The last few nights spent hitting the Preston rush hour have been softened greatly with the radio presence of some of the Glee cast: last night, Artie (Kevin McHale) aka Glee Radio1 superfan, appeared with Scott Mills and again at 5 today my heart turned to mush as Matthew Morrison aka Schuester graced the airwaves and let slip his solo album plans. I swear I can hear that cute crooked half-smile of his.
Of course, it's all been in aid of plugging the hard sale of Glee MP3s and promoting the season finale, shown on E4 last night which finally tied up all the questions we'd been waiting to be solved...since they'd tied them up and then unravelled again mid-way through the season. Rachel and Finn, Schue and Emma, Sue's malice, baby questions... it's like someone's just pressed a massive re-set button and we're back to the beginning.
Don't get me wrong, I bloody love Glee, and it was a fantastic end to the season; I was still mopping up the tears long after the credits rolled. However I think the scriptwriters need a bit of a shake-up. They may have sung a Journey medley last night but I found it hard to recall how much the cast have really progressed with every episode being laid out the same way: big drama, Sue vs. Schue faceoff, assignment for the week, more drama, solution through song. It would be interesting to veer away from this tried-and-tested formula and mix it up a little,although I can’t help thinking of the old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
I often find that the storyline jumps about quickly and enormously: for instance, even though the Quinn/Queen mashup was mind-blowing (how many mothers mid-labour do you get quoting Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics ?), it was a little too far out of the realm of believability and just a little shallow - I was hoping for greater focus on the relationship between her and her baby rather than the quick-fix the Glee scriptwriters conjured up. What about the other week when Schue decided to "seduce" Sue (wrongwrongwrong)? That little diversion was over with pretty quickly. Sometimes the script romps along so merrily that it simply skims the surface of the point it's trying to make.
On another note, I hope that the next series brings greater depth to some of the characters who have been sidelined. I’m a complete Gleek (even though use of that word does make me shudder) and yet find it terrible that I still can’t remember those other two football players’ names. What happened to that hilarious whorish teacher who leapt on Schuh in the staffroom? Glee teeters on developing the other characters but when it comes to taking the plunge and making them more interesting and 3D it just can’t take bring itself to do it.
In a dream world, I'm hoping that next season not only brings greater depth and clarity to some of my favourite characters but that musically they might push the boundaries. I'm not talking thrash metal. I'm not talking Irish folk. I'm talking more of Matthew Morrison doing what he bloody does best and setting TV screens across the globe on fire with his scorching rapping and delicious dance moves. I hence prescribe a rampant recipe of Bobby Brown, Tyrese, Montell Jordan, Blackstreet et al. If there ever was a time for '90s r'n'b cheese to make a serious comeback, my belief is that Glee is the one to do it.
A cheeky taste here with the Thong Song:
Glee: its safe to say that I never will (and never have) stop believing in the magic of this show!
Originally wrote a version of this in response to Anna Pickard's article on the Glee finale
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Friday 11 June 2010
Fresh and Clean
To celebrate my late spring clean on the old blog, I'm introducing French duo Jamaica and their cutesy choon, "I think I like u 2".
The lads used to go by the name Poney Poney but, like this blog, have cleaned up their acts a bit and hence the exotic rename. New name + working with Xavier offof Justice ( I MISS those guys) = amazing summery pop not a million miles away from a Phoenix soundalike.I sense great things to come from these guys.
They're also playing at Pukkelpop, a Belgian festival which I've decided looks the one for me this summer. The line up looks stronger than a slab of Stilton and includes my new must-sees Jonsi, Mumford and Sons, The XX, Deadmau5, Jakwob and The Drums. I'd probs go and see Uffie for the bant, before re-visiting GENIUSES Miike Snow whose new single is IMMENSE (even if "the rabbit" is a crapulous name for a single - although my new wish is for a giant bunny, fyi).
