hammertime: the blog

Making great ignoramuses of us all, David Cameron tempts us to the dark side

2010-04-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

“I want to tell you what I am fighting this election for — it is the people I call the Great Ignored: they may be black or white. They may be rich or poor. They may live in the town or the country.”

What a load of insipid, nonsensical guff. It sounds profound but is ultimately meaningless; politics ignores everyone on some level - minority or majority. However, because we live in a society we accept it, even if we crave a different balance of who it is getting ignored. Cameron's vow overrides this altruistic fatalism, giving us a glimmer of hope that a Tory government will capitulate to our wildest demands.

It unleashes the 'me first' instinct that Tories know so well - and that we're increasingly attuned to in our 'have your say' culture - giving credibility to our darkest, grabbiest instincts.

Non-voters are technically ignored, but so was I when I didn't specify a Barbie for my 9th birthday and ended up with Sindy's more wholesome mouldings. However futile your request is, by voting you're showing you care about something - whether it's a belief in a party or just democracy itself. Not voting is ambiguous, it doesn't say anything - and it doesn't give you a right to say you've been ignored.

The ignorant get ignored too, with good reason. There's a lot of ghastly opinions harboured by the majority of the population - take the enduring appeal of eating Cornish Pasties on trains, for instance, or Lady Gaga. Tasteless views on immigration are equally prevalent, though most people would be ashamed to admit to them - that is, until someone from the Today Programme waves a microphone in their face asking if they are the 'great ignored' (2mins 52 in). People with backward ideas on foreigners swarming their schools and jobs should feel ignored and unrepresented, especially now Bernard Manning is no longer with us.

I could go on. Basically, everyone can reason their way into the 'great ignored', though it doesn't mean they should now be heard.

She may not be a hooker but the Girl with a One Track Mind, isn't a hero either

2010-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Another week, another victory for social media campaigning. After a frenzied retweet-my-wronging initiative from Zoe Margolis, the Indy have apologised for calling her a hooker. Jolly good, it was a moronic headline - lazy, inaccurate and an insult to readers' intelligence (though the Daily Mail's Facebook clanger was far more dangerous). It's exposed a flawed bit of journalism and should be applauded. However, it's also made her more of an insufferable martyr and further validated her brand of prosaic bawdiness. For that I wish it had never happened - probably more than that sub-editor does.

She claims the incident has damaged her reputation, but I can't really imagine that it led anyone to suddenly changing their opinion of her. People who'd think she is a hooker would think so regardless of a headline - that's just how some people judge a woman who talks openly about sex. Over the years she's received enough hate mail and outrage through her blog alone - which she's manufactured into a pretty profitable enterprise as a professional victim. She's regularly wheeled out on Woman's Hour to talk about being persecuted for her sexuality, or onto tech programmes to talk about invasions of privacy.

Now she's been slandered online for being a hooker, so that's ticked both boxes and sent her pity-chip into overdrive. Only the other day she was tweeting that 'I wish my blog wouldn't continue to bite me on the arse (not in the good way); I've held my finger over "Delete Blog?" button so many times.' Jeez, fishing for compliments much, love? In the tradition of Heather Mills there's just something unlikeable about such humourless oversensitivity. If you want a quiet life, delete the blog.

I don't think she should delete it - it's important to have women talking about sex without qualms - but it's not as important as she and everyone else seems to think it is. The way the Twittersphere rallies behind her as if she's DH-fucking-Lawrence narks me something rotten. Her blog reads like a cross between Martine McCutcheon's romance novel and stage directions from Skins - it doesn't shock me, but it sure as hell bores me.

My sense of femininity is more tantilised by a picture of the sumptuous Christina Hendricks than by reading about Zoe Margolis getting a roasting. Hell, its more tantilised by Nigella Lawson licking her fingers while preparing a Sunday roast. The Girl with a One Track Mind may have a topical axe to grind, but she doesn't grind it in a particularly eloquent or attractive way and oh boy does her neediness grate. Come on guys, is she really the best we can do?

Generation gossip: how John Terry has made Loose Women of us all

2010-03-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

One would imagine the difference between listening 5Live and Radio 4 in the morning would be a simple matter of light and shade; economic gloom and dogs on skateboards. Instead,switching between the two, I've learned all of current affairs is now just one sudsy slurry of gossip and intrigue. No matter what the subject is we'll reduce it to a tale of love, betrayal and crimes of passion.

Last week I snoozed my way though Gordon Brown's metamorphosis into a grunting, punchy Phil Mitchell figure. This morning it was football fans agonising over whether they'd boo John Terry tonight. 'It was a mistake to play him, guv. It's only a friendly (friendly!) it doesn't matter - I'm going to make my feelings clear'. Yes, but is he any good on the pitch? In time gone by men would get this animated his ball control on the pitch, not off it. Goodness knows he earns such an obscene sum of money Terry could afford to buy ear plugs if he's that bothered. Or just man up and do his job.

We've become a nation of washer women, forming an excitable gaggle every time a juicy scrap of news is thrown into the streets. Just look at the Greek chorus that assembled in the Twittersphere for Cheryl Cole once Ashley's yellowing Y-fronts were exposed in the papers. With the kind of enthusiasm for tittle tattle worthy of Loose Women they commentated on her every move, including her performance at the BRITs - not for its professional aptitude (or lack thereof), but for signs of emotional fatigue.

