1. Find Likeminded Fans. Record labels can only promote your music using a scattergun approach, advertising to everyone within a certain demographic. Using social media means that word will spread among friends who know each other’s taste and may well share it so when they find an artist they like.
2. Get People Talking. No matter how much money a record label throws at an artist, there’s no guarantee that anyone will be interested in buying their albums or seeing them play. A buzz on social media is much more likely to draw people’s attention as they will hear about it through their friends and social contacts. Viral marketing is a powerful tool when it comes to attracting attention to your music and many bands have built their careers on the basis of a grassroots movement among fans who have discovered their music online.
3. Share Your Music. A record label will be concerned with getting people to buy your music, but when you use social media you can share your music and let people listen to it without having to commit to making a purchase. This allows people to follow an artist’s progress and see how their sound grows as they mature. The outlay for the musician is also minimal as there is no need to pay to have CDs pressed or spend money on marketing. They can focus on just making music.
4. No Compromise. If you know how you want to sound and feel passionate about your music, then you don’t want to have to change it to suit a record label’s agenda. For many artists, keeping the music at the forefront is crucial.
5. The Importance of Live Music. With so many studio tricks possible, live music could be a dying art if it weren’t for social media. Listening to a band or artist performing their unedited tracks online could encourage people to go to a live show where they can get an idea of how their favourite artists really sound.
6. Find People Where They Are. Instead of hoping that fans come to you, using social media to promote your music means that you are taking your music to them. You don’t have to worry about whether you are reaching your target market because the word will spread among their peers and reach people who might otherwise not respond to record-company advertising.
7. Honest Feedback. A record label will tell you how you could be marketed and what your key demographic might be. They will be interested in maximising their investment. When you promote your music through social media, however, the people listening to it will give you honest and useful feedback to help you shape your sound.
Social Media & Web has become more important for young artists like Anassa Oneill who appreciates the value of giving her fans a taste of her music. As an independent artist, Anassa chooses to stay true to her roots and produce the music she loves in the way that she wants. She enjoys the freedom that comes with not having to conform.
It’s been a decade since the release of Britney Spears’ misunderstood road trip movie Crossroads. The film was initially derided as an awkward, contrived and cynically packaged marketing exercise, but now, finally, the critical landscape is ready to accept the truth: Crossroads is a masterpiece, and the greatest road adventure ever committed to celluloid.
Why? Well, there are dozens of reasons, but here are the top seven…
1. The story. Crossroads is a both a literal and emotional journey. The plot sees three small-town friends – the shy Lucy (Britney Spears), popular Kit (Zoe Saldana), and pregnant Mimi (Taryn Manning) – travel across America so Mimi can audition for something and fulfill the dream she’s held for at least the first 12 minutes of the movie.
But this is no shallow teenage odyssey – these girls are on a journey of self-discovery. Forget your preconceptions of Crossroads as derivative fodder for the early 2000s Myspace and MTV audience; this is an original and skilfully crafted coming-of-age chef-d’oeuvre.
In the space of an indeterminate length of time, the three lead characters face life-changing conflict and decisions. This transforms them from girls – who don’t think about practical things like maps, accommodation, car tax or bike insurance – into almost-women of responsibility and self-determination.
In many ways Crossroads packs a far greater emotional journey punch than, say, The Motorcycle Diaries. Ernesto Guevara is no Lucy Wagner.
2. The star. As Lucy Wagner, Britney Spears creates one of the most iconic female protagonists in film history.
Her narrative arc is compelling. Dramatic. She changes from a girl who’s musically talented but shy, to a girl who’s musically talented but not quite as shy. And even though the film is partially about her sexual awakening, she maintains a thoroughly wholesome all-American-ness throughout. This is the work of a seriously amazing actor.
In fact, Britney’s acting is mesmerising throughout the film. She does it all, acting sad, happy, conflicted; no emotion is beyond her acting range. Her lack of acting employment since Crossroads just goes to show that she acted so well in 2002 she has nothing left to prove.
3. The Themes. While the casual viewer might see only facile fun and friction, Crossroads is really about the things that matter. Things that matter to young people. Things like love. And friendship. And there’s stuff about date rape and teen pregnancy too, which in no way feel like token issues lazily shoehorned in to engineer credibility by association. It’s deep.
And it gets deeper. Road trips movies are about vehicles, and Crossroads is both a road trip movie and a vehicle; it’s a star vehicle – showcasing Britney’s acting talent – and it’s a vicarious vehicle, transporting us through the kind of intelligent and seminal cinematic adventure that comes along maybe once in a generation.
