Gordon in the morning: Coldplay under the influence

Coldplay held a press conference yesterday to launch their new album Fido Dido, and Gordon went along. That it was in Madrid might have added to the allure.

One of the big surprises was that Brian Eno tried hypnotising the band during the recording sessions:

Bass player Guy Berryman admitted yesterday that the band have reached a stage where they are open to outrageous ideas from the talented team around them to tap into new writing veins.

I'd have thought that was an admission they've more or less run out of steam, isn't it? "What can we do? How about if we dress up in wetsuits and stare at photos of kittens to see if that creates an idea?"

"Brian suggested we try playing together when we were hypnotised. One of his friends came down and we tried it out. Nothing came of it but at least we tried it."

I'm suprised none of the hypnosis tracks are on the record, because when I listen to it, I do find I feel sleepy, sleepy, very sleepy.

Meanwhile, Chris Martin was fuming at the idea that people think Coldplay little more than a reworking of other people's ideas:

He also hammered any suggestion that the band would ever copy other people's music.

He said: "It's fine not to like our band, but making up shit about us is not on. There's a difference between criticism and accusation. People who accuse us of stuff like that are *****, quite frankly."

I'm guessing that's going to be "cunts" - partly because it's clearly such a shocking word Gordon couldn't bring himself to even print the first letter, and partly because having been lazily homophobic and misusing disability language over the last couple of days, he's probably going for the clumsy sexist insult to get the treble.

Still, it's interesting that Chris gets so angry about people who accuse them of copying other bands. So much as to call them *****.

One of the biggest *****s would be, erm, Chris Martin who told Rolling Stone in 2005:

"We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original,” he notes. “I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.”

He might also want to have a word with his bandmate Jonny Buckland, who admitted ripping off Kraftwerk:

"We've never so directly stolen off anyone before. We've never paid for our plagiarism."

What a *****.

Mind you, at the same time, Martin also chimed in with this:

"Fix You came directly from Elbow's Grace Under Pressure."

Hold up there, Chris: don't you know that there's a difference between admiration and plagiarism?

Glastonbury 2011: View from the sofa - Saturday

Cussedly, the BBC Red Button service fell off our TV last night, which made the opportunity to roam over the BBC coverage a bit harder. And BBC Four wasn't interested at all last night. It meant that I started to hit the "here's a GUIDE to Glastonbury" and "here's a person in our studio area doing some poetry" pieces that I'd managed to avoid on the first night.

Naturally, I avoided Coldplay at all costs, but did catch Guy and Chris doing a post-set chat with Jo and Mark "apparently the ghost of John Peel" Radcliffe.

Hold on. In an uncharacteristic twist, I'm about to say something positive about Coldplay.

Chris Martin, in particular, looked like a man who had just had the time of his life. Compared with Bono's attempt to try and explain how U2's set was probably the cleverest and most historic thing that had ever happened, Martin looked like someone who'd just really enjoyed himself and had been thrilled to be asked. Which was beautiful and refreshing to see.

They played a clip of the set after, and obviously it still sounded like weaponised turgidity, but at least their attitude was lovely.

Lots of space found across the BBC for Janelle Monáe, despite her having moved swiftly from the "brightest hope" to "not going to happen" column.

More Noah And The Whale last night, this time from a stage where the camera could get far enough back to have more than two of them in shot in at the same time.

Jessie J did her set sat on a massive, throne-like chair, and then brought on a kid from the audience to sing along with her. Coming at Saturday tea time, it was a bit like an attempt to reboot Jim'll Fix It. Jessie J did have mud smeared all over her face, making her look like part of the walking dead. Which, again, didn't shake off the sense that this was a Jimmy Saville joint.

At least her set was engaging, unlike Rumer, whose show was so blandly inoffensive the National Viewers And Listeners Association might have rejected her as entertainment for their Christmas Children's Party on grounds that she lacked grit.

Three triumphs yesterday: Glasvegas (although the blue light did nothing to shake the 'late night in a city centre Pizza Hut' feel to the set); the Daniella Nardini-plays-PJ Harvey of Anna Calvi; and Elbow. You've got to love Guy Garvey for taking to the stage with trousers covered in mud, like he'd just been out on a ramble before the show. By the time he got the audience doing a reverse Mexican wave and then twisted it into a spontaneous game of Simon Says, he'd won Glastonbury.

[Part of Glastonbury 2011 full coverage]

Guy Garvey sends file sharers to hell

In a slightly confused attempt to have-cake-and-eat-it, Guy Garvey has decided that some filesharers are damned, and others forgiven:

"If you genuinely can't afford music then of course you're going to rip it," the singer said.

"If you can afford it and you don't pay for it then you're going to hell and you've got your own room. Especially when it's a smaller band. There's no excuse."

In other words, damnation is now - like so much else since Cameron-Clegg got in - subject to means testing.

It's encouraging that Garvey suggests there might be shades of grey here, but that raises more questions than it answers. Is it worse for a banker to download a single track he could afford than a bloke on benefits taking 150? And what if the banker downloaded Madonna but the benefits guy was polishing off unsigned acts?

