Dance Dance Revolution

Just a quickie: The video for Madonna's "Hung Up" can be downloaded here. (via justjared.com)

NB: Features queen of pop in unfltattering pink leotard

Tweet

Bits and pieces

It's not been a good week at Discopop towers. That trip to Delhi resulted in a massive fever, and 8 days off work (so far). It's not Malaria, though, so we'll be back to normal eventually. Or so the doctor says.

In the meantime, we've played a lot of Resident Evil 4, and slept 80% of the day. There are also a few things we've seen on the internets which might interest you:

The Times has the complete list of the 142 singles John Peel had inside his record box when he passed away last year. Personally, we'd prefer the contents of John Lennon's jukebox - but you have to give Peelie credit for having two copies of Sheena Easton's "9 to 5" in his collection.

We love Nintendo music - you can quite often hear us singing the theme tune to Super Mario Bros as we walk down the street (often while jumping on brick walls and sliding down flagpoles). So it pleases us no end when people update the music and format it for our ipod. Jason Cox is one such person - he's re-recorded the entire Super Mario World suite with real instruments. Now we can download it and pretend we really are the squat, bouncy plumber. If only we could find a Yoshi to ride into work.

Pitchfork media's review of Destiny's Child's greatest hits package argues the girls have 'reneged on everything they once stood for'. Their reviewer says it's because the band have traded female independence for being "kept wives" in their lyrics. We say it's because they traded cutting-edge r&b for sappy Diane Warren-penned bullshit love songs. But, hey, in the final analysis we both agree.

Finally, Games shops in the USA have been getting into trouble for selling second-hand memory sticks for the PSP. It seems that some memory cards still have data left on them - and in certain cases, retailers have sold little children some gut-wrenching porn formatted for their games machine. Ooops! (Insert Michael Jackson joke here).

Tweet

23 positions no more

It must have been all those splits: Prince needs a new hip. Or so says the National Enquirer, which means it must be true...

Other purple rumours: The man has been in Marrakech recording a new video with Salma Hayek. And his charity single for the victims of Hurricane Katrina will be will be available in stores as well as online from next week.

The first of the Jarvis Cocker / Radiohead songs from the new Harry Potter movie has leaked. It's bordering on creepy - possibly the least child-friendly song from a kid's movie since Siouxie and the Banshee's "Face to Face" from Batman Returns.

First review of the Madonna album over at Drownedmadonna.com. Sadly, they fail to mention this classic lyric from "I Love New York":

I don't like cities but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork

Rumours that Rocco wrote this line are currently unconfirmed.

Tweet

How to make a radiohead album

What you are seeing here is a blackboard full of song titles for Radiohead's seventh (!) studio album. We're a bit late to the party, but Thom & co. have been keeping a diary of the recording sessions on the official website - which is about as impenetrable as your average Radiohead lyric / maximum security detention centre.

Some of the mooted songs look very Radiohead: Skirting on the Surface; A Pig's Ear; House of Cards. A little more intriguing are Morning Mi Lord and Big Cheese. It's a little pointless to guess what the album will sound like from a few tentative song titles, but we'd say this will be Radiohead's jazz fusion gospel album, complete with brass section, welsh male close-harmony choir and bongos.

Unfortunately, it won't be finished til next year, so in the meantime why not download the band's fantastic headline set from Glastonbury 2003? If you can't download torrents, you can get some slightly ropey MP3s of last year's gigs in Portugal from this site.

Tweet

What we learnt from a morning watching (Indian) Music Television

Just got back from three days in New Delhi. It was a work trip, so there wasn't really any chance to experience India except through the medium of restaurants and TV studios - both of which were excellent. Although we were a bit shocked when the satellite truck we'd hired for outside broadcasts turned out to be a farm vehicle with a satellite dish on the back of it!

However, in the name of cultural sensitivity, we spent some time in the hotel room watching Indian Music Television. Here's what we discovered:

By law, a man called Amitabh Bachchan must appear in every other film and music video made in India.

As you can see, Amitabh is a shocking portrait of mid-life crisis made flesh. Aged 63, he sports a 'wet-look' leather jacket, aviator shades, and greying designer stubble. In his videos, he is surrounded by young ladies who gyrate near him, but not too near him.