Even the movie’s title, Crossroads, is a reference to the metaphorical crossroads encountered by its characters.
Basically, this is a movie that works on every possible thematic level.
4. The Cameos. While this vehicle is driven by the star quality of Britney Spears, Crossroads has several excellent supporting performances. Lovable dork Justin Long has a close-but-no-cigar bedroom scene, playing a desperate nerd trying to lose his virginity with a partially-clothed and smokin’ Britney. The scene is incredibly plausible.
Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall plays against type as a vacuous, materialistic narcissist. In her role as Brit’s mother, Cattrall enjoys some of the most authentic-sounding dialogue of the film. Her performance is veritably the opposite of stilted and awkward.
Best of all, Dan Aykroyd plays Brit’s father Pete. Some people say Dan Aykroyd hasn’t done anything decent since Ghostbusters. They say he doesn’t care anymore. But Crossroads is proof that argument just isn’t true. There’s no way he phoned this one in. No way.
5. The Poetry. One of the best scenes in the movie comes when Britney recites a poem from her notebook by the campfire. Brit informs us she’s Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman by reading aloud lines like, “I used to think I had the answers to everything, but now I know that life doesn’t always go my way.”
It’s a stunningly eloquent and insightful exploration of complicated teenage emotions. In just one minute of screentime, Britney simultaneously lends a lyrical complexity and high-brow gravitas to the already nuanced film, and establishes herself as the feminine voice of her generation.
If there can be any criticism of Crossroads – which is difficult because it’s pretty much perfect – it’s that there should be more poetry.
6. The Dreamboat. The professionally handsome man-actor Anson Mount plays Ben – Britney’s on-screen love interest. Ben is a dream. A hunk. He’s a good-looking rebel playing by his own rules. At one point he smoulders so hard he threatens to reduce vulnerable Britney to a puddle of yearning oestrogen.
Anson’s completely believable chemistry with Brit is momentarily jeopardised when one of the girls admits he’s a criminal; maybe even… a killer. Yes. I know. Edgy.
But it turns out Ben was actually arrested on a technicality – for crossing the border with his step sister to escape their abusive father. Making him the most selfless and noble criminal of all-time. And even hotter. And probably one of the best-written characters ever.
7. The Music. It’s actually impossible to imagine how Crossroads has only achieved a score of 3/10 on IMDb when you see the incredible karaoke scene in the movie. Picture this: Mimi tries to sing, but is useless. So Britney steps in. To begin with, she’s very shy and isn’t particularly good. People heckle. They heckle Britney!
But they don’t know what’s coming. None of us could. Suddenly – and this is so unexpected, it blew me away – it turns out that underneath all the shyness and awkwardness Lucy/Britney is actually amazing at singing. Amazing. She’s a natural. She sings ‘I Love Rock’n’Roll’. And people love it. They can’t believe how wrong they were!
With ‘head fakes’ like this, it’s possible that Crossroads isn’t only the most underrated road trip film ever, but the most underrated film. Of all time.
About the author:Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He is a full-time digital scribbler and part-time appreciator of Britney Spears. He has worked as a travel editor for gapyear.com, but watching Crossroads was his greatest adventure. In his spare time he eats bacon.
The Great Wall of China. Angkor Wat. Huangguoshu Waterfall. Tubbataha Reef. Mount Kinabalu. All incredible sights in Asia, and all places any right-minded traveller would be keen to tick off their ‘must-visit’ list. Yet to me, each and every single one pales into relative insignificance when up against my most memorable Asian experience. An eight-hour wait at Singapore’s Changi Airport.
I know what you’re thinking. “Seriously? You prefer a commercialised, busy commuter hub to to the incredible, untouched architecture of Cambodia?” That’s what you’re thinking. Words to that effect anyway. In answer to your question, yes. I am being serious. And here’s why:
1. Art. The last thing you want to experience at an airport, particularly if you’re British like I, is that it’s raining inside the terminal. Especially when got on the plane full of optimism and no umbrella. That’s exactly what’s a happening at Changi Airport though. Only, unlike the British rain that gets you wet, this rain is dry and awe-inspiring. ‘Kinetic Rain’, as this relatively new art-installation is called, sees over 1,200 bronze droplets float in harmony throughout Terminal One. You can head to any one of Asia’s many galleries and museums, but you won’t find anything this incredible, engaging and intoxicating. I promise you.
