Is Britain really bored of pop music or is chart performance not as relevant as it once was?

So, I recently read Seamus Duff's blog post on Metro UK's site; “After Lady Gaga’s Applause fails to hit the top stop: Has Britain got bored of pop music?" and felt he'd missed a few points so I decided to write down my thoughts. You can read Seamus's original piece here

Pop music is defined by David Hatch and Stephen Millward, authors of From Blues to Rock: An Analytical History of Pop Music as “a body of work which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk music”.  Pop music can be described as a different genre which is primarily aimed at a younger market and can often be considered a softer alternative to rock and roll. Based on this we can assume that throughout your blog post you’re referring to pop music as a separate genre; however it’s fair to assume that music can be considered pop by the mass appeal it receives upon release.

First of all I’d like to point out that Lady Gaga rushed the release of her new single “Applause” based on a leak of the track, this will have no doubt damaged the sales of her track as there was a free alternative to buying the track, therefore reducing her sales and chances of hitting the top spot of the charts.

You also mention One Direction not making the top spot with their release “Best Song Ever” and describing the effort as “the most shocking flop yet”. In the first 24 hours of this song going on music video website VEVO the video was viewed 12.3 million times setting a new record for most views on day one, I don’t think this could be considered a flop by any stretch of the imagination. Love them or loathe them they’re a force to be reckoned with.

One Direction was held off of the top spot by Swedish producer Avicii with “Wake Me Up”, this song was knocked from the top spot by Miley Cyrus with “We Can’t Stop”, a pop track itself.

In reality it’s easy to see how the music world is changing, artists no longer need to make it to the top spot to be considered successful, and money is made from other endeavours by both the artists and their management, for example US alternative hip-hop/rap collective Odd Future.

If you’re not familiar to them I’ll fill you in a little, Odd Future are a controversial rap collective from the United States, notable artists including Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean all going on to have successful solo careers. In the beginning of their career the group would give their music away as free downloads using sites such as Myspace and Tumblr, their income was generated by pop up stores selling handmade merchandise at premium prices. While having little to no commercial success with any single releases from their albums yet still making money.

While pop music may not be making as much of a splash in the charts as it once did it’s still a hugely important style of music to a lot of fans, you mention Lady Gaga having 40 million plus followers on Twitter, this is irrelevant to the UK top 40 as its 40 million worldwide, record sales from outside the UK have no impact on the charts. Services such as VEVO are highly lucrative to artists and incredibly important based on the decline of music sales, artists have to evolve and change their operations to keep up.

While I find your blog post to be a fascinating observation of the current state of the music industry I have to respectfully disagree, while established artists may not being hitting the top spot Britain has definitely not got bored of pop music, unfortunately it is here to stay.

Megamix playlist

I'm not going to bang on with this post, I'm not going to talk about anything in particular, I am however going to show several different videos and leave you with a Spotify playlist and have a line or so under each track to explain it's relevance. Try to enjoy if you have that ability.

Released in 1998 this track from Canadian alternate rockers is truly a thing to marvel at, pop culture references flood the track and make it easily one of my favourite songs.

I once had a 24 hour drinking bender with a couple of friends, before we realized we were going to be drinking for such a long time we were singing this song, after a while it became the unofficial anthem for the night.

What a Waster by The Libertines has been a staple inclusion to almost every playlist I've created in the past 8 years so it obviously has to be included on this list, ya two bob cunt.

With an opening line as subtle as a baseball bat to the face "there's no wrong way to fuck a girl with no legs" it had to be included here, beautifully sensitive song.

Itch, Jamie, Fruitbag and Johnny Rich, oh how good The King Blues were around the 'Save the world get the girl' era. My personal favourite song by the band, touching and upbeat at the same time.

Time for the usual lull in a playlist, the mood is dropped by a little Sac v Pip, a story of self harm and suicide asking the questions no one thinks of while contemplating such a tragic decision.

Tyler had to make an appearance on this playlist somewhere, taken from his most recent album Wolf this is the track I feel is strongest of the whole album, maybe even his career.