Whether it's politics or popular culture, it's the human interest angle that gets people talking. No wonder the Daily Star is now selling itself as 'Not Just for Boys', it's discovered we're all obsessed with tits.

Birds in flight? More like circling vultures. Losing our sense of reason in the Twittersphere

2009-10-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. If only the same were true of Twitter. The day after Stephen Fry threatens to quit microblogging over its horrid tendencies and it's front page news in the Sunday Times. Then, on page 18 there's a separate essay about Twitter's mob mentality in the wake of baboon boy AA Gill and the questionable Jan Moir. As Telegraph's tech blog points out, the Times was not alone. Ever since Mr Fry got stuck in a lift and became the poster gent for 140 character missives, papers have taken every opportunity to publish goings on in Twitsville as news. It's a faltering bid to remain relevant in the digital maelstrom. Yet it's too late - indeed the very reason there's an unruly mob to document is because the Twitterati have already left the quaint world of newspapers far behind.

Twitter appeals because it's a hyper-personal news feed - block out what you don't care for, be it sport, private finance or Demi Moore's knickers, focus on what interests you. Newspapers, however myopic, always force your eyes over subjects beyond your interest. By their format, it's hard to escape alternative opinions and serendipitous insights. Over on Twitter, at times you'd be forgiven for thinking the sole occupation of a gifted mind should be X Factor dissection and Daily Mail baiting.

Such narrowed focus breeds second hand information and re-tweeted disgust. Why read into a subject when your trusted sources have distilled the party line so succinctly? Yet the angry mob's torches don't spontaneously combust; someone needs to drop a match. This task falls to prolific Tweeters like @BadJournalism and @glinner, who deliver edicts on matters of the day to an army of yes men. Variously commentators, comedians and writers, these ringleaders find Twitter fertile territory for the volatile ego and childlike insecurity that define their profession.

It's a precarious position; the only thing more powerful than having 150,000 people validating your outrage is having one person calling you a dick. According to Grace Dent 'what no-body seems to have mentioned in this whole Fry thing is @ing someone's name when slagging them off is twat behaviour. why do it?'. Because to incubate people from negative feedback or conflicting ideas is to stifle debate and make pampered fools of us all. Stephen Fry's bipolar condition makes the situation complicated, but other eminent Twitterati have no excuse. The online world isn't a nice one - much like the real one - we can't just edit it like Twitter Lists. I used to follow Jon Ronson and, after my newsfeed had (again) become jammed with his musings, I suggested that he was tweeting too hard and that he should turn down 'Radio Me' a notch. So he blocked me.

We have a valuable tool for spreading truth, joy and justice in Twitter, yet to achieve this its community need to remain flexible in their outlook and remember that other news sources (and opinions) are available.

Thelondonpaper closes, hang fire on the champagne

2009-08-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

I wrote a blog about the demise of thelondonpaper and posted it on Time Out's Big Smoke section - but in the interests of *ever* updating this page, I figured I should at least mention it here...

Prima Donna indeed: Rufus Wainwright reminds us that great musicians really, really care

2009-07-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know much about opera, but I know that only Rufus Wainwright could entice a crowd of genre virigins to a French language debut - and leave them whooping in the aisles. Witnessing the triumphant premiere of his opera 'Prima Donna' last night he emerged the unflappable renaissance man, sprinkling splendour wherever he goes.

Wainwright's genius lies in enchanting songwriting, delivering performances that can make you smile and break your heart. Prima Donna transferred his effortless grace and immodest grandeur piece-by-piece to the opera and answered his decree that someone needed to 'bring the tunes back'.

Not only do admire his balls for making such a bold foray into unchartered waters - risking a libretto of tutting from the critics - but what his show does is to enlighten music fans of all persuasions.

The premise - an opera about an opera singer - had the deconstructive, post-modern wink of an outsider. To tackle the life-affirming - yet painful - synchroncity between an artist's craft and their identity is something of a musicians in-joke. It was, as is befitting of Rufus, a vanity project in the extreme. It was also its definitive strength.

Our cultural obsession with music has left us deadened to the flicker of a tortured genius. When everyone can audition to be a star, the majority of musicians are dispassionate and expectant. From pop to rock banality yawns out a limp embrace.

For all the warbling, simpering and weeping crocodile tears on 'X Factor', no one believes Alexandra Burke would be driven to insanity if she lost her voice. She'd probably carve out an equally fulfilling career breeding kittens.

'Prima Donna' reunites a pop-savvy crowd with the notion a musician lives and dies by their art. That Wainwright has relayed this message in a medium out of step with mainstream music allows it a critical distance. It also sprays an insouciant fragrance into the haughty musk of its host genre. It shows both opera and pop what it's been missing - and confirms Rufus Wainwright as the prima donna standard for which all musicians should strive.

