Lopez Blogs

I have lots I want to blog about but I'm saving most of it until next week - quite honestly there is SO much amazing stuff our there on other blogs at the moment, that it would be criminal not to draw attention to it. But first of all, you will probably have noticed two very exciting images (for me!) above - first off The Feeling (whom Ruthiepoos and I are off to see a week on Monday) are putting out their very first dvd, with all 9 of their promo videos, a live concert and a fabby documentary. It's not out til Nov 17th, but will be on sale at a probably ridiculous inflated price at their concerts. Hurrah! And secondly, woohoo! Take That are touring next year. And it promises to be a rather splendid decadant extravagant affair. Darren and I are hoping for Independence Day tickets. Rather them than boring Oasis I say...

BEST IN BLOG:

• Now Digital Spy isn't really a blog but it is really very amazing. Today they have a feature on which former History Boy Dakin is the best - gorgeous Ben Barnes (right) or delicious Dominic Cooper (left). Throw them both in the mix I say, and I'll determine the winner by last man standing :P


• Auspop is just consistently amazing for news on music "down under". It's hard to pin point one particular post, their love of all things poppy and groovy just radiates from the computer screen. Frankly I find it hard to imagine life without my daily check of their site now. Obsessed much?!


• Dreadful word I know, but Yuri and DanUSA have had a beautiful blogging bromance in Chicago this past week to go and see Lady Madonna. By all accounts she was very good, even if Dan USA forgot how to drive (I still want Dan and Heidi to be my adopted US family :P)


• I've long held the view that XO's Middle 8 (should he sue popjustice ?:P) is the coffee table book of blogs - beautiful to look at and full of sumptuous things. His mixtapes are always a particular favourite of mine, especially when he is worried about my penis ;)


• Talking of the increasingly back on form and excellent popjustice, if you live in London (and I suppose people must) and you want to have a decent night out this week, then you should probably get yourself along to their new night launching tomorrow. It promises a nice bar, and somewhere to sit and chat, as well as all the ace music that popjustice loves so much. And it's free! How ace is that?! Brilliant credit crunching best value there then :)


• If you want a more tongue in cheek (it's just whose cheek is the tongue in?) then you could do far worse than the slutty stylings from the US of Chartrigger or ozzie boy Mike Poptrashaddict. Both make me howl with laughter on a regular basis - whether it's keeping up with which take that boy D'Luv wants to boff, or Mike trying to convince the world that CityGirlz are the new female Billiam both are worth many moments of your time!


• I love Adem. A lot. His review of the latest Girls Aloud album totally blows mine out of the water. In other words, while mine is very good indeed (haha), his is nothing short of amazing and should be given away with every single copy of the album sold.
  
• Bobby pops gets up close and personal with another person behind Kylie! how he does it is beyond me. But fascinating nevertheless!


• New blogger on the block Aaron continues to amaze me with his incredibly consistently entertaining reviews of albums and new tracks. We may not always like the same things (Pussycat Dolls album? Really? :P) but reading about them is always fun. Ditto Poppostergirl who is as usual pretty darn spot on with her worldwide poppostikipedia knowledge of the pop world. Plus she regularly posts pictures of hot boys.

Of course there are many more blogs out there that are consistently aces (DanUK, John, Popmuse, ModernFabulousity, The Beat Review, Kulpop, Nick Alien Hits, etc), but i shall save their brilliance for another post! Links in the side panel!

AND THEN:

Hurrah! Although I'm off to a halloween special night at Alton Towers tomorrow with Dazpants, i shall be definitely setting my Sky Plus for Hannah Montanna: The Best Of Both Worlds in 3d on the Disney Channel! I have an unashamed love for Miley (See You Again is one of THE popsongs of the year!) and you can even pick up 3D glasses to watch it with at your local argos (click here for more details on that!). Now you know if you are in the UK you probably want to watch it too, so tune in at 6pm tomorrow! Disney Channel! 6pm! 31st October! Miley Cyrus! Got it?!

By the way, I have become a little bit obsessed with Richard and Judy's New Position lately, which is on every night in the UK at 8pm on Watch. I think I still have an inappropriate crush on Richard, and their promo for the show captures the spirit of their onscreen banter perfectly. I love a bit of cabaret :) And, rather nicely, in these gloomy dark evenings, you can now write into the show and tell Richard and Judy about someone you may wish to thank whose been rather nice to you. It's like a virtual chicken soup for the soul, and has become essential reading. Check it out here!

It's very easy (and lazy in my opinion) for newspapers and magazines to label the latest film likely to draw in a large female audience as "the best chick flick since Bridget Jones" or "the perfect summer movie" and then pontificate about how surprising it is that women will respond to a film en masse when it does well!! However, it has to be said that the cinema was filled with menopausal women all enjoying their free hormone replacement patch with every ticket sold to the ridiculously fun, entertaining and brilliant Mamma Mia. And a jolly bloody good time was had by all.


