Glastonbury 2010 - Part One

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...

Kierkegaard once very famously said that life could only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. The same is, broadly speaking, true of Glastonbury festival, with one important difference: it is impossible to actually understand it. It is similarly impossible to review the damn thing, since every single person on site will have had an utterly different experience. The only way to tackle this then is to go a bit Hunter S Thompson on y’all and tell you how it was for me.


This has been my seventh Glastonbury, and an initial look at the line-up did not instantly fill me with joy. It is of course well recognised that the line-up is significantly less than half the story with Glasto, and I should really have known better because the weekend is one of the best times I have ever had with my pants on. The loss of U2 was, for me, a bonus, as it gave me the chance to see a headliner this year, as I have little desire to see Muse or Stevie. But I get ahead of myself.


Wednesday

Myself and My Companion, a tall, languid man of no fixed abode and no fixed connection to reality, arrive just as Jermaine Defoe nods England in front against Slovenia. We waste no time in dropping all our gear and sitting down to watch England labour to a glorious 1-0 victory over a country ranked a titanic 17 places below them in the world rankings. Fortunately, picking a campsite is significantly less stressful than the preceding two hours: a friend is camped up in the caravan park, and so we high-tail it that way to find a whole new world. It may involve the sort of walk that normally needs sherpas, but camping up there is excellent: quiet, calm and handy for grabbing those too-few hours of sleep.


The rest of the evening is spent wandering and wondering around the site, looking at the weird and wonderful display of humanity that has assembled for the world’s greatest festival. A man on stilts dressed as a giraffe struts past, and the odd early festival casualty lies prostrate in the bushes. We find a place called The Front Room, where two men with a trumpet and a piano play covers of popular swing and early rock ‘n’ roll numbers to a small crowd sat on sofas. Part way through their set, a passing brass ensemble arrives and joins in the fun. This is the sort of thing that could only happen at Glastonbury.


We retreat to the comparative calm of the hill and overlook the site, surely one of the greatest views on earth. Then we down an unhealthy amount of cider, dance like morons and head to bed.

Cider

A brief detraction about cider: for the past few years at Glastonbury, the Brothers Bar has been setup next to the Jazzworld Stage (now re-christened the West Holts Stage). It acts like an idiot magnet, sometimes drawing a bigger crowd than some of the stages, and for the life of me I cannot understand why. Brothers cider tastes like piss, and there is a ridiculous array of novelty ciders on sale, including Toffee Apple Cider. It’s cider for children, people who want a cheap, high-alcohol content novelty. It’s the drinking equivalent of the Creme Egg: too sweet and essentially a once-a-year novelty. This year I frequent the Cider Bus by the main stage, which serves real cider. Yes, it costs a bit more, but you get what you pay for. On the last night, I also try the brilliantly named Soapdodger cider from Glastonbury Ales. This is real cider. To all of you at theBrothers Bar: fuck off back to nursery. Rant over.


Thursday

Today begins with the predictable hangover, the predictable bacon sandwich and the less predictable blazing sunshine. I am not used to this. Not since 2003 can I remember it being this sunny. I glance at my wellies and mentally reassure myself that it was worth lugging them here, as it is bound to hammer down sooner or later. After lying around at our tent for a while (who knew you could make a decent cup of coffee in a caravan kitchen?!) we shift back onto the site and trawl blearily through the circus fields, watching people juggle, bend, balance and generally distort reality. We also watch some music played by people with instruments made of rubbish. It sounds rubbish.


Walking in the Greenfields is the usual experience: a heady mix of people making stuff out of wood and fabric, and a field full of people making insanely unsupported claims about the healing properties of crystals, divining and glasses of water. We stop to play draughts on a board made of wood and tiles, and My Companion beats me to win the coveted trophy (a stick with the words “I am the winner!” emblazoned on it in permanent marker by the girl at the stand) before we buy a plate of Moroccan food and stroll off.


The evening is an equally wonderful experience. We watch My Luminaries, who play to an increasingly large crowd at The Queen’s Head stage. They are good, solid indie rock: nothing that completely changes my world view, but a brilliant way to pass the time. The crowd swells throughout the set in anticipation of the upcoming performance from Two Door Cinema Club. By the time the band take to the stage, the tent could easily be filled twice over. The jangly indie pop described in my review of a few weeks ago is present here and this is a perfect setting, as festival-goers pogo with the wild abandon of the truly euphorically pissed. This band are arriving big time.


