Justify Her Human Nature...

More from the set of the upcoming music video for the new Madonna single:



A preview from a new interview/special shown in Italy:



And: a couple of backdrops from her current tour. The one for "Justify My Love" is FABULOUS!

A Tribute...

Tracks...

It's been a while - but now that things are returning to normal here in the Galaxy, here is a bacth of tracks I have been playing a lot over the last few weeks. And as usual, you'll find a pretty weird mixture... 

This lot includes a devil in a revealing outfit, two "tigers", swedish reggaeton, Terence Stamp, latino papis, Infernal singing in danish, a video of a band playing their song in a somewhat, erm, explicit way, Svetlana Loboda with a beard, two creepy middle aged ladies making their own men - the list goes on.

My absolute favorites of the bunch: the teaser track from the new Pet Shop Boys album, the new Marina And The Diamonds single and of course the new Sandra single (fanmade video to the extended version of the song, which was produced as an homage to her 80s sound - love it!!!) I have been playing the CD single on repeat since I got it...

Leave your comments!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered...

Want to get a SIGNED copy of the upcoming Best Of CD/DVD from Bananarama? You can get it here - and you just know I have already secured myself a copy!

Mardi Gras...

Kylie Minogue does Mardi Gras - 'nuff said!





Also, a limited edition CD single of "Timebomb" will be made available to fans next month. Go to http://shop.emimusic.com/kylie/ to order your copy, but be quick - only 5000 copies will be made available worldwide. I have of course already placed my order!

This Happened!...

As a celebration of 27 years of recording and performing as Propaganda, Act, Onetwo and as herself, Claudia Brücken took to the stage at the Scala, Kings Cross, London. Using the nucleus of her current band Onetwo, Claudia performed an exciting 98 minute live set playing selections from her career with a host of guests / former collaborators. Andy Bell (Erasure) performed two songs, their collaboration ‘Delicious’ from Andy’s 2005 solo album, followed by Act’s duet ‘Absolutely Immune’. Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory and Martin Ware performed three songs, Act’s ‘Snobbery and Decay’, a total ‘one off’ performance of Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’ in ‘early demo’ style, and a never performed live duet, ‘When your Heart Runs Out of Time’ originally recorded by Glenn, Claudia and Midge Ure for the Nicolas Roeg film ‘Insignificance’.

Halfway through the show, the musicians cleared the stage leaving Claudia and former ZTT label mate Andrew Poppy alone to perform two intimate songs, one from their 2005 album ‘Another Language’, a show-stealing’ rendition of Kate Bush's 'Running up that Hill', and also Roy Orbison’s 'In Dreams' from Claudia's 'Combined' album, as just piano and voice. The sold out crowd were treated to a rare Propaganda reunion of Claudia, Susanne Freytag and Ralf Dörper who performed 4 songs from their ‘Secret Wish’ album which included their iconic hit ‘Duel’ and a super rare live performance of Propaganda’s beautiful and much loved ‘Dream within a Dream’.

The entire 98 minute show containing 19 songs was professionally filmed and recorded and is now available as a DVD video together with a 15 track audio live CD album.

For a limited time only, all copies will be signed by Claudia and can also be personalised as per your instruction via there@theremusic.com. If you wish for your copy NOT to be signed and left in shrink wrap you can also instruct us accordingly via email. All orders placed now will be shipped to be received on or around the release date of 23rd July 2012.

Go here to order your signed copy! I am about to place my order, I can not wait to see this show!!!!

Claudia Brücken - This Happened: Claudia plus guests Live at the Scala

 19 track DVD plus 2 extras, 15 track Audio CD (2012)

 Cat No: TTDVDCD001

DVD Tracklist

 01 Kiss like Ether

 02 Sequentia

 03 Dr Mabuse

 04 Absolut[e]

 05 Cloud 9

 06 Snobbery and Decay

 07 Temptation

 08 When your heart runs out of time

 09 Running up that Hill

 10 In Dreams

 11 Dream within a Dream

 12 p:Machinery

 13 Night School

 14 Light the Way

 15 Home (Tonight)

 16 Delicious

 17 Absolutely Immune

 18 Duel

 19 Thank you

 Extras :

 1) Backstage Stills by Glenn Gregory

 2) Thank You - Official Video

 Audio CD Tracklist

 01 Kiss like Ether

 02 Sequentia

 03 Dr Mabuse

 04 Cloud 9

 05 Snobbery and Decay

 06 Temptation

 07 When your heart runs out of time

 08 Running up that Hill

 09 Dream within a Dream

 10 p:Machinery

 11 Night School

 12 Home (Tonight)

 13 Absolutely Immune

 14 Duel

 15 Thank you

NOTE: This is a PAL formatted DVD set to Region 0, so please make sure that you have compatible equipment BEFORE making you purchase.

