Joe Kavanagh's Music News

Troubled singer, Pete Doherty, has been moved to a secure wing in Wormwood Scrubs prison after prison officers apparently uncovered a serious plot to harm him. Spokespeople for the prison claim that a group of fellow prisoners hatched a plot to attack the Babyshambles, singer who has been incarcerated since a judge ordered him to serve 14 weeks, due to his continuing struggles with drugs. UK tabloid, The Sun, also printed photos last week which show a gaunt Doherty staring at his cell wall, while they also allege that the singer is back using heroin, despite being housed up until recently in the prison's Detox unit. I understand that some people might disagree but I really don't see the point in locking up a person whose only crime (if you want to call it that) in life has been to hurt themselves. I'd hardly call it rehabilitative, given the fact that he is using heroin in the prison's Detox wing, which basically leaves us with punitive. If Pete Doherty gets murdered in prison simply because a judge needed to make a symbolic gesture, does it really make society a better place? I'm not convinced...

Speaking of troubled stars, reports are surfacing that Amy Winehouse's current employers are growing tired of her hedonistic ways and are set to issue her with an ultimatum. Universal Records are fed up with the singer's act, which has recently seen her exhibit increasingly erratic behavior, miss scheduled recording sessions and revert to her drug-taking ways, despite several stints in rehab. According to reports, Universal will allegedly tell Winehouse that she must clean up her ways before they ever release another record by her again, even if it means letting her sit out the duration of the contract without releasing a song. All fairly reasonable and laudable at face value, but it always makes me decidedly skeptical when I hear record industry types trying to claim the higher moral ground. Simply put, if Amy Winehouse keeps producing music that millions of people want to buy then I would imagine that there are labels out there that would hire people to shoot heroin directly into her eyes, if that's what she wished. It's all about the bottom line and the music business is 5% music, 90% business...

The Glastonbury Festival has become the focus of a furious row, as the result of organizers' decision to install rapper, Jay-Z, as the headline act at this year's show. Although some did question the choice of main act for a musical event that has traditionally avoided mainstream hip hop acts, it was not until the festival failed to sell out the 138,000 tickets in its customary timeframe (usually a matter of minutes) that the issue became so emotively charged. Some were quick to blame the choice of Jay-Z, with Noel Gallagher, being the most vocal in his protestations. Speaking to the BBC last week, the garrulous Oasis guitarist claimed: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you start to break it then people aren't going to go. I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance. Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music and even when they throw the odd curveball in on a Sunday night you go 'Kylie Minogue?' I don't know about it. But I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong." Emily Eavis, who now stands as the show's main organizer, disagreed strongly, telling reporters: "Maybe what the critics have really revealed is something about attitudes that are still all too prevalent in Britain: an instinct to go back to base and play safe. An innate conservatism, a stifling reluctance to try something different. In the end, the hot air surrounding Jay-Z's performance will blow away." Andy Cowan, editor of Hip-Hop Connection magazine, was a little funnier, a lot bitchier and more direct, claiming: "These are the typical reactionary views of a pampered has-been. Having had the grave misfortune of seeing Oasis play Glastonbury in 1995 - a lumpen, turgid mess of a set - Gallagher himself has set the bar very low, and I've no doubt Jay-Z will be a huge success this year." The most balanced assessment, in my humble opinion, came from UK hip hop star, Dizee Rascal, who claimed that Jay-Z simply lacks the "crossover-element" of other stars like Eminem and Kanye West, whose careers in Europe have far outstripped that of Jay-Z. Almost 40,000 tickets remain unsold at the time of going to print...

Speaking of rap crossover, James Blunt was so thrilled with a recent cover of one his songs by a French rapper, that he may even collaborate with him on his next album. MC Sinik had chart success in France with his own take on Blunt's tune, I'll Take Everything. Speaking to the media last week the You're Beautiful crooner said: "Sinik's take on I'll Take Everything, which is called Je Realise, has been a big hit in France. I think this might be my direction for a third album." Translation: I'm going to rip of the best of Sinik's sound because mine's gone stale. Actually, I also read last week where James Blunt broke one of his fingers recently by - and I'm deadly serious here - throwing himself off the stage during one of his own shows. Can it be that he had a moment of clarity where even he couldn't take listening to himself? For one thing, James Blunt's songs may want to make you jump off a building but the only possible way they could make you jump up and down was if he was lying on the ground beneath you while playing them...

While we're on the subject of unpopular pop stars, Moby openly wondered last week why there is so much animosity directed towards him, particularly from the British media. The amiable New Yorker stated in an interview with Gigwise.com: "Some journalists just seem to hate me and everything I do, and it's disconcerting because I've never met this person. I don't know what's wrong with me that I can inspire such loathing in people I've never met. It seems a particular problem in the U.K., because a lot of people in the U.K. seem to think I'm some kind of self-righteous moralist, and actually nothing could be further from the truth. I have no problem if people hate me, but it seems a little strange when people hate me for the wrong reasons." The fact is that the if you stay in the public spotlight long enough, you will eventually be hated for some periods, no matter the fact that you happen to be one of the nicest, most-grounded guys in the world of music. That's just how the media - and to a lesser extent - human nature works. If I were Moby, I would just wait this cycle out and think long and hard before making those kind of statements to the UK media, particularly given the inference in the last sentence that there are right reasons for hating you. Hopefully that's not blood that I smell in the water...

Bowie fans will be thrilled to hear that their idol is set to release a live album, taken from one of his gigs back in 1972. David Bowie Live In Santa Monica '72 will hit shelves in June and I can safely say that it will easily be, far and away, the best album that he has released since, ohh, about 1972... And I don't care that I haven't heard it yet or don't even know the track listing; facts are facts...

Finally, a study has found that Madonna, Celine Dion and Prince Charles' wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, are all descended from the same French carpenter. Historical records dating back to 1621 that were published last week conclusively prove that the three ladies are indeed all direct descendants of Zacharie Cloutier, who settled in Quebec in 1638. I'm guessing that Madonna inherited the looks of the family, unless her ancestor was known as Zacharie "Cheval-visage" Cloutier. I'm just saying...