Sorry to resort to bunging up music videos but
a) I've been work-experiencing with this wondrous magazine and have been typing like a '60s secretary all week. I literally couldn't have asked for a better week in a magazine: they've kept me busy with all kinds of fascinating articles on local areas, I'm getting a byline AND freelance pay and the editor gave me a personal critique of my writing. I feel like I've massively improved in the space of the last few days and its really got me feeling that I'm heading down the right path.
b) The music is really good, OK?
ALL CHANGE: I've also linked in the June spotify list. Have a look, you can tell there were some serious end-of-term high jinks which have gone into the making of it (S Club whaaat?)
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog
The lads used to go by the name Poney Poney but, like this blog, have cleaned up their acts a bit and hence the exotic rename. New name + working with Xavier offof Justice ( I MISS those guys) = amazing summery pop not a million miles away from a Phoenix soundalike.I sense great things to come from these guys.
They're also playing at Pukkelpop, a Belgian festival which I've decided looks the one for me this summer. The line up looks stronger than a slab of Stilton and includes my new must-sees Jonsi, Mumford and Sons, The XX, Deadmau5, Jakwob and The Drums. I'd probs go and see Uffie for the bant, before re-visiting GENIUSES Miike Snow whose new single is IMMENSE (even if "the rabbit" is a crapulous name for a single - although my new wish is for a giant bunny, fyi).
Sorry to resort to bunging up music videos but
a) I've been work-experiencing with this wondrous magazine and have been typing like a '60s secretary all week. I literally couldn't have asked for a better week in a magazine: they've kept me busy with all kinds of fascinating articles on local areas, I'm getting a byline AND freelance pay and the editor gave me a personal critique of my writing. I feel like I've massively improved in the space of the last few days and its really got me feeling that I'm heading down the right path.
b) The music is really good, OK?
ALL CHANGE: I've also linked in the June spotify list. Have a look, you can tell there were some serious end-of-term high jinks which have gone into the making of it (S Club whaaat?)
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog
Monday 7 June 2010
Let's Get It Over With
I'm just going to say it and then that will be it. World Cup starts soon. We will probably, definitely not win it - an opinion not borne simply of natural English pessimism but also because we're down Ferdinand and Beckham, and even I'm reasonably football literate enough to realise that's not so good.
Last night I spent the entire evening glued to ITV watching the footie. This wasn't just any football match, hooo nooo, this was the glorious Soccer Aid, set up by the increasingly crazy Robbie Williams in aid of Unicef.
The premise sees England take on the Rest of the World on the pitch with teams composed of football legends like Zidane and Alan Shearer alongside celebs like Mike Myers, Gordon Ramsay...and Jonathan Wilkes.
As well as 90 minutes of ball-kicking, you're completely guaranteed comedy moments, whether with the sarcastic commentaries "Great pass from Myers there, Zidane just couldn't control it" or the crapper celebs increasingly winding themselves up. Golden moments like Dominic Cooper's very girlie kicks spring to mind, or the throw-in by Heroes actor Jason Kyson Lee when it was supposed to be a corner kick. Oops.
Delicious eye ca
ndy like the elegant Damian Lewis and fuzzy-haired Michael Sheen (crush slightly ruined after Dad thought he looked like murderer Peter Sutcliffe) also helped the ticking minutes slip by until the ninetieth minute saw a 2-2 draw and the promise of a nail-biting penalty shoot-out ahead.
Last night I spent the entire evening glued to ITV watching the footie. This wasn't just any football match, hooo nooo, this was the glorious Soccer Aid, set up by the increasingly crazy Robbie Williams in aid of Unicef.
The premise sees England take on the Rest of the World on the pitch with teams composed of football legends like Zidane and Alan Shearer alongside celebs like Mike Myers, Gordon Ramsay...and Jonathan Wilkes.
As well as 90 minutes of ball-kicking, you're completely guaranteed comedy moments, whether with the sarcastic commentaries "Great pass from Myers there, Zidane just couldn't control it" or the crapper celebs increasingly winding themselves up. Golden moments like Dominic Cooper's very girlie kicks spring to mind, or the throw-in by Heroes actor Jason Kyson Lee when it was supposed to be a corner kick. Oops.
