This is quite a good thing that's been knocking around during Channel 4's 3D week (note to overseas readers: yes this has actually been happening, they've been giving away 3D spectacles in supermarkets and everything): it's a 3D JLS advertisement.
Incidentally, if you've got youir 3D glasses to hand we've created a magical 3D illusion which will 'come to life' if viewed through special glasses.
One of our favourite record labels, Sweden's Catchy Tunes, chucked this single over yesterday: it's the new one by Elin Lanto (of 'Speak & Spell' fame), it's called 'Love Made Me Stupid' and its chorus is very good indeed.
We are going to make an iTunes playlist which contains this song 17 times, then we are going to burn that playlist to a CD, then we are going to post that CD to Vampire Weekend. Nothing may come of it but at least we can say we tried.
If you didn't listen to the Boyloculous cover of Madonna's 'You'll See' when it was featured as Song Of The Day yesterday you're a fool to yourself and don't really deserve a second chance HOWEVER here is one.
This miserable flyer was submitted by a Popjustice reader.
Hello Popjustice
They write.
I spotted this flyer on the pavement on my lunchbreak, and thought you might like to see the latest step in Jamie Archer's Rock 'n' Roll masterplan to fill out stadiums and things like that.
Nearly there, Jamie!!!!!!!!!!!(!)!!!!
Shaun
x
Meanwhile, via email from another Popjustice reader:
Jamie Archer lives near me and apparently he was in a pub down the road on Friday surrounded by fans. At the end of the night, he sang Get It On.
Cx
THIS IS NOT THE END THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING IT'S NOT OVER YET THE BEST IS YET TO COME WE HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF HIM ETC ETC.
PLEASE OH GOD PLEASE can someone do a version of this video in which Amelle and Heidi are designing a 'SINGER WANTED' advertisement for The Stage. Please. It will only take you half an hour.
We do actually quite like the current Sugababes lineup, you know, but
you've got to admit that this Microsoft thing is fairly woeful. Come on now. Even those of you who are fans of the new lineup. Just admit it. Admit it or you'll look silly. Out with it. We'll all respect you as long as you're honest. Just let it out.
We've become slightly obsessed with Danyl's performance in the X Factor 'You Are Not Alone' video.
It's no secret that he mastered the art of extreme seriousface quite early on in the live finals but the extremeness, and the seriousness, and the sheer faceness of what goes on in this video are just breathtaking.
The "for you are" seriousface at 3:38 is our favourite one, although there are many from which to choose.
Also: is it just us or at the 3:52 point is Jamie Archer caught sadly shaking his head as if to say "Jesus Christ, I knew when I went to the audition that I was shipping my values and integrity off to a far-flung land called Grinandbearit but this really does take the biscuit"? You've got to feel a bit sorry for Archer - there's a certain kudos in being 'the rock guy' who turns up to a reality show and is perceived to in some way subvert the pop format by winning the whole thing, but if you go in for it and don't even make the final five you just end up looking like as much of a desperate wannabe as the pop kids you not-so-secrety despise and, worse than that, a hypocrite to boot. OH WELL!!!
A few weeks ago we wrote that one John & Edward X Factor performance was the point when light entertainment died, was reborn then ate itself. Well, this full page advertisement in today's Sun (which looks oddly familiar although we can't think why) is what it looks like when light entertainment spews itself back up again round the back of Wetherspoon's then continues dry retching as it staggers up the high street in search of a kebab.
It's great work on Cheestrings ad team's part, obviously, and a good illustration of how John & Edward have already gone beyond being a pop act (if they ever were one) and are now simply a 'thing' that is all around us, like oxygen, or the threat of global warming.
We wrote recently about Katy Brand's terrible Lady Gaga 'parody', and discussed how some popstars can become well known enough in the right kind of way for a mainstream comedy show to be able to create a caricature whose 'jokes' resonate with a few million viewers. This John & Edward phenomenon is more than that. When an element of pop culture is so well-acknowledged and immediately recognised that a rubbish clearance company (!) can start using it as the basis for a viral ad campaign...
