Will you SHUT UP about Lady Gaga?

No I will not.



The problem with Lady Gaga (not that there is a problem, but if you thought there was a problem then it would be this) is (potentially) that she's so bonkers, her bonkersness is all people talk about. You mention Gaga and everyone goes "yes did you see the Kermit The Frog outfit?", or "that shoulder pads thing makes her look like a comedy hunchback", or "I hear she has a penis."

And then she does a performance like the one above, and you remember that she's actually an incredibly talented musician and singer. SO THERE.

Friday reading matter

Bored at work? Can't think of anything to occupy your Friday? Lucky you. Here's some stuff you can read.

1. If you enjoy being outraged by things in the Daily Mail, read this article by Sue Reid, 'Mapping out the strain on your NHS'. Racism in the Daily Mail almost goes without saying, but it's rarely quite this blatant and self-contradictory. Mailwatch has written a lovely response to this "news story", set out as a letter to Daily Mail readers.

2. If you enjoy reading about popstars making rash decisions for publicity, read this story about Robbie Williams proposing to his girlfriend on a live radio show.

3. And if you enjoy arguing about spurious top ten lists, here's Heat magazine's top ten "weird crushes" 2009. I can understand why Jeremy Clarkson is considered a strange person to have a crush on, but Derren Brown, Richard Hammond, David Mitchell and Michael McIntyre? What's so weird about them?! And as for Russell Howard... well, I'm sure it must be a misprint.

A few of my favourite things. 2: British cops

The second thing I'm thankful for, on this special day for the yanks, is... well... not living in America. I know there are some Americans who read this blog, and I'm very sorry to have to bring this up, but in Britain our cops don't generally go around tasering small children.

Yes, according to this article, and Arkansas police officer is currently being investigated for tasering a 10-year-old girl for refusing to go to bed.

I know it's a rare occurrence and the cop in question is being investigated, but even if you ignore the issue of tasering the poor kid, the fact remains that a police officer was called out to a house because a small girl refused to go to bed. That wouldn't happen here, as far as I know.

Every now and then, the British police release a list of bizarre 999 calls, to illustrate the kinds of things officers will not waste their time over: for instance, when people call to report their boyfriend for not letting them watch EastEnders. (I'm not kidding). I'm sure "my daughter won't go to bed" is the kind of emergency that would be on one of these lists.

But the officer in Arkansas didn't just rush straight to the mother's aid (as if that wasn't bad enough): he restrained the little girl, tried to handcuff her, then tasered her and carried her limp body to his car. The cop hasn't even been disciplined for this.

Makes you grateful for the baton-wielding maniacs we have in Britain, doesn't it? At least they send out Christmas cards.

A few of my favourite things. 1: Dragonette

As you may or may not know, today is Thanksgiving in Americaland. I quite like the idea of Thanksgiving, for two reasons:

1. It is based on an actual anniversary of something happening (it is, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong), as opposed to Christmas being some interchangeable Pagan / Christian middle-of-winter hooplah.

2. It encourages people to be thankful for stuff. Which is really quite touching and pleasant.

In honour of the yanks and their special day, I've decided to do a short series of blog posts about things I am currently thankful for.

NUMBER ONE THING: I am thankful for this song, True Believer by Dragonette, which is my current favourite song in the universe.



In case you're not familiar with them, Dragonette are a Canadian band who released their debut album, Galore, in 2007. You might have noticed it on my 'top 10 albums of the decade' list. They sound a bit like the Scissor Sisters would sound if they could just camp things up a bit, take themselves less seriously and sing about sex a bit more. They also sometimes sound like Lady Gaga, but not so much on the song above. Enjoy.

Howard Donald: Celeb in pain, world looks other way

In November 2005, Take That: For The Record was shown on ITV, to a UK audience of six million. It was a pretty good documentary about the boys, their time in the group, and what they'd been doing since the split in 1996. When the papers mentioned it, all they could write about was whether it would reunite the whole group - would Robbie turn up? Would he and Gary forgive and forget? Blah blah blah. They all but ignored the instance where one of the lads had confessed to feeling suicidal.

When the group split up, the Samaritans had to set up a special helpline for distressed fans. It was all about the fans - how would they cope? Many of them were girls in their early teens, and this was the first heartbreak they'd have to endure - poor them - but did anyone stop to wonder how Howard Donald was coping? Of course they didn't - he had fame and money, and no one with fame and money ever feels like their world is crashing in around them.

In the documentary, Howard says, "I already knew that the group was gonna finish, and um, I decided to walk out of the hotel and go to the Thames... I've never told anybody about this, I was seriously thinking of jumping in the Thames, thinking I wanted to kill myself. But I'm just too much of a shitbag to do it."

It's hardly surprising when you think about it. When he auditioned for Take That, Howard was re-spraying cars for a living. Dancing was his talent, and he landed on his feet when manager Nigel Martin-Smith took a liking to him and put him in the band. Suddenly, he was working with a group of best mates, travelling the world, earning more than he could ever have dreamed of, and there were adoring women everywhere he went. Then one day, before he'd grown tired of it, someone suggested it should all end. Everyone agreed but Howard, and he was powerless to change their minds.

