Rihanna and The Klaxons at last nights Brit Awards.  Fucking outstanding stuff.  With a little more training and coaching, Rihanna will definitely be on her way to becoming a strong live performer.

Download a HQ MP3 from here.

Whilst I think Rihanna definitely needs to spend a few more weeks at Pop Star School before graduating with honours, she’s certainly on the right track. Whoever makes the decisions for Ri-Ri has - so far - been doing a pretty stellar job. Teach her a few more dance routines and convince her to stop looking so bored on stage, and we’ll have a truly magnificent pop star on our hands.

Her new hair is quite F.I.E.R.C.E. too, don’t you think?

Taking fan-made YouTube videos to an ENTIRELY new place, check out this completely astonishing home-job music video for Justice’s “Phantom II.” Here’s the story behind it…

“This is a real birthday party. The little girl turned 5 the day we shot it and we made it as a birthday present for her. Help us wish her a happy birthday and leave her a happy birthday message. We love you Sasha!”

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A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Thanks to Good Weather For Airstrikes for bringing this to my attention.

So tonight I spoke with Matt (far left) from Van She for a little on-air banter, and he provided me with some seriously spectacular sound bites. Would you believe we even got a Britney Spears related one in which Matt imitated Chris “Leave Britney Alone!” Crocker. But the best of all was information on the bands NEXT single. Looks like that little baby will have a video clip ready made in about a months time, which should tie me over until the now-pushed-back album release of June.

The even better news is that the next single will be the astoundingly poptastic “Strangers,” which is the song you may remember me referring to a few weeks back as The First Truly Great Song Of 2008. Which means that in a short while you’ll all finally get to hear what I’ve been banging on about.

The guys are also planning another tour around the UK and US towards the end of the year, with plans to go with singles only at first in the “hard to crack” American market. Will post the interview next week to coincide with the beginning of their Australian tour. Dates, venues, et cetera, can be found here.

Meanwhile, here’s the hilarious new video for the old-but-new-because-it’s-getting-a-proper-release Van She remix of Utah Saints’ 90’s dance classic “Something Good.” Matt hadn’t seen it yet but was quite keen to YouTube it after I’d told him how rather-good it actually was.

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After an awfully depressing 14 days gone, things are slowly picking up for me this week, especially when it comes to upcoming live music experiences. On Friday evening I’m off to catch my future husband Calvin Harris play a live show in Melbourne for “serious music journalist” (PAAH!) business. The mere thought of being in the same building as his fine self is enough to conjure up an explosion within, so God only knows how massive the eruption (ew…) is going to be when I’m A COUPLE OF FEET AWAY.

Then, on Saturday I’ll be catching Calvin AGAIN at the Good Vibrations Festival, along with Kanye West, Cypress Hill, The Rapture, Bag Raiders and several others, again for work. It’s funny, as much interest as I have in catching Kanye play, it’s really all about the Harris this weekend for me; Hopefully he’ll do my favourite song from “I Created Disco,” which is “Electro Man.” Naturally, photos and review will be up next week.

Oh. I have a Sneaky Sound System in concert review to upload at some point too. Fuck, I should really get around to that…

That’s Jack Chambers. He’s one of the dancers inducted into the Australian So You Think You Can Dance Top 100. Just so you know, he’s who I’m backing thus far into the competition.

The first season of the Oz series began on Sunday, is hosted by Rogue Trader Natalie Bassinghthwaighte, and has - so far - delivered the goods. GREAT music used so far in the show too which fills me with hope as to what sort of tracks these kids are going to be dancing to once the Top 20 is decided upon.

Anyways, eye-candy-happy post today, a bit more substance after the weekend. In the meantime, here’s the video clip for Ashlee Simpson’s new single “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)” which I absolutely love. Great song, and the bassline reminds me a LOT of Madonna’s “Burning Up.”

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Was watching Billie Piper guest host The Friday Night Project tonight on UK-TV and this managed to make me laugh quite heartily. Thought I’d break up the doom and gloom I’ve been spreading around here with the YouTube clip of it.