The evening is spent bouncing from party to party before getting what passes for an early night at Glastonbury (about 1am) in preparation for the following day of music, about which I am nearly too excited to sleep. The cider soon sorts that out.


Friday

Waking in a hot tent is up there in my top ten least favourite experiences. It is sweaty, it is smelly, it is disgusting. It makes you uncomfortably aware of the fact that you are at the mercy of the weather at Glastonbury, whether it is hot or wet. I already feel more disheveled than I have at the end of entire festivals in the past: the heat is debilitating and, although wet wipes are good, they’re not that good.


We make the executive decision to avoid Rolf Harris, as I am of the firm opinion that there is a finite amount of irony in the world, and it would be a shame to waste it. Instead we pop up to the Croissant Neuf, a stage entirely powered by the sun, and watch the brilliantly entertaining Biggles Wartime Band, who perform a set of West Country and Western music, interspersed with jokes that Carry On writers would be proud of. At one point they bring a giant papier maché sturgeon onto the stage for a guest slot. They then break the world record for most consecutive fish puns. This is a much better use of irony. Next up we drop into The Front Room again and find one of those magical moments that could only happen here: a semi-impromptu performance from Katie Maddocks and Raevennan Husbandes: two young ladies who play a set under their adopted moniker for the weekend: The Lovely Girls. without wishing this to sound patronising, it’s a well chosen name, as they do sound lovely. Sharing a guitar, the set comprises their own material and a few well chosen covers, including a magical acoustic rendering of the Sugababes About You Now. I had never realised what a great tune this was until this weekend. Check these two out, I promise it will be worth it.


A hasty breakfast of fruit later, we find ourselves at the Avalon stage to see Gabby Young and Other Animals. I first saw Gabby a few years back, supporting Al Stewart and she was excellent, so I’m full of anticipation. Unfortunately, it does not quite live up to this. Gabby has decided that a suitable use of her time is to paint herself up like a kabuki performer and the music seems to have lost a lot of the charm that initially attracted me to her. It’s still good, but I feel that comparisons to Bat for Lashes are going to come thick and fast if this is your chosen onstage persona. We leave and head for Willie Nelson. This is a man who needs no introduction. The word legend is used far too casually these days, and should be reclaimed for moments like this. As none of Willie’s songs are more than three minutes long, he seems to play about a million of them, and at one point I worry that the organisers will have no option but to cut him off mid-set; as he seems to move from one tune to another without hardly taking a breath. It is incredible stuff though, and Willie treats us to all his classics, including magical versions of Funny How Time Slips Away and Always on My Mind. This is a perfect afternoon set, pitched accurately at diehard fans and Radio 2 listeners clustered around at the Pyramid Stage awaiting the headliners.


Next up, French indie poppers Phoenix serve up a set on The Other Stage, which reminds me why indie is my first and truest love. Early evening sets in the sun at festivals ought to make you dance, even if your knowledge of the band’s material is patchy. Phoenix fulfill this brief perfectly. As does the evening’s next star: Snoop Dogg. Mr Dogg has had his troubles entering our fine nation in the past, but all this is clearly behind him now. He is masterful, the crowd are like crumbly hash in his hands. The set features enough of his classic hits to please the crowd, as well as some guests and some sage advice. We are left in no doubt about three things. Firstly, we know exactly what his name is. Secondly, we are more than aware that he enjoys the odd jazz cigarette. Thirdly, Noel Gallagher was wrong and arrogant to say that hip hop had no place at Glastonbury.


Next, our weary limbs carry us to the John Peel Stage for a performance by Mumford and Sons. These guys are a classic Peel Stage band: not that big when they were booked, they’ve since gone interstellar and the tent is packed. Who knew that Irish folk music could take over the world this way? Their set is immense, with the tunes so ingrained in the mind of every music fan in this land that half the time you can’t hear the band over the shouting of the audience. They bring out a couple of new tunes which suggest that their next album will be more of the same, and who could blame them? It’s a stupendous performance, brimming with confidence and tunes.


