Yeezy - By the power of Greyskull

We think two opposing but simple things about Mr Kanye West. One, he is a genius. Two, he is a massive dick.

His new song does nothing to disprove either theory. On the one hand, it is a King Crimson-sampling, filthy put-down to his critics. On the other hand, West raps about his "childlike creativity, purity and honesty" without any attempt at self-awareness, humility or not being a massive dick.

Interestingly, the song attacks the cast of Saturday Night Live for a sketch about his infamous MTV Awards outburst, but fails to address South Park calling him a gay fish. This leads me to believe that West's forthcoming album, Good Ass Job, will have a track called "I am totally not gay, and I am totally not a fish. To clarify further, I am not gay whether the setting is aquatic or not. I am also neither a straight fish nor a bi-curious mollusc." If it doesn't, then I am taking it as further proof that Kanye West is a massive dick.


Kanye West - Power

Tweet

Janet Jackson on American Idol

I met Janet Jackson last week. My 16-year-old self would have vomited cornflakes on his shoes at the very prospect. Now that I'm a seasoned, cynical journalist, that would never happen (I have Special K for breakfast these days) but it was truly a heart-in-the-mouth moment.

They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but she was absolutely lovely. Shy and quietly-spoken, as you'd expect, but with no diva trappings other than running an hour late. She raised the painful topic of Michael's death - even though I'd been warned to steer well clear of such things - and made plenty of eye contact as she described her issues with self-esteem and weight loss.

The interview was principally for her upcoming film Why Did I Get Married Too - so there wasn't much music talk, but she told me she was "taking calls" from major labels, and was really impressed by the dancers she recently auditioned for July's Essence Music Festival in New Orleans.

I can't really go into much more detail (except she looked stunning in a tan military-style jacket, with her newly cropped hairdo swept back like a California wave) - I just needed to write something down before the embargo on my interview lifts in SEPTEMBER!! That's so far away, I might even have washed my hands by then.

So, here's Janet doing Again on American Idol last night - followed by her soundalike new single Nothing, and a couple of minutes of Nasty. Much, much better than her X Factor performance last year, and proof that Ms Jackson still has it up the wazoo.

Janet - Again / Nothing / Nasty

Tweet

Vampire Weekend - the Blackadder years

Here's the video for Vampire Weekend's Holiday - one of the more peppy songs on their superb second album, Contra. The song's a diatribe about privileged oiks who don't quite understand the real world (EG: a girl who becomes a vegetarian to protest the Iraq war) so the band have put on their Lord Percy powder wigs and gone for a drive around LA.

Most entertaining, I'm sure you'll agree.

Vampire Weekend - Holiday

Tweet

Lost in Oslo

From this morning, I'll be in Norway covering the Eurovision Song Contest for the BBC News website. You can keep up with my exploits by clicking on this link.

It could be quite an interesting year... There's no clear favourite, so it'll be a proper scrap to get to the top of the heap. My personal favourite (so far) is Germany's Lena. Her song, Satellite, sounds like an original song by Berlin's premier Kate Nash cover band.

Yet somehow, in the aftermath of that musical car wreck, Lena has grown a fresh little pop cabbage. It's a miracle of twisted metaphors.

Lena - Satellite


See you on the other side!

Tweet

Whose muppet is it anyway?

This is great - Jim Henson and Frank Oz shooting test footage for The Muppet Movie in 1978. Love the improvised dialogue.



While we're on the subject, here's a short clip of Prince on The Muppets Tonight in 1997, complete with blatant product placement of his fatally flawed triple album, Emancipation.

Tweet

Get your free CDs here....

For the last six years, I've been taking part in an annual project called Summer Burn. The idea is that you register with the organisers at FunJunkie, make a mind-blowing compilation of songs, burn it onto 2 CDs, then await the first day of the summer. When the solstice comes around, you receive an email with 2 random addresses from the FunJunkie database, and you send your CDs to them. A couple of days later, you get 2 totally random mix CDs in the post yourself and, more often than not, an email filled with gushing gratitude for your top banana musical extravaganza.

Obviously, the CDs vary wildly in quality. I've had exquisitely-sequenced mini-albums, where all the tracks have a connecting theme and the compiler has created their own artwork. Equally, I've received a CD with a printed screengrab of an iTunes playlist stuck to it, where 90% of the songs end abruptly because they were radio rips downloaded illegally from the internet.

But no matter the amount of effort that's gone into them, I always find a new artist or song to obssess over. A couple of years ago it was this track by French oddball Soko.

Soko - I'll Kill Her


On a more mainstream tip, I got a great Top Gear-style driving mix in 2008 from Linda Clarke, who introduced me to the prog-pop of Steely Dan.

Steely Dan - Do It Again


And in the same year, Chris Trew sent me a CD with this 1960s cult classic from the "Welsh Dylan" Meic Stevens.

Meic Stevens - Y Brawd Houdini


I couldn't imagine living without any of those songs now... But if they'd turned up in a skippable, transitory Spotify playlist, I might never have paid them any attention.

Registration for the 2010 Summer Burn has just opened. I urge you to head over to the FunJunkie site and put your name down. Who knows - you might even get a CD in the post from me, full of Janet Jackson remixes (not really*)

*Actually quite likely

Tweet