2. Piano Man. Usually when I delight an airport with my presence, I have an earphone protruding from at least one ear. This isn’t so I can deter the type of traveller who thinks I’d be a great person to small talk with for two hours – though it helps – it’s because I find counting down to my flight time is much easier when number of songs is used as opposed to minutes. So there I was, strolling around Changi Airport when I came across a man and his piano. Bemoaning the fact that some passengers seem to be able to carry more hand-luggage than others, I took a seat and watched as he sat down and began to tinkle his ivories. For the next forty minutes I was treated to an eclectic mix of music ranging from Norah Jones to Billy Joel and, rather bizarrely, mid-nineties one-hit wonder band Hanson. I’m not going to sit here and tell you he was the greatest pianist I have ever seen. He wasn’t. In fact, he was bordering on abysmal. What I loved though, was that for those few minutes, people from all over the world joined together and appreciated the effort one man was going to to entertain bored, frustrated and tired workers. As you’ll have guessed, he wasn’t a professional pianist either. He was a cleaner at the airport.
3. The Birds & The Bees & The Butterflies. There isn’t just one garden at Changi Airport. There are five. Five! Including the world’s first airport butterfly garden. Not only does is it an amazing feat of ingenuity, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relaxed. Heathrow should really take inspiration and stick a few allotments in Terminal Five.
4. Just Passing. One of the most frustrating things for me is that I often land in amazing cities en-route to my final destination, but can’t get out of the airport to spend a few hours under the bright lights. Logistics obviously have a significant part to play in this, and I am not saying it is totally unreasonable for the authorities to expect me to remain within the confounds of whichever terminal I’ve been deposited in, it’s just when I can get out it lets me appreciate that city and country so much more. I might even buy a postcard. I am pleased to say it’s something Changi Airport seem to get. Which is why, if you, as I did, have over five hours to wait for your connecting flight, you can go on a guided tour of Singapore. For free. Which is enough time for the guide to show you The Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands, Chinatown, Little India and catch those who try and do a runner.
5. The Slide. Yes, that’s right. Slap bang in the middle of Terminal 3 at Changi Airport is a slide. And when I say a slide, I am not just talking about some children’s slide in a playground – though I suspect there is one – this was (and presumably still is) a 40-foot long, four-storey high slide built purely for men. Real men. And real women too for that matter. Though I have to say it did seem to be universally popular with the male species while our female counterparts looked on in utter bemusement. Still, we didn’t seem to care. We were just interested in who would dare to go down backwards first. It wasn’t me. Which I regret to this day.
6. Snooze Chairs. They do exactly what you expect them to. And after a few hours spent on the slide, listening to singing cleaners, examining exotic butterflies and taking photos of the city, you’ll be so glad they do. And they aren’t just pimped up armchairs by the way. These are proper leathered goods with head and leg rests and in-built massagers. Unfortunately, the previous occupant had obviously worn out the batteries in my chair, but I needn’t have worried. No sooner had I started to relax, than a young lady was trying to persuade me to have a fish pedicure. I declined, but it was nice that she cared.
7. Asian Humour. Despite Changi Airport living up to their promise that ‘The Feeling is First Class’, my abiding memory of Changi Airport comes from my first trip through there in 2006. And the feeling, at the time at least, was that I had been well and truly ripped-off. Happily walking along one of the airport’s expansive walkways, minding my own business, I was suddenly accosted by half-a-dozen Singaporeans in promotional t-shirts. If I go into the details we’ll be here all day, but to cut a long story short, I may have accidentally uttered the word ‘Yes’ at some point ensuring that thirty-minutes later I was wearing male lipstick. I may also have been momentarily famous in Singapore, but needless to say I haven’t spent too much time investigating.
So there we have it. 7 Reasons why Changi Airport is the place to go. I guess, though, if we’re to evaluate this further, Changi Airport is really just a visual interpretation of a bigger picture. And that bigger picture is that there’s greatness, reward and male lipstick wherever you look. You’ve just got to have the inclination and desire to get up and start seeking it out. And if a tour of Asian airports isn’t quite your thing, a multi-country holiday arranged by Selective Asia probably will be.
There are celebrations for almost everything these days – celebrations for the birth of Christ, celebrations for the death of Christ, for the resurrection of Christ, for the Holy Commemoration of the First Tooth lost by Christ. All the partying can leave you worn out, but the strange things is that we always want more; celebrating never seems to get old. So why do we love to celebrate so much?
1. So what? I’m celebrating! We love celebrations because they are a great excuse for doing things in excess. Celebrations are a time to lose yourself in over indulgence. Over the Christmas period, we celebrate so much that we actually expect to put weight on through sheer greed. But so what if you’re on your third bottle of wine or you fifth cheese cake? You’re celebrating, and that’s sound reasoning that no one can argue with.