Kicking back a couple of years with this one, from goth superstars The Cure 'Just Like Heaven', my personal favourite track from them.

Next is from the UK's best rapper at the moment, Kate Tempest and her band Sound Of Rum, I chose this purely because of the beautiful opening music and obviously the lyrical genius of the track.

That shit cray? No, no it is not and it's featuring here, ain't it Jay?

Oh the memories, they are flooding me with this like I'm stuck on a slowly sinking canoe.

Do you have the time to listen to me whine? You fucking better because it's on here like a mudda fucker.

Almost at the end, don't say I never warned ya.

What better way to wind down than with our lord and saviour, Sage Francis.

Curry five times in one week

Let's get into this a lot quicker than I usually do, getting the real point of the article to you as soon as I possibly can, Tesco can make one hell of a hot tikka masala. I had this delightful ready meal on Monday, Tuesday, again on Wednesday and Thursday, chilled on Friday with a pizza then had another today, that's right five days out of six.

Let's back track, let's get to the point of why I'm eating this so often was initially based solely on the price, a steal at £1.85, once I'd had it the first time I was hooked. There's several large chunks of chicken in a slightly spicy sauce accompanied by pilau rice, it's heavenly.

So far I've had no backlash from the curry, no erratic shitting and such so I'm thinking it can only be a good thing for me. Thank you Tesco, you've restored my faith in microwave meals you classy son's 'a bitches.

Crazy About One Direction - What is wrong with people?

So last night I watched Channel 4's 'Crazy About One Direction,' a documentary about the incredibly, let's say passionate fans of the UK boy band One Direction. Following several 'Directioners,' the documentary examines the lengths some fans go to meet the members of the band, methods including booking nights in hotels where the band are, going to their home towns and generally stalking them on Twitter at all hours of the day, the final product is film showing obsession and a fairly seedy subculture of young girls dedicated their whole lives to the band.

The ‘Directioners’ interviewed throughout the documentary range from totally insane to quite sad, on girl, Natasha got braces just because Niall Horan had them, she didn't need them just thought they looked good on him. Natasha’s story just made me feel quite sad for her, she’s responsible for looking after her younger sibling and disabled mother, One Direction are her kind of escape from ordinary life. In one scene she’s visually shaken by visiting the band’s waxwork statues. Another girl shown is one of the most intense people I've seen in a long time, she spent her 18^th birthday in the same hotel as the band hoping to see them, at one point she proudly admits that Taylor Swift blocked her on twitter following their break up.

Another disturbing aspect of this was the so called “Shipping,” a fantasy thought up by the ‘Directioners’ of band members having affairs amongst themselves. There’s fan artwork, videos and erotic artwork of romantic interludes with band members, these seem to mainly focus on Harry and Louis with their names being combined to make Larry Stylinson.

Overall this documentary show’s how dark some of these fans can get, it show’s their threats to anyone dating anyone in the band, their constant stalking and dealing with the rejection when the band doesn't meet them. Another aspect I feel is shown is how disinterested the band actually is with meeting the fans, obviously they don’t have the time to meet all of them and there’s risks attached but they seem to actively avoid them at some points; for instance after announcing their tour at Wembley Arena, they’re all seen leaving the venue in cars with blacked out windows, it amazes me that they didn't have some kind of meet and greet to show some connection to the people making them a success.

Finally I feel it’s appropriate to note that this isn't a representation of all of their fans, it’s the fans who've completely dedicated their lives to the band, these are just normal teenage girls feeling they’re part of something that they really don’t need to be a part of.

The Morrisons cookie pie amazement

Today was fairly slow, that was until I went to Morrisons and discovered the delights of the toffee chocolate cookie pie. The word revelation is thrown around a lot these days, TV shows, films and music all get this unneeded title, these people throwing this phrase around willy nilly have clearly never had a Morrisons cookie pie, if they had the word revelatory would be seriously considered before being used.