It's the nature of celebrity, I suppose: some celebs are confident and comfortable with whatever ability they have and, rightly or wrongly, they feel like being famous is somehow their calling. Others, like Howard, can't believe their luck and spend every day worrying that the rug will be pulled from under their feet, they'll suddenly be a pathetic boyband has-been and nobody will love them any more.

The Smash Hits Take That tribute edition (out now in all good newsagents) illustrates this perfectly. It reprints some of the old interviews from the group's heyday, and the signs were all there.

Smash Hits: Is today a rehearsal for tomorrow?
Howard: [Emphatically] No it's not... I don't really know what I'm going to be next, to be honest. I've had such a good life - it might be my turn for something horrible after this.

Smash Hits: Is it really you that you see reflected in the mirror?
Howard: Yeah. But you can look at yourself and think, "Why me? Why am I this big in this group?" I can't believe it sometimes that the "me" in the mirror is Take That's Howard.
[Smash Hits being Smash Hits, of course, then moves on to a question about sausage rolls].

Smash Hits: Do you ever stop and wonder at how famous you are?
Howard: Oh yeah, all the time.

Smash Hits: Are you in love?
Howard: No, I'm in love with Take That and what I'm doing... I love the other members of the band. If one of them got hurt tomorrow I love them enough to cry.

Smash Hits: Does the thought of not being in Take That frighten you?
Howard: Yeah, it really does. If it all stopped tomorrow it would just hit me so hard. I wouldn't be able to take it.

And if he was saying this kind of stuff to journalists, heaven knows what he was saying to his closest friends. But would anyone have taken him seriously? Money and fame are no guarantee of mental health but that's how people seem to feel about celebrities, as if their piles of cash can somehow make everything okay - "what's he got to worry about? Bloody whingeing celebrities". And if everything's not okay, at least they can buy themselves another car or house, or enough booze and drugs to make it seem okay temporarily.

It's always worth discussing whether we should show understanding or even sympathy towards paedophiles and murderers, and many people do. But it's very rare that sympathy is shown towards rich people. I hope that the wilderness years between Take That's split and their come-back gave Howard some perspective, I hope he's okay now and he won't feel the same way when they inevitably stop making albums again. But if he does, I hope he knows that the Samaritans will listen to him as well as his fans.

"If we wanted to do a kick, we did a kick."

Okay, last X Factor post for this week (honest). I just thought I should point you towards this Jedward interview with Digital Spy, which is the most depressing / hilarious thing I've read in weeks. In case you can't be bothered with the whole thing, here are the edited highlights...

John: "We were never nervous to do anything, we just wanted to let loose. If we wanted to do a kick, we did a kick."

John: "We are the type of guys who know what is going on around us."

John: "We are going to do a lot of different things."

John: "After every performance, we forgot about it."

John: "The thing about working with Brian Friedman was that it was such a challenge." [I'm sure he says the same about you, dear].

John: "We write songs that aren't boring about missing girls and boring stuff like that."

John: "As I've said before, we're like Frosted Flakes."

Edward: "Maybe Coco Pops."

Edward doesn't say much but, by God, when he does it's cracking good stuff.

And I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this self-penned debut album that isn't about missing girls and other boring stuff: What could it be about? What other life experience could they be drawing on for these amazing un-boring songs? The time they went to the zoo a couple of years ago and it was okay but their mum made them pay their own entry fee? The time they both did a dance move at the same time and Brian Friedman said "YES that's exactly what you need to do on Saturday" but then by the time Saturday came round they'd forgotten how they did it? This could be the album of the millennium, people. OF THE MILLENNIUM.

Jedwardian architecture

And the Straight Face of the Week award goes to... Simon Cowell, for keeping his emotions under control when Dermot revealed that the bottom two acts were Olly and Jedward.

Anything you'd like to say, Cowell? "I'd just like to thank the public for not voting for these two acts - it honestly couldn't have worked out better for me, money-wise, and my face nearly burst from trying not to look like I was enjoying it, but somehow I kept it together."

What he really wanted to do

Yes, on the final week of the judges having a say in who stays and who goes, somehow they managed to look like the good guys by sending Jedward packing. Not only that, but they also got in a quick "NO ONE'S SAFE - do you see? VOTE!" message by putting Olly in jeopardy. I'm not saying it's fixed (I'm honestly not) but if it was, this is exactly what they'd have chosen to do this week. It's no wonder the X Factor is so popular - its storylines rival Neighbours for sheer drama and lunacy.

So, what happened on Saturday?

Lloyd: This is getting silly now. When will people learn to compare him against the other contestants, not against how rubbish he was in his previous performance? Anyway, poor Lloyd was terrible again but survives to honk out another tune next weekend. SAVE LLOYD.

Stacey: Fine but a bit dull. I agreed with Cowell about Stacey - she was better in Queen week. Now that she's the only girl left, Dannii thinks she's getting all feminist on our asses by insisting we vote for her, and this is exactly why Germaine Greer should appear as a guest on the Xtra Factor.