What follows Mumford is possibly one of the greatest moments of the weekend. We head to The Park for a Special Guest slot. Unless you have been living under a rock this weekend, you will remember that this guest was in fact Thom Yorke, from the little-known band Radiohead. Thom plays a few of his own tracks, including a fabulous rendering of Black Swan, to wild applause. Then he casually announces the arrival of Johnny Greenwood from that aforementioned little band. The place goes mental. At the 40th anniversary festival, it would be wrong if Radiohead weren’t represented, and they make their presence felt with pared down versions of Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Pyramid Song, Idioteque and a closing combination of Karma Police and, after the crowd nearly riots for one more, Street Spirit. These moments go down in history, and it is easy to see why. The crowd screams itself hoarse, retaining just enough vocal capacity to leave the stage singing the refrain from Karma Police.


If you had read only the reviews of Gorillaz from a popular broadsheet newspaper that I shall not name, you would be convinced we’d all left unsatisfied and depressed. You would be wrong. Their set is immense from start to finish. It’s groundbreaking to see that much talent assembled in one place, and each new guest star is greeted with rapturous cheering. The initial disappointment of thinking Snoop has replaced himself with a video (oh how we looked back on that moment two hours later...) is soon overwhelmed as Bobby Womack,Kano, Lou Reed, Shaun Rider, Little Dragon, De La Soul and more join Damon onstage to perform material from all three albums. Although the tracks from Demon Days are still by far and away the most accomplished, this set crams in classics from start to finish. The more mellow moments provide relief from the more frantic ones, and the visit from a Syrian instrumental troupe feels a tad cheesy, but is nevertheless just a short moment of inconsistency in a set that, although it perhaps lacks continuity, has a quality running though it that cannot be questioned. The main gripe about it from some seems to be that it wasn’t a “proper” Friday night headline slot. It was. It may have been slightly more for music geeks than casual fans of listening to a few tunes but, speaking as a music geek, this is no bad thing. Snoop Dogg returning in person at the end is the icing on a truly scrumptious cake. Congratulations Damon, you deserve your record as the first man to perform consecutive headline slots.


Part 2 and Part 3 are here...

David Karsten Daniels & Fight The Big Bull – I Mean to Live Here Still

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


Released on 21st June, through Fat Cat Records


This is the sixth album to bear David Karsten Daniels’ name. And it’s a name that has become synonymous with lazy reviewing words like “underground” and “cult”. He has the air about him of a mysterious and enigmatic yet alluring singer songwriter, born straight from the same mould as Micah P Hinson. And this, of course, is no bad thing.


It would be very easy at this point to make a further lazy reviewing comment about this record sounding like Fleet Foxes as re-imagined by Mumford and Sons and then to go and have a beer. This would not, however, even begin to do justice to what is, at its core, an intriguing and multi-faceted record. It is no understatement to say that there is a bit of almost everything here: Cajun, Balkan, folk… if CSNY had decided to go inter-railing around Europe, it would have ended up sounding a bit like this.


Before getting to the serious discussion of individual tracks, it’s worth mentioning that Fight The Big Bull are a nine-piece ensemble from Virginia. From the sound of this record, they seem to play everything. A quick visit to the photos page on their website seems to add weight to this theory. The band are pictured playing almost every musical instrument known to man, and many of the photos are taken in the kind of club that we all wish we were cool enough to get into.


Listening to this record for the first time, there is one track that instantly leaps out and refuses to go by without mention: the utterly charming Through All the Fates. This song combines a superb rolling guitar track, with some glorious harmonising and some great brass accompaniment. It is by a long chalk, the most instantly hummable track here present.


Other honourable mentions should go to the eventually-bombastic Die and Be Buried. In a parallel universe, this track is the theme song of the 23rd Bond movie, in which James has decided to move to the country and keep some sheep. Starting with a brooding overture, the track seems to break down beyond repair, before crashing back in with a fabulous second act.


Elsewhere, The Funeral Bell is a great piece of folk music, and The Salmon Brook manages to recover from an interminably pointless drum intro to end with two and a half minutes of twinkling instrumental that manages to sound like… well… a salmon brook.


Throughout the ten tracks, this album has moments of brilliance and some generally lovely touches. Although occasionally it verges on getting a bit overly free-form and sometimes risks becoming “noodley”, it always stays on the right side of this very dangerous line, stepping across perhaps once on the eight-minute Each Summer Sound. This is a record that I am sure will find a place in the hearts of anyone who loved the aforementioned Fleet Foxes, but there’s a whole other layer here. The multiple instruments mix the talents of David’s backing band with his own talent for composition and the results are frequently awe-inspiring. Go forth and buy this record, one day you will find yourself with a music snob that you need to impress. And he (or she… probably he) will be impressed. I guarantee this to you.

