Happy Face

Glad to hear Jonathan Edwards has stopped god bothering. Didn't realise his mental health was improved.

More or less, Radio 4s statistics podcast, looked at the number of possible intros that there are, given how easy it is to identify some songs from one or two notes....turns out there's more possibilities than there are stars in the sky. Which makes Gotyes theft all the more outrageous

a ctrl-a of nerds

Loved the pictures of 50 nerds going mental in a room. What's the collective noun for a group of nerds? An array?

Have I missed ct's reasoning of how the Tories brought the Olympics to London rather than naysaying the bid at every opportunity.

A 4 iron a pitching wedge a glove and 12 balls for £28. Quality matches price. The local golf club is doing £50 a month twilight membership. All the golf you like after 17:30. Had to replace some broken clubs. Done 9 holes each on Friday and Saturday.

The athletics with her and Colin Jackson let down the general high standard of punditry.....oh and Cavendish. Repeating "incredible" doesn't pass for insight or capturing the mood. Get Stewart Hall in.

Aye. Thought this weeks was quality. As have been the daily olympics ones.

Still not won any medals. Poor show.

Suprised you wouldn't like Mutations Meenzer. Lovely sparse album.

For a Chart band to be doing it was brilliant. Anyone denying their quality (even if they're not personally a fan) is basically being a contrary twat. Fair enough to say they may be overhyped in hindsight. But they deserve a great deal of the praise they get if not 100%. I think The Velvet Underground stuff sounds lightyears ahead of the Beatles.....but they were around at the same time.

You're so much cooler than everyone else Jezza

I did think of Alan "probably the Beatles greatest hits" Partridge as I typed tbf.

Probably got most listening from unplugged. Every track on that is 5 starred. There's some unlistenable Shit on the other albums.

Jamie Cullum

I think popular music then was made mostly by people who were good musicians. All the artists you mention are from the pre "color tv in every home (or room)" era. Since the early eighties it's been a lot more about image than music. Musicians used to made it big depending on whether they could perform...because they were only selling singles and albums. People don't buy singles with plain covers any more. People buy into a whole image presented on dozens of music channels, in full colour magazines and newspapers. Different groups buy into an image first and the music second and as a result there's very few universally acclaimed artists that bridge all age groups. For example, David Gray and Ed sheeran are similar in style....totally different demographics though, I reckon, on image alone. One for the dads and one for their daughters. Sideways cap, big rim glasses and big trainers...you can get to number one.

I thought I was quite clear that I never didn't like him I said i loved him....but he deserved much more respect than the level I gave him early on, as much as I liked his chart hits. Like my mam's favourite band is Queen because she has greatest hits 1 AND 2. JB's greatest hits are the tip off the iceberg...and quite often cheesy populist versions of his best work. EDIT: I only saw him live once unfiortunately...he was supporting RHCP and put on a show immeasurably better than they.

I never ever disliked James Brown. I loved his greatest hits, but I was restricted to those 20 popular tracks for about 10 years and just viewed him as another 60's pop star and Rocky cameo man. The more i got into Hip Hop, the more I realised his legacy and delved into his massive back catalogue. Wee Wee, an instrumental from Fine Old Foxy Self came on the shuffle in the car last night and I had to go back and play it from start to finish 3 times. I was bopping all over. Fucking champion.

My Mrs said she only knew one Nirvana song, so I hoyed all their albums on random. She was singing along to half of them nae bother. That horrific version of Led Zeps Heartbreaker on the rarities box set came on though **shudder**

Needs a "bands you liked but stopped liking once they were popular" thread for the full set..... ...or is that covered by the Coldplay one?

No matter how much I try Pearl Jam & Miles Davis spring to mind. I've bought CDs from them both in the hope of getting what it is people like. Still nothing doing. I actually loved a couple of songs off Ten when the cool kids at school were listening....it was only a decade latter I got the full album and felt let down.

Always liked Blur. Railed against Oasis though. On here quite a bit too in the early days I think. It wasn't the Blur vs Oasis thing though, it was the Beatles vs Oasis thing. Never liked the hype. They did some great songs though and never deserved the frothing backlash I gave them. Got most of their albums and enjoy them now, if not on regular rotation. There was also a lad i grew up with who got well into his dance music in the 90s (no better time to do so I guess) and i would rip the piss. I was a total guitar head in my teens. If it wasn't strummed i wasn't having it, and refused to accept there was any skill involved in producing a beat on a computer. Funnily enough, we've swapped viewpoints now, I love a bit of minimal techno, without being particularly clued up on the scene, while he'll listen to nowt but rock radio with Alice Cooper. All Hip Hop would raise my hackles too. I blush when i think how easily I'd dismiss an entire genre out of hand, without delving into it at any depth. Think it was listening to a mates Public Enemy CDs getting lifts to and from work that totally turned me around. One of the all time great bands. It's rare that I'll ever slag off any music now. open minded and keen to listen to anything and everything. If it's not for me, it's bound to be for someone else.

What ball?