Jedward: They had a bad week, and it was the right time for them to go (as predicted by me, I think you'll find). The architects of Jedward's rise and fall should be very proud of themselves. So, what's next for Jedward? Everyone's saying they should be children's TV presenters, which somewhat assumes that presenting kids' TV is a job any old moron could do. This must be quite galling for the likes of 'Sam and Mark'.

Danyl: I'd describe Danyl's performance this week as average, which is better than previous weeks. This is all very well, but your favourite popstar should be someone you wouldn't mind being left alone in a room with.

Olly: Oh Olly, I do love you but there are better George Michael songs than that one (although none come to mind right now). I don't think the song choice explains why people didn't vote though: everyone assumed Olly was safe, but we won't be making that mistake again, mark my words. *Prepares for biggest telephone bill ever seen*.

Joe: Absolutely bloody spot-on again, Joe. He really is astonishingly good, but he's perhaps a bit too perfect for me. I like my popstars with a bit less stage school polish. But I do genuinely wish him all the best (I'm sure he's pleased to hear this) and, if Olly loses out to Joe in the final, I'll be relatively gracious in defeat. (Translation: just a small nervous breakdown and maybe a little killing spree).

So, whose Youtube video am I going to choose this week? Okay, just for a laugh it's Jedward's final performance: the one in which they did a much-loved Boyzone ballad to show off the magnificent singing prowess that's been hidden behind those dancers all this time. Bye, Jedward - it's been emotional.

Golly, Murs!

Well that was a close one. I feel like someone I love has just had a life-saving kidney transplant.



Full review tomorrow, when my heart rate has returned to normal. PHEW!

Just call me Lt Pignut Columbo (SAY IT...)

If you, like me, have been desperately refreshing the Popjustice homepage for the last 48 hours hoping that this week's X Factor playsheet will magically appear in front of your eyes, I think it might be time to give up the ghost.

I've been doing a bit of detective work (yes I have) and I've discovered the following two things:

1. I don't really suit a deerstalker hat. This might be because I'm a vegetarian.

2. The man who runs Popjustice, the very delightful Peter Robinson, is getting married today! Married, I tell you! So I think doing a hilarious Wham / George Michael themed playsheet this week is probably above and beyond the call of duty.

Happy wedding day, Peter Robinson!

If you're totally bereft without anything to print out and play with this week, you could always try these terrifying X Factor masks. Why not print out the Danyl one, stick it to your face and vote yourself off?*

* Not a euphemism.

Things I have read this week

I seriously haven't got time to write all the thought-provoking, controversial and frankly world-shaking 'opinion' blog posts I'd like to write this week. Sorry, loyal fans.

There have been so many things going on, and so much WORK to do (I swear this is against my goddamn human rights or something), I haven't even managed to form an opinion, let alone write about it. That's a lie: I have formed them - you'll just have to guess on which side of the fence I'm sitting.

Here are some of the interesting things I've read this week but haven't had time to write about...

1. A really good article on Times Online about the decline of feminism.

2. A heartwarming little story about the "outing" of Belle de Jour, and the fellow blogger who guarded her secret for years.

3. Edgar Wright (director of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, etc) and his crusade against The Times for reproducing his (edited) writing as a 'comment' piece without his permission.

I've also been itching to tell you what I thought of Sky 1's Michael Jackson seance and Channel 4's 'The Execution of Gary Glitter', but since both of them were first shown over a fortnight ago it's probably not worth it. Suffice to say, I didn't like either of them.

Wot, no Morrissey?

As promised, here are my absolute definitive top 10 albums of the decade. I hope you will heartily agree with every single one of them. (You won't).

1. Girls Aloud, Tangled Up
2. Will Young, Keep On
3. Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke
4. Sugababes, Overloaded
5. Lady Gaga, The Fame
6. McFly, Radioactive (deluxe edition)
7. Dragonette, Galore
8. Kylie Minogue, Light Years
9. Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
10. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

Special mentions should also go to (in no particular order) Florence and the Machine, Take That, Kings of Leon and The Saturdays. And if a Robbie Williams album was released that contained all his best work, it would definitely be in my top 5 but unfortunately that album does not exist and the greatest hits just doesn't cut it.

I know the Girls Aloud one might be controversial - even among fellow Aloud fans, Tangled Up isn't generally considered their best - but I think it's the one that works best as an album. It's quirky and forward-thinking, it flows nicely, and it took me literally months to learn to love it but I'm glad I made the effort.

Sugababes' Overloaded won't be in anyone else's top 10 because it's a greatest hits-type compilation, but I don't play by the rules. The fact is, Sugababes are a singles act, and Overloaded is one of my most-frequently-played CDs, so stick that in your pipes and smoke it.

I'm not going to go through all ten and describe them to you (each album title in the list is an Amazon link if you want to know more) but I'd like to point out that 2000 to end-of-2009 was a GREAT decade for pop. There's been such variation: from retro 70s and 80s-style pop-rock (McFly) to futuristic crazywomen (Gaga, La Roux), from barnstorming camp (Kylie, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Dragonette) to sophisticated cleverness (Ladyhawke, Winehouse, Florence).

