Hack at work.
Killing Bono
"The best book I have ever read about trying to make it in the music business" - Elton John
"A fantastic book, which manages the difficult trick of being simultaneously very funny and very sad." - Bob Geldof
"I was Neil McCormick's fan in school. He was much cooler than me, a much better writer and I thought he'd make a much better rock star. I was wrong on one count. He's written a great book" - Bono
Kris Kristofferson: a throwback to an old mythic America
Kris Kristofferson, Cadogan Hall 29 Jul 2010
For a singer-songwriter who can barely play guitar, struggles with the harmonica and only has a few notes in his gravelly voice, Kris Kristofferson has come a long way. At 74, standing tall and straight at the centre of an otherwise empty stage, he held a London audience completely spellbound by the magical power of an open spirit and truly great songs.
You can’t argue with classics like ’Me And Bobby McGee’, ’Sunday Morning Coming Down’, ’Help Me Make It Through The Night’ and ’For The Good Times’, and no one here was in the mood to. Every scuffed note and wobbly harmonica solo (“Well it ain’t Bob Dylan but it’s all we’ve got,” joked Kristofferson after one particularly lame effort) was treated with indulgent delight.
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My top ten videos of all time (& no room for GaGa)
Lady GaGa models the latest in prison wear
Lady GaGa’s 9 and half minute all dancing lesbian prison sex, mass murder and product placement video for Telephone has been pop’s big talking point this week. As I suggested in my feature on the main Telegraph site, it harkens back to an age of big budget excess when videos frequently became more important than the songs they were supposed to be promoting. These days, budgets have collapsed (a head of a big independent label told me recently his average spend on a video was about £6,000, which wouldn’t cover the catering bill on Michael Jackson $7 million video for ‘Scream’) and the emphasis is on small, clever and viral. The golden age of the video may be over, but what have been the greatest videos ever?
Here’s my top ten:
1. Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983) Game-changing dancing zombies with the production values of a Hollywood blockbuster
2. Madonna: Like A Prayer (1989) Blasphemy and eroticism as Madonna gets it on with black Jesus
3. Johnny Cash: Hurt (2003) Drawing on a lifetime’s work for an elegiac farewell
4. Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer (1986) Cheeky, dazzling stop action animation.
5. Jay Z: 99 Problems (2004) Angry, polemical, black and white pseudo verite report from the hip hop frontline, ends in a Cagney-esque blaze of bullets
6. Massive Attack: Teardrop (1998) Mystically powerful animatronic singing baby in a womb
7. OK Go: Here It Goes Again (2006) One camera, one shot, hilariously choreographed dance routine on treadmills created a viral classic
8. Bjork: It’s Oh So Quiet (1995) The Icelandic fruitcake revives the spirit of classic Hollywood musicals
9. The Verve: Bittersweet Symphony (1997) Richard Ashcroft walks through the street, bumping into people. Simple but inspired.
10. Radiohead: Street Spirit (Fade Out) (1995) Like a bad dream, a variety of time lapses are used to disturbing effect