Tatu still managing to upset gay people in 2014

For a very long time, one of the most-read pieces on No Rock And Roll Fun has been the one where Tatu broke off from filming videos of themselves snogging in the pouring rain to ask why everyone thought they were gay.

I think, nine years down the line, it's still puzzling Yulia, as she's now going to extraordinary lengths to distance herself a bit further from That Sort Of Thing, mainly by coming out as a flaming bigot:

Volkova has now revealed that her support for gay rights have since waned and says she would not accept her son if her were gay.

"Yes, I would condemn him, because I believe that a real man must be a real man," she said. "God created man for procreation, it is the nature. The man for me is the support, the strength of... I won't accept a gay son."

The idea of not accepting a gay son, in the way one might refuse to sign for a delivery of chipboard.

Obviously, we don't need to waste much time engaging with the substance of Yulia's homophobia, or her theology. Or her, much.

But you might be wondering 'hey, didn't Tatu at least try and salvage their image the last time round by making some token support for LGBT issues? Isn't this making her look not only like a terrible, terrible person, but one who is perhaps suggesting that was all less than genuine?'

And you'd be right.

But Yulia has a workaround. Let's hear it, Yulia:

She was quick to add that her views aren’t at odds with her previous work; lesbians are a more acceptable form of sexuality than gay men, she claims, because women are "aesthetically nicer".

Okay, when I said we don't need to spend much time engaging with Yulia's substance, I might have been wrong.

Because she seems to be implying that lesbianism is absolutely fine, because women are nice to look at, the logic appears to suggest that she's looked at some cocks and decided they're pretty poorly designed.

From this, she's rationalised that since nobody would want to engage with something so ridgy, and thrusting, and dribbly-when-enraged, and coloured with a purple that Dulux has never tried to recreate, the only possible reason you'd want to go near one would be, reluctantly, to make a baby. And if there's not going to be a baby coming out of the encounter, why would you bother?

Winningly, Yulia has managed to invert one of the stock pieces of lazy gay stereotyping - that they're all aesthetes - and turned it on its head to suggest that for two men to enjoy their company when they're naked, those men would have to have no sense of style or taste at all.

So is Yulia right that acts of same-sex activity can pervert society? Actually, yes, in one very specific way.

Because, although All The Things She Said was a cracking pop song, without the video it would probably have been overlooked, and by now Tatu would, as a band, be too obscure a reference for Pointless and probably only deployed during the latter stages of Only Connect, if at all. Ironically, we could all probably be moving on without having to worry about what a spiteful Russian woman thought about men who have sex with men if that woman hadn't spent time snogging another woman in the rain, in front of a camera, a decade ago.

That might be, uniquely, the one piece of same-sex activity we'd all have been better off without.

Gordon in the morning

Enjoying the perks of his new role, Gordon Smart has flown himself out to Vancouver for the first night of the Spice Girls tour. Naturally, the focus is on breasts:

They're back... and they're bigger than ever

(And so are the Spice Girls)

Gordon is delighted by the outfits. Or, rather:

one girdle-tight costume to another.

While the boss is away in Canada, the team back in Wapping are trying to match Gordon's tone. So, there's a new video from Tatu. Do we find out where they've been and what they've been up to? No, Smart's Bizarre knows what's important:

No snogging this time – but great underwear.

Oddly, though, they seem to have quietly dropped Gordon's "advent calendar" after three days.

Riot Said Fred: Moscow gay march attacked

What a charming place Moscow is these days: Mayor Yuri Luzhkov suggested that gay rights marches are "satanic acts" and banned plans for one in the city; when a group of Russian gays and international sympathisers attempted to protest this decision, gangs of violent thugs attacked them.

And the police? They arrested the targets, not the criminals.

Amongst those injured was Richard Fairbrass, who was punched in the face while talking to Reuters (Right Said Fred were in town to play a gig):

Richard Fairbrass, a gay singer with the British pop group Right Said Fred, was punched in the face and kicked by anti-gay activists while speaking to Reuters in an interview.

"We understand this is a gay event and so we came down here today," Fairbrass said before being hit. Blood dripped from his face after the attack.

Tatu had made an appearance at the start of the rally, but appear to have been away from the trouble; Peter Tatchell was punched in the face and dragged away by two policemen.

The trouble seems to have started from a nasty mixture of nationalists and Russian Orthodox fundamentalists who gathered to shout the usual rubbish about sodomites and disease. Interestingly, the governments of the rest of the world seem quicker to pursue Putin over the selling of possibly unlicensed mp3s than they are about this, and other, increasing abuses of human rights in the country. It seems that you're fine to send your police in to help out with a spot of queerbashing, but if you flog a few dodgy Phil Collins tracks online, then you've just gone too far.

Missing Tatu?

Alyson CFBgoespop emails us with a link and a question: what's all that about, then?

"That" is a wikipedia page promoting Finding Tatu, a film based on a book based on the band. The plot sounds a little Brookside:

The story is about two girls, Janie Sawyer (an American girl from New York, living in Moscow) and Lana (a Russian native), who become obsessed with t.A.T.u.. They become best friends, with crushes on each other, and attend a t.A.T.u. concert. While in Moscow, Janie develops a drug problem. The girls at some point end up killing one of their mothers. The two eventually end up in jail, and request to stay together for the rest of their imprisonment. As for the two girls who this story is based on, they are still in prison.

This is all, apparently, "based on a true story" and, even more oddly, promises that Sting will be involved with the film somehow.