This begs the following questions: What will the pop landscape look like at the end of 2019? Will Madonna ever admit defeat? And how will we keep our iPod earphones in while we're bombing around on hoverboards?

Thumbs aloft!

Ohmygod, Smash Hits is coming BACK for a special one-off Take That edition, on sale in the UK as of TOMORROW. Why has it taken literally all afternoon for this very important news story to reach me? WHY??!! If you normally email me with things it is essential for me to know, you're fired.

Obviously it's very exciting that a whole magazine will be devoted to the lovely That boys, but what's even more thrilling is that this is the second special "one-off" Smash Hits in the space of about six months, the first one having been a Jacko special just after he died. This is VERY SIGNIFICANT: is it the start of a trend? If the Take That edition sells well, are we going to be treated to regular Hits publications? Now that the possibility is there, I honestly don't know if I can live in a world where this doesn't happen.

If you're not familiar with it, in its day (the 80s and early 90s) Smash Hits was the best thing a young pop fan could read. When people speak of it now, they normally make some sort of reference to the songwords section, in which all the lyrics to the pop hits of the day were written out so that you could sing along. And yes, that was incredible (and quite confusing at times), but the best thing about it was simply the way it was written.

Smash Hits loved pop, and wasn't afraid to show it, but it never blindly followed a previously-adored artist who'd started going off the rails. If a popstar was going mad with power, or looked ridiculous in their new video, Smash Hits would be the first to bring them down a peg or two. But not in a tabloidy 'let's get a photo of her in her undies' sort of way - just with a bit of gentle pisstaking.

'Ver Hits', as it was known, famously ridiculed Paul McCartney, Oasis, Jacko and all the rest. But it was almost like the journalists were bantering with their friends, and that really showed in interviews with clever, funny popstars like Jarvis Cocker (in one of my favourite Jarvis interviews he told Smash Hits that he'd recently fallen through his living room ceiling from the attic). Anyone who took themselves too seriously was shown up as a buffoon.

The Smash Hits writers of my youth were intelligent, charming and passionate about music, but above all else they were funny. They had a great eye for a hilarious quote, caption or headline. And their punning skills were second to none. Observe...

Take Hat! Hahahahahahaha! Sigh...

And not only did they write 'Take Hat', they put it on the front page! What self-respecting magazine would do that sort of thing these days? If you know, please tell me - I want to work for that magazine.

Unfortunately it all went downhill soon after they changed the 'Smash Hits' typeface on the cover. The final regular edition was published in 2006: the only people who buy music magazines now are bearded Q and Mojo readers, apparently. Anyone younger than 50 just illegally downloads their favourite magazines while happy-slapping their own mums, or something, apparently. According to the all-knowing so-called "focus groups" and so-called "sales figures", we don't want hilarious pop-based punnery or song lyrics.

OH REALLY? WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT. *Prepares to empty bank account buying multiple copies of Take That special.*

Is that it?

The NME has just released its top 50 albums of the decade, as voted for by a bunch of pillocks.

The top 10 is:

1. The Strokes, 'Is this it?'
2. The Libertines, 'Up the bracket'
3. Primal Scream, 'Xtrmntr'
4. Arctic Monkeys, 'Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not'
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'Fever to tell'
6. PJ Harvey, 'Stories from the city, stories from the sea'
7. Arcade Fire, 'Funeral'
8. Interpol, 'Turn on the bright lights'
9. The Streets, 'Original pirate material'
10. Radiohead, 'In rainbows'

Um, excuse me NME people? You do realise that Busted released 'Busted' this decade...?

I am joking of course (Busted's debut was nothing compared to McFly's), but that's one particularly depressing top 10. I own a copy of the Strokes album and it's very good, but there must be something that's surpassed it since it was released in 2001, surely?

I deserted boring indie music in favour of exciting pop somewhere around 2002/03 and it sounds like I got out at exactly the right time. If I were to compile my own top 10 pop albums of the decade (which I'd be working on right now if I didn't have a job to do) it would be A LOT more interesting, and would feature Girls Aloud quite prominently. Watch this space...

"Go with the 'fro!" ...Or just go.

This weekend's X Factor might have been the best yet. As if a programme featuring a rubbish stage invasion and Olly Murs isn't awesome enough, Jamie Afro got kicked out! (Oh, spoiler alert by the way). Brilliant.

Jamie "tamed afro" Afro: I didn't think this performance was any worse than usual, so I was a bit surprised to see Jamie in the sing-off but THANK GOD. Hilariously, in his post-results Xtra Factor interview, he still looked like he thinks he's going to win. How does he do it?

Lloyd "help me!" Daniels: Every time Lloyd is in the bottom two and is saved from going home, God kills a puppy. This is the only possible explanation for poor little Lloyd's heartbreak, apart from the fact that he's totally convinced he doesn't deserve to be there. There should be a Save Lloyd campaign encouraging people not to vote for him. Poor chap - he's being kept there against his will. SAVE LLOYD.

