I actually didn’t discover this song until quite recently, one of those ones that I’ve heard plenty of times but never really knew what it was. As ever, Mr C was more than happy to educate me, and now I really, really like it. It’s not so much the song that I like, but the fact that this song, and more importantly the video, creates amazing conversations. For the record, I think he did it, and Mr C thinks he was framed. We will continue to have this debate every single time we hear the song, and it never gets old.

It’s no secret that Radiohead aren’t afraid to try something new with their distribution models, particularly in the scope of online delivery. Their free release of In Rainbows, where consumers were encouraged to pay what they felt it was worth, garnered them a lot of media (if not money). Now, Thom Yorke has spoken out in Believer magazine, admitting that CDs were never his favourite: There’s a process of natural selection going on right now. The music business was waiting to die in its current form about 20 years ago. But then, hallelujah, the CD turned up and kept it going for a bit. But basically, it was dead.

As heard on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud, EMI are apparently backing out of deals with smaller retailers in the US, preferring to only sell to the big stores, such as Walmart and Best Buy. I don’t know why they’d stop, surely it is the same price to deliver to one store as it is to another, however, this is bad news for physical music sales. Independent CD shops tend to have a much wider selection, buy and sell used music, and can track down relatively unknown artists. I don’t remember the last time I bought a CD, and I won’t notice when these shops disappear. I think a lot of people will though.

I was recently perusing the Podcasting News site and found an article with some new media tips from Trent Reznor. Now, I am only vaguely aware of Mr Reznor, not being a Nine Inch Nails fan, myself. However, it was the tips themselves that fascinated me. And by fascinated, I mean baffled. It starts off well. Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic.

I have found myself analysing blogging a little too much recently, but one thing has occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought about before. The blogs, or entries therein, that are based around a specific structure are very, very interesting. For example, on this very corner of the interweb, I have a couple of ongoing projects - the Film Watch live blogs, and the Great Gardening Adventure. Now, I am bound to say these are interesting, I am biased like that. However, I have seen similar ideas on other blogs, and really enjoy reading them.

We’re listening to Last.fm of a Saturday night, with the 80s tag plugged into the radio station option. Don’t Stop Believing by Journey comes on and we get about two seconds into it before Mr C says: “That’s the 4 chords.” We had to pause it, drop everything, and watch the video again, because there is nothing more amazing than this. I think I may have blogged it already, but it bears repeating.

When I first discovered Last.fm it was a revolutionary thing - all that music, available to listen to for free? It was a turning point for my listening habits. Most of the time, I would select a radio station - pop or indie or 80s - and listen away, occasionally skipping the tracks that weren’t to my taste. Being able to heart the best songs, track what I’d listened to previously, and share the music with others was a great thing.

For the first time in their six years of broadcasting, Radio 1’s sister station 1Xtra is to go on tour. The Breakfast Show will be in five different cities over the course of a week from 16th-20th March. The show goes out live each morning from 8-11am. It’s presented by Trevor Nelson and Gemma Cairney, and will feature performances from special guests. From the BBC Press Release, here are the details of the tour:

As media, and particularly music, becomes more and more digital, it seems as though subscription services are the way of the future. There are many sites out there that offer an all-you-can-eat style buffet service, allowing a monthly fee to provide access to all tracks behind the wall. Of course, once you cancel your subscription you are left with nothing, but as long as you continue to pay, you can continue to consume as much as you desire.

Elbow have been having a stellar couple of years, with the Mercury Music prize under their belts, plus the Best British Group gong at the 2009 BRITs. Now it seems their popularity translates to the Red Button Music Sessions. The Red Button service often provides coverage of music festivals and events throughout the year, and also screens performances that are usually recorded for radio. Elbow were playing for Radio 2, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, at Abbey Road, and the gig took place on the 17th January.

First impression: How dare they??? Second impression: Could be worse. Thoughts? Update - Third impression: As with most covers, it seems to miss out on the emotion of the original, however, it is growing on me.

I’ve just found this and had to share. Utterly amazing. Aside from the fact it’s scary how many songs are alike, I’m very impressed with their ability to switch from one to the other. I’d just get carried away and at least finish the chorus of one song. How do they manage to control themselves to just do one line of each?