The Drums - The Drums

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


Released 6th June on Moshi Moshi

I like to think of myself as a person who is completely immune to hype. I’m not. No one is. So, when The Angel Gabriel himself arrived at Gobshout Towers on a flaming chariot, bearing a copy of The Drums' debut long-player, it was only natural that my heart rate went up a little. And with good reason: The Drums have been tipped as this year’s hottest band by just about everyone from the BBC to the NME and every acronym in between. Respected contemporary music commentator Boy George said they were like The Smiths. And he should know.


The Drums are a four-piece from New York, and Wikipedia informs me that they formed from the smoking remnants of the superlatively named Goat Explosion. Their background is largely in making electronic music and, although the synthesisers have been largely cast aside for this new band, their influence is all over this record. The racing rhythm tracks on songs like recent single Forever and Ever, Amen sound as though they could have been created for a loop-obsessed Hot Chip tribute band. This impression is exacerbated by the fact that it very often sounds as though drummer Connor Hardwick is in fact a drum machine: so overly produced is the drum track. Ironic really, considering the band name.


There’s certainly a lot to love about this record, or at the very least there’s a lot on which to build a solid platonic relationship that occasionally goes a bit further after a couple of glasses of cheap wine. So many of the songs sound thoroughly jaunty, and there’s a summer swagger to proceedings that makes me think this record might just be the one that your friend who bothered to bring speakers for his iPod will play when you’re all in the park on a Saturday. This effect is nowhere stronger than on Skippin’ Town, a sparky pop number that manages to survive the indignity of having fairly naff lyrics. Other highlights of this record include the aforementioned Forever and Ever, Amen and the cheery-yet-dreary I’ll Never Drop My Sword.


A curious inclusion on the record that deserves a paragraph all to itself is the brooding Down by the Water. It almost seems a little out of place, as it plods and lumbers along with all the urgency of a lovesick cow. It also contains some fairly atrocious lyrics (“Everybody’s gotta love someone / But I just wanna love you dear”) and it seems to be strategically placed to provide a change of pace at the beginning of side two (for those of you who still think of records that way). A seemingly random inclusion, but one that shows a potential for some range nevertheless. More on that later. Special mention should also go to It Will All End in Tears, which sees the band plunder Peter Hook’s oeuvre and come up with perhaps the only Joy Division bassline that Joy Division didn’t write.


In all, this is a solid debut, but there are just a couple of things that spoil the party for me. The first is the mattress of reverb (I’m patenting that expression, hands off) that smothers the whole record. The effect is to make the band sound as though they’re playing at the other end of a particularly lengthy plastic drainpipe. There’s nothing “crisp” on this album, no bite or attack to be found anywhere, which is a shame really. Secondly, there’s the lyrics, which are frequently embarrassingly obvious and occasionally a bit trite. I feel that comparisons to The Smiths should be put straight to bed the minute that Jonathan Pierce croons “Would you like to go with me / Honey, take a run down to the beach”. Sorry Boy George, but I respectfully disagree. I’ll stick with “For there are brighter sides to life / And I should know because I’ve seen them / but not very often”.


But my main issue with this album can be summed up as follows: this is what it sounds like when electronic bands make guitar music. There’s not a great deal of variation; many of the tracks are indistinguishable from one another for the first few listens, and the vague familiarity of the singles is the only initial landmark on the journey from start to finish.


There’s certainly nothing desperately wrong with this record, it’s a solid debut, as I said. But somehow I’m left slightly unsatisfied by the whole experience. This is frustrating, as there could have been slightly more made of this. The uniformity of the record is a bit of a trial, and it ultimately ends up grating; but that’s not to say that at points, it’s not a worthy addition to the canon of 21st century summer soundtracks.

Suburbs / Month of May - Arcade Fire

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


Make no mistake. This is not only the most important record of this year so far, but also the most important sound produced anywhere in the world so far this year. The build-up to this “release” has been fevered, with the band preferring to casually drop snippets of information on their parched fans, seemingly at random. The announcement that a new single would be available on 12” only whet the appetite nicely. Then at the end of last week, there was the bizarre play-it-yourself segment on their website; a nice little touch, if slightly infuriating.