2. Sorry boss, I was celebrating. If you’ve had a big celebration the next day can be a bit of an effort, especially if you have to go into work. However, it would take a truly stone hearted boss not to be understanding if you were to phone up and explain that the reason you can’t make it in to work today is because you got absolutely smashed at a wicked celebration last night and you are really hungover and probably still quite hammered now. You’ll probably even be able to claim it under sick leave.
3. Yeah come on over, we’re having a celebration! You might not see your friends and family much over the course year, but when a celebration comes around it’s always a great excuse to get everyone together. Even the people who no one likes get invited, like old auntie Susan who sucks the chocolate off chocolate covered peanuts and then puts them back in the bowl, because it just wouldn’t be a proper celebration without her sickening antics.
4. Because the government tell us to. In reality, celebrating is not something that we’re born to enjoy, it’s not a hard wired trait, but we grow to like it through covert conditioning by the government. The government shove celebrations down our throats until we celebrate so much that we celebrate when there isn’t even anything to celebrate, like with the Diamond Jubilee. They do it because they see it as an easy way to boost the economy through the sale of party hats and meringue.
5. I love you, man! When you’re high on celebrating, certain things become acceptable, including telling complete strangers how much you appreciate them. In the midst of a celebration, handing out personalised birthday cards with the words “I love you” to people you don’t even know when it is even their birthday doesn’t seem weird. It only becomes creepy the day after.
6. For purveyors of bad music. One of the major reasons for the continued success of celebrations is that it keeps the age old industry of bad music churning on. Where would the performers of The Time Warp, Oops Upside Your Head and Fast Food Song be without the millions of royalties they get from their songs being played at celebrations? In a retirement home, picking bits of food out of their beards is where.
7. To liven up funerals. Funerals can be quite solemn and formal events, some may even argue dull, especially if you weren’t particularly well acquainted with the departed. However, the thing that makes them worthwhile, and the reason that most people go to them, is the brilliant laugh that you can have at the celebration that follows. The finger buffet is always well stocked, and, in general, it’s a free bar.
When I was last at school I treated art lessons as a time to let my hair down, muck around and generally play the class fool. I don’t know what the kids must have thought of me – no wonder I didn’t last long as a teacher.
Photo by Blue Monkey
Here are seven good reasons why it really does pay to brush up on your art skills at school.
1. Think Of The Money. There is very good money to be made from art. In 1895, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch knocked up a picture of an alien-type figure holding their head in their hands while screaming on a bridge. He called the picture The Scream and it’s just been sold for $119.9 million (£74 million) at auction.
2. Anyone Can Come Up With A Great Piece Of Art. Looking at The Scream it’s hard to resist the thought that anyone could have drawn it – the figure in the picture is just one step up from a stick man; Munch hasn’t even troubled himself with the task of giving the screaming figure tricky-to-draw details like hair, eyelashes or fingernails. The Scream shows that a very simple, well-executed idea will take you a long way. And makes you lots of dosh too.
3. Making Great Art Can Be Quick. Watching the great children’s TV artists of the 1970s and 1980s go about their work provided a crash-course lesson on how to create great art quickly. Both Rolf Harris and Tony Hart worked at a frightening pace – producing two or three top-notch pieces of work in each half-hour episode. Replicate this work rate over a 9 to 5 working day and you will have lots of interesting art to sell.
4. Art College Is The Modern-Day Fame Academy. Britain has a great tradition of people going to Art College going on to become famous stars. John Lennon of The Beatles, Pete Townshend of The Who and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones were just three of the stars who went to art college to study painting techniques and graphic design. It is worth noting that all of these stars found fame not through painting but through music and that most of the 1960s art colleges have been closed down because of spending cuts but you get the picture.
5. People Love Child Artists. Paying attention during primary school art lessons can pay dividends very quickly as the art world is particularly keen to embrace young talent. Nine-year-old Kieron Williamson is a case in point. The Norfolk lad regularly exhibits his oil, watercolour and pastel originals at exhibitions and has been dubbed ‘Mini Monet’ by chin-stroking art experts. “It’s lovely to see a nine-year-old boy keeping traditional landscape painting alive,” Kieron’s mother Michelle recently said. And there’s clearly a market for it – the youngster’s brilliant paintings fetch as much as £150,000 at auction.
6. Art Is Self-Expression. What other professions allow you to choose your own hours, attract muses and keep a messy office without the boss telling you off? Being an artist is all about expressing your inner soul and letting your creative fires burn freely.
7. Art Opens So Many Doors. And if all else fails you can always become an art teacher.
Forget guitars. Forget the drums. Forget the bass. The piano is the best instrument of all time. Think we’re kidding? Well read on.