I’m all for the return of Top of the Pops and TOTP2, and I don’t really think they should have disappeared in the first place. There are very few decent music programs on TV as it is, I’m pretty sure the Beeb could have adapted Top of the Pops to remain mainstream if they’d really wanted to. Of course, they didn’t, and then they announced it wouldn’t even be back for a Christmas special. As soon as Simon Cowell poked his head above the parapet and said he’d sort it out, they decided perhaps they would like to stage the show after all.

One of the things I regret from my lack of time these days is not attempting to play the piano anymore. I can’t honestly say that it’s all down to being busy, as I did hike a keyboard around with me through a couple of flats and it didn’t get much use. I don’t know where the motivation went but I do miss it. Playing music is great fun, and there’s nothing like jamming with anyone you can find who can also lay their hands on an instrument.

Been browsing through the iTunes top 100 songs for a while. Not planning on buying, just seeing if I’m missing anything. Having my head so buried in the podcasting cloud, I barely have time to listen to the radio anymore. The answer was not much, by the way, although there were a few surprises along the way. What the hell is Neil Diamond doing in the top 100 downloaded songs in iTunes?

Coldplay’s piano gift for school They’re nice boys really.

Brigitte’s Archives » Blog Archive If you haven’t seen Brigitte’s videos before, you MUST watch. I love them. Even a ten minute shout out show is good fun. Music - News - U2 sign 12-year deal with Live Nation - Digital Spy Surely the state of media/entertainment industries right now means you would want to steer clear of a 12 year deal?

Not content with getting through an entire day at work on Monday, I also decided that was the day to go back to the gym. I was really surprised at how happy I was when I got there. Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I actually missed going to the gym. While I was puffing away on the cross-trainer, I plugged my iPod in and played a random playlist. There was some quite uninspirational music. Will Young?? He’s not the best for working out, is he?

I was sitting in my car on the way home from the most awful day ever. I was stopped at some traffic lights. The Feeling came on the radio, with the lyrics of the title. Suddenly, the sky got really, really dark. It turned a beautiful blue that I’ve never seen before and all the clouds merged into one giant dark mess. The sun was shining in from one side, and lit up the entire street. The trees were almost glistening. Even the rundown Chinese takeaway and the ex-petrol station took on a whole new, glossy image.

I was like any other young girl in the world, and wanted to be a famous pop star when I grew up. I would prance around my bedroom, with my hairbrush as my microphone. I would get very excited about finding a karaoke album with up to date pop songs, so that I could really show off how great I was. Problem was, I could never actually sing out loud in front of other people. Not a good start to a career in the music business, eh?

I’ve been looking into buying some more piano music. Every now and again I sit down at my keyboard and bash out some of the standard tunes that I have, but my music is the same it’s been for about three years. It’s about time I purchased something new, something I really want to play, something to get my teeth into. However, nothing is grabbing me. I’ve been to the best music shop in the world (which upon searching for the website for, I have discovered has been sold - my world has crashed down upon my shoulders…), I’ve even been searching on Amazon, but nothing is jumping out at me.

I just Love This. It made me laugh so much, I almost spilled my Diet Coke. And yes, I know I shouldn’t be drinking Diet Coke at this time of night, but I’m addicted to it. Okay? The Brooklyn tea shop is playing an eclectic mix of ‘80s music. We’ve been there working for an hour or so when “Fame!” comes on, and the cashier turns it up. FAME! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER! BABY REMEMBER MY NAAAAAME. (Remember! Remember!)

The guy that rattles his change in his pockets incessantly. I don’t care how much money you have or haven’t got on you so please find a less irritating nervous habit. The people in Holby City that use their mobile phones all the time - even the doctors! This is not a good message to send out to your viewers. In ER, the only time I’ve ever seen reference to a mobile phone is when Carter switched his on as he was exiting the building, not while he was stood next to someone’s life-support machine. Jamelia’s song DJ. The lyrics are: “DJ, give me a beat I can rock to, I want a joint you can drop to, the ceiling is caving in, the speakers is rumbling.” The speakers are rumbling, love. It would make no difference to the timing or to the meaning of the sentence but would be grammatically correct. That I had one good thing to write on this Wind Me Up but I put the other three first so that I wouldn’t forget them and have promptly forgotten the original idea. Dammit!

