Talking or not talking about Bad Lip Reading

This year, Bad Lip Reading is ten years old.

The spoof YouTube channel overdubs pop promos and current affairs broadcasts, getting Rebecca Black into a Gang Fight, having the Black Eyed Peas sing about poop, and giving Michael Bublé a scatological hit song about a Russian Unicorn.

This is the point where my jaw drops to the floor. Where did that ten years go? I can't be bothered to cut and paste emojis into Blogger, but if I did, you would be seeing a little yellow face with an exploding head. Ten years. Ten years!

I really liked Russian Unicorn. It turned something as bland as Bublé, who posted a good natured video reply because that somehow is ultimate Bublé, into something full of unhinged energy. Even better was Morning Dew, which mashed together Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z to make a peon to furry pet monkeys and broccoli pizza.

Part of me insists I shouldn't like Bad Lip Reading. It revels in the worst pop music (Bieber, BTS, James flipping Blunt) and legitimises it through affectionate parody. It's decidedly off-key in places, referring to women as "chicks" and using a slang word for cerebral palsy that is pretty much verboten in the UK. 

And it's fallen hard for Star Wars fandom, that most tiresome of fandoms, producing songs about seagulls in space, death by chicken-duck, and Yoda's stick ("it's just a stick"). That last one is pretty poor, but then again they did come out with the smooth electro banger Hostiles On The Hill in which the Skywalker guy fights the long leggy things in the Antarctic or somewhere. You can tell I'm a fan.

What's strange about the success of BLR, and channels like it, is its wonky place in popular culture. Take traditional TV as a comparison. 30 million people watched the Eastenders episode in which a vengeful Dirty Den give Angie divorce papers for Christmas. For years, that scene appeared in compilation shows and newspaper lists. It turned Christmas dark, and soaps have never looked back since.

The most successful BLR video has four times the views: their top five videos have racked up a third of a billion watches. Yet in the past ten years, I don't think I've experienced a single 'watercooler' moment about Bad Lip Reading. The same goes for other YouTube big hitters at the geekier end of culture: Tom Scott, Drew Gooden, those never-ending Vox factual videos.

This is all to do with the fractal nature of modern entertainment, where the metaphorical family sofa has been replaced by a wide scattering of deck chairs: the watercooler is now a zillion single water bottles. This more personal method of video consumption means we can spend an entire evening wasted on Fail Army clips without ever mentioning it to anyone ever. Maybe one day you'll mention it on a blog. Maybe.

And yet, I don't fully buy that. It's not fractal, is it. What we've done, in the UK at least, is swap four or five terrestrial television channels (and a wall of DVDs) with fewer providers of televisual entertainment. YouTube and Netflix dominate the market as BBC1 and ITV did in the olden days. I don't have Freeview or anything, but don't tell me that endless menu of things you don't want to watch adds up qualitatively to anything more than a single day of programming on Channel Five.

Anyway. Go and watch Bad Lip Reading videos so we can talk about it one day. A lot of it sounds like Uptown Funk but there are roses among the thorns. One of their BTS videos is childish cack, but the more recent BTS one seems to take ballad writing seriously.

What did we do without YouTube? Actually, we watched Flash videos. Badger, badger, that sort of thing. That is, oh goggle-eyed viewer, a whole different blog post.

Further Fats: Insanity Prawn Boy (2005)

The best thing I heard in June was… (drum roll, please)

I heard many amazing things in June. Here is a list.

1. A magpie warbling like a crazy little thing inside a bush
   
   
2. Game Of Thrones – the soundtrack bit, not the head-chopping-off bits
   
   
3. A chap singing the Danger Mouse theme tune in the style of Pulp
   
   
4. The sound of my bedroom fan white-noising my overheated self to sleep
   
   
5. The 808 State listen-along for #TimsTwitterListeningParty
   
   
6. Actually, yes, the head-chopping-off bits in Game Of Thrones
   
   
7. A chap chopping the head off Danger Mouse in the style of Pulp
   
   
8. Magpies hitting my fan to the rhythm of 808 state.... inside a bush

All these sounds are undoubtedly exquisite audio sculptures that make your ears feel like a carpet of velvet unicorns. Why not recreate the above sounds using cardboard tubes, a staple gun and some glitter?

Despite all that noise nonsense, there is one sound that topped them all. There is one sound that was undoubtedly the best thing I heard in June...

