News of the Week

Item 1: Chris Martin Hearts Nickelback, But Not Coldplay
You read that right. I’ve been hating on Coldplay for years, a stance which I’ve softened a bit over the last little while due partially to my cheerful, sunny disposition and due to the fact that my fiancée loves them. Fortunately, Chris Martin has done me a solid by admitting in an interview that his band is “less shit” than they used to be, proving that there is a shit-to-not-shit ratio in effect in Coldplay currently, and it used to be higher. I’ll guess somewhere around the 200:1 mark, but that’s just hypothetical.

In the same interview Martin admits to liking Nickelback, giving me further proof that he knows very little about music. It’s too bad it’s to late it’s too bad it’s too WHOOOAAAA-OOOOOHHHHH.

Oh, AND he proved that he’s a bit of a jerk by saying that people who don’t like Nickleback have done “fuck-all” with their lives. We can’t all be in the Nappies, Chris.

Truthfully, Chris Martin seems to be a nice enough guy and I'm sure he was just standing up for a band who get trashed by everyone. Saying that Nickelback haters haven't done "fuck all" with their lives, however, is pretty nasty. I like to think I've done a lot: I started this blog, I once saw'r a blimp, and I started this blog. But even I cannot lay claim to travelling backwards in time to the mid 90s to buy my wardrobe and get my hair cut:

I bow to your superiority, Chad and co.

Item 2: Thieves Don’t Heart Elton John
According the the CBC, a bunch of cars were broken into during an Elton John concert in Newfoundland. Two men were arrested for theft and “malicious damage”, which leads me to believe that there was some serious hate-on for Sir Elton that went beyond simple "let's see if we can get a copy of Candle In The Wind 2001 for free" thievery. I’m guilty of Elton John hating as well, but I didn’t break into any cars when he was in Kitchener.

Music confounds me sometime. I find Sir Elton’s songs to be banal at best, annoying at worst, but to read the comments of concertgoers as they left the venue you’d think that God hisownself had stepped down from the clouds to play “Rocketman”. I guess it takes different strokes to move the world.

Item 3: People I Kind Of Know Heart The Polaris Prize
The Polaris Prize was decided this week, and two artists I have very slight connections to were nominated. Shad, who I opened for last November, was up for The Old Prince. Caribou, who is friends with my ex, was up for Andorra. Ultimately Caribou won, proving that the closer you are to knowing me the more likely you are to win Canadian music awards. Or something.

Item 4: New Kids Heart Meaningless Words
The New Kids On The Block (yes, THOSE New Kids On The Block) have released a new album called The Block. Is it the same Block that they are on? Or is it a different Block altogether? No one’s quite sure.

It’s getting diced up in reviews, and having listened to some of the tracks I can see why. At the end of their run in the 90s they tried te be more sexually explicit to appeal to the most desperate members of their fan base mature, which got them laughed out of the industry for a decade. Have they learned? Noooooooo. The Block is rife with sexual innuendo, imagery and out-and-out audio foreplay. My favourite track (read: track I laughed at the most) is “Sexify My Love”. Sexify? I may hate myself later for asking, but what does it mean to sexify something? Can anything be sexified? Sandwiches? Lawn rakes? Stress balls? (OK, maybe that one…)

Not content with putting a ridiculous non-word in the title and chorus, in the first verse the Kids reveal that they want to “conversate“ before getting’ it on. You know, instead of conversing.

Man, those hats are so....sexified.