Some people are very good at leading lives in which things happen. Not always nice things, but things nevertheless. Good things, bad things, some amazing, some terrible, all in a fairly constant stream of constant upheaval which, if you could just stop and examine one thing at a time, would be the stuff of family legend.

Taken all at once, and the patience of friends and relatives starts to wear thin. It’s almost as if they think you’re doing it on purpose.

“You’ve WHAT?”, they’ll splutter, “you’ve seperated AND got malaria AND recorded a new album AND been a judge on the X Factor AND been at the centre of a huge tabloid row about your choices as a judge AND made a video as a ballerina AND had a bit of an argument with your boss about something AND started divorce proceedings..? Don’t you ever take a day off? I’m exhausted just LISTING all that stuff!”

Such is the life of Cheryl Cole/Tweedy. And if it has led her to make some interesting song decisions, well that’s all grist to the mill too.

(Here’s the video. Babe in the wood.)

(Here’s Cheryl having a lovely long chat with Sara Cox)

The brilliant thing about that “alouetta wettah wettah” refrain is that you kind of forget that it’s there. It’s a trap laid at the beginning of the song, a trap which is clearly marked, practically with a sign that says BIG TRAP HERE and yet it’s still possible to be caught up in the disco drama and distracted by the velvety swoon of that chorus, to such an extent that the triggering of the refrain feels like a slap around the chops from a spring-loaded wet flannel.

It’s a very distracting song all round, really. Almost punishing, the extent to which it demands your attention. There’s no respite. It goes from weird refrain to panicked verse to dignified chorus – complete with Robert Miles piano, popspotters – without so much as a pause for breath. Listen to it three times in a row and you’ll end up feeling faint. Go for the full half-dozen and you might need to call for medical assistance.

What with this and the Rihanna song it is officially not a good week for the frailer pop fan.

Download: Out now

www.cherylcole.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

Radio Pop Culture says: “I was expecting something more on the lines of ‘Fight for this love’ but it’s growing on me.”

Resonance says: “The melody itself seems almost Super Mario – esque”

View full post on BBC Audio & Music | Radio 1 Chart Blog

On Desperate Housewives‘ sixth-season finale, there were a bunch of bad guys on Wisteria Lane. Gaby found herself in serious danger when her friendship with Angie put her at odds with Patrick Logan. Both Sam and Orson presented Bree with ultimatums. Lynette went into labor, with only crazy Eddie to feed her ice chips. And Susan’s bad guy? Oh, that’s her husband, Mike, whose boneheaded financial decisions rendered them homeless. Plus: A new mystery was revealed and a familiar face returned.

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NBA fans are wondering if James will head to Jay’s New Jersey Nets when his Cleveland contract is up.
By Rahman Dukes

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/j/jay_z/jay_lebron_051410/281x211.jpg"/>



LeBron James and Jay-Z


Photo: MTV News

Now that LeBron James has received an early exit out of the NBA playoffs for the second straight year, fans wonder: Will the 2009-10 MVP hang up his Cavs jersey for a move to Brooklyn?

It’s no mystery that King James and Jay-Z are bosom buddies and that Jay’s influence on the scoring champ could bring the kid from Akron, Ohio, to the Big Apple. Earlier this year at their “Two Kings” annual event during the NBA All-Star weekend in Dallas, Hov told a crowd of reporters that he was impressed by LeBron’s growth over the years.

“I’m inspired by LeBron James at this moment, this season that he’s having,” Jay said. “I didn’t think that he would get any better. I remember when I first met him — he told me that he played point guard and I was like, ‘You’ll never make it in the NBA.’ I didn’t think he’d make it past half-court — he’s 6-foot-8! But I didn’t know how gifted this young man would become. And he’s getting better.”

“Growing up, I had many inspirations,” James added.

Jay-Z and LeBron share many similarities, from the reigning positions in their respective careers down to the origins of their upbringing, as both superstars come from single-parent homes.

“I think our biggest inspirations were our families,” Jay continued. “We didn’t have all of this stuff coming around the neighborhood. For us, it was just our mothers, our parents — our strong mothers.”

Later in the Q&A session, a reporter asked LeBron if he ever thought about playing for the Dallas Mavericks. “Uh …” LeBron paused, looking toward Jay for an answer.

