Coldplay Finish New Album.

Coldplay, the biggest funeral music provider since Robbie Williams, have finished recording their new album. The follow-up to “X & Y” is currently in the process of being mixed.

No release date or title has yet been announced, but speculators are guessing that the album will be called “Prospekt”, which, to be fair, is a terrible title. Expect to hear it being played at upper-middle class wine parties in the summer.

More arena tours are expected.

last song i heard – “the philadelphia grand jury” – the fiery furnaces

Missy Elliot Lets Common Proles Name Her New Album.

Maybe the music industry is getting lazy. More and more bands and focusing purely on Internet marketing. We’ve all seen it, and we can’t ignore it – most of the time it resembles a brick being thrown at your face. Some airbrushed photo (or slideshow, if you’re lucky) of the band trying “punk” or “tough” or the singer trying “glam”, along with a mp3 that loads automatically and plays far too loud.

Then there was Radiohead’s download release, which has already spurned other bands to rip off the idea and claim it as an artistical revolution that can’t be wasted. But in reality, it’s probably because they’re too lazy to find someone to design their cd covers. Or they’re too cheap so they just whack it on a server.

But this one is new to me. Missy Elliot has developed a contest where members of the public, all the way down there in the filth, can decide what the name of her new album, due out in May, is going to be!

Seems like she doesn’t like the idea of just taking a song title and using that, but oh well.

According to her website, if the title is picked you get a prize.

“All you have to do is fill out the form below and you are entered to WIN! The grand prize winner will receive their name in the credits of the album packaging that will be in stores across the world! Missy will also hook you up with an Adidas – Respect Me prize pack!”

I don’t know what a “Respect Me prize pack” is, but it’s probably worth playing anyway, just to see how many offensive things you can think up before you get a nasty email back.

(If you care, my effort was – “This Album Is Probably Not Worth Buying.”)

lasy song i heard – “Videotape” – Radiohead

The Police Decide To Earn Another Fortune.

The Police have announced that they’re doing one more sweep of North America, bringing an end to their (supposedly) last ever tour.

The band, currently in Japan, will play 20 more dates, starting on May 1st in Ottawa. The final date is assumed to be at Long Island’s Jones Beach on August 4th. A Buffalo date is expected.

After the tour is finished, Sting has said that he’ll head home to Florence, where he lives in “a magnificent villa” according to his website, to work on some new songs. Probably solo material.

The expected revenue from the whole reuinion tour, which started last September in France, is roughly $340 million US.

Alright for some…

last song i heard – “Wham City” – Dan Deacon

Photojournalism Ethics.

For my Social class, I have to answer whether it’s ok to change this photo, removing a black blemish on a white flower:

Looking at a photo of a white flower with a little black speck on it, it would be easy, and usually understandable, to remove the blemish. Many artistic photographers won’t even consider releasing a photo without re-touching it.
When we’re talking about journalism, we need to remember that the impact of the photo comes from the belief that the camera “never lies”, and that as a bit of machinery, simply records a moment in time, as the photographer saw it.
There are some editing processes that are allowed in news images, though. Some of these include cropping photos, lightning or darkening the image, or (legally advised) concealment of a person’s identity. It seems that as long as the original context of the even is not tampered, permission is allowed, and it’s probably just up to the editors decision.

It’s a subject that could be argued back and forth for weeks, but if we’re sticking with the flower, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be ok to remove the black dot. The reason?

Well, I know, it’s just a flower, and if it’s only a personal shot – a photo taken on holiday, maybe – no-one would blink if you removed it to make the image better, if you wanted to frame it or something. In that case it would be ok.
If it’s an artistic photo, which looks like it could end up in Ikea or Jysk (like this one), then that black dot could decide whether the buyers could buy it, or go and look at someone else’s portfolio. All on the basis of that little black smudge.
Now, I wouldn’t really call myself conservative, but I wouldn’t want to see someone go hungry just because they had enough morals not to wipe out a small black dot.
If the photo was some sort of scientific discovery, then it wouldn’t be ok to change it, leave it as it was found.