Olly "the hand" Murs: Everyone is talking about Jedward being the entertainers and the rest of them being "proper singers", but Olly is hugely competent at both, and he has this mythical 'x factor' too, whatever that is, despite having a rubbish haircut. He wasn't as good as usual this week, but I think we can put that down to his mangled "Hell-hand", which Cowell referred to as "a bit of a poorly finger - get over it" before the performance, and "HE NEARLY BROKE HIS GODDAMN ARM, GIVE HIM A F**KING BREAK" afterwards. I'm paraphrasing a bit.

Joe "the tilt" McElderry: Aw, bless him. I am probably now Joe's second biggest fan in the world (after Sarah, whose obsession is verging towards inappropriate if you ask me. EDIT: I am wrong about this - it's actual love, which is never inappropriate when you think about it, it's just heartwarming. Even in the case of a 12-year age gap). He really can sing quite well, can't he? Note perfect.

Jedward: I hate to say it, but I think this week Jedward were back to their Britney best, if you can call it "best". (You can't). This is still no reason to vote for them. It's a shame Under Pressure wasn't given to one of the better artists (yes, I'm calling them artists now), but I will forgive that. Incidentally, John or Edward's comment that the hybrid with Ice Ice Baby "hasn't been done before" is pure factual wrongness.

Stacey Fromdagenham: From the second Stacey's version of Who Wants to Live Forever? started, I was really impressed and I continued being impressed throughout. I do love a good power ballad. I don't know why they're trying to turn her into Leona (we've already got one thanks), but nevertheless it was brilliant.



Danyl "I'm proper humble, me" Johnson: Right, now that Jamie's gone I can really concentrate on hating Danyl. I'm getting bored of the 'cocky / not cocky' storyline now: we all know that, if this man's self-confidence was shared out among the whole UK population, there would still be enough left over for Belgium. But what does that matter? If he wants to be a popstar, he needs to be cocky. It's his fake non-confidence that I hate the most. And his stupid big mouth.

And that's your lot for this week. I think Stacey and Joe were my favourites, but if I'd voted it would have been for Olly because I was a bit worried for his safety (in the competition, not in life). Only six contestants left now, but at least I don't have to look at that stupid clown hairdo ever again - life is good.

Oo, another graph! Yikes!

Considering I'm a non-mathsy person, I really do love graphs a surprising amount. I love how they visually represent things that are complicated to understand - it's ace. Why is there no "I love graphs" Facebook page? (Actually there probably is - I haven't looked).

A week or so back, I told you exactly how much I love one particular proponent of graphs, Information is Beautiful, and now I've been introduced to another. The Times Online has a Times Labs blog that does a similar thing, and recently featured a graph showing that, surprisingly, music artists are earning more money since the advent of illegal file-sharing, not less.

Personally, I think stuff like this needs to be taken with a larger pinch of salt than the Information is Beautiful blog. Why? I'll tell you why.

1. The Times website has an agenda. Obviously. It's attached to a national newspaper - it's trying to dig up statistics that are newsworthy and controversial, so it's not surprising that the results of this research are newsworthy and controversial.

2. This particular graph is notable for the absence of a lot of detail. For instance, the graph only shows how much money artists get from tours and the sale of music - there's more to it than that. And how much would they be earning if it weren't for illegal file-sharing? How do all these figures compare with rates of inflation?

3. Unlike Information is Beautiful, the Times blog does attempt to analyse the figures afterwards. Of course it does - it's an editorial piece really, not an attempt to give the true, unbiased story.

4. The issue of illegal file-sharing isn't quite as black and white as this. Personally, I don't care how much my favourite artists are earning compared with last year - I care how much they earn compared to how much work they put in. If they've released an album and toured in the past 12 months, but 90% of their fans are downloading their music illegally, they might be earning more than last year but it's still not fair.

5. "Evidence" like this justifies something that's morally wrong on the flimsy grounds that popstars earn more money than you do, and it's rising, so they can afford to lose some of it. I'm afraid that's not the point. If someone has created a song that somehow improves your life, you should be prepared to thank them by paying 79p for it.

Having said all that, I do understand that the illegal downloading of music isn't a massive crime, it's easy to do and it's easy to justify - especially when the record companies seem to earn so much compared to the artists involved.

One of the problems I have with illegal downloads is that they create such a discrepancy between music that's enjoyed by people who pay for it and music that's enjoyed by people who'd prefer to grab it free from the internet. But mainly, I just think it's a shame that, of all the jobs we do, the people who work hard to write music are the least likely to be paid by the people who benefit from what they do. There is something horribly wrong about that.

As the lovely Russell Howard once said, "Music's the best thing we do as humans, isn't it? Music can make you flail your limbs, make you move in a way you don't understand; Or it can make you weep like a sailor's wife staring at a storm." And if that's not worth 79p, I don't know what is.

Gaga 1, Leona 0

It really annoys me when music video directors get the wrong end of the stick. Yes, I know the words that spring to mind here are "anger" and "management", but bear with me.

Let's take the new Leona Lewis single, for instance. Before I saw the video, whenever I listened to Happy it struck me as a song about freedom, about walking away from a damaging or just not-quite-right relationship ("I've gotta find my place, I wanna hear my sound, don't care about all the pain in front of me - cos I'm just trying to be... happy"). It was a bit feminist, a bit euphoric, and a bit "yes, go for it Leona!".