Happiness in Magazines - or not

2009-06-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

It takes a lot to get hair as pink and blonde as mine: four hours of a hairdresser (two at some stages) dividing, bleaching, washing, dividing, pink-ing, washing, snipping, cutting, drying, straightening, snipping again. The extensive time spent in a context so focused on image makes it impossible for girl not to consider femininity - especially given the reading material on offer. Each appointment is a rare opportunity to run the gamut of glossy magazines with impunity; each one proffering tropes of womanhood - none of which remotely appeal.

So which kind of lady could I be?

Now, I could be the sort of girl I am and take the Guardian, but the kind of girl I am also feels embarrased about waving my liberal zine around in there. There's something about spending silly money on silly hair that doesn't quite square with Iranian protest updates.

Today my random selection featured Vogue (scary), Tatler (foie gras for the soul) and OK! (unsettling).

OK! No
I've always consoled myself with the notion that no one reads 'sleb magazines seriously, but curiously OK! still manages to take itself seriously. Like Tatler, it's in the thrall of awful rich people, albeit at opposite ends of an alleged 'class' spectrum. My copy was a few weeks old - comparing Kerry Katona and Katie Price's respective falls from grace - what will the future hold for them? Price has always been the worst kind of woman and is a vicious empty vessel ('I should have trapped him with a baby' screamed a recent Closer front page), while Katona is more troubling - you believe her damage is real. One uses bawdy sexuality as empowerment, the other is helplessly subjugated by the nasty piece of work she married. Both are independently wealthy, though this brings about a marked contrast in their situations - Price has a license to behave how she pleases, for Katona it's just another way she is robbed of personal resources by her husband.

A few pages on we get Chantelle Houghton, who is now boasting curves after a too-skinny phase. This modicum of willful, classic womanliness wrestles with routine WAG-tastic modern standards for relationships, informing insights like: 'If a woman could describe her perfect man they'd say they were looking for someone who was caring, thoughtful and someone who would put up with a lot of shit. So Peter Andre then.'

Vogue
The repellent nature of the Jordan-Chantelle model must be to do with the way they tell 'em, because when Rufus Wainwright talks about prima donnas in Vogue it sounds classy, passionate and inspiring. Funny how different things sound when they come from someone with talent. Meanwhile, Alexa Chung posits another alternative to the up-skirt route to self-definition when she tells us how she hearts the tomboy look. 'It's far classier to showcase your personality than your cup size' she says, underwriting said personality with the aphorism 'I don't care what anyone thinks' while holding down a career that reeks of kitten farts. Alexa could've learned a lot from Florence Welch, whose wardrobe we plunder in the next feature. Channeling vintage, silliness and eccentricity, her outfits convey 'I don't care' by wearing it rather than saying it. Though admittedly, it's the difference between a Dan Brown novel and a Julie Burchill column.

Tatler
I left Tatler 'til last, and didn't finish it. After 26 pages of adverts you're plunged into fawning accounts of gratuitous displays of wealth enacted by dead-eyed heiresses. The humbling of this scene was one of the few positive effects of economic collapse and it seems they've got over it now.

Now I'm not trying to say all women are scheming, squealing or stupid. That's almost certainly not true. It's just a shame they don't have decent magazines in hairdressers.

That’s out of my remit, guv - the curious definitions of public service

2009-01-22T03:19:00.000-08:00

Nothing stirs the intrigue of media braying fraternity quite like a debate about public service broadcasting, so the past few days of navel gazing have proved a Class A stimulus. Yesterday's cliffhanger delivery of the Ofcom report on the matter even caused the Today programme to draw breath from it's long financial yawn and talk about it twice in one show - a public service in itself. The main thing that struck me though was the implied technical disparity between public service and commercial output. It's as if what's popular can't be useful, or that what is enriching can't be entertaining.

Whether C4 join forces with BBC Worldwide or Five seems to represent both halves of the debate - whether your output is populist or enriching defines how you're perceived. It's not a question of whether you can be both - as BBC, ITV and C4 all prove is possible - but it's why the two terms are treated as mutually exclusive. C4’s recent Sex Education project is a case in point - provocative as well as worthy it was hailed as a classic example of their unique take on the public service remit. A cross-platform box-ticker too, the producers proudly claim that the site got over 3 million views (though with a domain name like a premium chatline - sexperienceuk.channel4.com - it would be hard-pushed not to. I imagine most of those who clicked through from Google were probably disappointed by the array of flaccid anatomical analysis and cringy videos of pensioners talking about dildos). It may have been educational and controversial but it was also massively popular and, judging by the volume of engagement, pretty valuable. For those of us with minds in the gutter it provided hours of amusement too - I made a sniggering bee-line for this video:

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It's significant that this whole debate is really hotting up due to the pluralistic, digital age as it is the internet that proves how out-moded the public service versus commercial debate is. A trawl through the lawless, gratis world of online content reveals the realistic pattern of people's tastes - it's innovative, porny, disgusting, intelligent, and mindless in equal measure. Given the freedom to choose people want to consume pretty much everything - simultaneously. Producers make it because people want it. Rather than quibble over who is responsible for what I suggest what should actually be merged are the terms 'public service' and 'commercial'. Then broadcasters can focus on producing simply great programming that sates our kaleidoscopic, voracious desires.

