Superficial

You may not have noticed, but I've been trying to increase the volume of original writing on the site over the past month. The idea is to create a flurry of opinion, criticism and erudite discussion, rather than just a bunch of links.

So far, it's been going rather well - that Nelly Furtado review from last week has tripled the number of visitors to the site. But sometimes there just isn't anything to get me fired up.

Perhaps that's because I've been listening to the Go! Team album on repeat. Its so relentlessly upbeat and bouncy that I can't help but walk around with an uncharacteristically sunny disposition. Even the rumour of Mariah Carey duetting with Janet Jackson isn't enough to wipe the smile off my face, even though the resulting song is sure to make dogs claw out their own eardrums in an attempt to make the high-pitched whining stop. Not to mention the video, which will be like witnessing a slow train crash.

Anyway, even if Jermaine Dupri manages to finally put an end to Janet's career there's plenty of other good music on the horizon. Radio One have been putting their Live Lounge to good use once again, getting those Arctic Monkeys in to perform their number one single and (taste-makers look away now) a cover of Girls Aloud's Love Machine.

This is good news. If Arctic Monkeys are to claim Oasis' crown as the biggest rock band in the UK, it can only be a positive development that they love pop music and don't throw a big girly tantrum every time someone else comes up with a good tune. Yes, Liam, we're talking to you. You twat.

Meanwhile Radio One's less hip uncle, Six Music (or "BBC we only allow songs by white men with guitars plus the occasional bit of Stevie Wonder if you're very lucky" as internal memos probably don't refer to it) has put Belle and Sebastian into the studio to go wild - albeit politely and within tolerable noise levels. They perform an acoustic version of their new single, which is fantastic and should be bought in actual bucketloads.

You can hear both the Arctic Monkeys and B&S on the ever-fantastic Mr Red Penguin's MP3 Heaven.

Finally, something I never thought I'd see, or be interested in seeing: One-hit-wonder Lisa Loeb prannying around in a thong. She looks surprisingly young and pert for someone who had a hit single 12 years ago... But knowing that fact makes me feel ridiculously old, which has put the dampener on my rosy disposition.

I must head off and listen to the Go! Team again...

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Video of the week

Whether or not this will be a regular feature depends solely on quite how much it's in violation of copyright law.

Anyway, to start us off, here's a classic Janet Jackson clip from 1993... The song is called If, and the video's directed by Dominic Sena. Sena went on to Hollywood, where he produced some absolute bilge like Gone In Sixty Seconds and Swordfish. Janet went on to sell millions of records, show the world her left bosom, and then sell markedly fewer records. But she's back later this year, and this vid is a great reminder of why she's so popular (stateside, at least).

Watch out particularly for the dance breakdown around 2mins into the video. Superb.

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I like dancing at the disco

Goldfrapp have made a so-called "short-form promotional film clip" for their new single Ride A White Horse. The song is superb - but what about the video? Let us investigate.


1. Alison Goldfrapp is a teensy-tiny wee lady.
Look! She has to use a Barbie hairdressing salon set to do her hair. Amazingly, the straighteners worked! (Although we suspect that's a wig.)

Alison is so small that she was once nearly eaten by a spider. Another time, she got trapped in Tony Christie's pocket for seven weeks and had to survive by nibbling on a polo mint.


2. Luckily she has some tiny friends to keep her company.
And they do dancing! Alison, sadly, dances with all the grace of a cat being made to walk on its hind legs. Nil points!


3. Ironic visual representation of musical-genre.
Goldfrapp's music has been called trashy disco. And there is a slightly broken glitterball on the floor. DO YOU SEE? WELL... DO YOU?


4. Goldfrapp is a band
But nobody really notices the other guy. He is now reduced to dressing in toilet roll and eating out of bins. His name is Tutankhamun. Or Will Gregory. We forget.


5. Later on in the video, Alison still cannot dance
Even the one about the teapot escapes her.


6. But she likes a good slice of Italian in her
Oo-er, fnar, etc.

In conclusion, then, Goldfrapp spunked their video budget up the wall on the last two singles and this effort is, to coin a phrase, "a bit pants".

Still, some kind soul has put it up on Dailymotion for you to have a gander

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Music industry: Your questions obfuscated

Lawks-a-lordy! The BBC news website has gathered a panel of senior music industry experts and allowed us, the nefarious underworld master criminals who spend hours bringing record companies to their still-highly-profitable knees by downloading Avril Lavigne B-sides, to put some questions to them. Let's investigate the main points:

1) Making personal copies of your CDs isn't really illegal, after all*
First we were told that home taping is killing music. Then we were scolded for making back-up copies of our own CDs (it's illegal, you know). But suddenly it's all okay because iPods are, like, way cool.

John Kennedy of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says; "This is an area where common sense has prevailed - to my knowledge no-one has been punished for this kind of personal copying."