Mind you, it also said the film would be premiering at Cannes this year - and we've not been able to find a trace of it. Perhaps it's all another one of the thousands of desperate attempts to try and keep the Tatu name spinning cash that never quite seem to come off.

Still, if it really is in the works, what a night out would the twin Eurovision Lordi and Tatu movies be, eh?

How soon is forever?

In an upcoming interview, Johnny Marr has described How Soon Is Now as The Smith's "most enduring song":

"When we'd done 'How Soon Is Now?', we knew it was something else."

The new Healers (Marr's sometime band) do a really good job of it. I know Morrissey still does it live, too. But Tatu's version was just silly. Plastic music."

Still, it wasn't so bad you didn't cash the royalty cheques, we bet.

EUROVISION LIVE: 2006

So, here we are again... last year, we were off in Wiltshire and missed a big chunk of Eurovision, but this year... we're not going to miss a single glowing moment.

8.00 - A woman in a golden dress is singing to a big gold ball. Mind that long skirt on those steps, love. Oh, christ, and a big, silver, emotionless man. That'll scare off the few kids who weren't already firmly stuck behind the sofa after the cybermen...

8.04 - Here are this year's hosts, then - a woman with scary hair who probably counts as "sexy" in the host country, and a snarky looking bloke who probably thinks he's quite witty. We're told everyone is "amazing" (apart, presumably, from Belguim's already-beaten entrants). Last year's winner is back to do her stuff. She's not really had much of a year, has she? Maybe they should find a job for Eurovision winners to keep them busy until they have to appear again in the following contest - in the same way that Miss World and convicted tax fraudsters have to do community service for twelve months.

8.08 - The hosts tell us she was "amazing." The word of the year, then, would seem to be amazing.

The voting rules are up on screen - calls, apparently, are charged at EBU rate - that's presumably not used very often, then.

The between songs films are the usual "look at our nation" tourist information film fare.

First contestants are Switzerland - Ulrika Jonson and Mickey from Dr Who... oh, hang on, it's a sextet, also featuring a bloke in a hat, and Cher from her Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves period. They're called Six4One (remember, those numbers are charged at EBU rate) and ponder what could happen if we all give a little. Switzerland's successful policy of remaining neutral in world wars should be extended to song contests.

8.13 - "Digital viewers press their right button... red button..." - Wogan's already pissed.

Moldova: Asenium feat. Natalia Gordienko and Connect-R.

The song is called Loca, and it's being sung by a Britney Spears impersonator - if she was any more similar, she'd be throwing babies on the floor - and the Moldovan S Club 7. We suspect this might be the entire collection of musical professionals the country has to offer. The only-to-be-expected rap bit is delivered by a bloke who comes to the front of the stage on a scooter. A kid's one, not a mod's one.

Overall, it sounds like something you might hear coming from a beach as you say "let's try the next beach along."

8.20 - Israel: Together We Are One by Eddie Butler

Every year, Israel enter a song of peace, love and hope - usually the hope being that nobody will ask what part of Europe Israel is actually in. Eddie is straining at the edges of his white suit; many of his backing singers - and there are hundreds - are bursting out of theirs. Presumably the cleavage show is to try and stop people asking awkward questions about walls and things.

8.22 - Latvia: I Hear Your Heart by Vocal Group Cosmos

"It's acapela" warns Wogan. And so it is. It looks like a counselling centre has pulled together a glee club as one of its activities. Imagine the Kings Singers had decided to try and go after the Boyzone audience.

Bloody hell, they've got a robot - a rubbish robot; all it does is sit up and wave. That explains why it looks like they've got a bloke from IT support in the back row.

One of them had hidden a helium balloon in his pocket for the song. That's quite sweet.

8.25 - Norway: Alvedansen by Christine Guldbrandsen

A blonde woman in her wedding dress ("Buffy the Eurovision Slayer" suggests my wife.) Like all the bands so far, despite being a solo artist she's taken the stage with a bunch of white-clad supporters. No robots, no balloons, and no song; instead she just goes "aaah-iii-aaah-eee-aaah..."

8.30 - Spain: Bloody Mary by Las Ketchup

Bloody hell - Las Ketchup? It's not quite entering Tatu, but this is as close as Spain can come to pulling in their big international hit guns, isn't it? It makes a nice change for a band to appear in something other than white - they're in red, of course; and they've built a dance around, um, some office chairs. At the same time, they've got two modern ballet dancers writhing about, making it a bit like the Brassneck video. A bit. "Look at me, look at me, look at me" is the only discernable lyric. It goes on way too long, but isn't too bad. Not as bad as that novelty hit they had a few years back, anyway, but we can't support them because of that hit.

8.33 - Malta: I Do by Fabrizio Faniello

With a name like that, we're betting he's going to have big teeth and hair.

Hair? Check. Teeth? Check. We didn't guess the goatee beard, though. He looks very clean-cut, though, and it's probably the lack of carnal thoughts which gives him the confidence to carry off trousers that tight. The song, unfortunately, is lost entirely in its own Miaimi Vice style electronic drumbeat, and may never escape.

One his backing dancers looks like daughter of bird-killer Emma B. Surely she's not relocated to Malta?

8.36 - Germany: No No Never by Texas Lightning

Cactuses - oh, god, it's Teutonic Country. Imagine country music sung by emotionless robots. That would be Shania Twain, actually, wouldn't it?

