and after we'd finished listening to it the first time there was literally an argument over which song we'd listen to again first.

4. 'Fling' is sort of like 'Wake Me Up' from the year 2012.

5. There are NO BALLADS and NO COVERS.

6. "I can't speak French, so I let the funky music do the talking, talking now." That is a good lyric.

7. We've listened to it 180 times and it's only been in the office since 9am.

8. It's the best Girls Aloud album of all time and is better than the Sugababes, Kylie and Britney albums although we've just done a review for someone giving the Britney album 5/5 so we suppose that probably makes 'Tangled Up' a 6/5 album. Which our calculator tells us is 1.2. Which is 120%. "They've really given it 120%" etc etc.

9. It's out at some point in November and would make the ideal Christmas present for someone who likes amazing pop music.

10. There you go.

Regarding the MTV Music Awards

There are certain artists that should only be enjoyed in a recorded format. Britney Spears is one of them. Her voice is thin at best, and best heard on her brilliantly produced albums. Love Max Martin. (Yes, I'm a production nerd)

Her performance was a complete trainwreck from start to finish- she looked like a deer in the headlights....

However, if I hear one more person call her fat, I will rain down hellfire upon them. Shit, I wish I was that "chubby."

And what Rebecca Traister said......

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This is great!

Girls Aloud performing their new single at T4 on the beach. Bulletproof dumb pop genius. Xenomania=Gods of Pop

Sexy! Yes, yes, yes.....

I've heard this song, which premiered on Chris Moyles's show last week. It features the typical GA bizarro production and insanely catchy chorus....

Girls Aloud are set to release their new single 'Sexy! No, no, no..' on September 3.The track is taken from the band's fourth studio album, which is yet to be named. The group will team up with songwriters Xenomania again, who have worked with since they began life on the 'Popstars' reality TV programme.

Stax Anniversary

Some of the bits of culture I was exposed to during my formative years- the things that really influenced me- were Monty Python's Flying Circus and the music of the Stax Records stars. God or whomever bless PBS and the soul radio stations out of Chicago.

I can't imagine what my childhood would have been like without the Ministry Of Silly Walks, The Fish Slapping Dance, Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas.

It's nice to see Mr. Stewart and Ms. Axton's massively influential label in the news again.

The sound was never exactly polished, but it had plenty of soul, and the Memphis sound created at Stax Records has found its own special place in the history of American music.Some of pop's most cherished recordings came out of the Stax studio, including Sam & Dave's "Soul Man," Otis Redding's "(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay," and Isaac Hayes' Oscar-winning "Theme from Shaft."

Now, 50 years after a white country-fiddle player started down the road that led him to open a recording studio in a predominantly black, inner-city neighborhood, the Stax label is trying to make a comeback.

Oooh, exactly!

So, we listen to a lot of Girls Aloud at the flower shop. Why? It's well-crafted pop nonsense with amazing production. And also, we all feel that we could be friends with Sarah and Nicola. They seem cool. (The blonde with the short hair and the ginger).

And women cannot subsist on a diet of The Fratellis, The View, Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and The Libertines alone.

But I digress....

Upon reading this review of GA's performance at Wembley Arena, I was struck by the following:

the closing "Biology" is perhaps GA/Xenomania's finest moment. It really shouldn't work, seeming to consist of two or three songs jammed together (it's Bowie's "Jean Genie" interbred with Wings' "Band On The Run"), but somehow it does.

Eureka! We have a winner! That's EXACTLY what the song sounds like! Go watch. It's big, fun stupid pop.

My, Rick Rubin had a good night

The big question, though, was what to do next. And for that they turned to a very unusual man indeed - the prolific and highly eclectic record producer Rick Rubin, who made his name with rap and heavy rock acts during the 1980s and early 1990s. It might not have sounded like a good fit at all, except that Rubin had also earned a reputation for rescuing the careers of more seasoned artists looking for a new direction - everyone from Johnny Cash to Tom Petty and Neil Diamond. One of Rubin's clients once described him as a "song doctor", and that's exactly what the trio from Texas now needed.

Just look at the list of artists he has worked with. Amazing.

It was quite the night for Rubin all round. He had produced one of the other nominees for album of the year, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' hit Stadium Arcadium, and produced two of the tracks on a third - Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds. And that's not to mention Neil Diamond's big comeback, 12 Songs, and the last, posthumous instalment of Johnny Cash's American Recordings series, A Hundred Highways. Both were released during the Grammies' eligibility period, which runs from October to September, rather than the previous calendar year.

Not too many people outside the music industry have heard of Rubin. And even the Chicks themselves weren't too sure who he was. They just noticed his name on a lot of the albums they were listening to. Among those he has worked with, he is regarded with deep awe and reverence. And it's quite some list by now, spanning everyone from Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys to Slayer, System of a Down and Rage Against the Machine, by way of Mick Jagger, Donovan and The Jesus and Mary Chain.