In fact, a whole bunch of us picked our favourite music of the month on the Picky Bastards website. One writer picked the new Phoebe Bridgers (pictured) album that everyone's banging on about. Someone else picked Lady Gaga's Chromatica. My pick? I chose Special Request's lightning-sharp Spectral Frequency, a track released a short while ago but rereleased this month on vinyl. It put a rocket up June's bum like nothing else.

Read all about the track's resonating drums and sweaty rave flashbacks on the PBs website (my choice is at the end because I always submit last). Have a read there, and have a listen below.

The tractor thing

This is the place where you go to get the latest music news, yeah? It's like a news ticker but it's straight into your brain, yeah?

Eminem's gangsta-Geppetto Dr Dre is going all Aphex Twin on us by promising an instrumental concept album. He's going to make the sound of each planet in the solar system.

How did you like that news? This is like MTV with Tim Kash and all the stuff on the bottom of the screen that disappears before you have a chance to read it.

Sweat-drenched pill-thrilling Manchester club Sankeys Soap is going all global, like Cream, Ministry Of Sound or the recession. They're setting up in New York with a resident DJ called A-Luv (probably from Yorkshire).

I'm so up-to-date, I'm future. Like Perez Hilton. 50 Cent's appearing in Eastenders, yeah? Massive Attack will revive the War Child charity franchise, yeah? The Gorillaz' Jamie Hewlitt is exhibiting beautiful watercolours at the Contact Theatre, yeah? First thing in the morning, Lady Gaga smells of tractors and not in a good way, yeah?

I'm going to get Bill Turnbull to present my blog from now on. I will have an outside broadcast unit permanently positioned in a street with no-one in. I will constantly remind you of the time. IT'S TEN PAST TEN! SIXTEEN TO THREE! WELL PAST TEATIME!

Of course, everything in this blog post was true apart from (a) this being the place to get the latest news, (b) Bill Turnbull and MTV and (c) the tractor thing.

While my guitar gently sods off

The recent news that pop music is outselling rock music is as an important a cultural change as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and processed cheese.

For too long now, the tyranny of the guitar has ruled over us. We have bowed and scraped to our six string masters, as if rebelling against the jangly bastards was as bad as strangling Bill Wyman to death with a jack lead.

The indoctrination starts early. Pony-tailed parents soundbomb their Smiths collection at pregnant tummies to 'train' their newborn into having good taste. Any gawky teenager showing a creative bent has a guitar and a Nirvana chord book shoved into their hands.

Turgid

And what has it given us? The Beatles, who were responsible for the worst haircuts ever and fixed Liverpool into the '60s for all eternity. Turgid rock behemoths like the Rolling Stones and Status Quo, who somehow made stadium rock acceptable and are therefore responsible for Coldplay. And James Blunt. James Blunt.

Official Charts Company figures show a third of sales in the UK are now pop, compared to rock's tawdry one-quarter share. We have rendered our Fenders to the dustbin. Given ebows the heave-ho. Turned rage against the machine into a polite letter of complaint.

Because pop music is more enamoured with the keyboard as opposed to the guitar, this means electronic music fans win. The keyboard wizard is supreme: Adamski can finally rest in the grave of his forgotten career.

Breakcore

Okay, it's only pop music and not, say, ambient or dubstep or breakcore. Having Lady Gaga and JLS at number one is not great - we'd obviously prefer it if Aphex Twin went platinum, and I'm not talking about his hair. But an unpopular, painful compromise is the step in the right direction. It's true. Just ask a Liberal Democrat.

There are dangers in this brave new world. If rock bands start ditching their guitars, we could be saddled with more Ben Folds Fives and Keanes. They need identifying early. I would suggest border police at the door of every recording studio, with faceless but sinister staff asking everyone "are you now or ever have been a guitar player?"

They would lie of course. But then the cunning officer, feigning informality, would mutter a comment about E flat minor seventh not being the sexiest chord. The secret guitarists' instant and obvious revulsion would see them dragged out the back, cut to pieces with an overly-sharp plectrum and buried in their own guitar case with the word "IRONY" emblazoned across the top in glam lettering.

Windmilling

Having said all that, The Who were quite impressive weren't they? All that windmilling and smashing stuff up. And I quite liked Madchester. The XX and Lonelady have a kind of amazing energy, y'know? In fact, guitar bands are fantastic. Who wrote this crap?