Oh, indeed it is.

With a backing band who look as if they took no persuading to wear the six-gallon hats. In fact, they probably started from the hats and developed their act in that direction.

"I'm never ever gonna not go and pick up the phone" runs the words - what? You're not going to call? Or you'd never not call, which means you'll always call? You're going to be constantly ringing me? Like a stalker?

8.40 - Denmark: Twist of Love by Sidsel Ben Semmane

This sounds promising - surely a Scandanvian singing about a twist of love can only be getting fruity, right?

Wrong. It's Sonia's Copenhagen cousin doing what sounds like a skiffle reworking of the Fat Boys version of The Twist. She's doing Donald Rumsfeld style pointing, too.

Ah... Blogger's gone to sleep now, too. Always a service to rise to the occasion.

A dancer has come from nowhere to push his face round the floor - something Chubby Checker never included in the rules for "it going like this."

8.45 - Russia: Never Let You Go by Dima Bilan

Dima seems to have come hot foot from gym class, where he's spent too long working on heavy lifting and given no attention to his sparrow chest. In a similar fashion, he probably could carry a tune, but doesn't have anything with which to lift one.

Oh god, a scary mime-faced dancer has just crawled out the piano. Dima doesn't look like he knew she was in there, but has made a good hand of ignoring her anyway.

8.48 - FYR Macedona: Ninanajna by Elena Risteska

"Give me what you're waiting for" instructs Elena from within her tiny denim hotpants. But if we're waiting for it, how can we give it to you? Never mind, because it turns out she wants to give it to us anyway. If you try and walk in those shorts, love, we'll all be getting it.

8.52 - "Last year was naval" says Terry, "this year, the legs have it."

Romania: Tornero by Mihai Träistariu

Yet more interpretative dancing, this time by a woman in an Ethel Austin blouse trying to keep up with Mihai's over-frenetic bounce-along. Mihai looks a little like a stage hypnotist.

Oh, now there are some lads in flat caps doing basic dance moves behind him. They're lucky they didn't get him on a normal show, he'd have convinced them they were talking to a beautiful woman and made them kiss a mop.

One of the cap lads is spinning on his head on a podium now - this year, it's like the Rock Steady Crew have taken on the choreography.

Half way already? Bloody hell. Nothing so far has really tickled us.

8.58 - Lady presenter has changed from a horrible yellow into a silver and white bridesmaid's dress; the bloke hasn't changed the stupid look on his face. But to be fair, they don't seem to be doing quite as much plodding two-handed comedy knockabout stuff as usual this year.

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Lejla by Hari Mata Hari

Not the Mata Hari, we presume. Ooh, this is quite nice, although perhaps a little bit too close to the sort of "sounds of the Pan Pipes" CDs you hear on constant test loops in garden centres. And Hari does have an unfortunate stance for singing, like a man desperate to poo, but afraid to actually put his bottom on the toilet seat lest he catches something.

He's got a stack of white-dressed supporting singers, too.

9.03 - Terry has made his first comment about how the Balkans will block-vote. That's taken nearly an hour, though, which is the closest this man comes to self-restraint.

Lithuania: We are the winners by LT United

In rather a bold move, the lyric consists of a statement that "we are the winners of Eurovision". Perhaps they wrote that on a flipchart when they were coming up with ideas, and forgot to replace it with a proper song. They do look as if they might have been put together by a Lithuanian Alan Sugar for The Apprentice, and they even have someone singing through a loud hailer, Saira style.

David Yelland comes forward to do a dance.

Nobody wants to point out they're just doing an old Gary Glitter song, though.

It might be mind control, but they're the best so far.

9.06: UK - Teenage Life by Daz Simpson

Our finest hour. This isn't it. Daz has all the charm of a drivetime host on BBC Radio Surrey, and his song is like a poor hybrid of Grocer Jack and Smiley Culture's Schooltime Chronicle. It's debatable if Eurovision is yet ready for a proper rap song, but if it is, then why not give it a proper one, rather than something Tony Hawkes would have baulked at for Morris Minor and the Majors.

And who knew it was possible to dress adults up as schoolgirls and reduce their sex appeal?

"What did you learn at school today/ that's what the teachers used to say" -- eh? Surely that's what parents say; teachers, erm, do the teaching.

Mind you, it seems to have gone down really well.

9.11 Or maybe they were just excited because the home girl was up next.

Greece: Everything by Anna Vissi

Is she using a wind machine, or is that just a natural eddy being caused by her flapping dress-wings? Someone has put a lot of work into sewing the details and sequins onto the outfit. Presumably they were also meant to be writing the song, and ran out of time for that bit.

9.14 Finland: Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi

Hot favourites, but their death metal killalotness has been seriously undermined by Mr Lordi's decision to wear a comedy Finnish flag hat.

Actually, this whole thing looks like a gag dreamed up by Joss Whedon for a throwaway scene in an early season of Angel.

Still, it's the look the kids will be trying for tomorrow.

Mr. Lordi has wings which open out, to allow him to present like a peacock. Presumably the ass-shake will be held in reserve for if they have to do it as winners.

Everyone must vote for them. They simply must.

Wogan asks if it's Roy Wood doing the singing.

9.18: Ukraine - Show Me Your Love by Tina Karol

Ukraine try to pull off a Ruslana by thowing in a lot of traditional cossackyness into this, but Tina is no Ruslana. If you want to make the rock-cossack work, you have to give off a vibe that anyone who crosses your path is going to be enslaved in a land-army of sex demons. Tina's not dressed for dragging whelps across the Urals. Indeed, in that skirt she won't be getting on any horsebacks.

