Mission statements: I’ve never fully understood them. Surely they’re nothing more than a loud-mouth Yank invention, where hollow words are somehow a substitute for real substance. In a country where trays of nachos are bigger than Kosciuszko, the cars can drive through walls, and everything is bigger, better and ‘rocks’ more than anywhere else, no
I’d like to use this instalment of Video Watch to pay homage to the ‘Spurious Rap Intro’. It’s been a pop institution for years now, so much so that I’d contend it deserves its own Grammy category: “and the best spurious, most throwaway, completely superfluous rap intro goes to…” Well I guess the winner would
I love globalisation. No, I’m not referring to G8 summits with their water canons, baton charges and anarchists — although, they do have their moments — I’m referring to Hollywood globalisation. The global village is shrinking to the degree that Hollywood has no option but to release its blockbusters coincidentally ‘round the world — everyone
Let’s get this straight right from the get-go: I wanted to hate this video clip. Even the idea of it made me nauseous. Anytime ‘pop’ tries to strip-mine classic dance genres, there’s going to be casualties and, in this case, big band music goes under the musical jackhammer. Swing was the dance music of choice
Fall Out Boy is an Emo band. Well, actually it may not be an Emo band… it would help if I actually knew what ‘Emo’ was to make that particular judgement. Whenever I ask someone younger, and with baggier pants than myself, for the definition of Emo, they say ‘My Chemical Romance’, in much the
Maybe I’m a slob, I’m not entirely sure. But once I walk through the door of a hotel room I like to spread out. The contents of my bag get strewn to all corners in a matter of minutes. This normally occurs to the strains of some ‘top stories at the top of the hour’
It’s been a busy year. That’s 2006 I’m talking about, not 2007, which remains tantalisingly out of reach as I write. How busy? Five expresso machines busy. Ché? Let me explain. The best yardstick of the pace of my year is how many stove-top expresso machines I incinerate — the more frenetic I get, the
As we were going to press, Justin Timberlake and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic were both riding high in the download charts. One, of course, is white and nerdy, while the other has made a business out of producing high-quality pop parodies. One looks totally incongruous as he tries to hang with the homies, while the other
Remember how good it felt to sit on the back seat of the school bus for the first time? To be initiated into the ranks of the back seat brigade meant you were accepted, and being there made you feel socially bulletproof. Crazy really. It’s really no different from the rest of the bus, and