Meanwhile… Back to lists and stats! The dementedly thorough everyhit.com should provide ample entertainment for those of you missing Tom’s Popular blog these last couple of weeks. Among other things, the site has pleased us greatly by noting that the record for the longest note held on a UK top 40 single is held by Morten Harket for ‘Summer Moved On’ (no. 33, June 2000) — one of great lost single of recent years – beating Bill Withers’ ‘Lovely Day’ by a whole 2.2 seconds.
G is for… Goths
This week is your last chance to see Kyoichi Tsuzuki’s exhibition ‘Happy Victims’ at the Photographer’s Gallery in London. Tsuzuki’s photos illustrate a kind of consumerist version of the Vermorel’s Starlust book, featuring ‘individuals who have turned the act of shopping into an indefinable obsession, lying somewhere between artistic expression and an unusual kind of fetishism’. Maybe this kind of thing should really be blogged over on DYS, but isn’t pop just as much about emotional investment in fantasy worlds as it is about the boys-own world of lists and stats? Among the label victims and style slaves are: ‘the three young Osakan girl-goths who share their lives, their apartment and their love of Jane Marple, a designer who defines the Japanese Goshiki or gothic style.’
F is for… FEAR OF A FULLER PLANET
Last nite’s two-hour prime-time binge of The National Music Awards was, in its own sweet way, even freakier than anything Xtina’s stylists could dream up for last week’s MTV beano. Produced by the Granada team behind Pop Idol, the event felt like a very, very long trailer for the day, coming soon, when Simon Fuller is unanimously elected Emperor of Earth (via 25p per min. phone lines). Gates, Young, Stevens and — bless — even the Cheeky Girls, accepted awards from GMTV presenters, smiled sweetly and thanked their mums. Awards were presented for ‘Favourite Theme Tune of the Year’ (Ant and Dec’s ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ — A&D wisely accepted their gong via videotape) and ‘Favourite Music in a TV Ad’. This all might have been campy fun had the event had one scintilla of the hysteria of, say, the Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party. The high point of the evening may have been the dawning horror on the face of Ronan Keating as he realised that this new MOR makes even him seem left-field.
Meanwhile, Ananova reports:
Pop Idol creator Simon Fuller is reportedly planning to screen an international version of the show. World Idol will feature 12 winners from around the globe in a giant Eurovision-style talent contest.