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It’s been pretty quiet around here of late, mainly thanks to my insane Summer-uni work load. I’ve pretty much got either an assignment due or exam on at the end of every single week all the way through till the end of February, so you can sort of imagine where my headspace is at right now. All of these wanky and pretentious 3000+ word assignments I have due are killing my creativity and my will to post on here. So - even though I’ll still be updating at least twice a week - posts may decrease more than usual until the beginning of March. I go back to studying half of what I’ve taken on over summer so life will be a little easier to manage. I’m just finding things incredibly difficult and depressingly awkward to cope with at the moment, but come February 29th it shall all go back to normal.

Anyways, no doubt there will be updates this and/or next week about Van She, Madonna, my experience with the movie Juno and listening to Uffie afterwards, and maybe even those long-overdue Sneaky Sound System and Patrick Wolf reviews. Oops.

In the meantime, here’s an awful, highly offensive video for you to watch.

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Oy vey. 

So what was probably my very actual favourite TV show from last year, Skins, returns to British television on e4 this February for its second season, which in turn means it returns to various torrent websites which I can obtain it from also in February. I am very excited about this. Australian television has just begun playing the first season (they’re up to episode 2 as of last night) on SBS and, from what I’ve heard/read/etcetera, it’s doing pretty well here. More good news.

For those of you watching the show on Australian television, it’s probably best you stop reading this post from this point onward. There will be some discussion of topics which may spoil Season 1 for you.  Just a word of warning…

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So that’s the trailer for the new season. Observations: Maxxie’s body is looking particularly sculptured (though in other videos I’ve seen he seems to still be hooked on using that fucking hair straightener,) Michelle is still an absolute cunt, and Sid is still as beautiful/gorgeous/charming as ever. Do you see the walls cracking? Do you see what they are trying to do? Are their fingertips holding onto the cracks in the house foundation? Do you see what I did there?

I’m sure we remember Tony’s accident, yes? Well, up until this week, Tony’s “blog” and the “Lost Weeks” videos over on the E4 website have insinuated he’s dead. I’d kind of assumed they’d just put him into a coma and sure enough, the most recent “Lost Weeks” video shows Sid talking to an unconscious Tony through a cassette tape, trying to wake him from his coma.

You can view the current Missing Weeks Videos here.

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If you ever needed evidence that Winona Ryder is actually completely amazing and definitely not just a petty criminal, then watch this YouTube video. It’s from a movie from last year called “The Ten” which I actually found pretty bloody funny. It’s based on the 10 commandments, and Winona’s above story is - hilariously - based on “Thou Shall Not Steal.” Genius.

Pay attention to 4:10 onward. Keep a particular eye out for Ryder’s hysterical dramatics at 5:22

Will return emails once I get my shit together - been away for a few days on a well earned break but plan on getting on top of things “in general” over the next few days.

God I love Winona Ryder.

Yes, it’s a new site! Details on why/etcetera here…

I haven’t talked about these guys for a while - it’s been a bit quite on the Arctic front - but their material is still a vital part of my days playlist, and now that there’s something a bit new on the horizon, it’s time to talk them up again. The third single from the Arctic Monkeys outstanding album Favourite Worst Nightmare will be Teddy Picker, and is released on December the 3rd. Brilliant choice for the follow up to Fluorescent Adolescent.

Teddy Picker’s still the most played song from that album in my iTunes, sounding as fresh and as relevant now as it did the first time I heard it.

Alex, Matt, Jamie and Nick filmed the video clip with director Roman Coppola (yes, son of Francis) - who has clipped about with Daft Punk and Greenday in the past - in one day, which isn’t surprising seeing as there’s not a lot going on. The actual song though was performed live for the clip, and is quite a great listen.

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I like this new video. It’s an improvement on the clip for Adolescent which - even though I understood - annoyed me with its lack of the Monkeys pretty faces. And whilst my heart will always lie with Alex, I really need to make a point of how good Mr. Helders is looking behind those drums in that musical fillum.

The CD single comes with 3 (!) B-Side’s; The Death Ramps, Nettles and Bad Woman, which sees the frozen rockers team up with Pulp man Richard Hawley. UPCOMING MONKEY MADNESS EXCITES THEE.

Just when I thought (almost) everything I’d been dying for musically in 2007 had already leaked or been released, news of new Monkeys material pops up. What a lovely surprise!