There’s nothing more beautiful in the world of music that a piano concerto. It’s an instrument which (believe it or not) is easy to play, versatile and social – yet complex and steeped in history.
With that in mind, here’s 7 reasons why we think the piano is the best instrument of all time – we hope you agree!
1. Teach Yourself. Although the piano is a difficult instrument to master, there is piano sheet music available for every level of capability, from beginner to expert. This means that, generally speaking, if a toddler has learnt to sit up properly, they can start learning to play the piano. These skills will then grow with them throughout their lifetime, accompanying and nurturing them whatever their circumstance. With a piano as their means for expression, they’ll celebrate life, lament loss and all the while continue to learn and develop as a pianist.
2. Versatility. The piano is an extremely versatile instrument. From freeform jazz to dreamy pop ballads, the ivories have been tinkered across a plethora of musical genres, and to great effect. Whilst other classical instruments, (flutes, trumpets, cellos) seem committed to their classical constraints, the piano transcends genre.
3. It All Starts At The Piano. Musicians from every field take to the piano because it offers an easy means for composition. Whilst it takes years of training to produce a simple note from woodwind or string instruments, the piano is the perfect platform for writing and rehearsing intricate melodic and harmonic arrangements. Once a piece of music has been composed, it can then be played on any number of instruments.
4. Sing-a-longs. Playing the piano is a very social, creative and unifying experience for everyone involved. Picture a soporific Sunday afternoon with the whole family stood around the piano, singing along to an old war tune. Sure, it sounds old-fashioned, but at least everyone is together and sharing in something positive. One person’s talent radiates into the lives of others which in turn encourages creativity and motivates musical innovation.
5. There’s Humanity In The Piano. The sheet music of Chopin, Mozart and Beethoven is centuries old and yet still extremely relevant. These pianists continue to resonate with listeners of today because they captured the essence of humanity and the complexities of emotion like no other instrumentalist can. Without lyrics for emotional manipulation or music videos as visual stimulus, these composers created something which everyone can relate to despite its apparent age.
6. Timeless Tinkering. And, surely, like the best wines, music only matures with time? Who will still be listening to Tinie Tempah in 200 years? Very few, it can be assumed. But names like Tchaikovsky and Handel and Schubert will remain eternally imprinted on the list of musical greats because they will always be significant. The piano has been around since the early eighteenth century and has turned men, who would otherwise have been lost to the sands of time, into musical deities. It’s rich and diverse history only accentuates its superiority.
7. One Instrument Band. The piano does not need the support of a choir, an orchestra or even a single voice. Whilst it’s versatile enough to cater for any genre, voice or orchestral composition, as a stand-alone instrument it’s powerful enough to lead a whole movement to a crashing and memorable crescendo.
This guest post was written by www.musicroom.com. For all your sheet music needs, please visit our website for more information.
There are many reasons why someone may wish to lose weight and many ways in which they could go about it. Today though, we’re looking at just one. We’re delving deep into the world of gastric bands. And, believe it or not, it’s actually quite a trip.
1. Fashion Options. There is so much advice about what you should or shouldn’t wear if you consider yourself a little overweight, that it’s almost impossible to know who to believe. The general consensus appears to be “wear something black with vertical stripes”. Which is great if you like looking like a zebra, but even going with that look seven days a week might be a bit much. So why not take a look at having a gastric band? It’ll add a bit of life to your wardrobe too.
2. Elastic. The unscientific alternative to a gastric band has surely got to be an elastic band. However, while putting the latter around your waist may sound like a cheap alternative, are you really going to trust the stationery cupboard when it comes to helping you with your weight loss ambitions? Hopefully not. For a start, it’s a well known fact that elastic bands never come in the size you need. They’re either far too small that they snap as soon as they are stretched or they’re so big that you have to wrap them round at least thrice before they have any impact. Oh, and then they snap too. You really don’t want elastic bands snapping around your waist. Who knows where they’ll end up?
3. Genes. It’s very easy for the thin brigade to walk down the street, see someone without the perfect body shape and immediately assume it’s because they don’t do any exercise or because they have an unhealthy diet. The reality can be very different. For many it’s a case of genetics. Despite walking miles a day, going to the gym and embracing every soup and lettuce based diet out there, nothing seems to help. Meanwhile, other people live on their takeaway and TV diet to no apparent adverse consequences. It seems incredibly unfair. So talk to someone who understands. Talk to The Hospital Group and find out how they can help you.
4. Medication. It could be that you’re on medication. Or it could be that you have a health condition. Both can cause weight issues making it very difficult for you to keep to a weight you are happy with. It shouldn’t have to be that way and thanks to gastric bands it doesn’t have to be. Not only will they help you control your weight, a gastric band also helps reduce the risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and many other obesity related disorders.
