A mass of contradictions

My Mediaweek Diary

Alright. 

Mediaweek got this chap to write a diary of his average week in media. You can read it here. I don’t know him, so there’s a chance, however small, that he might not be the biggest helmet on the planet. Who knows? Leave me out of it.

Mediaweek have at no stage asked me to write a diary, but I’ve got literally nothing else on so I thought I’d write one anyway.

Monday

Aren’t brands amazing? Seriously, they’re like TOTES AMAZEBALLS. One minute you’re just buying something and the next minute you’ve INVESTED in a BRAND. Makes me so happy that we can just buy whatever we want. It’s much better here than in countries where they make all this stuff for us and where they’re all poor. Being poor is shit. We really need this stuff! I LOVE it when I hear a band that I love on an advert! It’s great, and it makes me just want to buy only stuff that that company sells! Capitalism? Huh, FAPitalism more like! Finished off the day with a wank and shaped my cum into the Virgin Active logo. It was easier than I thought it’d be.

Tuesday

Spent the whole morning taking a shit in front of the mirror, and then I thought ‘What would it be like to taste my own shit? The rest of me is brilliant, so surely my shit is, too?’ So I took a bit of shit and stuffed it in my mouth. It tasted amazing. Note: Suggest it as a new flavour to Monster energy drinks. The kids won’t know the difference anyway, and the mark up will be huge!

Wednesday

Woke up early. Carpe diem, baby. Listened to Busted on my iPod. I used to totally hate them but now everyone does it’s sort of cool to like them. Day went really quickly today and it was 5pm before I realised that I’d spent the ENTIRE day high-fiving everyone at work! All my colleagues are so awesome that once I started I LITERALLY couldn’t find a person I didn’t want to high-five! Stopped in at a vegan crunk night on the way home.

Thursday

Went in late today because I had another shit that was such a creative, production-led campaign that I thought I’d better brainstorm it, blue-sky it and then make some next-steps notes about how to wipe my arse. Actually carried my own shit into work, smeared it all over my co-producer’s face and just left a post it note on his desk saying ‘The Future’. He didn’t say a word but just nodded slowly. Don’t you love it when people just ‘get it’?

Friday

Had ‘Virgin Active’ tattooed on my actual spine. Not the skin over the top of the spine, but the bone and spinal column itself. I will stop at nothing to live inside a brand, so why shouldn’t the brand live inside me? When I told Virgin Active what I’d done, they seemed a bit quiet. Maybe they don’t ‘get it’, which is worrying because I don’t like it when people don’t ‘get it’. Asked them for ten pounds a month off my gym membership. They agreed for three months. Realised I can’t go to the gym at the moment as I have severe spinal trauma.

2011

Ex Military - Death Grips

Stand out joint: Spread Eagle Cross the Block

A Thousand Heys - Mazes

Stand out joints: Till I’m Dead, Most Days

Hearts - I Break Horses

Stand out joints: Load Your Eyes, Winter Beats

50 Words for Snow - Kate Bush

Stand out joint: Snowflake

Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

Stand out joint: Battery Kinzie

Yuck - Yuck

Stand out joints: Georgia, Rubber

‘He came to me with money in his hand, he offered me, I didn’t ask him, I wasn’t knocking someone’s door down, I was running from that. When I got out I was in that, I was already through that, I had that. I had the studio. I went to the studio, I went to Fox Studios, I had it all and I looked at and I said ‘This is a bigger jail than I just got out of’. I don’t wanna take my time going to work,  I got a motorcycle and a sleeping bag and ten or fifteen girls. What the hell I wanna go off and go to work for? Work for what? Money? I got all the money in the world. I’m the king, man. I run the underworld, guy. I decide who does what and where they do it at. What am I gonna run around like some teeny bopper somewhere for someone elses money? I make the money man, I roll the nickels. The game is mine. I deal the cards.’

It’s just pop.

                            

Some music fans are scared of pop music. Quivering with fear in case they ever get caught by the fit indie girl on the train listening to something that isn’t on Wank Myself Into A Coma Records on their iPod, they’ll pride themselves on being a Wolves in the Throne Room completist, visiting All Tomorrow’s Parties every year and knowing the inner workings of A Place to Bury Strangers’ Oliver Ackermann’s elaborate onstage guitar pedal setup. They’ll generally stop themselves tapping their feet to pop, only just stopping short of literally strangling themselves to avoid singing along to the latest chart ditty, lest someone catch them and question their immaculate pitchfork-is-my-homepage credentials.

I am not one of those music fans. I think pop music is joyous, and should be appreciated as often as possible. Of course, I’m contractually obliged here (by myself) to state that some pop music is terrible. In fact, some pop music is even worse than terrible; it’s occasionally just a cynical attempt to separate children from their pocket money, backed by huge marketing budgets and subtle-as-a-sledgehammer campaigns, thought up by horrible, suited, sideburned music industry twats that are almost always called Simon or Paul. 

But don’t let that put you off, because, you know, there’s lots of shit rock, hip-hop and electro out there, too. And that didn’t stop you listening to The Stones, MF DOOM or Fuck Buttons now, did it?

Here are some genuinely brilliant pop songs that you should listen to. Go and get them on your iPod (other mp3 players are available) and sing along (quietly, don’t annoy the other commuters too much). To hell with what the fit indie girl/boy thinks. He/She is clearly a snob anyway. That’s why she won’t look at you, or stand near you, and why she now gets off a stop early to avoid your longing looks (probably). You don’t need her. You’ve got Rachel Stevens, Girls Aloud and Sean Paul for company. And that’s real love.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it should help you make that tentative first step towards enjoying pop music for what it is. Enjoy. The world’s a sunnier place with it. Click on the song title to listen.

Some Girls - Rachel Stevens

A pop song about how sleazy the music industry is! Blowjobs! Rachel Stevens! How this isn’t considered a pop classic for all time is beyond me.

Love Machine - Girls Aloud

Essentially a brilliant riff (as proved by Arctic Monkeys) through the lens of bubblegum pop, this is timeless. It’ll still sound special on Radio 2 in 20 years time.

Ride Wit Me - Nelly

The best pop rapper of all time! Bar none! 

Like Glue - Sean Paul

In another universe I’d have liked to have been Sean Paul. The man’s got it all. 

Fascination - Alphabeat

If Denmark is like this all the time, I’ll probably move there. Imagine listening to this with the Laudrup brothers!

Biology - Girls Aloud

More Girls Aloud! Why the fuck not, eh?