Vive la rock music! Guitar bands are brilliant. If I find you buying pop music, I will slice you. I will smother you with Lady Gaga's hat until you are nothing but a vegetable blithering "ro mah ro-mah-mah" in the corner of an institution.

No, seriously. For too long now, the tyranny of the keyboard has reigned over-- (nurse's note - Fat Roland has gone to sleep now. You can visit him again when he's rested.)

Brits 2010: a prejudiced review from someone who doesn't give a damn

I don't need to tell you, dear reader, that the Brit Awards are the saggy scrotum of the music industry needlessly scratched once a year by panting, sweat-sodden record industry moguls.

Did you cry at the telly screen wondering what had happened to music? You missed the point: it has no relevance to music of any kind. That's a bit like looking at a cat going to the toilet and wondering which Shakespeare play is the funniest.

Last year, I ran a live tweet of the Brits. No such fun this year, I'm afraid, but close observers of this blog will already know what I think of this year's winners.

(Yes, this post is just an excuse to link to other bits of my blog, but there is some fun readings to be had if you get clicky. Here goes... )

Forced castration

Lady Gaga swept up the trophy cabinet in the 2010 Brit awards. I did once recommend that James Blunt become more like Lady Gaga with the help of forced castration using nose hair clippers. She's got a good turn in pop pap, but really, she's a load of old nonsense. I do detect, however, begrudging respect from when I live-blogged the Christmas Number One.

JLS inexplicably won a gong or two. There were literally a billion better singles these past 12 months, although their award-winning track Beat Again did give me something to rake over on this very blog last month ("I need love CPR," isn't the best advice, I mused.) JLS? Really?

Florence And The Machine scooped the best album prize for Lungs, which I don't mind too much despite me claiming last month that "The Source are probably rolling in their grave at her treatment of You Got The Love." In fact, I do mind. I do mind very much. If you own her album, you are crusty and merely six inches from death by old age.

And Kasabian didn't do too badly from the Brits either. Kasabian are a bit like that friend you knew from school who's turned into a bit of a knob but you're still friends and anyway he keeps poking you on Facebook. I like to think my Kasabian tip for the 2009 Mercury actually applied to the 2010 Brits instead.

Jizzle Zizzle

Jay Z has had 99 awards and now the 2010 Brits are one too. I want to slag off the Jizzle Zizzle, but I can't. I loved The Grey Album and I've thrown him at least a couple of bones on this blog before (defending him against Radio 4 in 2006 and the wonderful Jay Z bar chart in 2007). Jay, if you ever fancy writing a guest post on this blog, I'm willing to talk money.

I'm also quite a fan of Dizzee Rascal, the cheeky-faced hip hop Tigger who somehow straddles blantant commercialism and the urban underground without breaking a sweat. As far as this blog goes, I fell in love with Dizzeee Raaaaarskuw's name, I slagged off his Band Aid appearance, I compared Bonkers to Ace Of Bass, and I wanted to work with him because he sounded like Scooby Doo.

Where the Brits really lost their way, of course, was when they declared that (What's The Story) Morning Glory was the best album of the past 30 years. Morning Glory is not even in the top 200. Peter Kay's now infamous comment was right (google it) - I've said before that Liam Noel Gallagher's gob needs plugging.

Net of narkiness

And this is where my crass self-promoting linkage almost ends. Sadly for this blog, there are two winners who have warranted many a mention but somehow seem to have escaped my net of narkiness.

I'm amazed that Lily Bloody Allen has only had a couple of mentions on this website (once in an end-of-year review called Knobs, Cocks and Boils, and a quick namecheck in my Number One Album Chart Death Rant). I'd like to go officially on record to say that if clever lyrics were all that it needed, then people would have liked the Smiths. Oh... wait... I need to formulate a better argument, there.

And the Spice Girls, gawd bless their union-flagged PVC trousers, have never had even the slightest mention on Fat Roland On Electronica, until now. I can't think why.

So, there it is. Cry all you want, cringe to your heart's desire, but when you've already made up your mind about certain artists, as I most evidently have,  the Brits aren't worth the record company PR clause they're written in.

Next year: Flying Lotus sweeps the board at the Brits and I completely change my tone.