5. The Oxygen Deficiency Approach. The quickest way to look thin is to take a deep breath and use your tummy muscles to suck in your stomach. The problem with this approach is that it’s not very conducive to talking. If you really don’t want someone to see that you’re a bit overweight, you’ll have to suck in your stomach, walk up to them, spin around, breathe out, talk, breathe in, spin around and await their response. Which might me something along the lines of, “you know something, you’re weird.” It’s probably not the way you wanted the conversation to go.
6. The ‘Music’. This will probably come as no surprise to you, but rather predictably there is a group called The Gastric Band. It needs to be pointed out right now that The Gastric Band will not help you lose weight. Not unless you want to go for the ‘listen to noise, get a migraine, be very sick’ approach. Something we don’t condone in anyway. Far better would be to save your ears, save your head and save your loved-one making regular trips between your bedside and the bathroom with buckets by getting a gastric band instead.
7. Not So Magic. The gastric band isn’t the only option of course, you could have a gastric balloon inserted into your stomach. It’s a viable alternative, but do beware if you see something that causes knots in your stomach. You might end up fashioning a balloon dog. Or a giraffe. Sure, it’s a good trick to pull off, but rather wasted inside your stomach don’t you think?
Accessing music via your computer is now faster, easier and often cheaper than going to the shops and buying good old fashioned CDs. MP3 players and mobile-phones have combined to make your CD collection utterly redundant. But instead of chucking them, why not do a bit of recycling instead? Yes, that’s right. Recycle your CDs. Here are seven reasons why you should consider doing just that.
Why you gotta recycle that compact disc? Because we want to! Because we want to!
1. Because You Can. When you bought that copy of Definitely Maybe back in ’94, the guy in the record shop probably didn’t tell you it was recyclable. But he should have done. Because it is. Almost 100% recyclable in fact. Probably slightly less if it’s something by Westlife, but recyclable none the less.
2. Logic. When you’ve finished your bottle of wine, do you stack it in the corner of the lounge with all the others? No, of course you don’t. When are you ever going to use forty-two empty bottles? Instead you pop them in the boot of the car and take them to the recycle bank. CDs are exactly the same. Are you actually going to listen to your collection of Now That’s What I Call Music CDs? You know, that collection you started when you thought it would be fun to try and buy every single version that came out – only you gave up in 1996 when they became tribute albums to Status Quo. Get rid of them. But, don’t trash that trash, do something useful and recycle.
3. Spread The Music. Assuming you’re not one of those emo-kids – and you don’t look like one – the chances are you won’t have scratched the back of your CDs in a moment of wallowing self pity. As a result they can be used again. By someone else. So give other people the chance to hear some great music. As strange as it may sound, someone, somewhere would just love to get their hands on your Showaddywaddy.
4. Damage Limitation. But what, I hear you ask, do I do if I am into that ‘scratching-CDs-with-a-blunt-compasses’ lark. Do not fear. Most CDs have scuffs or scratches that can be repaired, so you should be fine. If you’ve snapped them in half though and tried to repair them with a bit of tape, it’s probably a no go. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes there can be too much Phil Collins in the world.
5. The Flying Lizards. What better reason to recycle than to make yourself some money. The Flying Lizards didn’t sing about it, but online CD recycling sites such as Music Magpie allow you to trade in your unwanted CDs and get some money in return. With the extra cash in your pocket, you can always invest in some new music. If you’re really clever you could buy a CD, listen to it and then sell it. And then the process starts all over again.
6. Mr Nice Guy. Of course, you could show you have a caring side. Recycling your old CDs can benefit some great causes. Rather than simply pocketing the money you raise from recycling, you can send it straight to any number of very needy charity organisations. Which would be far more helpful to them than taking your Billie Piper CD to the local charity shop.
7. Piles. Of course, the main reason we should all recycle our unwanted CDs is the environment. Sadly, over 2,500 tonnes of CDs are thrown away each year, needlessly filling up waste landfills around the world. Quite frankly this country is in enough of a mess already. We don’t need piles of Cliff Richard adding to it.
So, don’t waste another minute staring at that redundant CD rack. Sites in the UK and sites abroad like Music Magpie Germany will allow you to recycle your old CDs in return for some extra cash in your pocket to spend on that new download you’ve been previewing or perhaps in helping a local charity.