The judges on Strictly Come Dancing Champion of Champions saying that they wanted Denise & Ian to win when we could all see that Jill & Darren were the best by miles. Harry Potter VI topping the best-sellers chart when it’s not even out for another seven months. I’m looking forward to it too, but I’m not that crazy. That having got bored of the Christmas songs we were allowed to play this week, people have brought in their own CDs such as Dido, Dire Straits, Meatloaf, Buddy Holly, Dido (again), Shania Twain, and Jon Bon Jovi. They’re played low so they don’t disturb anyone, but it sure as hell disturbs me that I can hear them, but not loud enough so I can figure out what song is playing. The little “Singing Scottie” that sits on a colleague’s desk and sings “Oh, Christmas Tree”. As cute and funny as it is, it’s really loud and makes it impossible and embarrassing to talk on the phone.

Electric 6 have covered Radio Ga Ga. It’s awful. Enough said.

I’d just like to say that although I appreciate the sentiment of the Girls Aloud Children In Need single “I’ll Stand By You”, they just shouldn’t do it. They’re too happy about it, they don’t have the emotion in their voices and they don’t appear to understand what they’re saying - they may as well be singing about candyfloss. As I have been saying all weekend - It’s just wrong.

Okay, I have been proclaiming several things as rubbish the past couple of days and every time I have been proved wrong. The most important one is the new comedy Green Wing which has just begun on Channel 4 and stars a whole host of comedians. The adverts didn’t really get me chuckling and I was determined that it was going to be rubbish, but when we sat down to watch it, couldn’t stop laughing. So yes, I was wrong.

I made an iMix but half the songs aren’t in the music store. I’ve been bitten a million times - AGAIN - and it itches and it hurts and I hate it. I started watching Nip/Tuck, but didn’t think it was very good. I watched the first ten minutes of Ny-Lon but thought that was rubbish too. Where’s all the good TV gone?

Anyway… website update - 101 Words will have its own site very soon. I apologise for the delay but learning PHP and MySql is bound to take more than a day and it happens that I keep getting distracted by iTunes and Prince of Persia! And on the subject of iTunes, please note the new iMix section, I just discovered playlists and will probably be up till the early hours creating them! And to do that, I’m probably going to have to download some new music. Shame.

I was mega happy this afternoon after watching Tim Henman win his match - it had everything you could ever want, a Brit, some diving and some swearing, and a sulky Delta Goodrem, she’s famous you know! There was also a little bit of tennis going on as well… Now, I will talk to you about iTunes. I want to recommend it to each and every one of you. I scoffed when he first couldn’t sit still for the excitement about it, but now I couldn’t agree more. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s relatively cheap (providing you don’t go mad). The selection leaves a lot to be desired but I think it has the scope to be massive.

Rant No. 1 I do not understand birthdays at work. If it’s your birthday, at many offices you have to go out and buy some cakes or donuts or cookies, or a selection of all three. Everyone very graciously wishes you happy birthday and thanks you for the sweet treats. It’s all nice and pleasant. But my birthday means nothing to me, I’d rather the day just went by like any other. I don’t particularly enjoy eating the cakes that other people bring in, nor my own, so it really starts to feel like… why should I bother?

Who watched Eastenders? I have to put my two cents in and say that the whole nation would have been watching the episode and not even bothered concentrating on what was happening with Sharon and Little Dennis, when they knew who was going to appear at the end. And could it have been more predictable? “Hello princess” and roll the drums… I’ve been listening to Radio One a lot recently, what with all the driving I’ve been doing and I can’t work out whether I like it or not. I like half the songs, and I only really rate Chris Moyles as a presenter, and probably only him cos of Comedy Dave.

The last day of work! Then two whole fabulously festive weeks off! Yesterday started out as the worst day I’ve ever known but it got so much better. Mr C and I settled down with take-out pizza and watched a rip-off of MTV where there were only a select few videos that were on loop. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s only so many times you can hear ‘Sound of the Underground’ before wanting to rip your own ears off.