So it's official: you can copy your own music and nobody will come round to stick a truncheon up your nighty at three in the morning.

*(except the law still says it's illegal)

2) Record companies are ripping us off and they don't care who knows it
The panel were asked if the cost of downloads should come down, because record companies no longer have to pay for manufacturing, production and distribution.

"A-ha," said the panel, "that's where you're wrong, numbnuts." Apparently, the major costs of bringing out a record are in A&R and marketing (and paying lawyers to sue the pants off children and grannies who've downloaded an Eminem single).

But if the cost of physically manufacturing a CD is "insignificant," as Peter Jamieson of the British Phonographic Industry argues, is there any reason for a CD to retail for twice the price of a download? No, of course there isn’t, and we're being ripped off.

3) We should buy eighteen copies of every song, just in case
John Kennedy boasts, "There are now at least 10 ways in which you can legally enjoy music - the list includes: ringtone, master ringtone, phone download, phone stream, a-la-carte download, disc, subscription, online stream, UMD music for PlayStation, kiosk and video."

Hang on a minute, though. You have to buy each of these separately! You can't transfer your online stream to a UMD disc, for example. The 'electronic licenses' known as Digital Rights Management actively disallow from sharing music between all the different formats you own.

Peter Jamieson agrees, but he's not concerned. He just wants the extra cash. "It is the same as when CD arrived and many people decided to buy albums they already had on vinyl on the new format."

And anyway, who actually enjoys music (legally or otherwise) in ringtone format? I challenge you to find one single person who doesn't want to take a rusty chainsaw to any mobile that plays a plinky-plonky bontempi organ remix of "My Humps".


4) The music industry still don't really know anything about downloading
Asked if they'd ever taped music off the radio, the panel was thrown into paroxysms of denial and twisty word-bending.

Peter Jamieson of the BPI takes the standard party line: "There is a world of difference between recording the Top 40 onto a C90 and distributing perfect digital copies of songs over the internet to millions of people - and that's exactly what file-sharing is."

Has Jamieson ever used Kazza? If he had, he'd know that 90% of the tracks are poorly encoded, recorded from radio, with the beginning and the end mysteriously cut off. File sharing is only killing music because the music is rubbish. And the record industry is only scared because it can't understand why no-one wants to buy Sheryl Crow's new album (answer: it's a woeful, saccharine piece of crap).

Bizarrely, the rest of the panel sidestepped the issue and talked about healthy eating instead. John Kenendy of the IFPI says, "you simply aren't comparing an apple with an apple." And Brad Duea from Napster exclaims, "we have been working hard to provide a carrot."

Eh?

Read all the answers to all the questions on the BBC News website

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Yee-harr

Well, we finally got round to seeing Brokeback Mountain - and, yes, it is a superb film. I love the way Ang Lee lets his movies breathe. The 'slow pace' I've heard people complain about actually lets you think about what you're watching and must therefore lead to greater empathy with the characters.

My only gripe, in fact, is that the music could have been more appropriate. Sure, Willie Nelson's "He Was A Friend Of Mine" ticks all the right boxes: poignant, relevant, well-known. But wouldn't it have been perfect if Ang Lee has chosen instead Tim McGraw's "(I guess that's just the) Cowboy In Me"?

Anyway, after the film Mrsdiscopop went on her usual trawl of internet reviews (I don't know why she does this. I think she likes a squad of faceless webmonkeys strung out on caffeine and loneliness to validate her opinions, but I can't be sure). However, in the International Herald and Tribune, she found a commentary on the film by Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry Graham. It's so funny, I did a small wee.

I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain," nor do I have any intention of seeing it.

In fact, cowboys would have to lasso me, drag me into the theater and tie me to the seat, and even then I would make every effort to close my eyes and cover my ears.

I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. ""You like those cowboys, don't you?"

You can read the whole thing, like I said, at the International Herald and Tribune.

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Woah, here she comes

Ten reasons why Nelly Furtado's new single is already the best record of 2006.

1) The song has been constructed from equal portions of Hollaback Girl, No Good Advice, Crazy In Love and Milkshake. Yes, it really is that good.

2) It's called Maneater and while it doesn't sample the classic Hall & Oates track ("Woah-oh here she comes. Watch out boy, she'll chew you up"), it rather brilliantly sounds like the song was in the back of her mind all the time.

3) Nelly sometimes sings in a voice that would sound nasal to an aardvark. On this song, she does not.

4) maneater contains the lyric "Move your body like a nympho"

5) It's produced by Timbaland, of Missy Eliot fame. Except he's doing pop like he did on Justin's Cry Me A River. This is a 'good thing', and there should be more of it.

6) There is more of it! An entire album of Nelly / Timbaland collaborations, called Loose. If it is as good as the tracks we've heard so far, we will even forgive the Chris Martin duet.

7) When you think about it, Nelly Furtado is quite cute for an elf.

8) No guitars!

9) Er…

10) That's it.

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