A vote with no confidence: the pitfalls of giving the public a say

2008-12-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes voting is democracy's own worst enemy. When it's not exposing the ill-conceived instincts of the masses it's revealing the shortcomings of those counting the ballots. In the same week that Manchester's driving community voted against being charged more to drive, the BBC yet again 'safeguarded trust' by soliciting viewer votes and swiftly ignoring them. At last, close readers of early Manics lyrics and fans of Tom "Strictly Holby City" Chambers can agree on something: democracy is an empty lie.

This winter, reality TV has filled a hanging chad-shaped gap in voting scandal entertainment, and Strictly Come Farcing has proved a rotten Florida borough. Saturday's maths GCSE brain-teaser of a balls-up sent all three semi-finalists into the final and turned next week's denouement into groundhog day. Coming only weeks after they had to refund John Seargent's voting charges, this is the second time the corporation managed to over-complicate a popularity contest. Repeatedly making a play of interactivity and then telling the audience they're wrong exposes the flaws of the mechanic. Where voting is concerned it takes two to tango - but devoid of co-ordination, both viewer and producer usually end up like this:

A lot rides in the way you pose the question; Manchester was asked if it wanted the congestion charge, so naturally the motorist lobby gave a resounding 'no'. Big Brother asks viewers who they want to evict, so they reject the most potent housemate - who often happens to be the most entertaining. In each case the result reflects the knee-jerk reactions of the most pro-active - more thoughtful questions would prompt a more balanced answer.

Also, you've got to be clear on how much power you give the people. Strictly has suffered from a conflict of interest, with viewers consistently undermined by the peacocks on the judging panel. If the audience's opinion is so expendable then why is it purportedly at the heart of the format? That said, the popular vote gave us a 50/50 chance of JLS singing a cold and broken Hallelujah all over Christmas, so there's an argument for supervision by a responsible adult.

With the participation in the democratic process so fallible, maybe it's time that the public found other ways to exercise their power. Disgruntled Strictly fans could learn a lot from the Barclay brothers, who got all Scrooge on Sark's economy because their preferred candidates didn't get win last week's election. After all, if a dance contest airs next Saturday and no one bothers to vote, does Brucie get a bonus?

We are the angry mob, still baying for a credit crunch blame figure...

2008-11-17T03:45:00.000-08:00

So Sergeant hangs up his ballet shoes on the same day the BNP's Christmas card list is made public; it's a wearying sign of the times. I don't just mean the irony that a political editor should be wrestling for top news billing with something he'd once have reported on. No, it's that the revolving doors of the angry mob seem to be lubricating themselves and gathering alarming speed.

As one door of common protest closes, another opens its bulletin boards for the daubing of discontent. John Sergeant's 'undeserved' place in the finals of Strictly Come D-listing has been fueling the messageboards for weeks (in perfect synchronicity with some similar kerfuffle on X-Factor). Now he's decided his day job was less fraught with civic obligation he's waltzed off home. Never fear though, there's a whole cauldron of finger pointing and placard waving to be had with the BNP. Here, mainstays like civil liberties and free speech are spiced up with a bit of social gollygoshing- "OMG one of them was a vicar?!" On the other channel, if human interest is more your blame-game can of worms then there's still Baby P / Shannon Matthews to play pin-the-tail-on-the-devil with.

The issues behind each of these are obviously starkly differentiated rings of hell, though they are linked by our love of scalp-hunting. We've always loved a good old fashioned witch hunt, but ever since our money disappeared it seems that current affairs has become more a pantomime than ever. Blame is the damp firework left behind by the financial crisis and now it's going off in our face. There was no one to hold responsible for credit collapse - the blacked out windows sped away from the City and mammon's architects disappeared in a cloud of 'shhhh'. I guess there's always those who took out their 128th credit card squealing 'free money!' - though the angry mob never points its finger at itself. Basically, unless one of the head gloaters at Goldman Sachs turns out to be on that BNP list, a period of sustained shadow-chasing awaits...

Who Asked You?

2008-11-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

At the risk of provoking the yawns of literally tens of readers, I feel some sympathy for Ross / Brand in their Week of Reckoning. Not that I wish to add my lowly voice to the wealth of comment already; aside from Daily Mail enthusiasts every news fan has a deeper and more complex appreciation of this matter than those lost hours staring blankly at fiscal hieroglyphics. No, I may never have slept with Brand - and let it be said I'd never initiate coitus with a man with a more virile, unruly mop than I - I do have a slightly personal involvement with the story.

Well, that is to say, I was the victim of digital hate campaign wherin a groundswell of criticism of my art resulted in my removal from the BBC's list of preferred suppliers. No I'm not Max Gogarty, but I am Sophie Hammer, the girl who's audaciously verbose review of the Ting Tings provoked a backlash from the 'online community'. Read it, consult your dictionary if necessary, then scroll down for the insults. O.K, so scale is important here - I was paid a very modest sum to write the review and the story didn't make News At 10. However, in the same way as Ofcom officially view one complaint as important as thirty thousand, it is the principle that is important.

