People keep trying to make Rihanna look ugly, but it’s still not working. Recently one video director thought he’d cracked it by removing her eyeballs. Fool. It takes a LOT more than a touch of ocular abuse to uglify this particular lady.
I mean, look at her here. Jesus, she’s sporting a ridiculous gangsta knuckle-duster and still manages to look delightful. I think the next step might need to be shaving her head and smearing her in poo.
Yes, that’s literally all you’re getting from this post. Move along now.
[click image to enlarge]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 am

“Human” gets its first play on Radio 1 this afternoon, but as always some shonky individual has posted the tune on the internet ahead of time.
Check it out over the page (although probably not for much longer) - the Springsteen influences seem to have been put to bed for the new album on the evidence of this lead single. However, while it signals a return to the synthy pop goodness of Hot Fuss, it feels a little flat to these ears on first listen.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 22nd, 2008 at 10:27 am

Lily Allen got her hands on one of those Flip cameras recently, and in the ensuing video demonstrated that pop stars dicking around and sticking the results on YouTube is no more interesting than you or I doing it. They just do it in nicer flats.
So Lily eats cereal into the lens (*vom*), talks about how much she likes her new toy, and does that talking to the dogs thing that makes your eyes glaze over when you go to your friend’s place. THEY CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU YOU KNOW.
Get a glimpse of her nice pad, at least, after the jump.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am

It’s all about “eezy” these days, isn’t it? Kanye’s Kanyeezy, Lil Wayne is Lil Weezy, and Young Jeezy is, well, Young Jeezy. Amy Winehouse is Sneezy/Wheezy/Skeezy, in case you were wondering. Anyway, Vice magazine’s online TV arm VBS.tv interviewed Mr Jeezy recently, and in the process provided one of those painfully/deliciously uncomfortable interview spectacles that you end up watching through your fingers.
Questions such as “Do you eat boiled peanuts?” suggest a lack of research on the part of the interviewer Baby Balls (no, nobody in this story has a proper name), who soon found himself roundly flamed out there on the internet barbecue once the video had gone up.
Now Mr Balls has published a rather entertaining piece in Vice giving advice to anybody else who would like to initiate some kind of beefiness with a rapper. As an admission of his own failings that contributed to the terse atmosphere it’s pretty honest and amusing, with pointers such as: “Make no preparations whatsoever for the interview. Do not listen to the rapper’s music the night before or even read his wikipedia page.”
Read and take notes on the full article here, but before you do you might want to check out the interview itself over this here page.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday September 19th, 2008 at 11:00 am

Er, have you been following The Chemical Brothers’ Electronic Battle Weapon series of experimental tracks (or something)? Me neither. But apparently number ten in this series is “Midnight Madness”, the video for which was made using clips uploaded by fans and geotagged according to their location using Google Earth.
The result is a pretty average two-minute track and a video that makes you feel sick as it shoots around the globe. Fabulous. You can see it for yourself after the jump, with clips from folk as far afield as Vietnam, New York, Australia and, er, Northern Ireland contributing.
You can also stream the Chems’ new (greatest hits) album Brotherhood at ArtistDirect, should you so wish.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday September 19th, 2008 at 10:00 am

If you’ve seen those EDF Energy ads over the course of the year and think you’ve heard the song it uses before, it’ll be because Kermit The Frog sang it. Yep, “Bein’ Green”, when it first hit the TV screen back in the 60s, was Kermie’s lament at being coloured an unglamourous shade.
The colour green has developed its own associations over the years, of course. As well as being the colour that signifies when you’re about to spew out the previous night’s boozy pops, it’s come to be associated most clearly with efforts to preserve the environment so that the children of the future can grow up and spew out the previous night’s boozy pops.
Check out the Kermit original and the EDF Energy-approved cover after the jump…

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday September 19th, 2008 at 9:00 am

I would say number one suspect has to be Nelly, given his schoolboy-quality upwards look of supposed innocence alongside Ashanti’s accusatory line of vision. Second in line would have to be Ashanti herself, especially if we were to take the “whoever smelt it, dealt it” approach. There’s a chance Akon may have fanned the pungent fragrance towards his co-performers with his hand, but I still wouldn’t place him among the Top 2 suspects on this occasion.

[image: RexFeatures]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday September 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am

It’s hard to keep coming up with original names for remix albums, so well done to Delicious Vinyl for settling on RMXXOLOGY. Well done also for getting a pretty stellar bunch of folk to tinker with classic tracks from the label’s history, thereby resulting in some music to actually put on said remix album.
RMXXOLOGY features, among others:
- Eminem RMXXNG Masta Ace’s “Slaughterhouse”
- Hot Chip RMMXXXING The Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By”
- Diplo and Don Rimini RRRRMMMMMXXXNNNGGGG Young MC’s “Bust A Move”
Lady madhead Peaches is the co-curator of the album alongside Delicious label boss Rick Ross, so you can probably expect to encounter some quality weirdness alongside booty-shaking mentalosity.
If you’re a hep cat mofo you may already have encountered Aaron LaCrate and Debonair Samir’s B-more bastardization of Young MC’s “Know How”. It’s got a pretty impressive video, remixing a Young MC appearance on the Arsenio Hall show from umpteen years ago so that it fits perfectly with the remix.
Check it out after the JMPXX, and hear more tasters of the album at Delicious Vinyl’s MySpace.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday September 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am

BT ain’t wasting no time in the whole awards season race, are they? We’re not even three quarters of the way through the year and yet they’re already asking you vote for 2008’s best artist, radio station, music store and so on.
For a list of awards and details on how to vote, click hereabouts. At this point I’d just like to mention that Best Music Store is being sponsored by our pink-hued chums over at Shiny Shiny, which basically means - I think - that I’ll be able to hear their editor complain about how hungover she is the day after the awards.
Oh, and by the way, *true reason for this post suddenly becomes apparent* you can vote for My Chemical Toilet in the Best Music Blog category by clicking somewhere in the vicinity of here. Cheers.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday September 18th, 2008 at 9:00 am

Goodness me. Travis were always a “staring out the window past raindrops” kind of band, but this is all a bit whiny-poos even for them.
In new tune “Song To Self” Fran chunters on about “singing a song to myself”, before admitting he’s “making it up in my head”. Hang on, isn’t that how most lyrics come into being? Anyway, they best get used to singing to themselves if they don’t pick their wee chins up, ‘cos nobody else is going to give a poo.
It’ll sound fine over a break-up scene in Gossip Girl, though, and that’s the main thing. See the equally drab video over the page, should you have literally nothing better to do.
By which I mean - click through! Definitely! Well worth it!

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday September 17th, 2008 at 2:20 pm