Delicious eye ca
ndy like the elegant Damian Lewis and fuzzy-haired Michael Sheen (crush slightly ruined after Dad thought he looked like murderer Peter Sutcliffe) also helped the ticking minutes slip by until the ninetieth minute saw a 2-2 draw and the promise of a nail-biting penalty shoot-out ahead.If you care enough I've popped the video in below, but let me tell you now that you should. The video is the epitome of increasingly hysterical celebrities stepping up to try and score in a seemingly never-ending series of penalties: the better ones go first until finally, knees knocking, the much more amateur of the bunch step up to the plate. Mike Myers rips off his trackies to have a go, that "hunk" from the Devil Wears Prada flails all over the place, and somewhat predictably, Dominic Cooper fails. What's completely shocking is the winning shot, and who takes it (clues: he first kicked a ball just 8 years ago, has been harassing kids in Battersea Park to play with him, is a massive movie star and has eyes more piercing than lasers...). Enjoy.
The imminent arrival of the World Cup means one thing for the music world: football anthems. I have to say I was bracing myself for another round of Vindaloo/Three lions laddishness. I wasn't disappointed.
Britain's' Got Talent Final was the showcase for the latest in novelty-yet-amazing choons, the probably inevitable collaboration of ultimate LADS Dizzee and Corden.
The song is a fantastic mashup of footy shouts (COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH), Tears for Fears AND Blackstreets's ayo ayo ayo ayooo riff offof No Diggity. Dizzee's lyrics are to die for:
"Come on England we need to sort it out,
Put the champs down,
Pull your finger out,
Leave the wags alone,
Set aside your ego,
We're tired of bragging about 40 odd years ago,
We need a victory, quick, fast!"
Put simply, it's bloody brilliant and exactly the kind of song this country's going to love to get pumped up to.
In other football-anthem-related news, I spotted this pic posted on Twitter of We Are Scientists in the studio recording their piss-take tune Goal England!
Originally recorded for Zane Lowe on Radio One, this is an indie romp which sounds like a manic game of football and the irresistibly catchy GOAL GOAL GOAL refrain. Top marks for making the effort lads.
The imminent arrival of the World Cup means one thing for the music world: football anthems. I have to say I was bracing myself for another round of Vindaloo/Three lions laddishness. I wasn't disappointed.
Britain's' Got Talent Final was the showcase for the latest in novelty-yet-amazing choons, the probably inevitable collaboration of ultimate LADS Dizzee and Corden.
The song is a fantastic mashup of footy shouts (COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH), Tears for Fears AND Blackstreets's ayo ayo ayo ayooo riff offof No Diggity. Dizzee's lyrics are to die for:
"Come on England we need to sort it out,
Put the champs down,
Pull your finger out,
Leave the wags alone,
Set aside your ego,
We're tired of bragging about 40 odd years ago,
We need a victory, quick, fast!"
Put simply, it's bloody brilliant and exactly the kind of song this country's going to love to get pumped up to.
In other football-anthem-related news, I spotted this pic posted on Twitter of We Are Scientists in the studio recording their piss-take tune Goal England!
Originally recorded for Zane Lowe on Radio One, this is an indie romp which sounds like a manic game of football and the irresistibly catchy GOAL GOAL GOAL refrain. Top marks for making the effort lads.
COME ON ENGLAND!!!
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
We Are Scientists photo from Twitter account.
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog
Wednesday 2 June 2010
Cumbria 02/06/10
May I first begin by expressing my utter shock and horror regarding the brutal murders of 12 innocent Cumbrians by a man driven to unimaginable extremes of sanity. All my sympathy and wishes go out to the victims, the bereaved and those affected.
