The Hit Parade Volume 3 Issue Twenty Eight by Liam R
[Editor’s note: fuck count – 24. It's an upward curve STILL!]
Now I know you are sitting here in moderate shock that I have managed to spew out two Hit Parades one after the other vaguely on time for the first time since the start of August, and that I did it without Claire coming in and bailing me out by being funnier and more cutting than me. Well I'm in shock too, but I looked at this week's issue as more of challenge than previous ones in that I'd have to do it all meself, but now that her good self the Karma Whore has made some sort of deal with me to provide content every other week (to fit in with her work schedule) I have absolutely no excuses for missing another issue. Also, the weekly schedule until the end of the year means that some point before Christmas we should reach the milestone of 100 versions of this so we will no doubt be looking back at issues of the past, bringing some commentary from previous contributors or… we'll just produce the same crap we normally produce but a bit longer. I don't know about you lot, but the very thought of anything I've done reaching such a milestone while declining in quality and quantity deserves a pat on the back. But dark clouds are gathering over the horizon, and will soon manifest themselves in the 'Stuff' section of the website. What the fuck am I talking about? All will become somewhat clearer next week and with that cliffhanger, on with the fucking show!
Bands 1 Record Labels 0: Last week every man and their dog reported that Radiohead were releasing their new album via the internet and a clever 'choose your own price' policy as they are currently between labels and have, well material to release. So as a big "fuck you" to the music industry 1.2 million copies of the album were purchased in the last week at an average of £4 a pop, but the caveat being that as opposed to the normal 5% to 20% cut a band would get from CD sales through a label, Radiohead managed to keep ALL the cash from the albums release (less things like web site hosting costs and all that bollocks). So is this the death knell for record labels as we know it? Not really, as even small bands won't be able to get those sort of sales figures without label support BUT it does mean that bands who have already gained themselves a fan base can in the future be released from their labels and strike out on their own. But if this all means that we won't get stupid, ten minute long mini-movies posing as music videos then I'm all for it.
Dinosaurs, Awaken From Your Slumber: One of the annoying habits of my brother is to play songs he likes to death on his stereo at a volume which is irritating. Thank fuck he doesn't like Led Zeppelin, who have just announced that they are to publish all of their back catalogue to online digital retailers. Come on, you have to love the tedious linkage. As an aside to making their stuff available from places like Napster and iTunes (or iFuckingPieceOfShit as I like to call it), the Zep have also signed a deal with American mobile network Verizon Wireless to sell their music via ring tones, alert tones and downloads. What surprised me about the second part of the story is that Verizon has a Director of Digital Music. What next for mobile phone operators? Director of Handset Colour Co-ordination?
Like, Totally Tubular: This is going to take a little while to explain but bear with me a little. Old Man Arms herself, a.k.a. Madonna, has signed an all-encompassing deal with gig promoter Live Nation instead of a traditional record deal. In layman's terms, the deal means that Live Nation will promote all of her records, sell them and organise her forthcoming tours for the next ten years all in one handy package. It also goes without saying that a deal of this magnitude wouldn't be complete without some completely fucking stupid corporate bollocks like these snippets: "the deal offered her the chance to take advantage of new models of music distribution" and "The paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist and a businesswoman, I have to move with that shift". What a load of fucking arse, it's a fucking record deal not rocket science!