“That’s a little self-serving,” Hov shot back at the reporter.

“What about the Nets?” another reporter asked.

“Nah,” Jay calmly responded. Only time will tell if Jay is pulling our leg — he’s been known to do that.

What team would you like to see LeBron James play for? Let us know in the comments!

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I love it when musicians try really, really hard to make music which angular and awkward and gawky and strange, and they put their heart and soul into taking routes which are not only not well trodden, but which might not actually exist at all. I love this because it’s a contrary impulse to the act of making music in the first place, which is to try and communicate with people, and I love it because sometimes, just sometimes, what they come back with is something which is massively accessible and (whisper it) actually quite poppy.

The Horrors are always good value in that respect. They talk a very confrontational kind of talk, they dare people to enjoy what they do, and yet what they actually do – the dressing up, the big yearning soundscapes, the pretty songs – is very loveable.

Foals, while never claiming to make deliberately difficult music, are another band who seem to happen upon their best ideas as if by accident, while looking for something else entirely.

(Here’s the video. In which we are staring at startling starlings.)

‘This Orient’ feels like something which grew out of a sonic collage, probably called ‘Disorient’, and then renamed once the lyrics started to take shape. Samples of human voices chirrup among twinkling guitars, mooey whale noises waft in and out, things scrape against other things. The only people who seem to be bothered about making any sense out of it in terms of a song are the drummer and bassist, and Yannis the singer, of course. Everyone else is having far too much fun making a racket.

It’s definitely a proper catchy pop song though. Yannis might have toned back on the yelping which made early Foals songs such an eye-opening delight, but this is all to the good. A bit of poise in the melee, a sense of quiet desperation, dispassionate passion, that kind of thing.

And again, even if dissonance is their aim, if challenge is their goal, they’ve structured this exactly like Taio Cruz would’ve done it. Lots of repetition of that chorus line, a few interesting bits and bobs here and there so it doesn’t get wearing, paring things back for the verses, launching into bigger spaces for the choruses, and a sprinkle of fairydust to catch the ear of the floating voters.

Just imagine what astonishing feats they would be capable of, if they were really TRYING…

Download: Out now
CD Released: May 3rd
www.foals.co.uk
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

View full post on BBC Audio & Music | Radio 1 Chart Blog

New video shows Drake torn between a wholesome beauty and a seductive dancer.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/d/drake/over_video/281x211.jpg"/>



Drake in his “Over” music video


Photo: Universal Motown/ Young Money

No more waiting; the video for Drake’s “Over” premiered on Vevo Monday morning (April 12).

The clip starts off with Drake, dressed in white, sitting in a room on a bed, reflecting on his life these days. Images of explosions and time-lapsed cityscapes are projected on him and the wall of the room. From there, he launches into a heavy performance.

“This is my first video,” Drake said on the set of “Over” in early March, though he’s made clips for “Successful,” “Best I Ever Had” and some of his guest stints. “I’ve shot a lot of videos before, but this is my first attempt to establish myself as Drake the artist. Shooting the other videos I’ve done has been great. I really don’t care what other people think about them, they were great experiences for me. I’ve learned a lot from them. Today, I’m shooting with somebody I really look up to and respect. I’m shooting with Anthony Mandler.

“We talked colors, we talked epic, emotion-evoking visuals,” he added. “The story is actually interesting. The song is so aggressive, and it’s sort of a love story in the video. It has a lot to do with the album [Thank Me Later]. The album is about finding love, feeling, ‘Have I sold my soul?’ as far as, ‘Will I ever be able to gain the trust of a woman? Will I only be able to be around the dark, evil women? Will I ever find that pure love?’ Those elements are in the video. I look strong, I feel great, my knee’s feeling great. I’m jumping around, doing all kinds of stuff.”

Toward the end of the video, it looks like Drake has to choose between two beautiful women. One, played by Roc Nation singer Rita Ora, appears to be a more wholesome girl, while the other lady looks more dangerous as she dances provocatively in the background.

