QUESTION: Where would we be without women? (Some women you may be aware of include Annie Lennox, Kate Nash, Paloma Faith and VV Brown.)

ANSWER: Nowhere. Literally nowhere. We wouldn’t exist. Nobody would. Literally nobody would exist. Imagine that. Imagine it now. Imagine it now with your brain, which would not exist if it wasn’t for women.

OK, I’ll calm down. The centenary of International Women’s Day is on Tuesday 8th March, and to celebrate a friendly bunch of charities – going under the banner EQUALS – are putting on what is commonly known as a “gig” at the Southbank Centre in London on Friday 11th March.

(Disclosure: I have “helped out”, in a minimal fashion, with the EQUALS campaign.)

The bill for EQUALS Live will feature absolutely no men in skinny jeans*, and will instead showcase the womanly talents of Kate Nash, Paloma Faith, VV Brown (pictured, giving her answer to the question: “When will we know men and women are equal?”) and the ceaselessly caring Annie Lennox (International Women’s Day is kind of A-Len’s baby).

Tickets for EQUALS Live cost between £30 – £50 and are going faster than Annie Lennox’s hair colour use to change back she was a Eurythmic.

Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday March 3rd, 2011 at 8:00 am

Once upon a time, you were NOBODY unless you’d had a music video banned by Top Of The Pops. Here Robyn Wilder reports on an instance of the modern-day equivalent…

YouTube has removed the video for MIA’s new single, “Born Free”, for being too violent. The verit

Posted by admin on Wednesday April 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm

You may have heard that Dappy, the be-hatted wee gonad-y looking one off the N-Dubz who is apparently addicted to crashing model airplanes (?!), got himself into a spot of bov recently.

If you haven’t, the story in a nutshell is:

While Dappy’s behaviour was rather naughty, one has to applaud the fact that he managed to get N-Dubz’s trademark catchphrase into one of his succinct missives. Here’s the one I’m talking about:

u dum f****** dickhead u can call me names over the radio but when I call u direct u chicken out u punk!nana fucking niiiii, Dappy.

I’ll skip over the fact that pop star Dappy signed his threatening text with his name, because that’s a mistake anyone could make. It’s the “nana fucking niiiii” that interests me.

“Nana niii” (you’ll have to excuse me if my spelling is incorrect, I looked it up in the dictionary but it weren’t there – possibly because it doesn’t actually mean anything) is the cry you can hear on many N-Dubz songs, allowing you to identify them easily lest you think you’re listening to John Mayer.

Here are some young N-Dubz fans taking some time out from getting pregnant to share their rendition of “Nana niii”:

It’s a canny thing, an aural trademark, and to take it into other areas of your life – as Dappy has – shows a determination to extend his/N-Dubz’s brand identity sadly lacking in the majority of pop stars. It also leads you to suspect that Dappy sees “Nana niii” as so synonymous with his sense of self that he employs it anywhere and everywhere.

The butcher, the cobbler, the librarian – I’m guessing all have had a taste of “Nana niii”. Indeed perhaps Dappy – not the most gifted of communicators, as we’ve seen – dispenses with all other words if a “Nana niii” will do.

“Ah, you’ve brought back the Milan Kundera book at last, Dappy. I’m afraid it’s two years overdue, so there’s a fine of

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday January 18th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

It’s a new month! This one’s called October. And with this Octoberishly-named month comes a bunch of new Levi’s Ones To Watch residencies, where you can go and see numerous acts of an up-and-coming nature in various Londontown hostelries.

The October batch of shows includes future stars/cabbies such as Citadels, Exlovers, Kurran And The Wolfnotes, Young Rebel Set, Turboweekend and presumed GCSE French flunkers, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool.

Also on board are Mirrors, whose “Look At Me” is playing in a YouTube embedded video near you. Like, really near you. Like, here:

Mirrors play Camden Barfly on October 15th alongside Young Rebel Set and Turboweekend. The first show is this Thursday 8th at The Macbeth and has Citadels, Dansette Junior and language remedials Ou Est Le Swimming Pool.

For the rest of the dates check out the Levi’s Ones To Watch official site. Tickets are available from TicketWeb and See Tickets.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday October 5th, 2009 at 8:30 am

Riton & Primary 1’s original dose of acid-para bounciness soundtracked, at a guess, 34,10413412.3 clammy-palmed comedowns in ‘Beefa this summer, and now it’s been given a (limited) new lease of life thanks to a verse from Wiley.

He does give it a nice splurge of urgency, a la “Rolex”, but why is his contribution – and indeed the song as a whole – so short?

Oh well, I’m sure a krillian more remixes will emerge to give us a proper go at those acid house synfs. Until then:

whos-there-featuring-wiley

I asked the shady personage who sent me this when it’s due out, but it seems they’re just going to “see how it goes”.

Feckless.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday September 24th, 2009 at 9:00 am

Already one of those groups that polarises opinion, I’m hoping Alphabeat haven’t tipped over into ubiquitous loathsomeness on account of that dreadful Diet Coke advert they soundtrack. I can’t tell you how much I hate that fucking ad.

Oh, hang on – yes I can:

[———————————-THIS MUCH———————————]

“The Spell”, their new single, has a distinct late-80s vibe garnishing a predictably sugar-sweet pop hook. It’s brilliant, and if you don’t like it you deserve to be made to listen to Snow Patrol for the rest of your drearsome days.

Buy Alphabeat tracks at 7Digital

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday September 22nd, 2009 at 8:30 am

After the initial giddy rush of realisation that Chromeo are finally back – and the “of course!” headslap when you realise they’ve jacked Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger” – does “Night By Night” live up to the anticipation?

The verses are very similar to “Rage”, and you’d have to say it’s not a huge departure from their previous stuff. But, you know, not enough people heard their previous stuff – so if they’re after proper, people-actually-buying-your-records success, “Night By Night” is a promising indication that the new album is going to be chock-full of the tunes, electro funk and

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 21st, 2009 at 8:30 am

SOMEONE MAKE THIS WOMAN QUEEN OF ENGLAND, FOR SHE IS ALREADY QUEEN OF MY HEART.

[via aloudsound.net]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Sunday September 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm

Clearly miffed that Jeremih has encroached on his R(umpo)&B(oning) turf, R Kelly has returned with a tune so self-parodic that it might very well reach HMV’s shelves housed in a rubber johnny.

“Having sex with you is like makin’ hits,” he muses to his partner on the track, Keri Hilson. One dreads to think what one might find on entering a recording studio that R Kelly has just vacated.

Spunk everywhere.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday September 18th, 2009 at 8:30 am

This is thevideo for The Cribs’ new single, “Cheat On Me”. I’ve literally only heard this song twice at the time of writing, but I loves it, I do.

Or at least, I loves the second half of it. The first half I spent thinking “hmm, this isn’t as good as the stuff from the last album, which I enjoyed enormously and made me feel reasonably cool when I dropped it into conversation with people much younger than I.”

But stick around – once the neck vein-bursting “cheeeat on me” bit makes an appearance it all becomes much more engaging.

That bloke from The Smiths is in the video too, because he’s part of The Cribs now. His presence may distract you from the presence of a modern trouser-related phenomenon known as “parsnip-leggedness”, which can be spotted on other members of the band.

Buy The Cribs’ “Cheat On Me” at 7digital

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday August 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am