The unswerving adulation of garnering 'the people's opinion' by online media has to stop. It is responsible for the distortion of public feeling and destruction of professional respect. Giving too much credence to the unedited and spontaneous reactions of readers to any event or piece of writing is to dangerously prioritise the amateur - a.k.a the half-baked. That's not to say community engagement isn't important - in fact it is vital for the future of online media. However, standards must be ensured. Given that those of us who work for established media outlets are trained in our craft, in what world should this feedback fraternity get more attention from our employers? Most of the time they can't remember to put spaces between words. It's the kind of inverse-snobbery-born-of-jealousy that they drawn upon when asking why it is us on the stage rather than them. Yet it is the same splutter of bitterness that can be heard when the frustrated and ignorant view Rothko and deride: 'My 5-year old could do that'. If that's reasonable attitude, do you really want your next electro-pop review written by the kind of person who claims: 'ive bin rejected from the bbc to write stuff, yet they post this shit. I dont geddit?! lol!'

The floodgates open when comment is solicited and all sides have to work harder to ensure quality of debate. Moderators, editors and the common sense of the community should be deployed. Badly spelt, offensive or baseless rumours shouldn't be approved out of hand by moderators; editors should keep adding back into the debate with their own comments to give balance, answer accusations and keep things moving. Those writing comments should think harder about their input - if writers can't use anonymity to hide behind lazy assertions then why should the audience? If web 3.0 is to really take engagement to the next digit then the community must respect and be respected. Two sides ganging up against each other will only produce more Brands, Rosses, Gogartys and - since I don't plan on shelving my thesaurus just yet - more Ting Tings moments.

Celebrity Mayfly

2008-10-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

So another day, another update from Jade Goody's crumbling cervix. "My boys don't know I may be dead by Christmas!" screams the cover of OK magazine. "World exclusive interview" it heralds. Read on, reluctant schadenfreude enthusiasts - there's pictures! So much cynicism is up for grabs here it seems almost too much of an easy target, but it's frightening how ambient public sympathy has been so skewed by her illness. There's no sneering, no disbelief, just the willingness to wave cash-for-tears at a woman most magazines were vehemently decrying as racist at only last year. Jade Goody is back, and she's steering the fame-for-fame's-sake fun bus into even murkier territory.

Given that Goody was reportedly devastated at suspicions that her illness was a publicity stunt, she's made a characteristically brainless job of proving otherwise. Apparently her cancer is the latest product she's promoting, the latest twist in her storyline. With a career on the wane, what better plot device than a serious illness to win back audiences? It's malignant in every way - I'm not disputing the reality of her condition but it says bad things about what people are willing to do to remain in the public eye.

The flattening of the celebrity private-public divide has long been headed for fully 2D status, but this hammers the final nail in the coffin for the life-as-narrative zeitgeist. Jordan threatened years ago to give birth via live online video; the way things are going, it won't be long before Big Brother contestants will getting televised state funerals, like Diana. Though let's really give into nightmares; how long before 'Celebrity Mayfly' becomes the latest reality TV fad, the nihilistic, end-of-days denouement to the genre? In this irresistible, voyeuristic comedy of manners we see fame-hungry larvae gurgle from the loins of star-struck lovers before living their entire lives on screen - for one day only. Only one celebri-fly will be resuscitated so it's a race against time for each to engage the audience in their personal tale. Jade thought she was up against it with race hate, these guys have only 24 hours to devise a capitvating storyline that will keep the other column-inch zygotes at bay. How will our contenders utilise the PR arsenal at their disposal, picking carefully from 'challenge rounds' comprising such mainstays drug problems, genetic revelations and anal endoscopies. Like a game of Risk with more nudity and less geographical awareness, this will be family viewing designed for long winter Sundays, the moral tale of choice once BBC's supply of Dickens has run out. Whatever happens to Jade Goody, one can only hope her sons remain oblivious to the breed of fame she spawned.

Take Good Care of My Baby: The Fans Seek Custody of Music For Good

2008-08-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Look around for signifiers of a forthcoming apocalypse and you'd be hard pushed to find any more shaky pillar of civilisation than the music industry. Each week that brings a voyeurs delight - lurid accounts of a flailing, arcane system struggling with the new world order. Recognising the power of the masses is the name of the survival game here. This week, for instance, we've had the people's record label, where fans act as investors in a new band, thus passing the buck on what to do when piracy voids sale revenue. The industry has become obsessed by the need to include music lovers - but they rarely go about it on terms that'll chime with the instant gratification generation. The real issue is not money, but the time it takes to give fans what they want - or even what we tell them they want. Music PR is essential - but it must engage in a loving relationship with selling records, and stop being a tawdry one night stand.

If time is a conceptual free-for-all governed by corrupt sheriffs of meaning, then nothing is so much a rotten borough as music. Resolution takes longer than it ought, the results are sniffy to the public. Ms Winehouse's creative inertia since Back to Black has gone unchecked, with our heroine deployed on more tactical shock and awe campaigns. Meanwhile, Joe Lean and his band of merry men cancel the release of their slightly anticipated debut because its recording pre-dated their hype and they wanted to have another go. Of course, that's not saying the former isn't a savage affront to integrity, and that the latter is anything other than a brief plug in a burst sewer pipe, but it's certainly admissible evidence.