Actually, whatever did happen to Tracy Shaw?

9.22: France - Il Est Temps by Virginie Pouchin

Wogan is obsessed this year by "Greek fisherman's caps."

Oh, there's a proper double bass. A signal from the off that France are, once again, going for serious, sweeping balladgs rather than jolly, bouncy pop. Or plastic-faced death metal, come to that. She tries hard, but Virginie's lost it.

She should, though, try singing some of the Sundays' back catalogue. She'd suit that quite well. And they deserve a few extra points for not padding out the stage with interprative dancers.

9.26: Croatia - Moja ·tikla by Severina

It starts out like Private Lives by Grace Jones, but only for the briefest of moments. Severina looks like Gaynor Faye, and spends a lot of time with her arms outstretched - presumably to lay forever the old lie about European women's armpits.

She's backed up by what might be men in Croatian dress.

Oh, she's ripped her skirt off, although she still looks like she's a little overheated.

9.30 Ireland - Every Song Is A Cry For Love by Brian Kennedy

Every song? What about You Should All Be Murdered? Or I Hate Nerys Hughes?

Brian Kennedy's haircut, though, is a cry for a barber. Ireland apparently feel ready to start winning again, but seems to have forgotten how. You can imagine this dirge was written, then compared with a Johnny Logan song, and even they could see why it didn't quite match up, but were unable to tell what was missing.

If this song is a cry for love, it's going to be a terrible sort of love - the sort of love which ends up with someone locked in a closet.

Kennedy did sing better than any of the other blokes so far, though.

9.34 Sweden - Invincible by Carola

Have the auditions for WonderWoman closed yet? Carola is singing with metal leggings and a six-foot flowing top, which shows she could manage anything the part might demand. The song is a bit by-numbers, but the attention to hair detail might swing the gay vote behind her.

9.37 Turkey - Super Star by A. Sibel Tüzün

Umlauts! Umlauts! Shit tattoos that you can't tell if she's midway through having removed or have just faded really badly! A cony-flesh coloured top that looks like a Madonna knockoff. Can it fail?

Unfortunately, yes, because she sings the title as if she was singing "Suicide" rather than Superstar.

Her dancers try and take away from her poor diction and crappier body art by doing some human pyramid stuff.

9.41 Armenia: Without Your Love - Andre

Ooh, Andre looks right mean, like one of those lads who hangs around the market smoking roll-ups with their hooded tops up because the butcher's laid them off and they're waiting for a job mixing cement for the bloke rebuilding the Civic Centre. You know the sort. He does have his position at the end of the contest going for him, as people will be able to remember his song as they come to vote. On the other hand, people will be able to remember his song as they come to vote, and its so empty, that's not an advantage.

9.46 That's the singing over with, then.

She's back in a short, spangly silver number, but the bloke has traded up, too - he's wearing a gold lame jacket. While we're being "amazing" and voting, we're going to be entertained by Member of the European Parliament Nana Mouskouri.

Is she going to sing? Or just babble on about great everyone has been?

These days, she looks more like Ronnie Barker's impression of her than ever.

"There are no losers" insists Nana, which may comfort Daz Sampson who looks like a loser if we've ever seen one.

The giant heart-shaped egg timer which was meant to control voting time slips back on itself, and everyone looks more than a little bemused as what they should do. We don't know the Greek for "plough on regardless and stop standing like you've got a frozen turd in your buttcheeks", but we imagine that's what the presenters were hearing.

The dramatic shots of the sand running out through the eggtimer during the intermission song are slightly redundant now we know it's not actually the control clock at all.

9.58 "An amazing night" says the bloke-presenter, as the audience countdown the end of voting from, erm, 11.

"What an amazing, amazing night" testifies the she-presenter (now in black, by the way.)

The votes are now going to be counted, apparently, although since its all electronic, we're a little at a loss to why it takes the length of a mini-Olympic opening ceremony musical number (based on Aristophanes, apparently) before we can get to the voting.

10.10 Slovenia start the voting and give maximum marks to Bosnia. That's Terry off on his block voting grumps, then.

This year, they've sped up the process by not making the countries go through all their votes - the first seven marks are just flashed up on screen. Finland are leading after the first few countries - if they win, presumably everyone will enter a death metal song next year.

10.15 Does Terry really believe Latvia give Russia twelve points to stop Putin re-invading them?

Lordi are holding up "We Love You" signs; Daz Sampson has got stuck on seven points for the longest time.

Because Finland don't give any marks to Sweden, rather than saying "oh, there isn't block voting at all", Wogan suggests "Sweden won't like that."

10.20 Terry has at least found another obsession, worrying over how hot it must be for Lordi in all that make-up.

Ireland have given twelve points to Lithuania, suggesting they might be the most suggestable nation in Europe.

Daz has by now managed a mid-table ranking, which means he's done better than Javine. Javine might want to think about what that means for her career.

Finland are running away with it, though. Helsinki next year...

10.30 The Dutch Chris Moyles is delivering their votes live from Weesp, and trying to be a character; it's a race for second. Mind you, he's upsetting Terry Wogan so he's not all bad.

Terry also has the hump about there being 37 countries involved in the voting process. But it gives us the chance to discover that, for example, Stephen Colbert is doing the Polish results.