The transferral of the popular stage show to the big screen has only enhanced the appeal of the flimsy plot and characters. Contained in celluloid magic, they now seem larger than life, engrossing and all the more loveable. And the songs?! Every single note, harmonised melody and brilliantly constructed middle 8 was amplified, magnified and celebrated into a sweeping wave of joy, hilarity, melancholy and heartbreak. But of course, it's Abba so the film makers would have to be pretty uninspired to mess it up (For example Waterloo and I Do I Do I Do I Do made Muriel's Wedding). Bringing these songs to life were the solemn responsibility of a uniformly excellent cast led by the always delightful Meryl Streep (and ably supported by the godlike Julie Walters and lovely Christine Baranski - who always has such amazing legs!). Colin Firth was the most likeable of the likeable potential daddies (I love how Wikipedia states "it is subtly suggested his character Harry may be gay" - if that is subtle then Wikipedia has just successfully rewritten the definition of the word!) and Amanda Seyfried is just perfect as Sophie. Special mention deserves to go to the islanders who inhabit Donna and Sophie's world and bring a new dimension en masse to each song. And of course, Dominic Cooper solidifies his position as my second favourite Dakin ever (after Ben Barnes of course) with his sculpted abs and delicious portrayal of lovestruck Sky. Dribble. I don't want to write too many spoilers so here are the best interpretations of the songs on the screen:

• Dancing Queen is the moment when the film just lets go and launches into a whirling dervish of merriment, joy and encourages the audience to become part of the experience. Used by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski as a means to cheer up Meryl Streep after her realisation that she is a bit of a slut after nobbing off 3 boys in as many weeks in her youth, it becomes a celebration of all things Abba. In it's original format, this flawless four minutes of pop is addictive from the first swoop of strings. On screen, it brings together Meryl's gang into full on party mode and as they dance around the island, the womenfolk 'cast off their daily shackles' and join in the celebrations. And if that isn't a visual representation of the power of Abba music, then I don't know what is. Meryl Streep jumping up and down on the bed must be the most carefree glorious moment in film since Tracy Turnblatt shimmies her way onto the Corny Collins show singing "you can't stop a river as it races to the sea". Magnificent.
• Lay All Your Love On Me (butchered by my beloved Steps in 2000) is the perfect song for Sky and Sophie as they prepare for their stag and hen parties respectively. I'm not sure why it stood out to me so much, but I do remember the "From Here to Eternity" moment where Sophie and Sky roll and romp together in the sand. A nice lusty busty romantic moment, but lets face it - on a practical level, no-one wants to spend the best part of their wedding night pulling weird sandy crap out their crannies do they?
• Voulez Vous - another ace pop song that they did some visual magic with. It's practically transformed into a tribal, intoxicating, exotic, rave experience as Sophie's confusion over her possible daddies intensifies and greek dancing surrounds her. It's a kalediscope of colours, whirling one way then the next as the question of the song infuses the cast and takes on a life of it's own. It's incredibly intruiging to watch and apparently took bloody ages to film. I'm not surprised. One step or twirl out of time and it ruins the whole effect.
• Bring on the heartbreak - the double impact of Slipping Through My Fingers and Winner Takes It All for some reason had me silently sobbing away (i'm having an emotional week!). Meryl does a rather brilliant job of capturing the whole "trying to hold a memory in your hand" as she prepares for her daughter to start a whole new life, and then goes right out and proves you don't need a particularly brillo voice to bring gravitas and heartbreak to a song as well written as Winner Takes It All. Excellent.

This jubilant film ends with the cast breaking the fourth wall and inviting the audience to party along with them. And the cinema did! Brillopad. Best feelgood movie since Hairspray and bound to be in faves of the year. Lets have a gratuitous piccie of Dominic to round things off...

Back soon with more abba, weekly round up, a tabloid scandal, the arrival of that fucking Ciccone book and McFly!

Once again my whole plan for a proper week of posts has gone out of the window. Not that these posts aren't "proper" (they are in fact quite 'tidy'), it's just the more I push certain things back the less relevant they are! Oops. Still it's not like you come here for the stunning cutting edge news is it?! So anyway, it seems like there is lots of news and discussion around various obsessions of mine, so I shall move forward with my all important (= not important at all) take on events...

Oh Big Brother. Every year I think "oh i won't watch this year because it will be the usual bunch of society's dregs" and every year I am right but watch anyway. The clip above shows the most genius big brother task yet, but the degenerate nature of the housemates continues to be the shows pulling power. Let's break it down like this.