In music, more than comedy, timing is everything. The standard time between album releases has lengthened as other soul-brandishing PR campaigns take priority. Then there's the sluggish delay as the record label plods in pursuit of a blogosphere groundswell created overnight for Hot Nouvau 2.0. The lust for a new band often races ahead of their appearance in any record shop, public cheer flagging with the fatigue of overexposure - yet the internet is increasingly proving its worth in cutting out this fatal delay.

Critics will claim it was the In Rainbows digital car-boot haggle that won the bitter battle between the masses and the means of production, but Bloc Party won the war. A Thom Yorke pretender on too many levels but one, Kele Okereke rushed his band's third album out to a surprised fanbase last week - thus defining the map for how music will be consumed in our brave new world.

"Intimacy" enjoyed a birth devoid of hype, largely because no one knew it even was gestating, and was rush released online in advance of physical copies available next month. So everyone gets a chance to piss themselves with excitement, mop up the damp patch with their iPod and then move on to the next clean pants. That's the future. In present day, no sooner has a hackneyed couplet been penned by an over-hyped pretender than we enter a bloody season of "brand management". Fans' game anticipation weathers the release of stage-managed press blah - wherin someone from the band touches Peaches Geldof - before they disappear a few months short of release and befriend another hypemachine on Myspace. The effect on sales is achingly predictable - because of the rupture in time between bigups and point of sale, no one has the opportunity to buy anything but fluff.

Arctic Monkeys were probably the last band that could survive this, these days we're seeking escape from this stagnant central venn section. The sight of a lumbering record industry facing off with the instant jurors of the internet is embarrassing - we take no joy in its defeat. Time for digitalism to march to victory - not because it's free, but because it's fast. It can respond to the creativity, impulse and connectivity that musicians and fans have in common and that the industry fears. There's no question for those at the top: your time is up. The fans know what they want, and they'll get it quicker than you can sign a cheque.

Meta-teens: where do I sign up?

2008-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

A depraved new uber demographic is hoovering up teens and twenty-somethings alike: teenagers-acting-like-adults-living-like-a-fantasy-of-teenagers. Or, The Meta Teen. I used to think it was grotesque anti-intellectual short circuiting of emotional insight; now I'd happily express my allegiance by signing up to it's Facebook group.

Born, raised and sustained online, the Meta Teen is an inane proposition - repelling private contemplation in favour of announcing every neurological flicker in a garish klaxophony. It's lifesource is the stereotypical 15 year old - an inarticulate, frustrated, selfish pubescent purgatory fumbling its way around sexuality wearing stupid clothes. It listens to parent-baiting noise music while mindlessly experimenting with all forms of self-stupefaction. Yet with the help of persistent, pan-media renderings of this master host, the Meta Teen is occupying a larger and larger age base. In an attitude epedemic, those older and younger are being subsumed into its contradictory moral quagmire of superficial engagement and hyper expression.

Thanks to Web 2.0 and artforms bleeding effortlessly and gracelessly into each other we can all be Meta Teens. There are multiple points of access into it's harsh, beautiful fucked-up world - music, TV, radio, fashion, club nights - it's all connected and relentlessly reinforced. Online is its engine room, where everything syncs up and amplifies. Everyone's invited to join the hypermediated, broadcast yourself brat pack: MySpace pages for nu rave bands, for Skins characters, for all of us. The friend trails join hands and, in unison, scream into the abyss.

Because of this, received wisdom tells us that social networking profiles are windows into hitherto closed private moments - whole lives, loves and self-definition on display; Meta Teen culture at large an empowering, expressive community. Yet it's not so clear cut. Yes more people are making more noise in more places, but it's a sound clash. It's not deeply personal and it's not unified - in fact, emotional insights are rendered more inexplicable by their increased visibility. It makes sense that the whole trend is soundtracked by the brainless, inaccessible racket of nu rave.

A perfect case study can be found in the past week's episode of Skins. Screeching Canadian electro outfit Crystal Castles provided the catalyst for a defining moment in Meta Teen in the culmination of a typically miserable storyline. Sid, having found his dad dead in his armchair that morning, had remained catatonic all day - going through the motions at college yet saying nothing - until he found himself at a Crystal Castles gig. They unleashed the sublime, melancholy chaos of Alice Practice - the impenetrable bleeps and screeches sending him into a trance and then, finally, sobbing despair. It was a moment of mesmerising eloquence: amidst an isolating communal experience real feeling is remaindered beneath the surface. Attempts at self-expression are met with a turgid cacophony of other people's ideas... until you give up trying to find the words, embrace the emptiness and melt into the crowd.

One feels no more comfort and familiarity in being a Meta Teen than being part of any other group at any other time. However, it's the explicit rejection of comprehensibility amidst such over-enunciation that is its beauty. Everyone's just staggering around in the dark, unable to make themselves seen or heard. Though if you listen hard you can hear them cry, one-by-one: "Fuck emoting, let's get wasted and make out."