But now that I've seen the video, it just seems to be about Leona standing around looking a bit miserable and being rejected in favour of another woman. The video is really tedious, which doesn't seem to fit with a massive dramatic power ballad. Did the director miss the point? Have I missed the point? (As if). Or is this just an effort to make the video fit with Leona's "oh dear poor Leona" image? Perhaps the next video will just be footage of her getting punched in the face at a book signing.

Anyway, it's here if you must watch it. Maybe the love interest rejects her because her videos are too boring. Maybe he "just wants to be... happy". That would make a lot more sense.

However, a music video not being what you expect it to be is not necessarily the end of the world...



I thought Bad Romance was a straightforward offbeat love song, but it turns out it's about sex trafficking and Lady Gaga being on fire.

I'm not going to review the video. You should just watch it - it speaks for itself. But if I was going to review it, that review would contain the following words/phrases: oh my god, amazing, feminism (again), BOOM, nipples, product placement, and "you might think it's a simple pop video but actually it's ART."

Funny how she goes around with her boobs out all the time but every man I know is completely terrified of her.

New Robbie album in "might not be brilliant" shock

Is Robbie Williams a "love him or hate him" kind of popstar? Lots of people seem to think he is.

True to form, I neither love him nor hate him: I like him a reasonable amount. He's charismatic, intelligent, interesting and genuine, and yes he's done some rubbish songs and yes he's acted like a berk on more than one occasion. But don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes - haven't we all done similar things in our time? Remember the time my seventh studio album received mixed reviews and I took lots of drugs and moved to LA? No...?

The advent of a new Robbie album is an exciting and wondrous thing. I've listened to Reality Killed the Video Star a couple of times now, so here's my knee-jerk reaction review.

Song you don't need to pause if you're going out to make a cuppa: Superblind (which, disappointingly, is not about a venetian blind that can fly).

Song that's better on the album than on its own: You Know Me (the waltz).

Song that is hopefully a "grower", otherwise there really is no hope for this album or the future of pop: Blasphemy, which was co-written by Guy Chambers - yes, THE Guy Chambers. I was really excited about this song before I heard it.

Likely singles: He keeps churning out Morning Sun and Starstruck on the telly, so let's presume these ones have a chance at being future top ten hits.

Songs that 'tip the nod' to Rudebox without being very good: Last Days of Disco, and Difficult for Weirdos.

Song you wouldn't want to pop up on your car stereo unexpectedly while driving home from a funeral: Deceptacon.

There are other songs too. As far as I can tell, this album doesn't contain anything as good as Supreme or No Regrets.

So in summary, it might not be very good. But then, it might be very good - it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that will wear thin too quickly.

I don't see it as a 'moving on' kind of album though. After the knock-back Robbie suffered with those Rudebox reviews - and incidentally, there was a lot of good stuff on Rudebox - he seems to have gone back to the old 'cheeky Robbie pop' image, without learning much from the progress he seemed to be making three years ago. Those three years have seen some big changes in pop, so Robbie's in danger of disappearing quite rapidly backwards by standing still, in the way that he would do if he were to stand on a moving treadmill (and that would be quite funny to the casual observer, but if you were Robbie's mum or one of his fans it would look really quite tragic and horrible and you'd worry that he might have hurt his knee).

Mind you, I'll probably change my mind in a week.

By the way, the worst lyric I've noticed so far is "what's so great about the great depression? Was it a blast for you? Cos it's blasphemy" from Blasphemy. But it wouldn't be a Robbie album without some tragically inept wordplay. He is my inspiration.

Afraid-y Gaga*

Oh my good heavens, have you heard 'Dance in the dark' by Lady Gaga? Well, have you? It's from the new album, The Fame Monster, and it's spectacular.

The verses sound a bit like 'I like it rough' (which is no bad thing), it's all electro-crazy and the chorus goes "Baby loves to dance in the dark, cos when he's looking she falls apart", which makes it the most emotional high-tempo slice of pop campness since 'Heartbreak make me a dancer' by Freemasons (featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor).

So essentially, it's about a woman who's got herself into a relationship with someone who tells her she looks rubbish. Her self-confidence has been shot to bits, to the point where she's scared to even dance in front of him. But she still loves to dance, in the dark. I can't quite imagine this happening to Gaga herself, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I can definitely imagine her being able to dance in the dark without falling over.

Is there any way this song could possibly be improved? Answers on a postcard, please, and I shall disagree with all of them. Here it is: CLICK HERE FOR AWESOMENESS.


* To make your own puns of this quality, all you need is a rhyming dictionary and a high shame threshold.

Irritable Cowell syndrome

Okay, I've figured out how I feel about yesterday's X Factor results. But first, let's go through Saturday night's performances shall we? Right.

Stacey Fromdagenham: Another great performance from Stacey, and she's still one of my favourites but... I don't know, I'm just not getting all that excited about her any more. Yes, she's got a great voice and it's completely different from her speaking voice, but I'm over that now. Do something different next week, Stace: I suggest a rave anthem. It worked for Westlife.