Imagine Robbie Williams turning up for your 13-year-old daughter's birthday party. That's the kind of feeling Amitabh gives you.

Amitabh currently has a big hit with the title song to Bollywood musical "Bunty aur Babli". Hilariously, it is a rap. In English. By someone old enough to be your grandad.

Are u ready, sit down,
Let me da tell you a lil story,
'bout 2 cool cats,
yeah, bunty aur babli,
comin in' at an angle,
that they better than the rest,
when ya looking in their hearts,
them a da pass the test.

You can hear excerpts of this work of genius on MTV India. It appears to be embedded in the page so it will play as soon as you click on the link. Turn the speakers down in the office if you want to retain your dignity.

Actually, almost every song we heard in India tried to incorporate some English lyrics, even if the composer had no relevant experience of speaking the language. The safest bet in this instance seems to involve lifting phrases from Western hits wholesale, even if you're not really sure what the words mean in the first place.

For example, the best song we heard features the following couplet:

Wop bap a loo-bop a wop bam boo
Got a tutti frutti. It's so rooty. Aaaaah!

That comes from "Gori Gori Gori Gori" which originates from the wedding scene in another Bollywood musical, Main Hoon Na. It is possible that all Bollywood films consist of one long wedding scene, but we haven't been able to confirm that.

You can hear "Gori, Gori, Gori, Gori" on this page. But, frankly, its not as good without the video.

Indian Music television features no Dido or 50 Cent, and is therefore 500% better than any music TV station in the UK.

But we did like the new Girls Aloud video we saw on MTV Dance this morning.

Tweet

Left, Left, Up. Down, Down, Right.

Fuck choreography: In Madonna's new video, she goes to the Trocadero and plays "Dance, Dance, Revolution." (Although she's not going to get a very high score if she keeps turning her back to the screen like that).

"Brian, I'm a genius too". WFMU has a recording of the Beach Boy's dad Murry Wilson, drunk, ruining a Beach boys recording session in 1965. "You think because you've had a couple of hits, you've got it made."

Q: How many members of Westlife does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: All of them. No, really.

One for mrsdiscopop: Pictures of Nigel Barker back when he was a male model, plus lost of spoilers on America's Next Top Model, cycle 5.

Tweet

The world's most respected broadcasting organisation

Because of the unique way the BBC is funded, it can make risky, cutting-edge programming that other broadcasters would never contemplate.

That's why, when BBC local radio station Hereford and Worcester needed to illustrate the problems of inadequate housing provision in their area, they neatly side-stepped copyright law and re-wrote the lyrics to Madness's "Our House". They even got their producer, Bethan, to sing her new verses over the top of the original.

A commercial station, you see, could never made this. Not because of the dodgy legal implications, because their funders would have pulled the plug immediately. The item was one of the most poorly-conceived, amateurly-executed, should-never-have-made-it-to-air pieces of radio ever broadcast.

Needless to say, it is a classic.

Luckily for you, a 'source' sent us an MP3 of the broadcast. We suggest you play it all the way through to experience the full horror.

And when you're through, have a serious think about whether the BBC really deserves an extra £3.14 on the licence fee every year until 2013.

Tweet

Behold, a lady

Robbie Williams pops up in today's Sun to say he'd like to be a lady.

Not because he loves the cock, you understand, but because he wants "to know what sex feels like for a woman." (i.e. because he loves the cock.)

Still, he got us thinking: if a woman has an orgasm and sneezes at the same time, what happens?

Mr Red Penguin reveals the top 100 singles so far this year. Such a list is inevitably going to be depressing, but we still can't believe that there's only one good song in the top ten. Plus, you have to get as far down as number 27 before you'll find an actual classic: Amerie's "1 Thing" - funily enough sitting right next to the only other classic in the list, "Dare" by Goriilaz.

Rick Astley is back, back, back! and he's as controversial and cutting-edge as ever. Talking to The Independent he reveals that Stock, Aiken and Waterman practised "formulaic songwriting." Is he sure?

Video ipod: first review. Ho hum.

Tweet

My mother will be so, so angry

Hooray! The Sultans of Ping (FC) are back! If you have no idea what we're talking about, Mr Red Penguin's MP3 Heaven will fill you in.

