If you ever wandered why the newspaper industry is ailing, have a look at this Slashdot poll: 40% (9502 votes) don’t take a daily newspaper home and never have. That is truly astonishing.
We are staring at a generation that gets its news online (or radio/TV) only.
No wonder FoxNews is so successful.
Picture by Jamiejohn
Well, the general uprising of the looting wankers this week destroyed most independent vinyl, dvd’s and cds in a warehouse in Enfield:
I have no doubt that if you’re here you’ll have heard the news that the PIAS distribution centre in Enfield has been burnt down during the London riots. What you may not be aware of is that the warehouse contained the physical stock for many of Britain’s Indie records labels. The subsequent loss of income and cash flow problems that this act of mindless vandalism will bring about may well be enough to push many of the smaller operators out of business.
Our aim is to try and rally the music industry, both on the artist and the audience sides, and see if we can raise some money to see those affected through the tough times ahead.
So please visit Label Love and help the independent music industry in the UK. You know you want to.
So there we were, the best girlfriend ever and myself, gently ambling along the rural backstreets of Maldon District, when we started listening to ‘Any Questions’, Radio4’s flagship political panel program. ‘Oh great’, we thought, ‘no party political posturing’, as there was only one active politician (George Young, the leader of the House of Commons) on the panel. The rest was made up of Mehdi Hasan (New Statesman journo), Lord Adonis (ex-transport secretary under Labour and now director of the Institute for Government) and Melissa Kite. Melissa Who? According to the bamf on ‘any questions’ website, Melissa Kite is:
[..] a columnist for the Spectator and GQ magazines and was until recently deputy political editor of The Sunday Telegraph. She has previously worked for the Times and the Daily Telegraph as a political correspondent. Her Real Life column in the Spectator chronicles her struggles with new laptops, local councils and horses, among other things.
Right. Turns out that Ms Kite struggles with more than just laptops and horses. First she suggested that (because of him being the leader of the National Socialist Party) Hitler was a left wing mass murderer (because, you know, we shouldn’t focus only focus on these pesky right wing mass murderers like Anders Breivik).
She also professed her dislike for the High Speed in Britain because a) who needs those time savings anyway, b) the track would pass near her parents garden. Minutes before she requested a fiscal stimulus to kick start the economy. So a ‘grand project’ that spends 30 billion on infrastructure and would inject loads of cash into the builiding- and engineering industry would not be appropriate as it would inconvenience the parents?
Well, she didn’t like the response directed to her twitter account and tweeted:
now, im off to marbella so i bid you all happy namecalling, swearing, insulting, ranting and gasket-blowing. enjoy
It’s a shame on entertainment grounds, but I have the feeling she won’t be invited to Dimbleby again.
Beverley Knight is a talented singer from Wolverhampton who has had considerable 
success over the years and is probably at this point in time the UK’s most successful female soul artist. Recently freed from the shackles of her label and now an independent, she decided to record a retrospective of the most influential soul tracks of the last 30 years emanating from the UK. A worthy project, you might think. And indeed, she chooses some absolute crackers for ‘Soul UK
So far, so dandy.
Today I got the album from iTunes and was pleased to see a digital booklet and some live cuts added to the covers. The tunes -as mentioned above- are indeed great. There is just no way that you can ruin ‘Southern Freez’, ‘Cuddly Toy’, ‘Round and Around’, ‘Mama used to say’ or ‘Say are your Number One’.
Nevertheless.
She doesn’t ruin them. Not as such. Her arranger does indeed does a good job taking some of these elektrofunk classic and re-gig them for classic soul sextet (plus strings). But by doing this, he sucks their manic energy completely out of them. As I am unfortunately old enough to remember all of these tracks being released, I remember being excited by how new and cool they then sounded, especially the electrofunk tracks by Freeez, Junior and (Stock, Aitken Waterman’s) Princess (yes, really). Now that they got the elegant winebar treatment, they completely lost their sparkle. Add to that Ms Knight’s vocal acrobatics and uncalled for ad-libs, this album grates quickly.
I am nevertheless sure that it will do well. You will hear it blasting out the Chelsea Tractors, out of posh wine bars, and I am sure Ms Knight will be invited to loads of corporate gigs, where she will be able to play these songs to the marketing team of private banks and will be able to crown the top-grossing broker of the year at the next CIB annual general meeting.
For the rest of us, dig out the crackly vinyl and listen to the original (or download the original from iTunes).
Honestly. What was the point?
Messaged from the Outhouse 