Let us begin by introducing the structure of the cookie pie, it's a extra thick chocolate chip cookie topped with chocolate icing with pieces of fudge placed on the top, now I've got your interest... What if I was to tell you this magnificent beast would cost you nothing more than fifty pence? Would you now say I've got your attention? If I don't then there is clearly something wrong with you and you should immediately stop reading this post and go back to eating raw carrots.

The trick to conquering this beast of a biscuit is speed, eat it fast before the inevitable pukey feeling hits you, that is game over with this tasty treat, do not, I repeat not succumb to your body's cry's for you to stop eating it.

In conclusion, if you don't mind throwing up or perhaps losing a foot to diabetes then leave your home, work place, church or whatever you're doing and buy this delightful food stuff, you may regret it but you'll enjoy it at the time.

Reading's classiest couple

I've been staying in Reading for around 10 months now and not a day goes by without me seeing someone doing something completely mental. Throughout this blog you'll learn about a lot of these people and my theories of why they're out and about so often, for this very special debut I've decided to write about one of my favourites.

So the beginning of this year was superb, I was loaded, I'd received two student loans and was living the best possible life I could with the very small drawback of having nowhere to live so I did the thing every sensible 21 year old man would do, I spent all my time in Starbucks "looking for a flat". Anyway over my many visits I'd see people come and go, business people, shop workers on a break and kids acting like they were grown ups were the most frequent visitors, except there were a couple who'd appear on a daily basis and wouldn't seem to leave.

Surrounded by shopping bags and usually sitting away from each other they were two of the strangest people I'd ever laid my eyes on. There was a woman, later forties to early fifties wearing a baggy pair of shorts, short cut hair and a massive red coat which would often be over her head for some reason and there was a man, her partner I'm assuming. He had a slightly less kooky dress sense, kinda of like a typical old man but always wearing a winter hat and chugging on a large carton of mango Rubicon, he'd cough and splutter and look close to death but seemed okay most of the time. The real thing that made these two so distinguishable was the woman's behaviour, she was fucking mental, to put it bluntly. She'd go into the toilet and be in there for what seemed like hours then come out looking shifty, whisper to the guy and they'd leave with haste. I once went in after her and saw some kind of brown substance in the plug hole of the sink, I don't want to think it was shit but there doesn't seem to be many other possible things it could be.

One particular instance of her insanity sticks out in my head above all others. Let me paint a little picture, I'm sitting down, watching the world go by and playing some Simpsons Tapped Out on my iPad when I see our two heroes(?) walk in. They set up in the usual positions, the guy on the side wall, the woman running around like someone's lit a firework up her arse sitting at all tables in the shop. There's a guy sitting over by the window typing away on his laptop and minding his own business when all of a sudden the lady runs over to him and throws a ten pound note down in front of him, he looks confused and picks it up to see if it's real, which it is. She continues with her mission of sitting everywhere, collecting cups and acting weird eventually making her way back to the guy, she simply asks him "did you get one?" he looks confused, rightly so and replies "yes, but why did you give me it?". Her reply is amazing, she says no words to begin with, throws a twenty at him and says "there ya go!". I didn't know what to say, think or do, the guy seemed to buy a coffee and a cake with it.

There's been other stories about bother the man and the woman appear on the Reading Spotted Facebook page, one claiming that they'd been seen behind the shopping centre, the man holding the woman up while she threw up with the power of a water cannon. You see her occasionally run from one shop to another with her coat over her head and the guy a considerable amount of distance behind, or riding buses at all hours; this brings me on to the most recent encounter I've had with her, he was nowhere to be seen.

Above is a photo of the lady herself. Usually you'll see her riding a bus towards Whitley but tonight she was on her way to Earley, the guy wasn't around at all and she was asleep with her coat over her head like this the entire journey. Don't worry, as I got off I informed the bus driver about her odd behaviour and that she was asleep so I'm sure she's fine. 

So that's the first post, hope it wasn't too strenuous to read. This is just one of the many characters I've seen along my travels and I plan to write about each of them as well as other things. If it was too strenuous tough, you've read it now and gave me a view, cheers.