• Alex got booted out last week for basically being the most vile human being ever since Robert Mugabe, Nicki from BB7 and Charley from BB8...
• Sylvia took over as the house bitch, with Jen snapping at her heels. Stuart came in and provided some much needed eye candy, though Sylvia lost all her dignity and practically squizzed her lady juice all over him and then told him off for flirting with her!!!
• Jennifer also couldn't help flirting outrageously with Stuart, leaving me to feel inexplicably sorry for Dale, who btw the more i felt sorry for him, the more he became attractive - looking like a high class hooker in the above clip and rocking the classic shirt and tie look last night...
• Michael is just vile by the way. His eating habits are truly repulsive. And! Who takes a drinking glass from the kitchen into the bathroom to wash your knob after you've had a wee? I'm all for clean bits but that is going too far....

Anyway, booze and housemates = mayhem. Dennis becomes the second housemate in 7 days to be removed from the house. This is how that went down!

• Skanky MARRIED ho Jennifer got upset because while everyone was drunk Rex got water on her painting of Stuart. Which frankly made it look better. It wasn't very good...
• She went weeping to everyone despite the fact that Rex apologised far too many times and genuinely seemed contrite-ish. When really it is evil skanky whore Jennifer who should be apologising. To her husband and child, for saying she is a single mom and not letting them know she was coming on Big Bro. And literally "cumming" on Big Bro the way she rubs her thighs every time she is around StuDale...
• So anyway, skanky ho Jennifer felt violated and raped for having water splashed on her picture (surely that is a euphemism?!) and it all kicked off with vile queen Dennis getting involved and gobbing in MoFro's face...
• ...Which to be fair, may have just been an attempt to tame MoFro's absolutely intruiging and increasingly wild hair...
• ...but still wasn't very classy of him. What really would have been classy would be to not wear purple trousers and a pimp hat with a feather in it, but hey, that's the fashion impaired for you!
• Stuart, Dale, Rebecca and Syliva (as i call her) just acted despicably.

THE ANNIVERSARY:

That's far too much space spent on that bunch of reprobates. Because actually, 20 years ago this very day - as in the day you are reading this if that day is Friday 27th July - young Debbie Gibson topped the Billboard Hot 100 with Foolish Beat, thus becoming the youngest ever artist to write, perform and produce a number one single. A record she still holds to this day! In your face Tiffany :P Anyway, Foolish Beat was the fourth single from her self-penned Out Of The Blue album and my fave track from that album (closely followed by Between The Lines). If you haven't heard it, it's a rather lovely Jeff White sax infused ballad about losing a love. The extended version is rather lovely too - frankly any song that talks about a new place where dreams can't come true is beautifully melancholy and mature beyond her years at the time. 20 years later, Deborah may not have sustained the success levels of Madonna and Kylie, but she has solidly worked and produced some pretty decent albums, theatre performances, casino concerts and kiddie camps along the way. Click here for much much more DG ramblings and info :)

THE X FACTOR:

Frankly, in my humble opinion, there is nothing wrong with Kylie Minogue's 10th album 'X'. In fact, give or take a couple of songs, it is rather good. So writing a article entitled What's Gone Wrong With Kylie with a cover blurb on Attitude is a bit inflammatory and a bit presumptuous as if the world measures all that is pop by Kylie's output. Written by Peter "popjustice" Robinson, on the one hand I'm a bit annoyed by it all (Peter suggested in The Observer Music Monthly that X should have reflected more of Kylie's personal struggles) but on the other hand it's Peter Robinson and it's hard to argue with his enthusiasm for pop and passion for Kylie's career. The response to it on the PJ forums is equally passionate and I think I take the criticism against X being "kylie lost" album a bit personally - i struggled against non hodgkins lymphoma for a couple of scary years, and actually you are a bit lost when you recover thinking you should be doing something earth shattering, but actually just being glad to getting back to doing what is normal for you. Which in Kylie's case is making decent albums that aren't always outstanding but always have a number of great songs on there (Wow, The One, Cosmic, No More Rain). And to be honest, Kylie's only had 2 GREAT albums - Rhythm of Love and Light Years. marv. For more Kylie, click here...


SUBJUNCTIVE HISTORY:


God bless the History Boys. Particularly the Dakins. Individuals who have played cock-curious Dakin in the various touring casts for the excellent History Boys stage show. Dominic Cooper (above) is busy preparing for increased global stardom (he got his global platform by appearing in the History Boys movie) with his role in the bound-to-be-trashtacular movie version of Mamma Mia. He looks quite wet on the cover, and the pics inside the magazine are even more moistmaking... (He also looks quite decent in GQ!!)


Talking of which, the delicious Ben Barnes who Kirsty and myself fell in love with Ben on the national UK tour of History Boys both in Birmingham and London (not that we were stalking him or anything...) Of course, the relative unknown went on to land a role in the huge Narnia franchise as Prince Caspian and even more exciting is in the upcoming Portrait of Dorian Gray movie where he plays the titular character. I'm excited to see what these boys do next.


Back on Sunday with the charts and a new feature!