Fearne Cotton is giving our results. Not her finest hour. But she does make rock hands when she gives 12 to Finland, so we forgive her.

10.40 Israel are still on zero - doubtless this is part of some terrible conspiracy being orchestrated by Iran, rather than because their song sucked.

France have just given Israel four. That leaves Malta on the bottom alone.

"This is not a great scoreboard... you need fifty-fifty vision to see the score" says Wogan, before greeting the arrival of the German results with a snarky "who do you think you are, Lord Haw-Haw?" Mmm, what was that you were saying about countries stuck in years-old patterns, Tel?

Iceland give their maximum to Finland - the only nation to do so because they thought some death metalling demons were a natural Eurovision choice rather than a giant cosmic joke. "I'm only surprised it took them so long to find a troll to enter" said the Icelandic people, as one.

10.50 Daz is slipping down the table quite rapidly - it might be a little too soon for him to send that "in your face" text to Javine; 25 points seemed a solid start but he's not had a single point for about twelve rounds of voting.

Finland have it in the bag - along with their giant mallets and spare horn-cleaner by now; the only question is if the rapidly disintegrating grip on affairs held by the production team can make it through the rest of the show.

10.55 The Finns have done it. Which is lovely, because it's a sign that the contest isn't quite as dull and predictable affair as it could have been. And Hard Rock Hallelujah beats the hell out of Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Lay.

And who doesn't love seeing a man-troll being presented with a bunch of flowers?

music lordi eurovision song contest greece finland

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: The week the world, apparently, went indie

A couple of decades back, Paolo Hewitt provided one of the irregular flashpoints for the NME letters pages with a front page story "Why black music in Britain doesn't stand a chance." Naturally, the debate quickly crashed off into Morrisseyiana (was "burn down the disco/ hang the blessed dj" a racist attack on black music or simply down to him being too nervous to sing "burn down radio one and hang Simon Bates" while relying on the BBC's patronage, the crux of Hewitt's claims were pretty solid - black music in late 80s Britain wouldn't thrive because daytime Radio One (then, the only game in town) didn't play black music. You might or might not have agreed with his logic from there - Steve Wright wouldn't touch much beyond I Just Called To Say I Love You because the network was inherently racist - but you'd find it hard to disagree with the evidence.

Last week, Hannah Pool essayed a similar argument in the Guardian Weekend magazine - her thesis, though, was the British Black Music had been badly mangled and left for dead. She mainly blamed the record companies for not allowing black talent to develop, the media for not giving black music the airtime it deserved, and white indie guitar boys for cluttering up the place. The trouble is, she didn't manage to make any of this sound like a conspiracy against black artists, and never stopped to consider that young white artists have pretty much the same challenges to face.

Yes, the big record companies don't invest much in British black talent - but they don't invest anything in any new talent: how many pop artists, black or white, have had two albums on a major label without a top forty hit and been invited to make a third?

Secondly, of course, if the big labels do have a racist release policy, who is putting out all these Tupac and BIG and Diddy and 50 Cent records? Likewise, if the media won't touch black artists, what are those acres of MTV programmes about rap and hip-hop artists showing off their houses about?

Third: Yes, there are a lot of Arctic Monkeys type stuff around at the moment, but it's not like we've had solid guitar rock for years and years unbroken: it's not so long back we despaired of ever seeing a drumkit, never mind a fringe, on Top of the Pops ever again.

The basic problem with Pool's theory she did at least touch on when she admitted that fans of the British dance and rap world don't consume music in the same way as pop fans do; they don't go out and buy a single on Monday. Pool was attempting to measure success of a type of music using the wrong tools: if you want to know what the kids on the street are listening to, and if its thriving, you don't look at a list of what's selling most strongly in HMV. That's like trying to tell if your Sunday joint is cooked using a sextant and compass.

There was another curiosity, too - Pool complained that for young black kids, "your best chance of having a hit is by fronting a white rock group" (she was thinking of Kele Bloc Party here): but why should a young black lad not front an indie band? Surely Pool wasn't suggesting that black British youngsters should make only dance and rap music?

She looked back to the happy days when Misteeq and Craig David were riding the top ten: but perhaps that's the problem - British black pop music is suffering because people lost faith in it. Because if you have a choice between Misteeq and Destiny's Child, which would you go with? There are loads of talented black musicians in Britain, but they have better things to do with their time than work at the level of Cleopatra Comin' Atcha. There are massive desi and rap acts in the UK who just don't care they're not going to be introduced by Fearne on a Sunday night, any more than even a really great plumber would expect to turn up on Top of the Pops installing a toilet.

However, Pool is right that the charts are crammed with indie kids right now - indeed, for the NME, it has been The Week The World Went Indie. (In other words, they've put the Arctic Monkeys on the front page again.) And the nation has, indeed, gone indie-crazy, although it's that curious sort of indie that wouldn't know a run of 200 seven inch flexidiscs if it fell over them. They had an interview with someone queuing outside a Sheffield record shop to buy the Monkeys album when it went on sale at midnight - Sally Altoft explaining that she hadn't been able to get to the special, small hometown gig that evening as she had to sit in the queue to make sure she bought the album right away. Sally, Sally, Sally: if we assume for a moment that the band are still remembered at a point in the future when you're bouncing rosy-faced grandchildren on your knee, do you think they will want to hear about that legendary gig on the eve of the album's release, or you sitting in a small knot of people at 11.45 waiting for a shop to open?