Big Brother Celebrity Derailment - new breed of dogs, lapping up the same old shit

2008-01-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

So after last year's continued degeneration into irredeemable repugnant farce, the Big Brother brand is trying to claw back some of the clever-clever integrity it embodied at the start. This time the kids are skilled and the celebrities are being given a chance to show off without showing themselves up - the sheer ugliness of humanity on both sides kept neatly hidden away. It's supposed to be a self-aware and a bit ironic, passing judgement on previous failings via reinvention. Obviously the whole thing massively undermined itself within minutes, and sent the whole mess shrieking further into cultural oblivion.

The key problem with Big Brother Celebrity Hijack isn't that it's boring, or that it's messed with the formula too much. It's that it blatantly tries to subvert the problem of both celeb and regular BB formats in one, and yet reinforces those very problems with such shambolic glee it's obvious they're just taking the piss.

First they deliberately send in mega-talented housemates as an antithesis to the regular fame-hungry march of the otherwise dammed. This is probably so that cultural theorists can see what it'd be like if reality TV didn't trade off the exploitation of deluded bottom rung dreamers. Shame, because this bunch of glossy, obnoxious prodigies prove even the upper echelons of achievement these days are Hollyoaks formatted. Unfeasibly hot and showbiz-friendly (Miss England! A racing car driver! A dancer! A singer! A boxer!) they are the first concession to the baseline BB audience. Not only do they underwrite the show's frightening insight into the future of the species but if this is what achievement looks like, it's really not giving this summer's Chanelles a taste of a higher-minded societal duty.

What have we learnt so far then? Well, it's nice to be clever, but only when you look good and do things that are faintly glamorous - don't worry, Big Brother won't ever accord value to anything else, even when it looks like it's trying to. 20-year-old John, the chubby, unfortunate looking Scottish Youth Parliament chairman, is the foil for proving this entire premise of the show; his introduction to the house and symbolic ousting to periphery looks like an incredibly deliberate meta play of the whole idea. Celeb Hijacker Matt Lucas (who no doubt identified John as his nearest stunt double match) picks him to be the foil for the first 'hilarious' exercise in manipulation, with a task that sees a stoop to levels of comedic laziness that's inane even by Lucas' standards. It destroys the potential for John to make any positive first impression amongst the clever hotties via a malevolent 'Simon says' routine, where Lucas dishes out idiotic instructions through a hidden ear piece. This gormless, uncomfortable ordeal not only regurgitates the whole Galloway affair (and John should've noted long ago, making a prat of yourself on BB does surprisingly little for one's political credence), but ensures the bar for what passes as entertainment is kept comfortably low. Yep, you're not going to be wishing Fonejacker was on instead - there'll certainly be no talk of Cartesian dualism here folks.

For anyone that was ever worried, it's reassuring. The life lessons Big Brother taught our generation aren't being undermined by Celebrity Hijack, and there's no need to re-write the rule book. It's just here to answer the nagging questions about Britain's celeb-fixated youth and reign all the variables back into the official myth. By the end of the first show everything's resolved and business as usual can be resumed. John naturally took his role as the anti-housemate in good humour, a merry pawn in this cruel cultural satire. A more socially conscious version of the moronic uglies from previous series he proves that if you can't be hot, be clever - and if you want to be popular, you'd better bring the funny too. I mean, just look at Matt Lucas, kids. Meanwhile, those who are burdened with a massive IQ can still be beauty queens. For the rest of you, there's still the summer version.

Ooooh, lists - my top scrobbling sources of 2007

2007-12-29T14:54:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's my top albums of 2007. Some awesome musicians did some incredibly listenable things with sounds this year. I did some slightly less impressive things with words in honour of them.

1. 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer' - of Montreal.

I'd never heard anything by this ludicrous, electro-flirting bunch of non-Canadians until being blown away by their rollicking live set at a festival. It featured spectacular noises held together with captivating displays of showmanship and the most flamboyant range of costume changes this side of pop. I was so impressed I actually bought their CD. Groaning 11 minute epic The Past Is A Grotesque Animal is it's crowning glory - definitively monstrous it exemplifies every brilliant thing about of Montreal and is an apocolyptic ode to a shattering emotional stalemate.

2. Neon Bible - Arcade Fire. What happens when angry gets eloquent. Delicious tension punctuated with devastating flourishes of tonal unpredictability and unshackled emotion, this is rage 2.0. Protest music that doesn't necessitate the wearing of a headscarf sewn together with the tears of refugees.

3. Release The Stars - Rufus Wanwright. The magnificent, grandoise antithesis to banality, Rufus proves bleak human experience and bitter cynicism have a place in show tunes.

4. Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release - Simian Mobile Disco. Relentless disco filth that even sounds great in daylight.

5. Knives Don't Have Your Back - Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton. Beautiful melodies with dark thoughts attached. I like listening to it with a chest-pain's worth of coffee and newspapers on a Sunday morning.

I'd end it at 5 but for the sake of truth-over-satisfying-closure I'll push on to 6 and the foul Grinderman LP. Good god, this is gratuitously unhinged. It's like the murky depths of human psyche laid raw in audio form, the sonic celebration of those things you're not supposed to say and instead leave rotting away at your subconcious. It's got some very wrong ideas in it - this clearly makes it astoundingly appealing and utterly brilliant.

Right, any more on that list and one loses a frame of reference for value judgement and is just naming albums. A bit like one of those godawful 100 Greatest... shows.

