What A Week With John Kerrison #7

Oh, hello there. Long time no see. Hope the last seven days have treated you well? You look as if they have, and may I add, that colour looks absolutely radiant on you. No, it doesn’t make your face wash out at all, if anything I think it makes your eyes pop and adds prominence to your cheek bones. I’ve always thought you had lovely, strong features.

Imagine if that’s what I was like. Disgusting.

Anyway, apologies if this is coming to you a little late, I’ve been running around all week trying to stop kids from taking drugs after hearing the name of the latest Madonna album – bloody nightmare, let me tell you. Considering she’s the parent of around 3,000 or so adopted children you’d think she’d know to set a better example. You can read more about that by using your eyes on some of the words below. Not all of the words below, mind. Some of them are about Jay-Z and Beyoncé doing music in space, others are about At The Drive-In reuniting and a few are about how Cliff Richard is dead inside. So, choose wisely, pilgrim and read on.

Madonna Forces Drugs On Kids, Subliminally.
Adoption enthusiast, bearer of sinewy arm-mass and Kabbalah advocate Madonna has unveiled the title of her new album this week, causing all sorts of concern from anti-drug campaigners and an assortment of regular people who apparently, genuinely have nothing better to think about.

The album, full of Madonna songs by Madonna – a greater concern to some than the following drug reference – will be called ‘MDNA’, which depending on who you ask is either how Brendan Frasier would have pronounced her name in 90’s comedy hit and Pauley Shore vehicle, ‘California Man’, or a fully-intentional way of subliminally persuading teenagers to take well-known party-drug M.D.M.A, causing them all to go loopy, strip to their undies and endure ill-advised marathon finger-banging sessions behind bike sheds and such. To be fair, I can see the argument – I only found out about the album title an hour ago and have already had two pretty strong Lemsips. And that’s during work hours. If I was at home I’d be covering my naked body in Calpol and overdosing on inhalers right now.

An intentional drug reference seems like a pretty rash conclusion to jump to if you consider that Madonna has never before strayed into the realms of controversy – apart from that time she released a photographic sex diary, and a DVD linked with her photographic sex diary, and that time she kissed her daughters Britney and Christina live at the MTV Awards, and pretty much everything she did in the 80’s. I should stop this now actually, or we’ll be here all day. My point is, this could just as easily be a clever acronym for something, like ‘Motherly Diva Needs Attention’, or ‘Marketing Disaster? Not at All’.
The first single from the album I don’t care about, ‘Gimme All Your Luvin’’, is due for release in a couple of weeks, when absolutely no-one will kick up a fuss about the fact that the title encourages kids to spell like morons. Welcome to 2012 – drugs are bad, grammar’s unimportant and Madonna’s still here. Feel free to go back to sleep, I’ll wake you when it’s over.

In Space, No One Can Hear D:Ream

It turns out that there’s almost nothing written on the internet that can’t be turned into some sort of conspiracy theory. Last week, when Jay-Z and Beyoncé completed their long-awaited project of making a human baby, the internet was abuzz with rumours that the newborn’s name, ‘Blue Ivy Carter’, was some kind of satanic, Illuminati code. Some internet dwellers used whatever the opposite of science and rational thought is to declare that the name Blue stood for ‘Born Living Under Evil’, the name Ivy stood for ‘Illuminati’s Victorious Youth’ and that the whole thing spelt backwards, ‘Eulb Yvi’, is Latin for ‘Lucifer’s daughter’, which I’m fairly sure it isn’t, in any way, whatsoever. What kind of mindset leads people to try and decipher hidden meanings from a simple word is beyond me (I’ve just thought of another one for Madonna’s album, I’ll get back to you), but I think we can all agree that these people should be banned from the internet and possibly the world as quickly as possible. Although that’s easy for me to say from my tower of skulls in the middle of the Illuminati headquarters.

In slightly cheerier, but just-as-ridiculous, news, apparently millionaire man-child Richard Branson is looking to have the celebrity couple star in the first-ever music video shot in space – conveniently forgetting the ‘N Sync video where Justin Timberlake was briefly on the moon. Pretty sure that was real.  How exciting is that, though? And when I say exciting I mean ‘pointless’. Surely it would be a better idea just to build a set, wouldn’t it? Maybe implement some computer effects? You know, like they did with the original moon landing. *CONSPIRACY KLAXON* Regardless, this story was in The Sun, so it’s not actually going to happen anyway.
Also, this has nothing to do with D:Ream. That was misleading of me. I apologise.

Short Stories
At The Drive-In Restart Engine
Hugely influential, big-haired, post-hardcore act, At The Drive-In seem certain to reform it’s been reported this week, which is great news on two levels: firstly because they’re really good, and secondly because it presumably means there will be no more Sleepercar albums (sorry, Jim Ward).

Flaming Lips Use Random Name Generator To Spark Collaborations
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips has revealed a list of names due to appear on a new collaborative L.P., including Bon Iver, Ke$ha and Yoko Ono. If, like me, you never expected to hear those names used together in a sentence, feel free to Google the story and make sure I’m not lying to you. Once again – Bon Iver, Ke$ha and Yoko Ono. It’s hard to know what to expect from such an eclectic line-up, but looking at the names dropped I’m guessing gentle folk, body glitter and a furious disbanding. I bet Yoko is so sick of those jokes. Luckily we’re pretty close, so she doesn’t mind when I do it. 
Apparently Nick Cave and Lykke Li may also be involved. Not like that. Involved in the project. What is wrong with you people?

The Brit Nominees Unveiled
I feel like I should probably cover this. It seems newsworthy, doesn’t it? I don’t really want to but… agh, here goes.
The Brit Awards –short for The Brittas Awards and named after mildly successful, now-defunct Leisure Centre-based sitcom from the 1990s, The Brittas Empire – have announced their nominees this week. Unsurprisingly, most of the nominees are musicians. You can read a list of them somewhere if you like. On that list will be Coldplay, Adele and Ed Sheeran. GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE! Hope you all win trophy-gongs.

Non-News News Story of The Week
Eavis Says He Has ‘Sorted’ The Headliners For Glastonbury 2013
Farm-owner, music enthusiast and bearer of the much loved no-hair-good-beard combo, Michael Eavis, reportedly already has next year’s Glastonbury headliners ‘sorted’. This was stated clearly in a news piece I just read that then went on to declare that the Glastonbury organiser was giving away no clues as to who they might be.
So… as an alternative headline: ‘Eavis’s Organisational Skills Are Top-Notch’? Or ‘Festival Planners Normally Don’t Leave Things Until Last Minute’?
Nothing to this really is there?

Cliff’s Edge – A Journey Through The Soul Of Cliff Richard
This isn’t a news story at all, but again just something slightly wonderful that was brought to my attention this week. Behold the wonder of Cliff Richard Dying Inside, which is an amusing Tumblr account and not the exercise in shadenfreude it sounds to be.
Here’s a link: http://cliffricharddyinginside.tumblr.com/ 

Non-Music News Story Of The Week
Actual Scientist Blames James Bond For Bad Nuclear Reputation
According to well-trusted news source Orange - the mobile phone network - the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Prof. David Phillips, is blaming James Bond films for the bad reputation of nuclear power.
Phillips claims that Dr. No (in particular) helped create a “remorselessly grim” reputation for atomic energy, helping people to see the technology as a “barely-controllable force for evil.”
Presumably residents of Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima all concur.
Rumour has it that feminist groups are also rallying against Bond villain Pussy Galore for forcing men to think of myriad vaginas.