Monthly Archives: December 2007

The Spice Girls Have Landed

Gigs, Music, Spice Girls

The Spice Girls

The Spice Girls are home! Well, if they consider “home” to be the O2 Arena, a.k.a. The Millennium Dome, in Greenwich, southeast London. On Saturday night they performed the first of seventeen (SEVENTEEN!) dates at the venue that will run from December 2007 to January 2008. By all accounts, they didn’t disappoint their British fans, which included one or two celebs – like David Beckham (okay, so he’s practically at all their concerts!), Gordon Ramsay and, erm, Rihanna. The concert was the first time the girls had performed in this country as a five-piece since 1998, when Geri Halliwell walked out shortly after a gig in Birmingham. Yep, Birmingham can do that to you.

Emma Bunton was still suffering slightly, following a fall in their last concert in the United States which resulted in her twisting her ankle. Designer Roberto Cavalli, who designed all of the girls’ costumes for the tour, made Emma a pair of special boots and some sandals so she could perform. You go, boy!

New Flake Girl – Interesting Choice!

Advertising, Music, TV

Joss Stone 

Joss Stone is to be the new Flake girl in TV commercials that will begin appearing from Spring 2008. She’s the first non-model to take the role. Say what you will about her (ahem…I make have implied in the past that she was somewhat annoying), whatever way you look at this decision, it’s an interesting choice! I thought the whole point of the Flake ads was that they picked a relative unknowns. I don’t really see how Joss Stone is any better suited to, well, thousands of other girls out there? Maybe she eats chocolate really seductively. Oh God, I don’t want to know!

Best bit of this story, as BBC News reports:

“Her appointment was revealed in the trade magazine, The Grocer.”

Oooh, how flash!

It’s Chrisssstmaaaasss!!

80s, Music, Music Videos

One thing I absolutely love about the new music chart system in the U.K. – whereby songs that are officially downloaded count as single or album sales – is that lots of random songs re-enter the charts. Technically, any song that’s available for download could make a comeback in the charts. So if enough of us bought Kylie’s 1987 hit, I Should Be So Lucky, it could reach number one again!

(Alternatively, if I record a song of me humming for 30 sseconds, and got it for sale on iTunes, that could officially be a song in the UK Singles Chart. The mind boggles. Really. You haven’t heard me hum.)

Alright, unlikely. But during special events or at specific times of the year, people seem to buy and download loads of past songs. So, for example, during last year’s World Cup, loads of old football songs made a comeback. (Like Three Lions, which was first released in 1996.)

Unsurprisingly, now it’s Christmas, we’ve got loads of seasonal songs appearing in the charts. The BBC News website has drawn up a list of these songs – top is Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You which has hit the dizzy heights of number 8 in the charts! Next we’ve got the absolute classic – and one of the best festive songs ever – Fairytale in New York by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl at number 12, followed a good bit of 80s cheese, Wham!’s Last Christmas at number 23.

Here’s one of my favourite Xmas songs – Merry Christmas Everybody by Shakin’ Stevens. You can’t beat a man with an apostrophe in his name.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbDk8vcunUc]

Coming Soon to a TV Near You…America!

TV

Okay, so I shouldn’t be surprised by this at all, but it seems that our good ol’ British telly is becoming more and more American. Like, totally! The word “series” is now becoming “season”…ad breaks appear even though what you’re watching has barely started…end credits get minimised so we can watch a preview of another programme EVEN THOUGH THE ONE WE’RE WATCHING HASN’T EVEN FINISHED YET!

Ahem. What I was most annoyed about, however, was an advert for an upcoming Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares – specifically, that it was labelled “All New”. As in, not one of those boring episodes where they show you 50 minutes of old footage, and then add on a 10-minute “update” at the end. Can we not just have a full season…sorry, series…of episodes that are all brand new? I’m sorry if Mr Ramsay couldn’t schedule much filming in a particular month, but I’d rather see no episode than a rehash of a boring old one!

Anyways, here’s Gordon doing what he does best. No, not cooking! It’s being rude to a chef!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB8dGQ77Zg0&feature=related]

Shambolic Gig

Gigs, Music, Pete Doherty

Every so often a news headline comes along that shocks you to your very core. It puzzles you. It unnerves you. It gives you the goddamn heebie-jeebies:

BBC News Babyshambles

Babyshambles have fans?? How? Why? In what way did they come to exist?

