It’s hard to pick out the single most irritating element of this cover version of “Don’t Stop The Music”, but the one at the forefront of my mind at the time of writing is that there will almost certainly be people out there who would have turned the radio off when Rihanna’s original came on, but will turn up the volume on Mr Cullum’s version.
She’s a pop puppet, you see, while Jamie is a “talented” “musician”.
BALLS.
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Tuesday January 19th, 2010 at
9:00 am
N-Dubz appeared on Chris Moyles’s riot of a radio show
A lady called Chloe txtd the show calling Dappy - who was once given a suspended jail sentence after spitting in a girl’s face - “a vile little boy with a hat” (LOL)
Dappy - who became a father in 2009 - surreptitiously noted Chloe’s number down, tried to call her and sent her swear-y, death threat-y text messages
Outcry, apologies from management, etc etc etc
Dappy - who is five feet three inches tall, which may/may not explain rather a lot - has subsequently been dropped from a campaign by charity Beatbullying
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 £143.76,” tuts the librarian.
“Nana niii!” cries Dappy, as he throws a wad of notes into the air, shattering the calm of Camden Town library.
“Why do you wish to enter the country?” enquires a customs official at the airport of some foreign clime where N-Dubz are due to entertain a whole new legion of childlings.
“NANA NIII!” shrieks Dappy, shortly before finding himself tazed until he soils his baggy ‘pants’.
Let this catch on, please. Let Lady Gaga emit “muh muh muh muh”s when she pays for the milk. Allow Tinchy Stryder to proclaim “Flee!” as he enters the vet’s waiting room with his kitten. Encourage DMX to make odd barking noises while he browses the crockery in his local charity shop.
(Actually, DMX probably does that already. He actually thinks he’s a dog, you know.)
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday January 18th, 2010 at
9:53 pm
I hope that if I ever have a children, and a rather up-and-down movie career, I’ll do a better job than John Travolta when the inevitable father/daughter movie tie-in cover of Bobby Brown comes a-knocking.
I’ll never better the centre-parted plugs or wacky madcap antics that clearly take place in Old Dogs, though. At the time of writing the movie is sitting pretty atop a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so at least the amount of damage this ickyvid can do is pretty limited.
“Ella Bleu” sounds a bit like “Hella Bleurgh”, doesn’t it? :(
Braggage is an accepted part of the rap “game”, but it tends to be much more compelling when it’s done with a subtle sense of humour. Tinie Tempah seems to recognise this, as he shows in his soon-to-be-sizable-if-it-isn’t-already-I-dunno-I-don’t-keep-track-of-the-charts-these-days tune, “Pass Out”.
“I got so many clothes I keep some at my aunt’s house” is probably my favourite bit, but there’s a pleasing rags-to-riches feel to “now I drive past the bus I used to run for”, as well.
Love the track too, although in my ‘umble I think the hook/chorus/whatever - sung by a chap in a fetching checked jacket - interrupts the songs’s momentum a bit. The drum n’ bass outro suggests there should be some decent remixes out there as well…
Here’s Jimmy Page in iconic record emporium Rough Trade West, on which he is about to place a tribal curse because it was constructed atop his ancestors’ graveyard.
Not really, he’s promoting the fact that Royal Mail are taking a break from being all strikey to release some stamps based on “classic albums”. Incidentally, is there a more beardy phrase in all of musicdom than “classic album”? Negatory. Continue reading »
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday January 11th, 2010 at
9:00 am
Kings Of Leon have *finally* brought out a clothing line, hurrah! It was getting pretty tiresome wandering around Top Man and H&M, not being able to find a single pair of skinny-fit black trousers or elegantly distressed plaid shirt. You took your sweet time, Kings! Of Leon!
Here’s a hat from their “collection”:
Nice hat, isn’t it? It’s got a brim, and a whatever-you-call-the-bit-that-covers-your-bald-patch. There’s a pretty bit of string (or “ribbon”) there too, and a couple of those pleasing dents where you can place your digits as you lift the hat from your bonce, incline your head slightly, and go “howdy, ma’am” to the local schoolmistress.
But how much do you think this hat costs? All the hats I’ve ever touched have had comedy wigs attached, so I’m not best placed to guess. But I’m going to estimate… £12. £20 if it’s got fancy lining. And a comedy wig attached.
The Man, of course, doesn’t understand how Ver Kids consumify music these days. That is why universalmusicgroup make their music videos unembeddable.
(Do you ever get a frisson of somethingorother when you use a word and suddenly think, “Wowzers, that chunk of language wasn’t even close to existing ten years ago. And if you’d made it up and said it at someone, it wouldn’t have meant jackpoo to them.” “Unembeddable”, everyone.)
One of the consequences of such Man-ness is that sometimes, rather than watching a video on a blog, you have to actually go all the way over to YouTube - which can take up to 5 seconds, depending on the buses - to watch something. And one of the consequences of *that* is that you come, once again, upon YouTube commenters. And what an interesting breed they are.
Anyway, this is all pointless preamble to me slapping in a screenshot of this comment what you can find on the page for Delphic’s “Doubt“. Many feverish words have been walloped onto the internet in anticipation of what these Delphic people are going to produce (my hunch: jerky, vaguely synth-y indie pop which a certain section of society will love while everyone else goes “muh”), but surely their PR team will be most pleased with this:
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You may have heard that Dappy, the be-hatted wee gonad-y looking one off the N-Dubz who is apparently 