As Christmas approaches, all the record companies are repackaging albums as 'special editions' in the hope of squeezing out a few extra sales. What this usually means is a badly photoshopped cover (oooh, the background is red now but it used to be blue) and a few crappy remixes / live performances on a bonus CD. Ho-hum.

Gwen Stefani's "Love Angel Music Baby" is no exception. Even though the CD we've got already claims to be a special edition, there's a new version on its way. It's only worth mentioning because the new cover is actually rather fabulous. You can see a little bit of it to your left - click on the picture to enlarge.

US anti-video games campaigner / attorney / lunatic, Jack Thompson, is offering games companies $10,000 to make a game based on his own specifications.

You play a father whose son is beaten to death by a teenage gaming addict. To complete the game, you must systematically destroy the gaming industry; initially by smashing up arcades, and finally by going to the industry's annual expo in California and slaughtering hundreds of computer game executives. No, really.

Quite what this is supposed to achieve is unclear. The implication seems to be that no-one will make the game because, secretly, the industry knows it encourages mass homicide and a kid could actually re-enact these vicious murders if he were to play it.

You have to admire the man's twisted logic, really.

Kate Bush fans are an odd sort. Her new album cover looks like it's got a soundwave on it, and people have been trying to work out if it contains a 'hidden message'. The lead suggestion, according to gigwise.com is "We paint penguins pink".

One clever soul has grabbed the soundwave into an audio editing application to see if he can uncover the secret. He can't. It sounds like a mildly disturbed bat having a strenuous poo.

But if there's going to be a message, we'd like it to be that.

Tweet

Lovely apples

Fiona Apple has never been particularly popular at Discopop Towers, but I was intrigued by the story of her new album. Initially recorded in 2002, Fiona's record label (Sony BMG) had a hissy-fit because it "didn't have any singles". So, they hired Dr Dre's engineer Mike Elizondo, and made Apple re-record the whole thing one song at a time, forcing her to get approval on each song before they'd give her money to record the next one.

Disheartened, she quit the recording process. It wasn't until fans organised a protest, and the original recordings were 'fortuitously' leaked on the internet to general accalim, that Sony reconsidered and asked Fiona back to the recording studio. "Extraordinary Machine" finally came out on Monday.

I have to admit, I wouldn't have paid a new Fiona Apple track any attention if the circumstances were any different. But, there just happens to be a download of the song "Red Red Red" on fluxblog and it turns out to be excellent, in a kind of smoky, late-night, Fabulous Baker Boys kind of way. I particularly like the line "What's so impressive about a diamond, except for the mining?"

A bit more digging reveals you can preview the whole album on Myspace. When you (correctly) decide that your life won’t be complete without owning the entire album, you can pick it up for a bargain £8.75 at CD-Wow.

Who said we don't look after you?

PS: Fiona's website is fionaapple.org

Tweet

If you keep pulling faces, the wind will change and you'll look like that for ever

Michael Jackson has been out with his kids in London (he took his family to see the Billy Elliot musical, then asked the cast back to his hotel room - doesn't he ever learn?)

As you can see from the photo, he's still making his kids cover their faces in public. Looking at it positively - Michael does seem to be going to great lengths to protect his offspring from the kind of media attention that's made his adult life a misery. But you can't help asking yourself whether these kids are hideously deformed freaks. Maybe, through some kind of awful genetic experiment, their faces morph every five seconds like that girl in the video for Black and White.

And if Jackson simply must cover their faces with tea-towels for every public engagement, isn’t it a bit cruel to nick-name the middle one "Blanket"?

Britney's bra has been pulled off (ebay)

Crazy scientists make dolphins sing the theme tune to Batman We assume they've gone for the brilliant 'dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner BAT-MAAAN' theme, and not the tuneless funk bollocks Prince wrote for the Tim Burton movie.

I've seen this clip from catchphrase 84 times now, and I still laugh milk out of my eyes every time. What's Mr Chips doing now? (right-click and select Save As... to download).

Tweet

For clarification

Just to be clear about this: Michael Jackson may have been in Chiswick, but he wasn't visiting Discopop Towers.



One person who did come across the freak-faced clown of pop was Kitty Clarke. "He seemed very calm and didn’t mind everyone touching him," she says.



Particularly the children, presumably.

