Simon Cowell: Shit for Ears (Charlie Brooker)

Furiously disillusioned prose wizard Charlie Brooker, writing on the X-Factor chart backlash:

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"While I'm happy for Rage Against the Machine to be enjoying the sales and publicity, I can't help thinking we could've organised a slightly better protest ourselves. Chances are the X Factor will try to kick back extra hard next year – perhaps by actually releasing a song with a melody in it – so it's best to start planning the resistance now.

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The temptation might be to pour a lot of time and effort into creating a catchy anti-X Factor anthem, but the smartest counter-move would be to release something short, cheap and throwaway that isn't even a proper song at all. I propose a track called Simon Cowell: Shit for Ears, which consists of a couple of eight-year-olds droning the phrase "Simon Cowell, shit for ears" four times in a row in the most deliberately tuneless manner possible.

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It should last only about 15 seconds or so. Quick enough to register; brief enough not to outstay its welcome.
Then we release it online at the lowest price possible. What's the bare minimum you can charge and still be eligible for a chart position? It could be as little as 2p. Because the track is just recorded on to a cheap mic, and released without the assistance of any record label, 100% of the profits go to charity."
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Read the rest of Charlie's brilliant, constructive rant by clicking HERE.

I'll be first in the queue (does iTunes have queues?) to buy 'Shit for Ears' if it's released next December...

Life Magazine - Photos of the Year 2009

A sand storm engulfs Riyadh.

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For more incredible images like this, visit life.com's Photos of the Year pages.

NME in a spot of bother

With print-media on its arse, another legendary title looks to be in a spot of bother. In a year that has seen Arena, Buck and HHC close, the NME are reporting a 25% drop off in year on year circulation.

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The NME was once the most important music publication in the country. With writers like Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, it helped helped break bands like The Smiths and The Sex Pistols. Now, it's a teeny bopper magazine full of shit bands with cool haircuts and nut-squashing jeans. The thing is, the pop charts show there is still a huge market for this type of style-over-substance poppy guitar music, so I can only assume it's the slow death of print media that is the cause.

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Looks like the 'internets' have won.

Keri Hilson - Good Lord!

Wow. "Emerging R&B star" (?) Keri Hilson covers this months Complex mag.

Click image for the wonderful close up.

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And yes... it is worth it's own post.

Michael Jackson Tribute Mags - The Good, The Bad and OK!

Time magazine cashing in with a special Commemorative Issue, released separately to their normal magazine. I get the feeling MJ would have liked this cover.

OK! chose to cover their 'tribute issue' with the last photograph taken of Michael, showing him being rushed to hospital, either moments from death or dead already (as he had stopped breathing at home, before the ambulance was called). This horrid cover made news across the globe. Elliott Wilson called it 'shameful'. I agree 100%. Rumours are circulating that the magazine paid $500,000 for the photo, but the cost to OK! could be far greater, as the complaints are literally streaming in from UK and US readers unhappy at the magazine's flagrant disregard for taste. Not that they've ever been known for their high standards in that department...

A cooler, throwback image from the 70's chosen by New York's The Village Voice. I think this is how most of us would like to remember Michael. Off The Wall was just about to come out, and his future was not yet determined. If only he had a friend who could have kept him on the right track.

A classic image of Michael, and classy monotone colours make this an attractive collectors edition of the world famous US music mag Rolling Stone. No silver glove on display, but the short trousers and contrasting socks are present.

Passive Aggressive Signs

I love this kind of thing.

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From passiveaggressivenotes.com, where you'll find more 'painfully polite and hilariously hostile notes from around the world'. They have a book out too, entitled 'Your Mother Doesn't Work Here!', obviously inspired by an angry work-related note.

Magazines - Praise & Hate

After Arena and Buck effectively shut down earlier this year in their existing formats, a new magazine actually launched this month (making it two in as many months, after Wired launched in April). An off shoot from ex-Liverpool Centre Half Phil Babb's moderately successful Golf Punk publication, Football Punk will be available monthly. Steven Gerrard covers the first proper edition of the magazine (the above was a one-off given away with Golf Punk) and costs only 2 quid to begin with. Get stuck in, it's a good read. Which is more than I can say for this...

Click the image for a close-up of this abject fuckery. Nice bracelet tough guy. Now go and make a song about how shiny it is and how much it cost... and this is a Hip Hop music magazine?!? Jesus... although I'm a supporter of the music culture, the writing is clearly on the wall.

The fuckery stars have aligned...

...and come up with Jade: The Musical. Seriously. No, really.

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As if that isn't horrific enough (although it would be interesting to see how they go about airbrushing her 'right-wing racist' period out), we'll have to endure a fucking TV 'talent' contest to find a new star to play the lead role. Who would the expert judge be? The Geordie voice from Big Brother? Her twatty husband? I could ramble on here about how incredibly pointless/sick/wrong/exploitative/hypocritical/etc this is, but I wont. Because I'll only live to be 80 (if I don't hang myself from depression after this news), and I've already wasted 4 minutes of my life writing a post.

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By the way... No matter what else happens this year, this wins my 2009 Abject Fuckery Award.

OK! Magazine take bad taste to new levels

This has been out for days now. I saw it in a supermarket yesterday and thought I was dreaming. Now, I don't have strong feelings either way about Jade, but this gave me the hump.