Winner...

The first single to be released from "Elysium", the new Pet Shop Boys album, is entitled "Winner" and will be given its world premiere next Monday morning, July 2nd, on The Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2 in the UK between 9.30 and 12.

On the next day, July 3rd, the track will become available for purchase from iTunes.
On August 6th, the single will be released on CD (with three bonus tracks) and as two digital bundles (including bonus tracks and remixes).

Like the rest of the album, "Winner" was produced in Los Angeles by Andrew Dawson and Pet Shop Boys. It has an orchestral arrangement by Joachim Horsley, Andrew Dawson and Ben Leathers.
We will have confirmed worldwide release dates for "Elysium" next week. Meanwhile, as a taster for the new album, a video for a track entitled "Invisible" can be seen below.

I am totally excited - I love "Invisible" and I cant wait to hear the new single (which WILL be released as a CD single, thank god!)

 

Grrrr...

Sorry for the lack of updates - I have been having some computer problems lately, had to buy a new one and am in the midst of getting everything back together. Things will be returning to normal soon...

In the meantime, enjoy a few snapshots of your'rs truly, taken over the last 10 days or so:

Turn It Up...

Madonna was spotted leaving her hotel on the way to the set of the video for her next single “Turn Up The Radio”.

According to the Italian press, Madonna already shot some of the footage this morning at an old, abandoned gas station, sitting on top of a Cadillac. They also report that more scenes for the video, which is directed by Tom Munro, will be shot tonight in the center of Florence.

Here is the first official photo from the video:

UPDATE: Video footage:
 

SOTD...

OK, school is OVER for me over the next two months - took my last test this morning!
And that can only mean one, ever so classic song...

 

Really???...

If this is true, poor little Lady Gaga really needs to get her act together!






Also, I came across this article which qute nicely sums up my thoughts on the recent "nippledrama":

So Madonna flashed a nipple during a performance in Istanbul. Good on her. Why shouldn't older women flaunt their stuff?

Oh Gawd. Madonna's at it again. By which I mean being provocative, as everyone who has given the media even a cursory glance in the past 30 years will know. She has a bit of a back history with this stuff, after all: dry humping a black Jesus in the Like a Prayer video, snogging Britney, saying the f word on David Letterman, hanging out on a crucifix. Now she's gone and flashed her old lady nipple. Oh, the humanity! It seems Twitter twits such as Piers Morgan think her lady-nubs might not be entirely age appropriate. Cue internet outrage, articles in the Daily Mail, angry feminist backlash, and this piece.

Older women simply can't win. And despite the fact that Madonna is a veritable goddess of excellent pop campery, she is, to her detriment, also 53. Which is about the same age as my mum. Now, I'm not suggesting that my mum should start flashing people in Buckingham Waitrose, but that's because she's not a multimillion-dollar recording artist under pressure to keep things saucy. Madonna is, and if she chooses to flash her half-a-century-old nipples, by God, I defend her right to do it.

If you're a middle-aged woman, it's often said that, in the eyes of the media, you are invisible. However, proponents of that theory are forgetting one key fact: the Stifler's Mom/Mrs Robinson paradigm. Post-menopausal women recast as sexy older cougars who rob horny young men of their sexual innocence. In light of this, the message that Madonna and women her age are receiving is clear: go hot, or go home.

If you're an older man on the other hand, like Iggy Pop or Bruce 'The Boss' Springsteen, you can carry on doing your thing – which in Iggy's case is getting his crinkly bollocks out through the recognised medium of transparent trousers. Much to my disappointment, the perpetually hot and youthful Bruce is keeping his under wraps, but Iggy, despite the fact that he begins to resemble Frank Gallagher more by the day, is still flying the flag for pre-geriatric nudity. And why not?