Live blog: Rage Against The Machine versus a small boy with white teeth

It's the chart battle everyone's talking about. Simon Cowell thinks it's stupid. 7Digital reckon X Factor's Joe McFlurry won't get to number one. So I've settled down in front of a warm radio to being you a live blog of the chart result as it happens.

6.31pm: Someone is on the wireless comparing RATM to David and Joe McDonalds to Goliath. This can't be right?

6.35pm: "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow," says the stupid charity single that Peter Kay did. This is at number four, just ahead of 3OH!3 and their annoying shouty song Starstrukk with pretend lesbian Katy Perry. Already, with three more hits to go, I feel like ending it all and forgetting about tomorrow forever.

6.37pm: This supposed 'medley' (for that, read 'malady') is going on forever. At least we know RATM and Joe McCavity are in the top three...

6.40pm: So then who is number three? The insipid presenter fellow has just read out a text saying Killing In The Name is "just noise". Surely that's what music is? It's not something you can taste, is it? Right then, they've finally got to number three in the UK singles chart. Oh no! It's Lady Gaga and her "rah rah rasputin" nonsense! You've got to love her videos, though.

6.43pm: I'm quite excited by this. In a year in which Twitter has defined as well as followed the news, it's a real moment for the internet. I bought Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name first time round, and it's as good as anything to stick one in the eye of the annual X Factor Christmas number one stitch up.

6.45pm: Radio One is playing a recap of the whole Joe McElderberry versus RATM battle, Rocky-style. They'll no doubt recap the chart so far. Any moment now; just minutes to go.

6.46pm: Rage Against The Machine sold 100,000 downloads just yesterday. I'm feeling quietly confident.

6.47pm: And the number two single and runner-up is...

6.47pm: JOE McCRAPPYPANTS! Ha ha ha ha ha!

6.49pm: Simon Cowell, the internet has spoken. Please hand your King Of Slush card into security on the way out. This is amazing news - I just hope Scott Mills remembers to play the censored verson in a few minutes (unlike the embarrassed Simon Mayo (I think) on the chart show back in 1990).

"Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you're going to have to lose."
Joe McElderry, 2009

6.56pm: The largest first-week digital sales ever (does that count for an old track?) and the most downloads ever sold for a Christmas number one single. Well done, chaps. Zack de la RATM says "when young people decide to take action, they can make the seemingly impossible possible." Bless, he just called me young!

6.58pm: Those who downloaded are justified for wearing the badge saying "screw you, X Factor, your time is up". I'm not quite sure if those adapted lyrics would scan, but you get the idea. And it's also quite a while where we've had a number one where there's a man going "UH!" all over the place.

Hurrah! 'Night all.

Live tweeting at the Brits - the full text

As promised a couple of shakes ago, I have just live-tweeted the 2009 Brit Awards on my Twitter feed, which, incidentally, is worth signing up to because I post a few extra links and news that I can't fit onto this site.

Here are my Twitter comments ("tweets") in full, with minor edits so it makes more sense.

- The Brits are copying Glastonbury and using a 'pyramid stage'. Pfffrt. Expect some highly smug tweets as I watch from my tellybox.

- U2 are putting all their words on a big screen like a worship concert.

- Ha ha, look at James Corden, doing a great Homer 'smock'.

- Simon Pegg has kept that weight off.

- Duffy best female?! - the clue's in the name.

- Best International Female up next, it's... NO NO NO WRONG NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WRONG GET HER OFF NO NO NO NO NO AAAARGH STOP HER TALKING NO NO NO OH PLEASE NO. Katy Perry's stopped. Phew.

- Took Corden 15 mins to do a shag joke to Kyles.

- Girls Aloud look like flamingos.

- Second Brit for Duff(y).

- It's Coldplay - I may have to hide.

- Chris Martin came on naked, doing a rap version of Run To The Hills. Didn't expect that.

- Pet Shop Boys, Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa later. It could be messy.

- Strong International Group category. It's Kings Of Leon, obvs'ly. Epitome of casual cool, "y'all".

- Why's Paul Weller at home having tea with Adele? (He was in a pub, it turned out.)

- Has Duff(y) finished? Can I un-mute yet?

- Joe Calzagglewaggle looks sheepish because he's totally forgotten which award he's presenting- heh!

- KINGS OF LEON YOU ARE IN BRITAIN NOT JUST ENGLAND. Gah.

- Who are those people with torches?