However, if it was going to appear in a magazine or some life section of a newspaper, then it wouldn’t be ok to change it. It’s the same as anything else that goes into a newspaper that is trying to get the truth out to the public. It wouldn’t be acceptable for a reporter to tamper or fabricate with quotes, therefore it shouldn’t be acceptable for a photographer to tamper with their shots.
In journalistic photos, it shouldn’t matter what is in the background or in shot by accident, it’s what was there at the time. Personally I think that cropping photos is going too far – what could have been cropped out of the shot? A person? A homemade sign or banner? All of this matters, it was there for a reason.

So to sum it up, in any form of journalism related aspect, it would be wrong to change anything. In anything else, it’s probably ok, it’s understandable. But personally, I still wouldn’t do it.

last song i heard – “Do You Get High” – Holly McNarland

It’s All Gone Pete Tong.

The date that the music industry will collapse is now known.

It won’t be the day that Guns and Roses bring out that album.

It won’t be the day that Jay-Z headlines Glastonbury (though that’s quite close).

It won’t be the day that Cher comes back.

It will be May 20 in North America, and May 19 in the UK.

These are the dates that a new album will be released, changing the face of the music industry, a popular business since the 50’s, into something else, something unimaginable.

Those are the dates that “Anywhere I Lay My Head”, the debut album by Scarlett Johansson, will be released into the unsuspecting Western World.

Judging by a press release by her label, Atco Records, a spin-off of Warner Music’s Rhino Entertainment, it is set to include ten Tom Waits covers, plus one original song.
The album’s title is borrowed from a song from Wait’s 1985 album, Rain Dogs.

The album took just over a month to record, which took place last spring in Louisiana. Sean Antanaitis, a member of Celebration, and Nick Zimmer, the guitarist from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, appear on the album.

“So what’s the matter with that?”, you might ask. “After all, she’s young and blonde, let’s give her a chance!”

And that’s how it’s going to start. (There is a chance that I might use horrible, ill thought out sexist themes here, so I’m apologising now.) Women may listen to a couple of samples, decide that they like the songs, and go out and buy the cd, because it’s Scarlett Johansson, and she’s all nice and inoffensive and she was good in that film where she goes to Japan wasn’t she? (Sorry again, really.)

The men, on the other hand, are another matter. Having saved every photograph, film frame grab, and youtube clip of Johansson to their hard drives, every man, from hormonally rabid teenagers to tense, overworked, music journalists is going to go out and buy the cd because it’ll have some nice high-quality pictures in the booklet. Those same journalists will then give her great reviews, because she might send them her phone number if they do. While all the while they’ll be going on about how “it’s got some good songs on it, actually”, and how its all about the music, man.

Yeah, about the music, ok.

The cd will fly up the charts, and that’ll be it. Every female singer or musician from then on will be considered an abomination, a hideous thing reminiscent of the elephant man, banished to perform in grotty back-alley pubs, while Johansson will be praised and glorified to all extents, because she’s all blonde and she’s got big lips and walks about in her underwear in that one film.

Just think about it. Why else would you go and see her inevitable tour? Because of the songs? Stop lying. You don’t care about Tom Waits’ music. Because if you did you’d have his cds at your house, so until you show me them I’m not believing you. No, it’s because you’ll have the chance to BE IN THE SAME ROOM as her, and you might be able to smell her perfume if you’re lucky.
It all started last year, when she went on stage at Coachella with the Jesus and Mary Chain and joined them on a song, which was used at the end of Lost in Translation. Suddenly, all the focus shifted from the reunion show of a legendary band to some blonde girl in a dress. Nevermind the fact that she can’t sing all that well, she’s blonde!

Remember these words. When the industry is even more of a mess of increasingly younger girls who are told to wear increasingly little clothes, nothing else will matter. But watching half an hour of Rhianna is better than watching half a hour of Robert Wyatt, right?

last song I heard – “Wannabe” – Dizzee Rascal