Olly: There is something new and different and interesting about this chap every week. This week it was the striped bobblehat he was wearing in his VT, which had me excitedly referring to him as "Where's Olly?" for the whole weekend. I literally love him, and so does everyone else.

Lloyd: I think I need to make my position on Lloyd very clear. He seems like a very sweet and lovely young chap, but he's not as good as the rest of them. It's not his fault though, and I do feel bad for him when everyone takes the piss. Poor Lloyd.

Jamie: BORING BORING BORING BORING. *Shoots self in head*.

Lucie: Still boring, but she was growing on me a bit before her untimely exit (more on that later). I spent most of her and Jamie's performances discussing what it means if you're gay and wear a sort of hanky thing in your back pocket like Jamie does. The results of this discussion are frankly unpublishable.

Danyl: His 'serious face' is still getting on my nerves and he needs to stop being so needy.

Jedward: This was the first performance of Jedward's that I didn't really enjoy. They've drowned in Brian Friedman's "ironic modern dance" thing and are just playing it for laughs now, which of course makes it completely unfunny.

Joe: Awwww, bless him. Joe was really good this week - second favourite behind Olly. Clearly Louis's comment about him being a 'musical theatre star' was a euphemism and just wishful thinking. I was going to give you a Youtube clip of Joe, but Popjustice got there first and you might think I'm copying. Actually it doesn't matter does it? Here goes.



Incidentally, Popjustice has also done a lovely write-up of Joe, which talks about his 'special relationship' with Cheryl and his endearing head-tilt.

So, that was Saturday. What about Sunday's controversy-o-rama?

First off, Cowell. Why does everyone blame Cowell for taking it to (dramatic sound-effect) DEADLOCK? The set-up of the whole show is silly, and there's not really any point in having the sing-off (apart from to increase the tension and drag it out for another 20 minutes). But it's not Cowell's fault that Lucie and Jedward ended up in the bottom two.

Secondly, I'd have preferred it if Lloyd, Jamie or Danyl had been chucked out, but Lucie really isn't that interesting either so I'm not that fussed about her leaving.

Unfortunately it all comes down to democracy in the end. Did you vote? Would you have bought a Lucie Jones album? No? Why not? Because, at this stage, you're probably not really that bothered. And let's face it, it's only a game show.

Yes, Cowell and co would have you believe that, if you didn't vote, you have no business complaining - as if it's the same thing as a general election being called, you not bothering to vote, and Nick Griffin suddenly becoming Prime Minister. But it's not the same thing - the X Factor is built on controversy, tabloid coverage, and people talking. This has got people talking, and it will get people voting next week. That's all there is to it, and that's why Cowell took it to (boom boom) DEADLOCK: so that you'll have no-one to blame but yourselves.

Jedward can have another week or two. After that, the viewing public will know the other contenders well enough to have a firm favourite and keep watching to the end. And Jedward, mere pawns in Cowell's evil game, will be taken out through the studio's back door and humanely put to sleep.

True or waltz?

If the pop charts are to be believed, it's currently mid-December: at least two high profile Christmas waltzes are being released, to accompany your post-Queen's-speech traditional family ballroom antics.

What is the meaning of this annual love affair with the waltz? Why is everything suddenly slowed down, balladized and performed in 3/4 time? Is it because Christmas is a time for romance? For gentle swaying? For Strictly Come Dancing? I don't know.

Anyway, the leading contenders for Waltz of the Year are Robbie Williams and Pixie Lott. And here they are - here's hoping you don't die of boredom before the end of this blog post.



That was Pixie Lott. WAKE UP. Now this is Robbie:



I have to say, I prefer the Robbiewaltz, although it's a bit like choosing my preferred method of being slowly tortured and killed. Writing anything in 3/4 time inevitably makes it feel old and unoriginal, like something that ought to be performed on X Factor 'big band' week.

Having said that, there is something about McFly's 'She Left Me' that is adorable, in a self-aware kind of way. See, if you can write a waltz that knows how rubbish waltzes are (and contains a voicemail reference 'for the kids'), you're onto a winner. It's still a bit boring though.



Come on then, people: favourite waltzes in pop. You know you want to discuss this.

(PS I am pretty much just killing time so that I don't have to write about this week's X Factor until I've decided how I feel about it.)

OH THANK GOD. SERIOUSLY.

This week's Popjustice X Factor playsheet has only just appeared on the site. I was starting to think they'd abandoned the whole idea (I might have panicked a bit but I'm fine now), but it turns out they were just preparing the best playsheet ever.

Don't have a printer? Simply steal one from PC World, trace the playsheet from your screen, or at least copy out the special Movie Week 'rate the finalists' bit.

Murder-o-rama

If I could put up with his unrelenting misery, I'd refer to Charlie Brooker as "my future second husband" quite often. As it is, I normally stop myself before letting such a drastic statement emerge from my face. Nevertheless, I'm quite content for him to be my future close friend, or even future brother-in-law, at a push. This is because he says stuff like this:

"Repeatedly showing us a killer's face isn't news, it's just rubbernecking. And, what's more, this sort of coverage only serves to turn this murdering little twat into a sort of nihilistic pin-up boy."

