Lady Gaga - Telephone (YouTube Video)

Lady Gaga's newest single, featuring Beyoncé, Telephone has an epic (in Pop music standards) video. 9mins 32secs long. It's more like a mini movie.

WARNING: Possibly NSFW

Funky track. Although I'm not sure whether a long video suits it. Although I am interesting in the "to be continued..."

M

I seem to have gone a bit Gaga

Yes, after swearing off the American pop singer as a "few-hits-wonder", I have seen the light and realised Lady Gaga for what she truly is...

The future of Pop music.

It wasn't until her 2009 release "Bad Romance" that I actually paid attention to the music she was making. Her random outfits, videos and performance were all just headline grabbing (I thought)... and they worked. But "Bad Romance" caught my attention for the simplest of reasons - It's a REALLY good Pop track!

If scientists worked out the formula for the best Pop music song that could be created, I believe that they would come up with something 99% similar to "Bad Romance". For me, it is easily the best Pop song of the last 10 (maybe more) years!

She has managed to make the sea of female Pop artists interesting. There are a few more (such as Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Pixie Lott) that have also grabbed my attention, but Lady Gaga, for me, is standing head, shoulders, chest, hips and knees above them all.

M

Xmas In The Name of... (The success story) #ratm4xmas

YYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RATM RATM RATM!!!!!!! XMAS NO.1!!!!!! WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!

This was my first tweet as Joe McElderry song was announced as 2009 Xmas number 2.

After all the tweeting and retweeting and trying all I could to spread the word, the (initially) Facebook campaign to bring down the 'curse of the X Factor Xmas No.1' has been lifted. A great moment in music and the first time I've been excited over the charts since I was in my early teens!

I do feel that this tweet is oh so very true...

Would RATM be no1 without Twitter? I think not. Well done Twitter! - @Oscli

Twitter played a HUGE part in this campaign, and provided a much need voice (for both sides of the 'battle')

But what got to me was the people that were attacking the idea of getting RATM to number 1:

"Both artists are under the Sony label so they are getting the money either way"

NOT THE POINT!! I, like many if not most/all, didn't buy the RATM single to try and get at the record company! Where the money ends up didn't matter! (Except for the money that RATM are donating to Shelter)

"Joe deserves the No.1 / He's worked so hard"

What has he done to deserve a free pass to a No.1 single?! Won a glorified karaoke competition!! True music artists take years to establish themselves and even then have difficulty breaking into the business.

"The RATM song isn't even xmasy"

And 'The Climb' is?!

"The song says 'Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me' but that's exactly what they are doing"

Oh dear, oh dear! But then again, 'The Climb' includes the line 'Always going to be an uphill battle, Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose' ... and look how that turned out.

"Yeah they can play their instruments, but they can't sing"

One of my favourites... no comment needed

This whole campaign wasn't aimed at Joe. It would've happened no matter who won. It was about people standing up and showing Simon Cowell and the X Factor that people will buy what they want and not just what is shoved down their throats by the media.

To quote Tom Morello:

Changing the charts or the world: together we can't be stopped

Merry Xmas all

M

Xmas In The Name of... #ratm4xmas

So, the race for Xmas #1 is on and our (as I first thought of) unlikely contender is actually picking up pace and keeping up with the predictable option (X-Factor winner #234).

From the newspaper clipping below (taken from today's Metro, p11), Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name" has been such a popular choice among the non X Factor fans that it was actually top of the iTunes download chart yesterday and many other online retailers are reporting that it features highly on their download charts too.

This is all good news.

What with Amazon confirming that their 29p download of Killing In The Name DOES count towards the charts, the 740,000+ fans of the Facebook groups in support of the song and the number of celebrities (such as Bill Bailey and Lenny Henry) supporting it too... This could be the greatest Xmas in music in quite a while!

I've bought my first copy (of possibly many)... Have you?

M

Saturday of success

Had my alarm set for 8.15am so I'd have plenty of time to wake up, get up, get onto the computer and wait for 9am. Why? Bon Jovi tickets for June 2010 were going on presale and I had an O2 code. This make for a happy me. So, 9am comes, I click on the link, go to ticketmaster and add 2 tickets to my basket (best available for £65 each), (I know!). For this price you'd expect to get really good seats and you'd have a night to remember... You'd be wrong. Row U in the back section! Total price... £149! Rip off!! Now I know it's not Bon Jovi that set the ticket prices, but it still pisses me off and puts me of seeing them in the future.

