Thoughts?

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday March 9th, 2010 at 9:00 am

Here we have a guest post from a new addition to the MCT carousel of scribbling talent. He goes by the nom of Nick Bryan, and he “maintains” a blog called Feeding The Black Dog.  GO NICK GO.

Anyone remember Robbie Williams from earlier in the decade? Pop star, successful, rich, prone to whinging about how hard and unfair it all was?

Actually, maybe you’re too young. You only remember the recent Robbie Williams, the less-successful reject member of the unexpectedly popular reunited Take That. He did that bug-eyed thing on X-Factor, while attempting to make a comeback from the Rudebox album no-one liked much. (Except the NME, oddly.)

However you know him, you can’t help but notice that suddenly, Robbie is the underdog.

Not only compared to his former boyband peers, who he once left in the dirt, but in the pop industry as a whole, with multiple too-slick Cowell disciples sitting in his old spot. Indeed, his not-too-bad comeback single “Bodies” was pipped at the chart post by the much-worse new track from Alexandra Burke.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday November 17th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

Bobby Brown appeared on VH1’s Behind The Music last week. If you’re looking for a detailed breakdown of his and Whitney’s daily drug intake you’ll be disappointed, but it does have its highlights.

I think mine is when Bobby says that at the peak of his fame he would find himself on a tour bus, see someone driving a car he liked the look of, follow said vehicle, then purchase it from the driver on the spot with cash. And then discard the car when he had to leave town for the next leg of the tour.

Bobby Brown apparently left cars everywhere, so if you picked up a mysteriously abandoned Porsche around 1989, and there was a crack pipe in the glove compartment, that’s why it was just left outside that strip club.

Watch the full Behind The Music here - but before you go let’s remember this classic clip from Bobby’s appearance on ITV’s 24 Hours With Bobby Brown a couple of years back. Let this be a reminder, should you need one, not to pinch Bobby Brown’s bottom if you’re a bloke.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 28th, 2009 at 8:30 am

After the initial giddy rush of realisation that Chromeo are finally back - and the “of course!” headslap when you realise they’ve jacked Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger” - does “Night By Night” live up to the anticipation?

The verses are very similar to “Rage”, and you’d have to say it’s not a huge departure from their previous stuff. But, you know, not enough people heard their previous stuff - so if they’re after proper, people-actually-buying-your-records success, “Night By Night” is a promising indication that the new album is going to be chock-full of the tunes, electro funk and hard-done-by-love lyrics a lot of folk have come to obsess over.

Can’t help wishing they’d made it for summer, though (or at least that period where the British summer is supposed to take place).

And is “Night By Night” as good as P-Money’s “Everything”? Hmm…

[via Nialler9]

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 21st, 2009 at 8:30 am

You might need to be “of a certain age” to recall Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile”. If you’re not that age, this is it:

“Psych”.

Well, while you might assume Shanice fell down the same pop/R&B plughole as Ralph Tresvant, Urlesque recently revealed that she’s still going. Even if “still going” in this case means “uploading videos of herself singing in her living room to YouTube”.

Here she is doing Christina’s “Beautiful”. Warning - it may start understated, but some severe wailing soon follows:

Comfy-looking sofa, isn’t it? Mine’s PVC :(

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday September 7th, 2009 at 8:30 am

After the jump you can see Dub Pistols’ video for their new single “Back To Daylight”. It’s alright. Of more interest to me, however, is the news that one of the guests on their forthcoming album Rum & Coke is former Beats International singer Lindy Layton.

I’ll pause here so that any males in the audience of a certain age can gaze wistfully into the middle-distance for a moment.

Lindy Layton sang on Beats International’s “Dub Be Good To Me”, a huge number one hit in 1990. Watching the video now will provide plenty of fashion-related LOLZ, but hey, how well did YOU dress 19 years ago? Zackly.
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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Thursday April 9th, 2009 at 11:00 am

Grunge forgotabouts Alice In Chains, keen not to let a pesky thing like the death of their lead singer Layne Staley intrude on their rocking, will visit the UK this summer to play the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth House.
Sonispshere Festival hits the UK on 1st and 2nd August, after touring Europe throughout the summer. It will be Alice In Chains’ only UK show in 2009 and comes as they prepare their first album in thirteen years.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday February 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am

The material from the forthcoming Pet Shop Boys album Yes has been receiving feverish write-ups from Popjustice for a while now. Now us normals can here first single “Love etc” as well, alongside its spanking new animated video.
“Love Etc.” is one of those songs that tells you stuff like “too much of everything is never enough”, which is a theory with a ring of profundity until you realise it’s one that can only ever be proved/disproved by gazillionaires.
So yes, the thrust of the song is that you don’t need this and that, you need love. Which is clearly nonsense, but let’s not allow this to distract from the fact that this is a great pop song and more or less exactly what you’d hope for from Pet Shop Boys’ return. See the vid after the jump.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday February 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 am

*Obvious, hardly-needs-mentioning statement about how pleasing on the eyeballs Sarah Cracknell was/is*
Now that’s out of the way, let’s focus on the music (MAN). Because the music is, to the surprise of perhaps ohidunno THE WHOLE WORLD, quite brilliant.
Produced by the reliable Richard X, it’s a lush, sparkly dance-pop number varnished with La Cracknell’s still “ahhh”-inspiring coos. It feels effortless and delightful, so give it a spin below (it’s not a cover of the Hall & Oates song of the same name, don’t worry. Oh, you’ve never heard of it anyway? OK then.):

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday January 26th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Spring will see two erstwhile R&B divas return to the fold with new albums. Christina Milian has just released her video for “Us Against The World”, from her forthcoming album Dream In Color; while Toni Braxton’s “Get Loose” has hit various spots of the internet ahead of her new album Pulse.
Let’s pretend that ONLY ONE CAN SURVIVE, and compare their sleeky sleekness.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Tuesday January 13th, 2009 at 12:15 pm