Then, late last night, it started to filter through that some of the aforementioned vinyl had leaked into the world. Anyone listening to Zane Lowe will have heard him play both tracks. Twice. The tracks have also turned up online. I am not entirely sure how legal it is, but our American cousins can pre-order the album and receive instant downloads of both tracks.


The first track, Suburbs, has just a hint of Beach Boys about it, and it’s evident that the classic Arcade Firesound is somewhat stripped back to basics. The key ingredients are still here, with the dark lyrics about suburban unrest and the urge to break out all present and correct. “Grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving” drawls Win Butler as early as the third line, and instantly the old familiar thrill of Tunnels and Power Out is back. The new and yet strangely familiar sound makes you feel instantly at home and excited to be back in the present of the world’s best band.

As a contrast, Month of May is much louder, much more bombastic. A louder, fuller band sound crashes over a churning guitar riff, with Win counting in and then proceeding to strain his voice in the way that we all came to love, whilst marvelling at how his vocal cords stood up to it. The brilliant repeated coda makes me wonder just how I will survive until August 2nd, when the full banquet will commence. Until then however, this is a bloody fine aperitif.

Two Door Cinema Club @ Heaven - 27th May 2010

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


I think if I were allowed to live my life over again, there's probably one job I'd take above all others. I'd want to be the guy who puts together the montages at the end of TV coverage of major football games. If I had this job, I'd be kicking back with a can of Red Stripe right about now and laughing, just because the music for this summer's crop of World Cup montages would already be sorted. Two Door Cinema Club have enough catchy, jangly indie licks to backdrop every game.


Last night was a bit of a risk, initially, as I had taken the ticket off a friend without ever having heard a note of this band's material. This is so often a sensible plan, and tonight proves no exception. Looking like Josh Homme’s preposterously well groomed younger brother, frontman Alex Trimble runs through the set with an easy swagger, but with none of the lads-n-lager air that seems to pervade so much jangly indie. Backed by a sharp pairing of rhythm guitar and a bassist who looks sort of like that guy you went to Uni with, they’re a tight ship. A ship that does not spring a leak, even when the keyboard and synthesizer arrangement takes an accidental battering midway through the set.


The hour-long set breezes by and the kids (I am now allowed to use this phrase without irony, having reached the grand old age of 27) go mental throughout. Every repeated line is sung back to the band with gusto, and it is clear from minute one that this band have a brilliantly enjoyable summer ahead of them, with a slew of festival appearances. I suspect that they will garner many new fans and friends on the way round.

Talkin' Hop Farm Decision Blues

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


Here at Gobshout, we like to ponder life's big questions. Is there life after death? Who will be the real winner in the general election? Are The Pixies the yardstick by which all American heavy rock acts should be judged? So when the opportunity to mull over another one came up, keyboards were duly grabbed. The question of course is: should one go and see Bob Dylan at Hop Farm?


This may not immediately seem life-defining, so perhaps I should explain. For years now I have proclaimed (always vocally and usually after a few ales) that I never want to see Bob Dylan. I own every single record (even the Jesus ones) and have a framed picture of him above my bed (really). He is the greatest artist ever to walk the earth, in my opinion. The early live recordings on his Bootleg series are genre-defining and when you listen to them, you can literally hear the musical landscape shifting. But the further you go through his career, the poorer the live shows become. The voice changes, the time signatures get mixed about, the classic songs are often replaced by obscure album tracks and off-cuts. Those of you who have read his excellent Chronicles will recall reading with mounting horror the four-page explanation of the new singing “style” he adopted in the late eighties to “revitalise” his music (It starts on page 156 for those of you with well-stocked bookshelves). And so my fear is that seeing Bob Dylan in his current incarnation might forever tarnish my image of him.


I remember a review of one of Dylan's London shows in a broadsheet newspaper where the majority of the audience was described as being "here to touch the hem". The review gave him five stars, which makes me wonder what they would have done, had they been at Newport Folk Festival. I've never been one for hem touching. There is nothing on Darwin's green Earth that would make me want to see the limp crap that Billy Corgan is currently touting as "The Smashing Pumpkins" (those inverted commas are deliberate), even though the man himself is a personal hero for his pre-millennium work. But when the bill for this year's Hop Farm Festival was announced, something shot through me, and I realised I had a decision to make.