There's an assumption that aged bodies are somehow shameful, that they cease to be sexual vessels, especially where women are concerned. Madonna, in her own way, is giving that cultural assumption a pretty categorical V sign.

I don't want to assume that Madonna flashing her nipple is some kind of post-modern commentary on patriarchal gender norms. Maybe she just wanted to experience the feeling the cool breeze of a thousand gay men's sighs caressing her nip. But since 'nipplegate' has officially become a thing, it's worth remembering that women's bodies and their activities are still regarded as common property.

What's even more ridiculous about this whole furore is how Madonna doesn't even look 53. Do you have any idea how hard she works to please you people? I read in Closer magazine the other day (and before you start, it's my job), that she covers herself in £500 moisturiser and sleeps in a plastic suit. And what does she get in return? All-round twit Piers Morgan saying it was 'the most desperate attempt in the history of music'.

Madonna is not desperate. She is sensational. Morgan is forgetting the myriad desperate moments that have graced musical history over the years – not least the Steps comeback tour. And in a world of quasi-pornographic pop booty shaking, Madonna's nipple is hardly shocking. It may not be my world, or my mum's world, or your world, but it's Madonna's world, and she's not letting go of it just yet, nor should she.

Metropolis...

An exiting release (for me at least) is coming on DVD on July 23rd in the UK:

In the era when one could still but only dream of a comprehensive restoration of Fritz Lang's silent sci-fi epic Metropolis, esteemed pop artist/producer and pioneering electronic composer Giorgio Moroder followed his work on Brian De Palma's cult-classic Al Pacino vehicle Scarface by assembling his own version of Lang's 1920s classic. The result was a zeitgeist-infused, high-kitsch/high-art amalgam of some of the quintessential cinema images and then-contemporary 1980s pop-chart melodrama.

For millions around the world, it is this version of Metropolis - featuring music by Moroder himself and artistes such as Adam Ant, Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, and Jon Anderson which first comes to mind whenever mention is made of the Lang original or, indeed, the iconic imagery and power of silent cinema.

Eureka Entertainment are proud to present a new restoration of Giorgio Moroder's cult reworking of Fritz Lang's Metropolis for the very first time on DVD in the UK - a bizarre and beautiful retro-futurist timepiece which continues to speak of the past, present, and future...available on DVD and limited edition DVD Steelbook.

SPECIAL DVD EDITION:

New high-definition restoration from rare original 35mm elements

Original stereo and 5.1 surround audio options

The Fading Image, a vintage documentary from 1984 detailing the creation of Moroder's reconstruction

http://www.metropolismovie.co.uk/metropolis

No Fear...

She's not sorry, indeed!

In Rome on Tuesday, during the latest stop for her MDNA tour, Madonna gave concertgoers a glimpse of something special - nearly mooning the audience in barely-there skivvies.

Days after exposing her nipple to fans in Istanbul - outraging some - during her song 'Human Nature,' the 53-year-old pop legend and mother of four pulled a similar stunt during the same number in Italy.

Clad in a sexy lace bra and trousers, with her blonde locks swept up in a dramatic retro 'do, the Grammy winner yanked down her black pants, revealing her posterior in a lacy, G-string bottom. (Appropriately enough, the 1995 song 'Human Nature' is all about Madonna's unapologetic stance for her explicit, edgy Erotica album and Sex book of the early '90s.)

The icon was criticized in some corners for showing her breast in Istanbul last week during the striptease routine.

Comments like "she should leave this to younger women" make me extremely mad! At what age exactly are women supposed to "cover up", may I ask? Madonna can do whatever the shell she wants to - she is still out there being Madonna, no matter what the hell some people may think.


I have mentioned how much I love that woman, right???

The queen treated her fans to more special things in Italy: a soundcheck:

Haunted Bat...

Bat For Lashes has announced her third album, The Haunted Man. It will be released on October 15 via Parlophone.

The record follows 2009's critically-acclaimed Two Suns, which peaked at number five in the UK and has sold over 250,000 copies to date. Her debut record Fur Gold was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2006 and the singer won an Ivor Novello 'Best Contemporary Song' award for "Daniel" from her last album.

The Boss In Color...

Diana Ross through the years - in color.

50 years of being FABULOUS (and these are just the tip of the iceberg)