The Lipster’s Sylvia Patterson recounts her experiences of meeting Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse

lipster title <em>The Lipster</em>s Sylvia Patterson recounts her experiences of meeting Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse As a nipper, I loved Smash Hits. Obviously, these were the days before I deemed all pop naff, meaningless fluff, and became a surly indie brat. Nowadays I’m quite happy to drift along between the two sensibilities. But enough about me. Over the weekend I encountered The Lipster, a pop culture site produced by an all-female line-up of writers. One of their contributors is Sylvia Patterson, who I remember from the good old Smash Hits days.
Patterson has only written a few features so far for The Lipster (at least, I don’t think they’ve appeared elsewhere), but for music fans they’re all well worth reading. One takes a look at the good old days of The Brits, when Smash Hits reporters would mingle with rock behemoths during the ceremony, and mischievously approach them with questions such as “Are you sure you haven’t left the iron on?”

The other couple of articles are about 2007’s toxic twins, Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears. Both pieces provide glimpses of the singers before they unravelled, while delicately pointing out signs that, in retrospect, were there for all to see.
Elsewhere on the site - currently in that oh-so-web 2.0 “beta” phase - you’ll find writing from one of my future wives, Laura Barton; The Lipster editor Jude Rogers, who also writes for The Guardian; Miranda Sawyer, of Observer Music Monthly among millions of other places; and Leonie Cooper of The Guardian.
The site has regular news stories as well as features, plus opinion pieces tackling topics such as the recent hoo-ha over whether men and women do / don’t listen to music differently. The Lipster states that its aim is to include women, but not to exclude men. I found it to be an intelligent and entertaining site, relevant to women but not in any way anti-male. Definitely worth a read, I reckon.
And don’t you dare forget to visit our ladyblog sisters at Dollymix, either