Joe Kavanagh's Music News

Snow Patrol's soon-to-be-released fifth studio album, A Hundred Million Sons, will be used to debut new technology making it an "interactive album application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch." I know, I hadn't the foggiest idea of what that meant either, but apparently it will provide users access to a range of behind the scenes footage in the making of the album and allow fans to follow lyrics for every song on the touch screen, in addition to other gimmicks, excuse me, features. The band has also released the track-listing for what will surely be one of the biggest records of the year, and it is as follows: If There's a Rocket Tie Me To It, Crack The Shutters Open, Take Back The City, Lifeboats, The Golden Floor, Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands, Set Down Your Glass, The Planets Bend Between Us, Engines, Disaster Button and The Lightning Strike...

U2, on the other hand, have decided to shelve plans for releasing an album this year, with Bono announcing: "We want 2009 to be our year." A little strange, considering that only weeks ago they were telling us how they had written the best album of their career, even going so far as to leak one of the tracks online. Could it be a case of them being unwilling to go up against a fellow Irish juggernaut? ...

Lily Allen was her controversial self again last week, this time managing to offend many of those that attended GQ Magazine's Men of the Year Awards, an entire police force and Elton John. In a rather bizarre pairing, Allen and John co-hosted GQ's prestigious awards but sparks began to fly when the former reached for another drink, despite the fact that she was already beginning to slur her words, prompting John to say: "What? Are you going to have another drink?" An angry Allen immediately retorted: "F*** off Elton. I am 40 years younger than you and have my whole life ahead of me!" Never one to shy away from an argument, John scolded the youngster, with: "I could still snort you under the table." The pair continued to fire barbs throughout the night but Allen maintains that the two remain friends. The same cannot be said of Allen and Scotland Yard, after she infuriated Met brass by jeopardizing an upcoming trial by revealing confidential details of the crime. A friend of Allen's, known only as "Charlie", was allegedly snatched off a London street, along with one of his friends, and then held for seven days by kidnappers until cops managed to free the pair. Allen wrote about the episode on her blog and also is reported to have claimed at the GQ Awards: "I just want to thank the Met Police. They did an incredible job. He was in the boot (trunk) of a car being driven around London before he was found. It was all over money." "Charlie" has been quoted in the press as calling her outburst "appallingly irresponsible", while a spokesman for Scotland Yard described her comments as "outrageous". I don't know what the fuss is about anyway. Lily Allen talking about Charlie being driven around London in the trunk of a car until enough money was found to release him? A good lawyer (forgive the oxymoron) could easily pass that off as her using code to tell Pete Doherty that his next delivery from Colombia has just arrived...

Speaking of Pete Doherty, the troubled rocker was forced to deny that he almost died from an overdose last week, when reports emerged that he had to be revived by Austrian paramedics, after overdosing while in the Alpine country for a gig last week. Talking to reporters, Doherty claimed: "I know that was absolute rubbish. I was in Austria (but), I mean, between me and you... it would've been lovely to have enough stuff but there was nothing about. To be honest it was a really clean week - and it was complete rubbish." Trust Pete, he is the only person I know that almost apologizes for not having overdosed! It's like he's saying: "Sorry all, I did not actually overdose but it wasn't for the want of trying!" He aso also revealed that the reason for the delay in the release of his debut solo album, is the fact that he is suffering from a bit of a financial downturn and can't find the funding to release the record. Here's a suggestion: Give up the drugs for a while and move to Austria. With his legendary reputation for consuming drugs, I'll bet that if Pete could give them up for a year or so, then he could not only release his album but probably bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac too... By the way, is it just me or does anyone else think that those mortgage companies sound like a pair of crooners who worked as a two-bit double-act on the nightclub/burlesque circuit in the 1950s? ...

Ron Wood's continued foibles were the subject of conflicting reports in the media last week. According to some of the tabloids, the Rolling Stones guitarist was seen moving into a new apartment in London last week, along with his reputed lover, 20-year-old Russian cocktail waitress, Ekaterina Ivanova. Other reports had him taking up residence with Pete Townshend in his London pad. I really hope the second one is true for Woods' sake because taking up residence with the girl that drove you to rehab would not appear to be the most prudent way of avoiding it. I'm not saying that living with Pete Townshend would be a barrel of laughs (have you seen him being interviewed?) but at least he could give Ron some advice about dealing with young people, given the amount of research he did on the subject a few years back...

A fascinating and comprehensive study by Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University has discovered that a person's taste in music is inherently linked to their personality, and surprisingly revealed that heavy metal and classical music fans are "virtually identical" in their personality makeup. Taking in almost 37,000 people in countries across the globe, the study asked participants to list their main personality traits before listening to 104 different musical styles and ranking them according to preference. According to Professor Adrian North: "People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs, and using certain types of slang. It's not so surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference." The professor claimed that the study explains why so many people bond over music and why we are so protective of what we listen to. The absorbing study revealed that fans of classical music and heavy metal are both creative, introverted and have "a love of the grandiose"; the only differential being that classical fans had high self-esteem, while their leather-clad brethren did not. Here is a sampling of how other genres related to the personalities of their adherents and just to let you know that I've added one for my own entertainment, if no one else's:
Indie: Lacking self-esteem and motivation, kind, generous, creative.
Rock'n'Roll: High self-esteem, very creative, hard-working and at ease with themselves, but not very kind or generous.
Blues: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease with themselves.
Classical: Classical music lovers have high self-esteem, are creative, introverted and at ease with themselves.
Heavy metal: Very creative and at ease with themselves, but not very outgoing or hard-working.
Reggae: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, kind, generous and at ease with themselves, but not very hard-working.
Country & Western: Very hard-working and outgoing.
Dance: Creative, outgoing but not kind or generous.
Rap: High self-esteem, extroverted.
John Rich: Characterized by low-intelligence, fecklessness, tendency to jump to wild conclusions, completely lacking in creativity and suffering from severe delusions of grandeur (possibly due to complications arising from inbreeding).