It's Dylan's only UK show this year. It's at a festival. Previously headlined by Neil Young. On a farm. Surely, if he's ever going to play a set of greats again this would be it, right? And (although I don't like to admit this) he might not last forever, how would I feel if he went and I'd never seen him? On the other hand though, if he's not great, is there enough cheap gassy lager in the world to wipe the memories and reset the fragile perfection of the image in my mind?


Of course, in the back of my mind I am aware that I won't turn up to find a wiry twenty-something on stage running through a defiant With God on Our Side. But equally it would be nice not to find an old man running through a scat-jazz version of Political World. He's what music writers like to call a "famously frustrating performer", which is a nice way of saying you might get a setlist full of b-sides and album tracks because he does what he likes. I'm a great believer in the idea that Dylan has earned the right to do as he pleases, but this is not about him, it's about me and my hang-up about whether my image of him will be forever dented by seeing him live in his later years. Would I regret it, or would I be happy to forever say “Yes, I saw Dylan” to future dinner party guests and as-yet-unborn children?


Either way, for the moment, my £70 is still in my wallet. It may be that I finally crack and just blow the money and stop all this pathetic worrying and over-thinking. If so, at the very least, it's unlikely he'll be busting out any of his recent Christmas album in early July. He wouldn't. Would he…?

At The Coleface

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...

Warning- some of this may or may not be completely true

It is without question the biggest celebrity story of this still very young year. The collapse of Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marriage has been met with almost every conceivable emotion (bar surprise) and is like a wet dream for editors of those magazines who make their living by over-interpreting the direction of Jenefer Aniston's gaze. One thing's for certain though: it does explain the rather poor display of miming at The Brits. Poor lass probably had other things on her mind.


And so now, less than 24 hours after the most predictable and protracted split since Oasis, I find myself wiping aside the tears and asking that most important question: what now for the music?


Turning first to Ashley, there will probably be little to miss here, musically, as so little is known (or cared) about the Chelsea star's contribution to the British music canon. Although Cole's Chelsea chum John Terry is known to give a mean rendition of Luther Vandros's classic Never Too Much, little is known of Cole's musical dalliances. His now-estranged wife reports that she once printed the lyrics to Sound of the Underground for him to sing at his Chelsea inauguration party but "he didn't go for it". Thankfully though, it is further reported that "he really likes it".


No, Ashley is not likely to make a three disc concept album any time soon ("It's sort of like Beethoven interpreted by Brian Eno, but played by a late 70s Zappa. Innit."). It's his wife I wonder about. There is a long and noble tradition of musicians retiring songs to the closet of history when they become too painful to sing. Joan Baez left Diamonds and Rust on the shelf for many a long year, and James Dean Bradfield of theManic Street Preachers cannot sing many of the more personal lyrics penned by Richey Edwards. One can only assume that Cheryl will be so crushed by recent events that the sensationally personal Fight for This Love will go the same way, perhaps to be revived as a soulful acoustic number later in her career. Picture her now: picked out by a single spotlight, her weak, limp and lifeless hair tossed casually over one shoulder, strumming on a 12-string Gibson. There is of course one problem with this image: she didn't write the song. Then she mimed it at the Brits. And she's famous as the host of a pub karaoke competition that got out of hand. In short, she's got the same emotional attachment to the song as you or I. Someone else's song.


You'd be prepared to bet that somewhere, in the modern equivalent of Tin Pan Alley, writers are furiously scribbling away, trying to come up with a song to perfectly capture the mood of a traumatised woman; something about lost love, no doubt. I've got a tenner right here that says the video will be in black and white. Chalk that one up.


But we must of course make time to think about Girls Aloud. What now for them, I hear you cry. It seems to me inevitable that this could be a great opportunity to finally rise up and fill the void left in our hearts and minds by the failed reunion of the Spice Girls. Never has girl power been more relevant in the minds of the public and surely a tour full of tearful hugging and rallying around cannot be far away. There has clearly been a lot of growing up done since that nasty business with the toilet attendant. This group of former WAGs and lads mag favourites clearly have a lot to teach the men, women and footballers of this nation. This is their time. To use a shameless act of plagiarism for which I apologise to Louisa May Alcott: they are no longer Girls Aloud, they are Women Aloud.