WAIT A MINUTE…! Babyshambles actually perform music? I always thought it was just Pete Doherty ambling about, taking lots of drugs and either not turning up to, or going to court appearances where he always manages to escape any kind of sentence. Oh, and selling his story about how much he loves Kate Moss.

But they’re an actual band? Wonders never cease.

Ha, but if you read the article, it transpires that the fan got to sing on stage because Pete didn’t turn up. Figures.

Pointless Programming

Spice Girls, TV, Uncategorized

I don’t watch much Channel Five. (Or simply, “Five”, as it now wants to be known – I suppose it’s a bit like P Diddy becoming just “Diddy”.) I think there’s a reason behind that. But yesterday I succumbed in order to watch 30 Rock, and subsequently saw an advert for a programme next week called The Spice Girls on Trial. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

This documentary will apparently analyse the Spice Girls’…

 “contribution to popular culture, combining interviews with key witnesses like former manager Chris Herbert with contributions from a range of diverse commentators, including Germaine Greer and Peaches Geldof”

Oh my God!! What does uber-style icon Peaches Geldof think of the Spice Girls??? I finally get the chance to find out!! My life is saved! *cries tears of joy*

Furthermore, the programme will analyse whether…

“the tabloids’ constant reporting of the Spice Girls’ lives [can] be seen as the starting point of today’s celebrity-crazed culture”

Errr, this sounds a bit like a school project. Maybe it is someone’s school project? Like some Chief Programmer at Five has just stolen his daughter’s Media Studies coursework?

Best of all, ladies and gentlemen…wait for it…there’ll be a live viewer’s vote so we can give our own opinions! Hurrah!

Wonky Photoshop

Film, Magazines

This is Hilary Swank on the cover of the December issue of UK Tatler. Now, say what you will about her, I actually think she looks quite pretty, relaxed and natural here. Except there’s something weird going on with the with her hairl and face. Clearly one of the two has been added on later, or altered – the angle’s all wrong! Just keep looking at that hairline, and it begins to look like an optical illusion. It looks like they just got a picture of her face and added it on to someone else’s body. (Which makes the “pretty, relaxed and natural comment” go out the window.) Or, they’ve added the hair on after – like one of those websites where you can test different hairstyles!

Tatler December 2007 Hilary Swank

However, my favourite bit* of the whole cover is her expression. It’s like she’s saying “You guyyys!” Maybe the whole sentence was “You guyyys! Photoshop in my hairstyle later…that’s hilarious!”

*Actually, that’s not strictly true. My REAL favourite bit is the “The champagne workout: Party hard & stay thin” line. Hmm, best get down to the newsagents tomorrow…

The Spice Girls back where they belong!

Fashion, Music, Spice Girls, The Beckhams

Spice Girls concert, Vancouver

 Where’s that, you ask? Why, on stage, silly!

15,000 fans – and David Beckham – saw them perform the first concert of their comeback tour at the GM Place in Vancouver, Canada. They apparently wow-ed the crowd with 22 songs, costume changes (including outfits harking back to their 90s personas), impressive backing dancers and several solo stints. Hmm, all you need for a great concert, eh? I guess the point is that their concerts will provide great entertainment, but you may not necessarily enjoy them if you’re expecting highly technical singing and mind-blowing dancing. (And why oh why would you expect that with the Spice Girls?)

So, no doubt, their comeback tour will be a huge success. I’m not entirely sure about some of the costumes, designed by Robert Cavalli. (see above) Posh looks a bit like she’s dressed in a futuristic outfit, as imagined in a 1960s space drama. And poor Sporty! Did Roberto Cavalli refuse to design for her? She looks like she’s got her gear from New Look!

Tone it down, love!

Magazines, Music

Marie Claire January Christina Aguilera 

Christina Aguilera has gone where so many before her have – she’s showing off her baby bump, “nude”, on the cover of a magazine. (Honestly, you don’t know what you started, Demi Moore! Now it seems like every celeb has to do the same as if it’s some sort of pregnancy ritual.)

Except…goodness knows why Christina is such a weird colour. It’s like they put her in the oven for 5 minutes to “brown”. I know the expression “bun in the oven”, but I thought that referred to someone being pregnant, not what they actually went through.

And please, please, please Christina – tone down your make-up! You’d think that she’d go for a lovely natural look, to bring out her own beauty and her pregnant woman glow. On the other hand, given how much make-up she usually piles on, perhaps this is natural for her. Hmm. Wonder how much make-up she’s going to be wearing when she actually gives birth?!