“It takes the song to another place,” Drake said of the video last week on the opening night of his Away From Home Tour. “It offers up a whole different look for the song. The song — to a lot of people — is ignorant, it’s club. This video is what I was really thinking about. The song is like a bad dream — but it’s not a bad dream, it’s not a terrible dream. It’s a little evil. The video really reflects that. It’s a struggle between the purities of my past life and what this new life has to offer. Even in the video, you see me looking back and forth between the two and deciding. At the end of the video I don’t necessarily make a decision, but when you get the album, you’ll see what choice I make.”

What do you think of Drake’s video for “Over”? Does it “take the song to another place,” like Drake says? Let us know in the comments below!

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‘The song is really about conflict … we’ve certainly had our fair share of it,’ Jared Leto tells MTV News.
By James Montgomery

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/123/30_seconds_to_mars/30stm_thisiswar/281x211.jpg"/>



30 Seconds To Mars’ Jared Leto


Photo: EMI

At this point, Jared Leto is getting pretty used to conflict. He and his 30 Seconds to Mars bandmates battled their way through the making of their This Is War album, and they basically willed the first single, the epic “Kings and Queens,” onto the rock radio charts.

So when it came time to shoot a video for the second single — the equally soaring title track from the album — well, they pretty much knew the direction they wanted to head.

	Photos From 30 Seconds To Mars’ ‘This Is War’ Video

“The song is really about conflict, and the album really is about it too: the inevitability of conflict, the blessing of conflict and what we can all learn from it. We’ve certainly had our fair share of it,” Leto told MTV News on Friday (April 9). “So for the ‘This Is War’ video, we wanted to explore another side of it. So we decided to portray soldiers in conflict.”

And so, in the video, Leto and company donned U.S. Army fatigues — and body armor — picked up standard-issue M4 rifles and piled into an armored Humvee. Working with director Edouard Salier, they’ve created a short film that looks at conflict through the eyes of the men and women who live it every day. And, much like everything involving 30 Seconds to Mars, they went all in.

“We worked with one of my oldest friends, who served in the Special Forces and has been in Iraq several times. He was our consultant. It was incredible to take a look into his world and his life, the knowledge and expertise he’s gained,” Leto said. “A lot of people are going to interpret this piece in a lot of different ways, and hopefully it will start some debates and some conversations.

“The video made us realize that underneath the uniforms, these men and women out there in conflict are just like you and I. When we put them on, I looked at my brother, looked at [guitarist] Tomo [Milicevic], and they looked like soldiers,” he continued. “You start to walk like a soldier, feel like a soldier, when you’re wearing body armor and carrying a working M4 … it’s an impactful experience. It was definitely provocative for us. It made us think, and that’s the point of the whole thing.”

Leto wouldn’t divulge too much about the concept of the video, only saying that the video contains “a surprise” and features plenty of visual effects. The band shot the video outside of Los Angeles, days after wrapping their first-ever European arena tour, just before they headed down to Las Vegas to begin rehearsals for the U.S. leg of their Into the Wild jaunt. And while it was exhausting, Leto said that was just part of the whole experience. And, by now, they’re used to battling a bit.

“As is the case with everything involving this band, it was more exciting than exhausting, to be honest. In a way, it feels like the beginning again,” he said. “When we were making this album, we took advantage of the opportunity to rediscover ourselves. So it’s really a celebration. We’re just excited to continue on this journey.”

Are you looking forward to the “This Is War” video? Let us know in the comments!

Related Photos

• Photos From 30 Seconds To Mars’ ‘This Is War’ Video

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• href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/30_seconds_to_mars/artist.jhtml">30 Seconds To Mars

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Sadly, my dream that this would be an account of what happened on the day the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were first introduced has not been realised. There are no details of what Death said to Famine on shaking hands (“wow, you’re almost as thin as I am”, probably) or what disgusting smear Pestilence left on War’s armour.

There are also no lyrics devoted to the inevitable four-hour bickerfest in order to decide what to call their little troupe: a rite of passage familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to get a new gang off the ground.

“how about the End of the World Four?”, “No, that’s too ‘beat combo’. Apokkalips?”, “I dunno, people might think we’re a boyband”, “or a metal band”, “and what is so wrong with being thought of as a metal band?”, “well it’s alright for you, War, you look the part”, “Pestilence, can you stop oozing on my sandwiches? You KNOW how hungry I am”, and so on.