We love the idea that the punk equivalent of this would have been that everyone over the age of 30 would now claim to have been sleeping on a campbed outside the Arndale HMV while the Pistols were playing the Free Trade Hall.

Meanwhile, there's the first interview with Preston since he left the Big Brother house. It was the first one he gave, although the excited "talks exclusively to NME" splash was kind of undermined by the ragged-out front page of the Sunday Mirror also featuring an exclusive interview with Preston. There's something about Preston that is a little less warm outside than he seemed on the show: "I was saying vote for her [Chantelle], not me, she's the non-celebrity." Yeah, Preston, because prior to your appearance on the show, you must have been beating the requests to be the face of The Gap and invites onto Parkinson with sticks.

Nobody, it seems, was that fussed about claiming an exclusive with Maggot; it's a pity, because Maggot really does seem to have come through the experience unscathed, without having his entire worldview recast through a Barrymore-Rodham shaped lens, still able to see how fucked up everything was: "I thought George Galloway should be representing his constituents rather than representing Pete's coat."

Naturally, in the week the world went indie, Peter Robinson had to take on an indie giant. But they were all busy, so he made do with Alan from The Rakes instead. The Rakes once got trapped in a Travelodge lift. Mmm. Come on indie, you've got the world's attention; to keep it, you'll have to do better than that.

Mike Batt - yes, Mike Batt of the Wombles - took the trouble to send an email complaining about "the twattish proses of Andy Capper" - see, that's the sort of turn of phrase Katie Melua's writer brings with himself to the party. Batt then describes the NME as "the creators of nothing" before calling Capper's birth "a waste of water and towels" (presumably Batt has never actually seen a birth taking place, or has confused confinement with swimming.) And what has led to this flow of slurried invective? What icon had Capper set out to defile which left Batt forced to curse the very mother of the son? Erm... Capper had been rude about the Brits. We can only conclude that Batt doesn't get out much and the thought of the one evening in a year when he goes out and actually gets to set his Sky+ to record Emmerdale being held up to public mockery was just too much for him to take.

reviews
live
ladyfuzz - london buffalo - "flailing recorder solos and kazoos"
babyshambles - cambridge junction - "'Albion' shines as a call to arms for all of the lonely sailors who have lost faith in the good ship Albion"
the spinto band - liverpool evol - "utterly fantastic"

albums
the open - statues - "frankly, all over the shop", 8
the academy is... - almost here - "rigid adherence to the emo sound", 5

tracks
totw - the raconteurs - steady as she goes - "two friends having the time of their lives"
tatu - friend or foe - "like incidental music in Neighbours"
madonna - sorry - "a bit shit"
the darkness - is it just me - "comedy bands die the death they deserve"

and finally, it had to happen: slashfiction goes mainstream, as the NME offers a two page spread to the stuff. One page, admittedly, is given over to a lovely picture of Carl snogging Pete's face off, and we suspect the main motivation for the piece was to politely sneak in a mention of sleepingwiththenme. It's surprising just how many people want to see Jarvis Cocker fucking somebody, anybody, mind.

We wonder if heavy porn users write stories about the regular models in which they take up careers as musicians? "Ben Dover unfurled himself and withdrew his enormous plectrum from his tiny pocket. 'I'd love to do a double-anal, boss, really I would - but I've got a jam session with Roweena Fleshpussy down at the Marquee in just an hour..."

music slash pete doherty babyshambles jarvis cocker arctic monkeys preston maggot

TATU SPLIT FROM MANAGER AGAIN

Haven't Tatu already dumped their manager once? Only they've done it again, so grumpy at being booked on some sort of reality TV show they fired him on air.

Hang about... "reality TV show". Just a stunt, then.

music tatu

THE OTHER PARKS

As America pauses to remember Rosa Parks, so Britains take a moment to try and remember Alex Parks. A few older members of our tribe claim to recall her, winning some sort of talent show, but the younger one think she's just a myth.

Myth or not, she's resurfaced, having an angry at Tatu:

“It is insulting to see t.A.T.u. acting the way they do. It feels like they’re trying to make a bit of a joke out of being a lesbian. It’s sad.”

“If their music was any good then it might help, but their latest record sounds exactly like their previous one.”

We don't think Tatu were exactly playing the lesbian for laughs, Alex.

But once Alex starts talking of singers who've probably never really known the love of a real woman, she can't stop:

“I don’t understand how James Blunt has done so well.”

“I think his songwriting is poor. He’s got a rhyming dictionary and that’s it. He’s so unimaginative and boring. His music is not deep enough for me.”

Yeah, look at James' rubbish words - how shallow can you get?

Maybe that's what it takes
For me to be with you
Maybe it's our love saved
Maybe that's why it breaks
And we do the things we do
Maybe that's what it...

Oh, hang on... that's not James, is it? That's Alex's Maybe That What It Takes, isn't it? Funnily enough, it's surprisingly easy to get confused between the two.

music alex parks tatu james blunt

THE HALF-FORGOTTEN FAKE LESBIANS STRIKE BACK

Tatu weren't going to just sit there and let Charlotte Church rip the piss out of them. So they've decided to have a pop at Chazza. Julia - who was never a lesbian, and never pretended to be a lesbian, oh no - tried this:

"No one has heard of her in my country - yet where she lives, everyone knows who we are. She must be very careful with her big mouth because bad things happen to people."