And - yes, really - doesn't it all depend what "it" is when Garvey says 'don't pay for it'. Does he mean that you should pay at moment of download? Or of listen? Or each listen? Is it worse to download a track you could afford to buy but don't listen to it, than downloading one you can afford and playing it 150 times?

If you download a song when you're on the dole, but continue to listen to it when you find a job, is that bad? And is that worse than if you buy a song because the artist is struggling, but the artist then starts to thrive at Elton John levels and doesn't then refund the cash?

Garvey then - he thinks - moves on to a different subject, which is actually the same:

He added that he felt his band were in a privileged position 20 years into their career to now have a supportive record label.

"You come across people [record labels] who've dropped Elbow all the time. If you throw a rock in London you'll hit one.

"We're lucky to have a paymaster in the current climate. It's not lost on us."

But Guy, all the "paymasters" are doing is managing the money. Your paymasters are actually the people who buy your records. The labels are middle-management. And - given that in twenty years you've been mucked about so much - don't you think it at least interesting that the clearly flawed industry of the previous years has changed just as you find a label happy to work with you and a public that is able to discover you?

I think your hell might be looking for the wrong people, don't you?

Brits 2009: The nominees

It says a lot about the BPI and the Brits organisers that they're foolish enough to hold their nominations bash right at the same time as the inauguration. Even had Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd made it through to the cheese board, it was always going to be like trying to raise interest in a hand-held fan during a tornado.

Perhaps, though, the idea was to sneak out the shortlists at a time when it would do least shame to Britain's reputation:

Best British male
Ian Brown
James Morrison
Paul Weller
Will Young

Best British female
Adele
Beth Rowley
Duffy
Estelle
MIA

Best British group
Coldplay
Elbow
Girls Aloud
Radiohead
Take That

Best British live act
Coldplay
Elbow
Iron Maiden
Scouting For Girls
The Verve

Best British single
Adele - Chasing Pavements
Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Dizzee Rascal/Calvin Harris/Chrome - Dance Wiv Me
Duffy - Mercy
Estelle Ft Kanye West - American Boy
Girls Aloud - The Promise
Leona Lewis - Better in Time
Scouting for Girls - Heartbeat
X Factor Finalists - Hero

Best British Album
Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends
Duffy - Rockferry
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

Best British breakthrough act
Adele
Duffy
Last Shadow Puppets
Scouting For Girls
The Ting Tings

Best international album
AC/DC - Black Ice
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Killers - Day & Age
Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Best international male
Beck
Neil Diamond
Jay-Z
Kanye West
Seasick Steve

Best international female
Beyonce
Gabriella Cilmi
Katy Perry
Pink
Santogold

Best international group
AC/DC
Fleet Foxes
Killers
Kings of Leon
MGMT

Critics' Choice: Florence and the Machine

Outstanding Contribution To Music: Pet Shop Boys

The slim interest here is in the international sections - the surprise of Seasick Steve making a shortlist, and the inclusion of MGMT and Fleet Foxes alongside old, clumping stadium acts for best international group. It might, perhaps, have been more exciting had the 'best international band' and 'best international album' lists not been identical, mind.

It's certainly more interesting than the UK album choices. I love the Ting Tings album, but it's hardly a great, flawless work. Elbow and Radiohead both feel like they're albums that are as old as Jimmy Saville - but you suspect that Elbow will pick up the prize in the end.

The constant applause for Duffy sounds more and more like a music industry trying to convince itself that it the 'y' isn't misplaced in her name. But - in a reverse of the old days, when Annie Lennox was always needed to top up the Best British Female category regardless of if she'd even been seen outdoors during the previous twelve months, the Best British Male listing this year seems like it's desperately in need of a rest. Ian Brown? James Morrison? Weller? Will Young? If that really was the best British male solo talent we could muster, you'd put a bet on Eggon Quim from the X Factor making the list next year. Actually, he probably will be there, won't he?

Coldplay. Coldplay are the stick with which you can calibrate the judges. Four nominations for Coldplay. The ears are cloth, but the fingers can still weigh the earning power.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: He knows his Elbow

Presumably to avoid the need to pay for people to write stuff, Metro hands over a large chunk of its post-Mercurys coverage to Gennaro Castaldo:

HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo said: "Following Elbow's popular Mercury win, The Seldom Seen Kid is currently selling four times as many copies at HMV as it was before the ceremony.

"That's a pretty big pick up for such a relatively short time, and with more sales to come over the weekend, when music fans will be out in force, the band look set to enjoy one of the biggest lifts ever seen by a Mercury prize winner.

"A lot of music fans will be aware of the band and their music, but may not have got round to buying one of their albums before.

"The main purpose of the Mercury's is to shine a light on music that deserves to be listened to by a wider audience, and Elbow are certainly in line to make a lot of new fans, and to take their profile to the next level."