...and when that element of pop culture's core (lack of) values are so universally well known that even things like this...
...make sense to the entire nation, that piece of pop culture has more power, however fleeting it might be, than most popstars achieve in their entire careers.
Looking forward to tomorrow night's X Factor? So are we.
As the next show looms one wonders how many of last week's thousands of outraged viewers will be making good on their promise to boycott the show. A reasonable guess is somewhere in the region of twelve. Not twelve thousand, just twelve. 'People power' may be driving complaint culture in interesting (trans: tedious) new directions but it's flawed in two areas. Firstly, people are happy to bang on and on and fucking on about something but ask them to spend money on it and it all suddenly falls apart (see: the various attempts by 'the fans' to hype singles into the charts, and this week's very bad Chartjackers effort, for further details). Secondly, and this is worth mentioning in relation to The X Factor, self-righteous moaning is in many cases no more than posturing, a be-seen-to-be-caring mentality which means that people continue as they were behind closed doors, for example on a Saturday night in the privacy of their own home when they'll watch TYhe X Factor and fucking love it just like everyone else does.
One of our favourite things about the aftermath of Simon Cowell kicking out Lucie last week was the shockwave that ran through popular culture, a sudden uproar as a nation realised, in one split second, that Simon Cowell might not always make decisions based purely on musical merit.
Strangely, however, Cowell had in fact left a few very small clues over the last few years.
Here are a handful of hints. Pay close attention, they're pretty subtle.
1. "I'm interested only in making money, for myself and the people I work
for. I mean, that's absolutely the only criterion I attach. That's it.
... That's the only thing we think about: Will it make money?"
2. 'Unchained Melody'
3." I don't like the idea that other people in this business might be doing better than me. That really bugs me - I mean really bugs me. It's what drives me on."
4. 'Unchained Melody'
5. "When
Rolling Stone magazine asked what he wanted most in the world, he said
simply, 'Money. As much money as I can get my hands on.'"
6. 'Unchained Melody'
We’d actually put Cowell’s decision last weekend down to a sense of mischief as much as hyper-cynical audience manipulation but what’s most alarming about this past week’s public outrage is that many of the outraged masses fail to grasp the fact that decisions just like that are being made on an hourly basis in all areas of mainstream media. You don’t see them being made, like you do when Cowell makes a decision like last weekend’s, but they’re made all the same. Nothing on mainstream television really happens by accident, or without painstaking analysis of likely consequence. It barely happens in the pop charts, either, really, although the Top 10 is open to the occasional surprise from time to time. The point is that just because Simon Cowell is the only person publicly making ratings-chasing decisions, it doesn’t mean nobody else does it behind closed doors.
Over the last decade a number of ‘plain speakers’ have risen to the top of British popular culture, usually in the form of stupendously heterosexual entrepreneurs with a penchant for shouting at those less dynamic than themselves. With Alan Sugar or Gordon Ramsey most descriptions as 'no-nonsense' merely represent over-reverential shorthand for the subject’s incredibly bad manners but when Simon Cowell speaks his mind (as he does when it suits him) his words do, frequently, articulate the thoughts of a nation. Remember when Lucie performed her song a few weeks ago as rose petals fell from the rafters? Afterwards, three judges offered their comments on her performance. Lucie took all these comments not knowing that there was a stray petal stuck on her forehead. Every judge allowed the poor girl to stand there on live television with that petal rather obviously stuck to her head, as 15m viewers each watched thinking, quite reasonably, 'Lucie has a petal stuck to her head'. Cowell, the final judge to offer his words, began rather bluntly: "Lucie, you’ve got a petal stuck to your head".
Cowell’s a brilliantly complex TV personality and 'music exec' and his involvement in popular culture is only going to grow over the next decade, but as long as he's there to point out the petals on heads it's worth putting up with some amusingly controversial audience baiting.
Also, without Simon Cowell there would be no JLS. Think on. THINK ON.