He was talking about a German mass-killer (who I'm not going to name or dwell on, for reasons that will become clear) as part of his Newswipe programme, which went out in March of this year on BBC4. But the same could easily be applied to the coverage of two mass-killings that have taken place this week in the US: one at a Texas army base and the other in an Orlando office building.

The news coverage of these things is always the same: It starts with something like "X number of people have been killed by a disgruntled [insert job title here] in [town A], who donned a [insert type of coat here] and wrought his sick revenge upon [co-workers / family / school chums] by pumping them full of [bullets / stabby wounds / bonks on head] before turning the [gun / samurai sword / lead piping] on himself."

The story is talked and talked about, it's picked apart and drooled over by any journalist who secretly always wanted to be a detective. The killer's face is suddenly all over your screen and your front page. "Oh my god, it's Bob", people say: "I went to school with him!" And now he's the most famous man in the country, if not the world, for a few days.

Until the next one, that is.

The episode of Newswipe mentioned above referenced a Forensic Psychologist called Dr Park Dietz, who was interviewed for a British news channel soon after the aforementioned German mass-killing. And I quote:

"Don't start the story with sirens blaring; don't have photographs of the killer; don't make this 24/7 coverage; do everything you can not to make the bodycount the lead story, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero. Do localise this story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market, because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murderer we expect to see one or two more within a week."

I understand that TV companies and newspapers have to make money in a competitive environment. I understand that any news source that doesn't accompany a story like this with a photo of the killer will seem like it's on the back foot.

But there are plenty of other things to report on, plenty of other stories to investigate, and even plenty of other ways of getting the same story across. And the worst culprits are often the BBC, who are supposed to have a responsibility towards their viewers, who pay directly for this coverage.

It's not hard to see how a vulnerable, unstable, desperate and angry person can see footage like this and think that a mass-killing (preferably with a higher bodycount than the last one) will make their mark on the world. And, thanks to our news networks, they're absolutely right.


Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, March 2009 (watch from 5:50 to 8:50)

Knowledge is power

Information is Beautiful is the most interesting thing on the internet. And if I had the knowledge and software, I'd make a little graph to illustrate how interesting it is compared with, say, Holy Moly and Fearne Cotton's Twitter page. The outcome would be VERY INTERESTING. Actually, hang on...

Literally the best I can do.

Anyway, the site is a blog that illustrates various factual things in a visual way. Simplicity is the key: it simply shows you the facts and allows you to make up your own mind, which is a refreshing change.

It will often illustrate something that's been in the news recently, allowing you to escape whatever media bias you've been subjected to thus far. For instance, there's a brilliant post entitled How safe is the HPV vaccine? which was published soon after a lot of press stories about serious side effects and even death resulting from the vaccine against cervical cancer. The Sunday Express had even published a front-page article headed Jab 'as deadly as the cancer', which is the kind of thing that makes me want to shoot all tabloid journalists dead.

The HPV vaccine graphics show quite clearly how likely it is that you'll die from the vaccine, against how likely it is that you'll die from cervical cancer. For comparison, it also shows how likely you are to die from being struck by lightning, or driving a car.

The site doesn't go into a lot of detail or analyse its findings: it just gives you the ammunition to be able to say "well actually, it seems that the risk of cervical cancer far outweighs the risk from the jab, so my child will still have the jab", or even "I know it's not as high as the number of people who die from the cancer, but the number of people who've died soon after the jab is higher than I thought it was, and I don't want my daughter to die from something I've made her do, so she's not having the jab".

It enables you to make your own informed decisions by exploding some of the myths you'll have been encouraged to believe.

The blog's author puts a lot of these graphics together, but there are also bits and bobs from other sources, and they can be really pretty as well as informative. If you want to know the generally-accepted views of left vs right in British politics, here you go: LINK. Isn't that pretty? Or if you want a timeline showing time travel in popular film and TV, it's here.

See? Information IS beautiful, and fun, and awesome. I sound like a geography teacher, don't I? Arse.

Nostalgia trip

Can ANYONE in the world remember what happened three days ago? I mean, three days is a long time. I'd like to do another thorough and serious review of the weekend's X Factor shenanigans, but I just don't know if I can think that far back. Anyway, I'll do my best.

Jedward: I seem to recall quite enjoying this, but I was mainly laughing at their hair. I think Jedward are in danger of taking over the whole programme if we're not careful, and I'm starting to think that might be a bad thing, especially if we consider what a talented performer Olly is, and how he should be getting all the media coverage really.

Olly: I'm becoming quite irrational about this chap, with his cockney brogue and his funny face. Performance of the night, AGAIN, and 110 percent for idiocy.



Lucie, Joe, Stacey and Rachel: Very good. Well done.

Lloyd, Jamie and Danyl: Oh please just go away. BORING.

That was me doing my best. Terribly sorry. Obviously Rachel leaving was quite upsetting, considering that Lloyd is still in the competition. Honestly, John and Edward might not be able to hold the same tune at the same time, or sing in the same key, or perform similar dance moves, but at least they make me laugh.