I don’t know what 30 Seconds To Mars were thinking really, wasting a perfectly good title on some declaration of defiance. I mean, how ORDINARY…

Just kidding. No song can really be described as ordinary if it features Jared Leto attempting to inspire his immense army of troops to keep fighting until the edge of the Earth, by screaming at them as if it’s the battle of Agincourt and he is the French.

I mean, yes, there is a slight element of bombastic fooey to proceedings. It’s just possible that the song was inspired by watching too many movie trailers, as a lot of the lyrics seem to have that hyper-dramatic pitch to them. I’m surprised Jared doesn’t sing something along the lines of “In a world of [badthing] and [anotherbadthing], one man must seek out the [courage/strength/hope] he needs, to save the [woman/family/treehouse] he loves from the forces of [reallybadthing].”

But really, that is just what this band are like. They’ve taken the internal bleak drama of emo, and pumped it full of muscular passion and martial fury, before projecting it onto a really, REALLY wide screen. It would make no sense for music this committed to be anything less than ridiculously overblown.

Suddenly lyrics about why some girls are a bit rubbish would seem lame. Worlds collide, cultures rise and fall, there’s a messiah, a pariah, but definitely no Mariah. That is how 30 Seconds To Mars do what they do, and if you have a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with the enormous army of eyeliner-clad warriors waiting in the car park.

Careful though, they have sharp nails.

Download: Out now
www.myspace.com/thirtysecondstomars
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

View full post on BBC Audio & Music | Radio 1 Chart Blog

MTV’s reality series The Hills will say goodbye after this season, Entertainment Weekly reports.

Poll: Who’s the best Hills bad girl?

“I think we’ve told the story of struggle and of finding yourself in L.A.,” creator Adam DiVello told EW. “A lot of these kids have…

Read More >

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• Laguna Beach
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• Kristin Cavallari
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Well this puts the cat among the scaredy-mice and no mistake. Scouting For Girls have decided to grow up a little bit, leave behind the helter-skelter tumbledown sillypop of ‘She’s So Lovely’ and ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’ and add a little mature wisdom to their sound.

This will be good news to those of you who froth at the mouth at the very mention of the band’s name, or at least, better news than you might’ve feared, but not quite the Band Disappear In Puff Of Smoke headline you might’ve wished for, Me, I’m unconvinced.

While we’re on that point, another thing I’m not sure I get is where all the vitriol is coming from. I don’t think anyone would claim that the Scouts are an IMPORTANT BAND in that kind of deadening, circular way people do when a new band sounds like an old band who probably were, given the benefit of hindsight, quite influential – on the new band at the very least.

They are – or were – a band whose songs could be played at children’s discos and would guarantee to fill the floor. Apparently this is a bad thing.

Well now they sound like a matey Keane, is everyone happy now?

(Here’s the video. Despair in the departure lounge.)

OK, so that’s not perhaps the biggest sonic departure the world has ever experienced, that honour goes to Paul Cattermole, the fella who left S Club 7 to form a nu-metal band, but it’s still noticeable. It’s all there in the ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ introduction, with the stately piano and the swelling orchestra and the overwhelming Keaney Keaneity of things.

Thankfully Roy’s voice is still far too ripe and rude to slip into Tom Chaplin’s choirboy innocence. There’s a grain to it which – for me – always saved the most indefensibly silly bits of their songs from being a total wackyfest. Plus they always put a climactic breakdown in their best songs, like the “I don’t know, I don’t know” bit in ‘She’s So Lovely’, which you wouldn’t do if your only wish was to jolly the world up.

No chance of that here, of course. It’s a breakup song, none of the lyrics are clever-clever and it is stately and dignified. All perfectly fine things in their own right, but I can’t be the only person who thinks showing some personality is just as important as not being irritating, can I?

Download: 28th March
www.scoutingforgirls.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

View full post on BBC Audio & Music | Radio 1 Chart Blog

Project Runway rundown: Things get very hairy for Amy

See what resident Runway expert Chris March says on the winner and loser of this challenge. Plus, find out why he thinks “the judges were smoking crack this week.”

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