I'm a little bemused by this, to be honest - what sort of person would know about a band but not actually bother buying a record until it had won some sort of award? How does that work, exactly? Are there really people who won't touch a record unless Simon Frith has listened to it for them first?

And since the point of the Mercury is to boost sales, wouldn't you expect the lift in sales to be instantaneous? Does Gennaro really find it surprising? Would he really have thought "well, it'll take about a month and a half for that prize to generate an upswing in sales"?

Gordon in the morning: Good lord, a story worth reading

Apart from the over-liberal use of corny, Our Tune style phrases like "tragic pal" - oh, and the "you won't have heard of Elbow before" info-box - Gordon's story this morning on Elbow dedicating their Mercury award to the Bryan Glancy is actually a decent story.

It could almost make up for a big splash about Amy Winehouse's new "secret country retreat" that, erm, does virtually everything besides providing a Google Map. Almost, but not quite.

Burial buried

Elbow - who, yes, have improved noticeably since no longer having major label bosses making helpful suggestions - have won the Mercury Music Prize.

Not Burial, then, despite the cash being poured in support of his album down the bookies.

Guy Garvey is delighted:

"This is quite literally the best thing that's ever happened to us."

Although that's probably what Roni Size thought.

Mercury shortlist shoots out

We've kind of forgotten the aim of the Mercury Prize - beyond promoting a now-defunct telecommunications company, of course - because we're sure nobody would have set out to create a prize like the one they've ended up with. That said, this year's shortlist actually functions as a useful guide to just-off-mainstream British music in the last twelve months, if you accept Adele as being, you know, slightly edgy, and with the proviso that there's no reason why Rachel Unthank and the Winterset should be locked away in some rock genre.

Once again, there is a disappointing shortage of black artists - Estelle apart - and the British Asian scene is ignored completely.

The shortlist in full:

* Adele - 19
* British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
* Burial - Untrue
* Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
* Estelle - Shine
* Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
* Neon Neon - Stainless Style
* Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea
* Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
* Radiohead - In Rainbows
* Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
* The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

If I was a betting man, I'd be doing a blog about greyhounds. Nevertheless, given the ability of Mercury judges to have a great shortlist and still crown a Richard III, we'd guess Elbow will carry the day. We're cheering for Laura Marling, though.

Guy Garvey doesn't like the iTunes

Guy Garvey doesn't much like iTunes because - goodness - it saves people having to wade through filler tracks:

"Ultimately, iTunes is a device for selling hardware, MP3-playing hardware, so they should give the artists the freedom to lock their records if they want and it's something that I'm personally gonna see if I can make happen because it's fucking important.

"It's not the buying thing either, it's not like I want GBP7.99 (for an album) not 79p (for a single track). I'd rather people ripped the whole thing for free than got the individual tracks for 79p each, you know what I mean.

"There's no point in doing what we do (otherwise)."

Yes, he really is suggesting that he thinks people should be forced to take the padding tracks they don'r want, and he'd rather make no money at all than have people not take them.

It's unclear if Garvey is suggesting that audiences be made to listen to every bloody track, too - perhaps by having their ears held open as the tunes are poured in through large trumpet-shaped devices.

It hasn't occurred to him that the way to make sure that people listen to every track is to make every track worth listening to - the songs left on the virtual iTunes aren't there because people are being cussed by not buying them. They don't buy them because they don't want them, Guy.

Still, as he says, this is "fucking important", although why it's different to the situation when a successful single from an album could outsell its parent record ten, twenty, even one hundredfold isn't clear; nor why it's so sweary-mouthed important that people continue to purchase music in bunches of tracks determined by the technical limitations and capabilities of the 33-and-a-third rpm disc over half a century ago.

The Bamboo Review: Elbow/Doves

Miss Becky done go see Elbow and The Doves in San Francisco:

[...]anyways. the first band was elbow. I've heard their cd a couple of times and it's not bad. just not flip your lid great, either. besides a few technical difficulties they were good. pleasant. the guitarist had the same adidas as me. he even laced them the same way (straight across). hell, they even looked like the same size (he's a short guy). the singer occasionally sounded like the coldplay guy (what was sare's name for him? bubble butt?) but was much cuter. so that was nice.

then the doves. took them forever and a day to set up. usually the GAMH has quick changeovers but it took over a half hour last night. bah. anyways. I haven't heard the new cd, so most of the show was new to me. good stuff. initial impression is that the songs lack the atmosphere of lost souls, but maybe that's due to ack of familiarity and not hearing the album as a cohesive whole. I liked them a lot, though. good stuff. I noticed they re-used the video playback. I kept getting deja vu at some of the images but it wasn't till the 70s dance party / weird spinning guy that I was certain they'd used the same video (o r parts of it) the last time I saw them. s'okay. cos I like the weird spinning guy. he's cool. they played "spaceface" the sub sub song as the closer. does anyone have a copy of it that they could burn and send me? I'd like to have it...

[EDIT: Reformated to match current No Rock style; content left as was 3-6-07]