News broke on a carefree post-exam trip skipping between chocolate-box Dartmoor villages sheltering from a brilliant blue sky beneath waxy green leaves, these rural idylls in the shape of those Western Cumbrian hamlets and communities shaken to the core. Just this morning I had recieved a family phone call from the car heading to the Lake District for an afternoon of sunshine and smiles on board beat-up boats and pursuing the incessantly energetic dog. A feeling of security turned to one of stomach-churning dread as the radio blared facts and figures impossible to digest: a frantic phone call restored some semblance of calm, but the despair remained.
In no way am I trying to say that I can identify or emphasise with those who have been affected by the disaster: however, it was not just the events of this afternoon but of my home life which makes it all seem terrifyingly close to home.
Rural life is my home life: five miles along twisting single-track lanes to civilisation and certain isolation in the freezing winter makes for a more solitary lifestyle lacking in twenty-four hour shopping, Chinese take-aways and efficient transport links. However, there would be few who would welcome the exchange of bird song for bus beeps, of tractor convoys for roads blocked by lorries, of fluffy lambkins for pointy-nosed ratties.
The violence in the countryside is all the more shocking becuase it ruptures a context which seems completely at odds with the incident. Mass random shootings seem from another world; occurrences consigned to crazed American students, perhaps, or else copycat Chinese crazies.
"Countryside" conjures images of peace, beauty, stillness, broken by the squwak of a pheasant or the clanging of a vehicle over a cattle-grid. Gunshots and bodies slumped on pavements belong to grey inner city shoot-outs. Not any more.
It is saddeningly time to realise that the rural world is one no longer protected by its connotations of peace, beauty and community: it is one so removed from violence and its effects that I fear wounds will run even deeper. Unlike violence in the big city context, which may act more as a pause button on the hustle and bustle of life as knife crime incidents jostle for newspaper space, I worry that incidents such as the Cumbrian murders will bring rural communities to a shuddering, empty, hopeless halt. The sparseness and peacefulness of country life may only serve to amplify the awfulness of the incidents.
I pray that it won't.
News broke on a carefree post-exam trip skipping between chocolate-box Dartmoor villages sheltering from a brilliant blue sky beneath waxy green leaves, these rural idylls in the shape of those Western Cumbrian hamlets and communities shaken to the core. Just this morning I had recieved a family phone call from the car heading to the Lake District for an afternoon of sunshine and smiles on board beat-up boats and pursuing the incessantly energetic dog. A feeling of security turned to one of stomach-churning dread as the radio blared facts and figures impossible to digest: a frantic phone call restored some semblance of calm, but the despair remained.
In no way am I trying to say that I can identify or emphasise with those who have been affected by the disaster: however, it was not just the events of this afternoon but of my home life which makes it all seem terrifyingly close to home.
Rural life is my home life: five miles along twisting single-track lanes to civilisation and certain isolation in the freezing winter makes for a more solitary lifestyle lacking in twenty-four hour shopping, Chinese take-aways and efficient transport links. However, there would be few who would welcome the exchange of bird song for bus beeps, of tractor convoys for roads blocked by lorries, of fluffy lambkins for pointy-nosed ratties.
The violence in the countryside is all the more shocking becuase it ruptures a context which seems completely at odds with the incident. Mass random shootings seem from another world; occurrences consigned to crazed American students, perhaps, or else copycat Chinese crazies.
"Countryside" conjures images of peace, beauty, stillness, broken by the squwak of a pheasant or the clanging of a vehicle over a cattle-grid. Gunshots and bodies slumped on pavements belong to grey inner city shoot-outs. Not any more.
It is saddeningly time to realise that the rural world is one no longer protected by its connotations of peace, beauty and community: it is one so removed from violence and its effects that I fear wounds will run even deeper. Unlike violence in the big city context, which may act more as a pause button on the hustle and bustle of life as knife crime incidents jostle for newspaper space, I worry that incidents such as the Cumbrian murders will bring rural communities to a shuddering, empty, hopeless halt. The sparseness and peacefulness of country life may only serve to amplify the awfulness of the incidents.
I pray that it won't.
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