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In Loving Memory? Final Words? She's not fucking dead yet!

Wishing her away so you can sell more copies are you?

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UPDATE, 22 March 2009: Okay, the poor girl died today, mothers day, leaving two young sons. I bet the publishers at OK! are rubbing their hands together. Scumbags.

Damn. Print Media is done...

Following hot on the heels of the demise of Arena magazine, issue 232 of Hip Hop Connection, a UK-based rap music magazine that holds the title of the longest running monthly of its type globally, will be it's last.

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I used to buy this mag when I was 14 years old, back in the days when the only rap shown on TV was on Yo! MTV Raps or Normski's House Party. Now, admittedly, I haven't bought in about 8 years, which might be why it's going to the wall, but it was typically aimed at the 15 - 25 year old market (which I'm way passed). Youngsters are too internet focused to pick up a magazine for news and insight... the news they can get from Website's on a second-by-second basis, and the insight they get from chat rooms full of arseholes spouting opinions.

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Print media may need it's last rites read.

Arena Magazine - RIP

What a shame. The original (and best and funniest and smartest and most stylish) men's magazine on the UK market, Arena, will be publishing potentially it's final ever issue on Thursday after 22 years.

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All we're left with is over-the-top gay fashion mags, tory-boy wankers handbook GQ and those seedy little porno-disguised-as-a-comic-book-for-absolute-fucking-pillocks, FHM, Nuts and Zoo.

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I'm championing Buck to partially fill the void, although it is heavily fashion driven. Maybe grown men like me should stick to books and the paper?

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Go to pressgazzette.co.uk to read more.

Wayne & Letterman - Grammy Top 10

I'm not a fan of the young dude at all, but he does score points for the "pause" after the Jonas Brothers comment.

The War on Humour continues - "Ross threatens to shag a Spanish granny"

^ Ross with a granny he probably raped or touched up or something

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Fuckery timeline:

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Saturday, 10:00 - Ross returns to Radio 2.

10:01 - Old farts and Tories grumble about the BBC, longing for days when women knew their place and Harry Secombe was the definition of 'edgy'

10:02 - 13:00 - Ross is entertaining, and often humourous. Doesn't call any actors from 'Fawlty Towers'.

13:01 - Arseholes and Tories countrywide hit 'listen again' on Radio 2's website and make notes of all humourous content, looking for ammunition, no matter how weak, to create a 'shocking' exclusive for Sunday's papers.

13:30 - Arseholes and Tories countrywide hear Ross say something about an 80 year old Spanish lady having "one more night before the grave". Tories get so excited they have to have a quick asphixiwank.

23:59 - BBC get wind of the non-story and confirm that nobody has complained. Not one solitary soul.

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Sunday, 09:30 - I pick up the News Of The World 'paper'.

09:31 - Front fucking page: "Ross New Radio Sex Slur"

09:31 and 6 seconds - Notice that Tory fuckstick David Davies has supplied a quote calling for Ross to be sacked. I puke into my mouth with rage, and spit it into the 'paper'.

09:35 - I buy some big knives, some parafin and 'homemade bomb'-making materials in preparation for the 'war between them and us', which is clearly only days away. The pragmatic versus the right-wing lunatics. The light-hearted versus the mean. The asphixiwankers versus the normal wankers.

11:55 - I cry, wondering how the world became a neo-conservative hellhole.

When They Reminisce - Blog

When They Reminisce is one of the best Hip Hop blogs on the net, if not the best. Dedicated to the best of the culture's golden era (mainly the 90's though) as well as the best new beats & rhymes, it acts as a one-stop shop to educate young 'uns who think Hip Hop is 50 Cent, Soulja Boy and T-Pain.

I've been inspired to write a post in praise of this website today (rather than just visit it, as I do daily) because the dude who runs it, Eric, just posted two CLASSIC albums to download in their entirity: Gang Starr's "Step In The Arena" and A Tribe Called Quest's "People's Instinctive Travels...". Everybody should have these albums, but if you don't, Eric is giving you megabytes of GENIUS for nothing.

Click on the banner above and go and visit. And then visit again and again.

Wow...

The above picture, that looks a bit like a giant pair of floating electric-powered lungs, or an angry brain, is actually a lightning storm in Chile. Click the image for a close up. It's worth it.

Then go Here and Here for more stunning 'photos of the year' courtesy of the Boston Globe.

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Spotted over at hypebeast

Time 'Man of The Year': Barack Obama

It was never going to be X Factor's 'Dead Wife Bloke' was it?

Click image to go to Time.com

Sneaker Freaker - Best of 2008

The worlds premier Sneaker magazine, Melbourne-based 'Sneaker Freaker', have just put together a list of the years best releases.

Go to their website or pick up Sneaker Freaker #14 to see the gallery in full.

"Santa's fucking dead"

Go HERE to read Charlie Brookers' take on the "Rubbish Lapland" controversy of last week, from today's G2.

New 'Buck' Magazine Launch

Buck, a new men's magazine, is published for the first time this month. Based out of my home town, the magazine concentrates solely on style, design and food, unlike some of its competitors who try to cover everything and end up offering the obvious rather than genuine insight.

The first issue is dedicated to London and it's excellent.

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For more details visit their website, buckstyle.com, where you can also sign up for a newsletter.

Cat Fight... Toyota Advert (Video)

The part with the swinging light is genius...