Uh... that probably says more about the Russian media than Charlotte, actually, Julia. Your riposte is "We're more famous in Wales than Charlotte is in Russia", which when you put it like that doesn't really sound very clever. Added to which, of course, if you're measuring value in fame, Charlotte played private gigs for the American President and the Pope, and Tatu came second in the Eurovision Song Contest. Round one, we think, to Charlotte.

music tatu charlotte church

GENNARO CASTALDO WATCH

Blimey... Charlotte Church's second pop single limps in at number ten - bested even by Tatu's lukewarm comeback. Even before the official chart was announced, icWales was fearing that the rundown would give Ms Church a bloody nose. Who could explain the situation? Step forward, HMV's Gennaro Castaldo - the man of a million insights. Indeed, as you'll note, he's gone beyond being a mere spokesperson into something altogether more fabulous:

HMV guru Gennaro Castaldo said: "Charlotte could make the step into the Top 10 but I can't see her getting into the Top 5."

What insights! Truly he must have second sight. Or access to the prechart release data, of course.

music tatu charlotte church gennaro castaldo

WHERE DID WE GET OUR CRAZY IDEAS ABOUT TATU FROM?

It turns out we might have been wrong about Tatu all along - we'd had them pegged as straight girls pretending to be lesbians in order to flog records. But as they relaunch their career, they're denying it all. Not the being lesbians bit - oh, no, the new Tatu line is that they didn't even pretened to be gay:

"Our first video was about to love between two girls," said member Lena Katina. "We do not pretend to be lesbians -- we've never said we were. Julia (Volkova) just had a baby and currently has a girlfriend, and we've both always had boyfriends. We share a special bond."

Now, even if we allow that "love between two girls" isn't lesbianic in any way, and dressing up as schoolgirls, and kissing in the rain wasn't pretending to be gay, it's not like the only reason people might have thought a band whose name translated as This Girl Loves That Girl were attempting to create an aura of sapphism, is it?



And that's without all the onstage business. And the claims in interviews. You did pretend to be gay, girls; you can't start pretending you didn't just because you were rubbish at it.

Oh, and the new single sounds like your old ones, but without the confidence.

music tatu lesbianism

TATU TWO-STEP

Having decided to drop the fake lesbianism act, Tatu have been casting around for a new gimmick to help with the new album. And what have they come up with? Creaky old stars - yes, they're working with Dave Stewart (who at least has had some form in this sort of thing, with the wonderful Alisha's Attic), Sting, and Richard Carpenter, out the Carpenters.



It sounds a little bit like a musical version of the set-up for Ricky Gervais' Extras. Only without the jokes. Or the audience.

music tatu

ROSIE AND SOPHIE WEBSTER PREPARE NEW ALBUM

A combination of a press release claiming that rebecca loos and abi titmuss "have the hots for each other" and the looming of the Eurovision song contest combine to make us wonder: whatever happened to Tatu, the pretend lesbians? Well, freed from the need to pretend they spent their evenings sharing post-Soviet strap-ons and giggling, and freed from the clutches of their svengali manager, they're about to release their second album. And it's called People - Invalids. Do you see? We're all invalids. God, why do we bovver? We're going to our rooooms.

According to apparently Babel-fished reports:

Yulia and Lena grew instantly up and they understood a lot - about themselves, and about the world around them. It turned out that there are so many things around those we could be related to and not only to be observed then from a distance, as many people do through their entire life. Those things are wanted to be sung about, not only this - they need to be sung of! Tatu will sing about such things in their new album "Person- invalids".

The worrying thing is, that makes more sense than Fred Durst's blog ever managed.

We're not certain, but we think Steve Jobs might be slipping them a few quid, too:

They are friends. They support each other, although their free time shcedules are different. Lena spends her free time in the company of the greatest (i.e. – she reads books), and Yulia in the company of her American friends and recently bought Macintosh Power-book - fellow of all creative souls of the world. All mortal users of the Windows platform are left with their envy: Yulia uses all advantages of the progressive Mac platform, which is quick, classy, bugs-free. Now the pulse of the world is under her fingertips 24/7 - as Americans say. The most stressful stage of the recording is already behind, therefore a pair of weeks ago, Tatu made a one-week break in their "American" life and dove in the Moscow spring. In spite of a cosmopolitic charachter of their artistry, the girls miss Moscow, which remains the dearest city for them.

Quick, classy, bugs-free. Ah, if only the same could be said of Misses Titmuss and Loos...

"WHEN WE SAID WE WEREN'T REALLY LESBIANS, WE DIDN'T MEAN FOR YOU NOT TO TAKE ANY NOTICE OF US": According to the Sunday People, the sudden realisation that nobody is looking any more seems to have made Tatu (remember them?) suddenly be all lesbian again. Let's guess: maybe the claim it was all a publicity stunt foisted on them by an evil manager was... a publicity stunt? Maybe they really are lesbians after all. No, really... come back! Please! Look, we'll wear ankle socks... mmm, girls...

OW... OW... OW: Offered a chance to appear before Prince Charles at the Trevor Horn gig, Holly Johnson said "no, thank you" - presumably afraid the Prince's kid would be there and the evening would end in fisticuffs - not that that's put off the rest of Frankie Goes To Hollywood; they're merely going to get a ringer to take Holly's place. Now, without wanting to be cruel to Paul, Ped and Mark, but while any of them could be switched for anyone else and nobody would mind, doing Frankie without Holly is a little bit like Tatu turning up, only with Jay Aston and David Van Day in place of the two non-lesbianic lesbian schoolitas.