Incredible news, 7 Reasons readers: I’ve discovered the worst song of all time. Surprisingly it’s not Mull of Kintyre, We Didn’t Start The Fire or that turgid Whitney Houston one that I first heard in 1993 and for all I know is still playing in the room I ran screaming from. It’s a song called Don’t Have Any More Mrs Moore that was made famous by Lily Morris in the 1920s. I didn’t mean to discover it. It snuck up and pounced on me while I was watching a documentary about Pathe News. It’s embedded below. I recommend that you don’t listen to it. Here are seven reasons that it’s the worst song ever.
1. It’s…Aarrgghhhh! Okay, you may have ignored my recommendation and if you did, that’s probably something approximating the noise you made on listening to it. I know that my initial reaction to hearing the jaunty and rather creaking string introduction followed by the first few bars of Lily Morris warbling about Mrs Moore was to shriek obstreperously and try to jam a dining table, a map of Scotland and half finished packet of Foxes Glacier Fruits into my ears. Sadly, they did not completely muffle the ear-grating, fingernails-down-a-blackboard, mating-sounds-of-a-half-strangled-cat-in-a-biscuit-tin, out-of-tune-soprano-with-her-on-fire-hair-caught-in-a-blender sheer unremitting screeching bloody cacophony that is this song. Listening to it is the aural equivalent of putting your penis on a desk and having it repeatedly struck with a hammer by an addled and vengeful dandruff-specked minicab driver with halitosis and grey shoes; something that every right-minded person would choose to spend an entire Saturday doing when given the choice between that or hearing a fraction of a nanosecond of a bar of this song again. It may well have been the first recorded instance of a father waking his baby up by screaming in the middle of the night. It is popularly said of ugly celebrities that, “…he/she has a face for radio”. Similarly, Lily Morris has a voice for cinema. Silent cinema. A silent cinema buried deep under the ground. Under Peru. In fact, under a very noisy thing in Peru. Under a man having his penis repeatedly struck with a hammer by an addled and vengeful dandruff-specked minicab driver with halitosis and grey shoes in Peru. Between the airport and the pneumatic drill testing centre.
2. It Fails The Test Of Time. Cole Porter; George and Ira Gershwin; Ivor Novello; Hoagy Carmichael; Kurt Weil; Irving Berlin: Just a few of the talented songwriters working in the 1920s that had absolutely cock-all to do with this song. Sadly, while their work has aged well, this song has not. It is the Mickey Rourke of popular song. It clearly had some sort of popular appeal in its day because Lily Morris sang it many times and I can find no written accounts of pandemonium as masses of horrified music-lovers stampeded from music-halls. But there’s another possible explanation. Perhaps those that witnessed this horror were simply too traumatised to write about it; I wish I was. Perhaps people back then – who were able to vividly recount the sheer bloody horror of mechanised war and mass genocide – were far too disturbed by the ordeal of hearkening to this interminable and harrowing din to leave their descendants a warning from history. That seems eminently possible.
3. It’s Strange. In the song, Lily Morris is singing as a character, rather than as herself, addressing Mrs Moore. Not content with singing in her own character’s voice (and who would be content with that) for the whole of the song, Lily Morris inexplicably sings a verse of it as a Dutch vicar. From Namibia. I have no idea why she sings it as a Dutch vicar from Namibia, but I suppose if you’re going to pretend to be a vicar, you have to come from somewhere, even if it is Namibia. And you are Dutch.
4. It’s Ironic. The central theme of the song is a woman using drunkenness as a euphemism for wantonness or wantonness as a euphemism for drunkenness (I thought of checking, but I decided I’d rather have rusty razor blades stapled to my forehead instead) and cautioning another woman (Mrs Moore) against one or the other (or both). The irony is, however, that this is a song that positively no one could ever bear sober. This is a song that no sane person could experience (even partially) without having imbibed so much strong alcohol in one sitting that their liver would have a half-life of several millennia and would smell pungently of juniper berries for at least four and a half eternities.* The only way that anyone could possibly listen to this song without alcohol is if they were dead, and even then they would have to have been dead for at least a century and would need to have their wrists bound and the remains of their chest pinned to the floor by an anvil with Eamonn Holmes and the cast of Gandhi seated upon it, to ensure that they did not rise up and scamper from the room squealing in terror and urinating uncontrollably on the carpet.
5. It’s Historic. The discovery of this song has created a wholly astonishing and unforeseen development of historical proportions. A transpiration so unexpected that no one will ever have conceived of reading the words I’m about to write together in the same sentence. So momentous is this situation that, if I were to tell Nostradamus, Zephania, Philip the Evangelist and Derren Brown what I’m about to tell you, their reaction would be “Blimey! I didn’t see that one coming”. This song would be improved if covered by Jedward.