You get it though - basically my top listens are for the most part dark, moody fare that tug at threads Westlife keep neatly stiched. If Freud had a record label he'd probably sign them. If that was at all conceptually or historically possible, obviously.

My rage is non-linear: paradoxes of an interactive ambassador

2007-08-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

So for anyone who had a tough time getting their head round my previous job, I've got an even more vapourous one now. This week I started a 3 month spell as an Interactive Development AP, that is, a Hoxton-based ideas monkey tasked with delivering groundbreaking adventures in cross-platform entertainment.

On a daily basis I'll be twittering about "convergence", throwing thoughtshowers and spouting media-ese bullshit from the future in the name of revenue generating, epoch defining content and delivery mechanisms. Well, in theory at any rate. Introducing interactive elements into traditional media formats is all so very on trend right now, but rarely is it done in a way that benefits the creatives, the audience or the technology. What I've got to do is figure out ways of not making it all look like some massively redundant waste of time, talent and zeitgeist.

On a professional and personal level I've not yet managed to reconcile the theory of what I do with the reality; how can I tout the revolutionary claims of social networking in the face of a cybergraveyard littered with neglected MySpace profiles? How to explain the thousands of Second Life avatars abandoned once their owners realise there's shit all to do 'in world' than buy some inherently dissatisfying genitalia and pay for land that doesn't exist? Then there's the fact that of all the people that use YouTube, 75% are browsing and only 25% are contributing. Not to mention that when they do they're either watching or uploading the best bits of TV shows made by professionals or Beyonce falling down the stairs. It would seem the popular appeal of online video is actually a banal combination of on-demand convenience and evidence of the lasting appeal of people going arse over tit. Hardly a testament to our much vaunted new generation of citizen creatives. Working as Web 2.0's bitch now is a bit like extolling consumer capitalism a decade ago; UGC is this season's Gap t-shirt when it comes to brands of dubious cultural integrity.

The public are being invited to lean forward and feed their entertainment resources, and yet sophisticated online information sharing and community building resources go under-nourished. The recent frenzy for adding applications to Facebook has left its once pristine interface bearing the true colours of the masses - inanity and status anxiety. Those government defence bods who invented the internet could never have predicted it would pave the way for Wikipedia and thus universal access to a magnificent melting pot of all of mankind's knowledge ever. Yet neither would they have been odds-on that their descendants would use the technology to add a vibrating hamster to their web page or send each other pictures of drinks. If you're going to give power to the people, then be aware that they'll inevitably hit on stupidity more often than genius.

When the internet isn't a repository for the idiotic musings of the general public, it's the detritus of the creative process. What we're doing in interactive is dealing in different modes of distribution, dissemination and re-publication of content - and in many cases the content is just differently versioned shit. There's a clamour to give every ounce of content broadcast on those channels a surround sound chorus of digital supporting actors, yet if it wouldn't have made it onto legacy formats like radio and TV, why insult new media with it? Most podcasts are at best a glorified 'listen again' opportunity and at worst they're a hatchet job of leftover thought processes and unfinished features, thoroughly undermining the former glory of its distilled form. "Where Are The Joneses?", the 'influence the narrative' series that came blindly staggering out of Steve Coogan's Baby Cow productions is a car crash of branded content and bandwagon jumping. Bebo's amateurish "Kate Modern" online teen drama is the unfortunate embodiment of the term 'knee jerk reaction', so blinded by the fact that the characters in Skins have popular MySpace pages that they forgot it also had jaw-droppingly compelling storylines and precision-engineered protagonists. Sharing theories over a wiki-style site is the new water cooler when it comes to cliched bywords for communal musings, though Lostpedia only sprung up because enough people cared about the dramatic content of Lost to speculate about it online. Audiences want engaging stories, moving tales and challenging themes like TV, radio and film, words, art, theatre, comedy have always done, or at least pertained to do.

A ripple of surprise was felt throughout the radio industry recently as Rajar figures revealed listener figures taking a steady upturn. "Radio remains at the heart of consumers' lives in Britain despite all the attractions of digital and mobile alternatives," said Andrew Harrison of the commercial radio trade body, the Radio Centre. Yet rather than evidence of these alternatives dying out, the return of radio has been enabled by additional options for tuning in - via DAB sets, online and TV. The simple lesson here is that good content will always be in demand, and if people can receive it in more than one way then they'll thank you for it. More people will tune in to quality programming if they can listen to it via their wireless as well as their radio.

Such is the dilemma I'm faced with, then; am I at the coalface of a generation that's redrawing the terms of human engagement, finding new ways of bringing people together to share moving, dramatic, hilarious, engaging, troublesome, tangible, infectiously brilliant moments of artistic expression? Or am I colluding with a red herring, a distraction from producing great content which undermines the principles of entertainment that have served us so well for so long. It'd seem anyone would think I was trying to talk myself out of a job here, but I'm not. I just think it's important to strike the right balance between being a facilitator and a producer. Now's the time we should provoke audiences and professionals to create unique, digitally enhanced forms of entertainment that have been around since man first slipped on a banana skin and his mates pissed themselves laughing.