Anyway, on with the rest of the day, ticktless.

Home alone on a Saturday, what to do. Obviously, play PS3. Batman: Arkham Asylum. With only 3 tropies left to get (all connected, so I get one, I'll get the other 2 as a bonus) I played my ass off. And, you guessed it, I got the 3 trophies, completing the entire game and all achievables. It's both awesome and sad when this happens. Great because it's the culmination off my hours "hard work", but sad because there isn't anything new to do. I guess it's time to go back to Guitar Hero. Not a bad thing.

The gym followed the PS3 win. 10 minutes on the treadmill, 20 on the weights, 5 on the treadmill. Got through most of a Pendulum album (good music for the gym!). Not bad work out, now aching like a... really... achy thing.

Now home, showered, writing this (unexpectedly long) blog post, with an Oz on my lap (one of my two cats), watching Halloween (2007, Rob Zombie) and feeling hungry. Lunchtime.

M

File sharing, my 2-clicks worth

Now, let me say this right from the start, I am a Lily Allen fan. Good now that we've got that out of the way, what is the little hypocrite going on about?!

She says that it's increasingly tough for new music acts to break into the scene with more and more file sharing... This coming from someone who made it by publishing her work on myspace... Ok then. As I see it, the easier people are allowed to pass around music, the more likely you music is going to be heard. If it were down to just radio play alone like it used to be, then I wonder where Ms Allen would be today.

When it comes to piracy, I agree that if people stop buying music, going to gigs/festivals, buying merchandise, going to the cinema, buying DVDs/Blu-rays &c, then the companies that create these enjoyable forms of media are going to be going out of business and there will be a lot less to choose from. But I really don't see this happening anytime soon.

I will continue to go to the cinema, buy films and music that I think is good enough for a purchase. I'm sure there are many that will, and many that won't. The only way to stop file sharing is to stop the internet. That is something that is just not going to happen.

And to finish off, a nice and amusing visual aid. Enjoy.

M

So many thing, so little time (right now)

Right first thing, training. Did a solid 13 minutes of the treadmill last night, average speed 8.9km/h, distance 1.92km. This is good. It had been 5 days since I last went to the gym, I don't want to be leaving it so long between sessions.

I finished American Psycho today, good book. Will go on my in-mind book shelf next to The Diceman. Great book, if you can handle the random ramblings of a guy who take note of what everyone around him is wearing while thinking about his last victim that he has massacred. Random, extreme violence that isn't for everyone, but I enjoyed it. (See previous blog about dark side of personalities, A Line Through Cross)

My next book is going to be Cross County. Getting back to Alex Cross and his dragon slaying. Yay!

Still got to review Guitar Hero 5 and now Batman: Arkham Asylum (my new obsession), and comment on the whole music file sharing thing that might be going on, not really sure. Then again, if it's not in the media, swine flu doesn't exist/isn't a threat anymore either.

But for now, it's back to the trenches with me. Ta ta for now.

M

Autumn is here

I LOVE Autumn. It is my favourite time of year (and not because it includes my birthday)(*cough*November 3rd*cough*).

I've been meaning to blog for a while now about a few things: the Lily Allen/music file sharing debate; a review of Guitar Hero 5; and a few more, none of which I'm going to do now.

I'm just making this entry to ensure that I have to blog about them later on. Kick my own ass activated.

I've pulled a muscle in my back, assuming it was during a session at the gym recently, my first injury, not including the blisters on my feet from running.

Other than that, all is well.

A journey to Essex this weekend, birthday celebrations to be had, Chinese food to be eaten. Good times.

M

Let's Go Crazy wake up call

This morning on the train I was falling fast asleep, which is fine as long as your stop isn't coming up in the next 60 seconds, which my one was. I found a remedy for this: Prince - Let's Go Crazy.

This is my favourite Prince song, which recently was covered and released by my favourite band of all time, Incubus, on their Monuments and Melodies greatest hits album.

First came the Incubus version (since I was listening to M&M) and it is the last track on the album and couldn't have come at a better time. When it had finished I immediately put on Purple Rain (album) on which Let's Go Crazy is the first track. Giving me a double helping of musical wake up juice.

It's at times like this that I am reminded of the power of music and

why I just simply couldn't live without it.

M