6. It’s Immortal. Once heard, this song cannot be killed. It’s an ear-worm that refuses to leave. Once it gets into your head (even if you only hear it once) this song becomes that bloody glittery vampire – the one that all sane people wish would just go away and die – that never goes away and dies. Of all the songs that you could ever get stuck in your head, this is the stickiest and most recalcitrant. It literally seems to bond itself to the inside of your brain somewhere between thoughts about tiramisu and thoughts about ducks. It is said that men think about sex every seven seconds. That is not true of men that have heard this song. Men that have heard this song think of this song every seven seconds (even when they’re asleep or flying an aeroplane). This song is no mere musical entertainment, it is a frightening disease of the mind.
7. It’s…Aaaaaarrrrrgghhh!!! Don’t Read This Reason! If you think about this song long enough – every seven seconds since last Friday night, for example – it spawns the song of Satan. Because sooner or later (in a variant of infinite monkey theorem known as infinite poor suffering bastard that heard Don’t Have Any More Mrs Moore once and is now hearing it internally and infinitely for infinity theorem) the song will mutate. As you think of – or hear – another song this song will begin to segue into it. And then, with a creeping sense of trepidation and mounting dread, you will one day hear something so abominable and ghastly that it might well prove to be one of the signs of the apocalypse. You will hear the chorus of this song segue into that of another. You will hear:
Don’t have any more Mrs Moore
When there’s room on my horse for two
And with that perfectly seamless transition you’ll discover that you have, in your head, a mutant Lily Morris/Rolf Harris hybrid creature (Rily Marris?) singing a mash-up of Don’t Have Any Moore Mrs Moore and Two Little Boys at you every seven seconds for the rest of time. See, I told you not to read it.
*And why the hell does the word eternity have a plural?!
Unsurprisingly for someone who has been in pursuit of reasons every other day for the past two years, occasionally, just occasionally, it’s a bit tricky. You spend hours on Google hunting for inspiration and then, just when you find something with potential, you realise Marc wrote about it last November. All this lead me to discovering a music video on YouTube by someone I had never heard of. And it goes something like this.
I can’t say I’ll be downloading this song anytime soon and I know about as much about Connie Stevens now as I did when I pressed play, but that’s okay. All I need to know is right in front of me. Connie Stevens is wrong. Sixteen reasons? How ridiculous. It clearly should be seven. And for those who are good at maths that means nine reasons are wrong. Yes. Today is bonus reason day.
1. (One) The Way You Hold My Hand. Has anyone, ever, in the history of the world, decided, “Wow! That’s good use of the thumb! This one is definitely a keeper.”? I thought not.
2. (Two) Your Laughing Eyes. What does this even mean? Is it someone who blinks a lot? You just wouldn’t love someone because of that. You wouldn’t.
(Three) The Way You Understand.
3. (Four) Your Secret Sighs. What’s the difference between a normal sigh and a secret sigh? And if it’s a secret how does she know about it? Hardly the kind of thing one would keep looked in a drawer.
4. (Five) The Way You Comb Your Hair. Again, randomness bordering on the weird. Surely a more appropriate reason would be what your hair looks like. Unless you use a hedgehog there really is nothing special about the way one combs their hair. Stupid.
(Six) Your Freckled Nose.
(Seven) The Way You Say You Care.
5. (Eight) Your Crazy Clothes. No. Just no. No one loves anyone who wears crazy clothes. Jimmy Saville? Eighty-four, still single and still wearing tracksuits. Lady Gaga? Twenty-five, blonde, loaded and single.
6. (Nine) Snuggling In The Car. Who the hell snuggles in a car? Dogging in a service station car park maybe, but not snuggling. It just doesn’t happen.
7. (Ten) Your Wish Upon A Star. I don’t need to be a physicist to tell you that it is simply impossible to place a wish upon a star. In fact, it is impossible to place a wish anywhere. On top of the fridge. In a drawer. Down the back of the 7 Reasons sofa. You can’t do it. What Connie really means is, “I love you when I’m drunk, lying on the road and starring at the moon”.
8. (Eleven) Whispering On The Phone. Sounds dodgy to me. Is Connie listening to her lover whispering on the phone to her or is she listening to her lover whispering on the phone to someone else? Either way, it’s stupid. Just speak up. No one wants to keep saying pardon every few seconds.
(Twelve) Your Kiss When We’re Alone.
(Thirteen) The Way You Thrill My Heart.
9. (Fourteen) Your Voice So Neat. Not a phrase I am familiar with. Perhaps that’s because I have never had the misfortune of meeting anyone with a messy voice though.