Quick And Dirty Hits: Julian Lennon claims that he has been visited by the ghost of his dead father. Seriously, what the fuck?... Foxy Brown has finally appeared in court on assault charges stemming from an issue over the volume of a car stereo. The reason for the delay was because she refused to travel by bus to court, which is nice... Rappers Rap Sheets: TI - weapons offences (denied bail)… The Spice Girls forthcoming greatest hits album will be available in lingerie chain Victoria 's Secret. I have no idea why this is news…
Not The Karma Whore Corner: Well Claire's taking a well deserved break from ranting about the world, and who can blame her? After all, she has a proper job whereas I just pretend to work. Hell, I'm pretending to work right now! But seeing as I am in work I have a few (well two) minor niggles nagging away at me. Firstly, why is the chocolate bar I'm eating made of Fairtrade Belgian chocolate? Has the most dull and boring country in Europe suddenly become so destitute overnight that it needs 'That Fucker' Chris Martin's help to survive? Probably not, and the chocolate was no doubt sourced from some poorer Third World country. If that is the case why is it still fucking called Belgian chocolate when it wasn't fucking grown in Belgium ? Unless there is something about the chocolate making process I'm unaware of, in which case email me from the link in blue at the very top of this article. The second niggle comes from this beauty of a statement: "I've got a new James Blunt". The shock horror at those words nearly made me shit myself, before my brain got shifted into gear and I realised that said statement was just a complete mauling of the English language and should have been spoken as: "I've got the new James Blunt album." Still, the very thought of two James Blunts in this world is more terror than Hollywood 's horror output combined. I mean we had the unmitigated shite of singing soldiers before in Robson and fucking Jerome and they turned out not to be real soldiers. How many times must the music playing public be deceived? Also, I honestly don't see the point or appeal in James Blunt in the first place. Every single interview I have read sees him come across as this maniacal, egotistical twat with a drug problem and yet women seem to veritably drop at his feet to suck on the 'Blunt' as it were. If he were actually good looking that would be different but he does look like Tim from Ash's slightly more retarded and exceptionally ugly brother that was locked in a cupboard from birth. And then there's his music: a truly mind-numbingly horrible mix of 'woe is me' acoustic balladry mixed with an infuriatingly high (so high you'd swear he is being repeatedly kicked in the bollocks) falsetto which is contrived and completely lacking in soul and depth. Sample line from his new album? "I've taken shitloads of drugs." Fuck me, the Ivor Novello award for songwriting is in the fucking post. Now given that James Blunt is a tosser of the highest order, has his own apt piece of Cockney rhyming slang named after him (James Blunt=cunt!) and produces some of the most God-awful music every produced… can you imagine if there were two of him? RUN FOR THE FUCKING HILLS!
Oh, they are really testing my fucking patience this week. I mean just look at the tripe in the charts this time!
10. Scouting For Girls: She's So Lovely (Epic) - Not awful. Not good. Not going to be remembered at the end of the year either.
9. Feist: 1234 (Polydor) - Also known as that fucking annoying song that is playing on the current iPod advert. If the US Military ever tire of using Metallica to mentally destroy prisoners in Guantanemo Bay , they could use this and within one listen all them terrorists would be converting to Catholicism and screaming "Death To Allah". Yes, this song really is that fucking bad.
8. Sean Kingston: Beautiful Girls (Beluga Heights/Epic) - Some talentless fat fuck with a tenuous grip on the English language brutally rapes Ben E King's 'Stand By Me' up the arse with razor blades. Fucking hell, it almost makes me pine for Akon's talentless high pitched whining.
7. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland: Ayo Technology (Interscope) - It sounds like the burbling noise that used to come out of old Atari computers, but is redeemed by the trouser tent raising ladies and their lingerie in the video.
6. Plain White T's: Hey There Delilah (Angel/Hollywood) - Please, please, fucking please for the love of God stop buying this piece of abject garbage. Either that or murder the fuckers for inflicting it on the first place.
5. Hoosiers: Goodbye Mr A (RCA) - They cribbed their name from the second best film ever made about basketball (the first obviously being Space Jam, and closely followed by the episode of Futurama where the Harlem Globetrotters were reimagined as nuclear physicists) and their last single was god awful shit. This is probably more of the same.
4. Shayne Ward: No U Hang Up/If That's Ok With You (Syco Music) - Sorry, but I have an aversion to all talent show winners and their 'careers', but Shanye West is a thoroughly likeable chap. Shame his music is such ear destroying shit really.
3. Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse: Valerie ( Columbia ) - One one side you have a producer who has yet to write anything of his own and re-interpreting other people's songs in a manner not to dissimilar to Mike Flowers. On the other you have a horse faced smack head with no more talent than any other club singer in the country. Mix them together and you have a song that is nowhere near as good as the original.
2. Ida Corr Vs Fedde Le Grand: Let Me Think About It (Data) – It’s not ‘Put Your Hands Up For Detroit’ but it’s dirty, funky and possibly a bit sexy therefore your single of the week. Amongst little competition admittedly though.
1. Sugababes: About You Now ( Island ) - The splash page on Radio One's chart page of the girls is a thing of abject horror. And where exactly has all the attitude that they used to show gone?
The Final Word: "An intimate game in which you and a loved one fill your jumpers with inflated balloons, and the first person to explode all the other's balloons gets to go on the top bunk" - PC Zone writer Jon 'Log' Blyth on the mysteries of the POP3 mail server protocol thingy.