Tweet

Quicklink Thursday

What if "The Shining" was a sappy comedy film about a struggling screenwriter? (links to a quicktime movie trailer)

"The Revolution controller is the new controller, everything else is now the classic controller." Shigeru Miayamoto (the man responsible for Mario, Zelda and Pikmin) talks up Nintendo's new console

Meanwhile, "Students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all," says some guy.

Because we're at work we haven't checked this one out, but Defamer.com promises us a "video clip of a naked Janet Jackson rubbing her breasts and drumming on her ass". It's probably just that superbowl performance again...

Why is it so cold today? Because hell has frozen over.

Tweet

Cup size not disclosed

If you get your kicks from parading around in pop stars' old underwear (and who doesn't?) you should head over to Ebay. Because, Britney Spears is auctioning her grundies to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

But before you get too excited, our careful research suggests that most of the items are already too expensive to bid for. That's careful research as in typing "Britney's pants" into the ebay search engine for thirty minutes before giving up and watching the Toxic video.

Have you noticed how all the best new bands are, by pop standards, practically pensioners? Alison Goldfrapp, Alex Kapranos and Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs are all in their 30s. And that means they all have musical skeletons in their closet... To which end, Culturedeluxe have dug up a recording of Alex Kapranos's band "The Blisters" from 1997. Funnily enough, it's better than almost everything on the new Franz Ferdinand album.

Pharrell Williams and Gwen Stefani's "Can I Have It Like That" is streaming at contactmusic.com. As usual, the Neptunes backing track is light years ahead of anything else out there but Pharell is an awful MC and Gwen just sounds bored.

Meanwhile, Pharrell told Radio One that N*E*R*D have split up, but almost instantly changed his mind. It seems the poor boy is getting muddled up. Maybe he should stop smoking those funny cigarettes Snoop lends him.

Tweet

Oh so dark

Joystiq.com is spilling the beans on Xbox 360's launch titles. The information comes direct from some anonymous man at Microsoft, so it must be true. Rather excitingly, Goldeneye creators Rare are responsible for two of the games that'll ship with the new console. Even better is the announcement that one of those launch games is the sequel to N64 classic, Perfect Dark. Perfect Dark Zero, long-rumoured and now confirmed, will apparently feature "a warehouse full of chuffing great guns".

Overall, the number of launch titles for the 360 suggests that Microsoft are planning a vicious assault on Sony's stranglehold of the console market. In particular, they've ramped up the number of non-shooting, non-driving titles in an attempt to crack Japan (where the Xbox came a poor third to PS2 and the Gamecube). The tactic seems to be working already - with Japanese websites suggesting that developers are abandoning Sony in droves. Ooo-er.

Tweet

Word Up!

Sometimes, when the funk hits, you've just gotta let it take control.



(video removed by request)

Tweet

Hello again!

"I remember the terrifying scene where we were in the boat and the horse jumped out and ended up surfacing a plastic explosive that went off right under my face... I admit I was pretty furious at you for a lot of years."

Sarah Polley exchanges emails with Terry Gilliam about her experiences as a nine-year-old actress on "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen".

Patsy Kensit is disappointed that Mel Gibson didn't show her his cock.

Watch Kate Moss do drugs. We know: it's shocking, isn't it?

A little parable, courtesy of Robbie Williams. If you pull an attractive woman and she doesn't know who you are, do not make her watch a DVD of your concert at Knebworth before you boff her. Otherwise, you will remain single.

Robbie doesn't seem to mind the whole not-getting-his-rocks-off scenario. Apparently, he prefers to think the incident makes him "just like Bruce Wayne". We're not sure how this works - unless Bruce Wayne was a desperately conceited English pop star beginning the second phase (read: ekeing out the dying moments) of his career, and not Batman's alter-ego after all. Or maybe Robbie has a leather festish and likes to slide down greasy poles with Jonathan Wilkes his camp sidekick.

That Cardigans single we've been banging on about for months finally gets released this week. "I need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer," is brilliant but seemingly unavailable in the nation's record stores. Even Amazon and HMV are threatening a 10-day wait if you buy it online. Polydor's phone number is (020) 8910 4800. Maybe they'll send you a copy if you ask nicely.

[Update 16:08] You can get the single off itunes in the UK! So click here and get it for 79p. Let's see if we can break into the top 30! (thanks to potatopotato on the popjustice forums for the link).

Jim Jarmuch's notes for a Ghostbusters sequel

Tweet