- It's our hometown boys, Take That. Robbie fever! Rumour was Robbie Williams would turn up. He didn't, but Take That's Brit performance was truly beautiful. Mat Horne is having an orgasm at it.

- Take That looked like Kraftwerk.

- Nick Frost looks like a geography teacher browsing a gardening centre.

- Eddie's just killed Iron Maiden.

- Matt Lucas knows how to find the camera, doesn't he?!

- Hoff and Elbow. What a contrast. Oh as I type, Guy Garvey says to the Hoff, dryly: "You up for a drink later on, David?" Fried Brits gold, ha ha ha!

- Next bit of gossip: Will Katy Perry "controversially" snog Florence & The Machine? Will the Pet Shop Boys, the Killers and Lady GaGa be a car crash? Stay tuned.

- They muted Florence's introduction. Hmm. No snogging.

- Gok's predictable and receding.

- Best International Male Kanye West did a terrible "inter-racial" joke. (International. Inter-racial. It's a pun, see? Kanye's no Tim Vine.)

- Ting Tings and Estelle's quite good mash-up is more sass than my bowels can cope with.

- Did Grace Jones do Estelle's make-up?

- Allan Carr comes on to 'Womanizer'. Does science teacher joke - I've already done that here, luv.

- Best single Girls Aloud is a major relief.

- Tom Jones is a McLaren F1 car (orange and grey).

- Right, Radiohead, it's your time to win... go on... go on... Duff(y)?!? Oh come ON.

- Duff(y)'s crying. Good. She's ruined all music forever by beating Radiohead.

- Stephen Fry's tummy is rumbling - oh the trivia of Twitter.

- Took Corden 110 minutes to do a shag joke about Brandon Flowers.

- Here's Pet Shop Boys' disembodied heads. Starting with Suburbia, with added pink wig, then Love Etc, then Always On My Mind, then (to a massive cheer) Go West . It's a classic Brits melody!

- Here come the sexy men dancers.

- The sexy men dancers have been replaced by Lady GaGa on What Have I Done To Deserve This. One second of I'm With Stupid, then Brandon doing It's A Sin. A couple more breakneck track changes.

- Wow, those mostly naked dancers don't leave a lot to the imagination, do they?

- Pet Shop Boys didn't need Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa.

- So that's it, done. Elbow had the best moment with the Hoff, Take That were the best performers and Duff(y) was a travesty.

A finally message to a friend on Twitter: "Twittering was the only way of coping with the awfulness." See my Twitter page here.

Dear James Blunt

To: Twenty-First Artists Ltd,

1 Blythe Road,

London

W14 OHG

Dear James Blunt,

I couldn't help noticing that you aren't quite the chart presence you once were. Your last three singles, which the BBC lovingly described as "catchy and uplifting, in a Chris-Martin-on-an-off-day kinda way", have reached numbers four, 57 and 20 respectively. I would have thought if these chart positions befell Girls Aloud, KitKat's sponsorship moguls would be spluttering into their sugary tea.

May I offer a suggestion that would help return you back up the greasy pole of fame?

These days, it's all about chicks with synths. Trust me on this: I have my finger on the pulse of modern whims. Lady Gaga is a chick with a synth. La Roux is a chick with a synth. Britney Spears is a chick with a synth (that is, assuming "synth" is rural states slang for a snaffled bag of Bic razors).

You need to have a synth. You need to buy a nice shiny silver synthesiser and get it into every publicity shot you can.

You don't have to play it yourself:. Maybe smuggle in a synth pop legend such as Gary Numan, Adamski or Richard Clayderman to tinkle the electronic ivories for you. Then mime playing, as though it's your big new thing. "Look, there's James Blunt, and he's a keyboard wizard," people would say, and they would point. People would point at you, although this time it would be in admiration.

You should do this. Become a chick with a synth. Every single would go to number one.

Which leads me to one last thing. You will, of course, need to alter your gender. I am quite happy to offer my services. I once cut the leg off a teddy bear with my dad's nosehair clippers, and I'm sure changing your sex wouldn't be much different.

I still have the nosehair clippers.

It wouldn't be pervy or anything. I have no desire to see you naked; I think we had quite enough of that in your 2005 smash hit video I'm Quite Beautiful. One quick snip, maybe a bit of a push-in with a sink plunger, and we can leave matron to mop up the blood.

Just let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Fat Roland