I'M SURE IT MEANS WE HAVE TO TRY HARDER STILL: Apparently this very page is the number two Google search result for 14 year old nude lesbians having fun, which I guess serves us right for mentioning TaTu so much.

ISN'T THIS ABOUT THE NINTH TIME THIS STORY HAS APPEARED?: Tatu are relaunching, again, and, oh, by the way, they weren't really lesbians at all, you know. The Sun reckons that this time the pair are really, really coming back, with Trevor Horn at the helm. And... erm...:

"They still want to be controversial and shocking. They want to look and act hotter than ever before - but not as lesbians. Julia and Lena are getting rid of their skimpy school uniforms in favour of a sassier, sexier look."

Yes, that's probably a good idea. Who wants dowdy old lolita lesbians dressed as schoolgirls snogging in the pouring rain? Thank god they've decided to sex their image up a bit.

SHOCK TACTICS: A couple of weeks back, Channel 4 held an investigation into 'Who Killed Saturday Night TV?' Last night, it did its best to kick the corpse with a shoddy, predictable, wasted opportunity with its 'Videos They Tried To Ban.' It's not that the idea in itself was a bad one, but it's a topic - the moments in pop promos that caused outrage - which would easily lend itself to a sloppy, ill-conceived, poorly researched piece of half truths and wobbling breasts. Of course, there is a quick way to determine 'is this an attempt to try and examine a cultural trait, or just a lame bunch of clips, idiotic quotes from people who don't know what they're talking about, flung together without much of a thesis to hold them together?' And, yes, Gina Yahsere was indeed on board, so we knew it was the latter. It's a pity they didn't make more use of Mitch Benn, who can be funny about music and may have even pulled together a decent documentary from the subject.

It was never quite clearly established who the "they" trying to ban the videos were - indeed, a great many of them were never the subject of any concerted attempts to spare them from our children's eyes. Hit Me Baby One More Time, for all its school writhing, never had any serious attempt made to keep it off the screens; unsettling though Unkle's Rabbit In The Headlights may be, since it was never likely to pop up on CD:UK anyway.

Some parts of the programme were laughable - Jack Osbourne giving expert testimony on scandals which occured when he would have been six, the suggestions that Marilyn Manson's filmic recreation of the death of JFK was in any way a "raising" of the outrage level from Nine Inch Nail's genuinely nauseating S&M machine cut. Some were just plain wrong - was Justify My Love the first ever video single? Of course it bloody wasn't - what about Thriller, apart from anything else? Even more stupid was the claim that Like A Prayer was responsible for turning Madonna into a global star. Since the programme didn't make any mention of the main piece of fallout from her shagging-black-Mr.Jesus promo for this, that the video got her dropped like a burning cross from a Pepsi campaign, maybe none of the researchers knew about it. But the Pepsi contract itself would have been a major clue that Madonna didn't actually need any help broadening her fame at this point.

The lowest point, though, came in the section on the Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up flick. Treating this as anything other than a pisspoor Tales of the Unexpected with a few strippers in it is bad enough, but adding in Jack Osbourne discussing it like it was the cleverest thing ever was just cruel - like those hidden camera shows where they tempt dupes into pretending to have lots of insight about a totally made up person or place. For a film with a "twist" at the end to work, there has to be some sort of value in then re-watching the movie with the knowledge gained at the end of the first viewing; but since "girls get fighting drunk and some even have sex with other girls" would come as a surprise only to people who haven't set foot in a British city centre after six in the evening, even if you don't see the payoff coming in advance, once you go "oh, she's a woman", there's nothing more left to be said.

Not that that didn't stop the programme from trying - young Jack again pops up to say "How could it be misogynistic, because it's a woman doing all those things?" Yes, Einstein. The fact the video was made by a man for an all-male band with a largely male fanbase, in an industry predominately staffed by blokes, featuring hot lesbo action, the number one male voyeuristic fantasy of choice is neither here nor their. Because it's about a woman. On which basis, we'd advise any young girls not to bother with flicking through A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and stick to the doughty feminist text that is Razzle.

What's really frustrating, though, is that rather than trotting out Relax for the hunderth time (it's funny that, while there's no shortage of people happy to yak at the camera that Frankie made lots of cash from Mike Read's outrage, nobody yet appears to have twigged that Mike Read is enjoying a healthy income from appearing on shows recalling how he banned the track), there are some interesting stories about genuine attempts to ban videos that weren't ever touched on - Jimmy Saville's moral crusade against the video that had Sid Vicious riding a motorbike without a helmet, or the Madness one with an electric guitar being played in a swimming pool; the video for Undercover which The Tube were only allowed to show providing they cut away at the gunshots to scene of Muriel Gray watching the film. Instead, we got a few clips of Tatu kissing in the rain - surely 'The Videos Most People Yawned And Turned Away From, Bored' rather than 'The Videos They Tried To Ban'?

THERE'S NO AYE-AYE IN TEMA: Tatu are back! Again! Or something. Only this time, they're not called Tatu, they're rebranding themselves tEmA, partly because former pervmanager Ivan Shapovalov owns the Tatu name, and partly because they're coming out as straight and so This Girl Loves That Girl doesn't really work as a name any more. Yes, they weren't lesbians at all - can you believe it? Apparently the girls are keen to be seen as serious mus... no, sorry, for some reason I just completely lost interest.