I WANT IT NOW!

Today I had one of those peculiar experiences where something you've known and accepted for a very long time suddenly strikes you or dawns on you in a new way. I think we all have those moments where, it's not like you realise something new, but something that's already a firm part of your life or your mind suddenly becomes highlighted; something which comes into your life frequently, even something important or integral to how you spend your time.

I was suddenly struck by the sheer speed at which music travels on the internet. Now, I'm a music blogger, so flash in the pan, half-baked, over-hyped pretentious twaddle is something I come into daily contact with. I've regularly written posts sharing or ruminating on new songs or videos or artist announcements which have come out that self same day. It's part of my daily ritual to scour the internet to see if Damon Albarn has rush-released a multi-media opera about ninjas, or to see what ignorant, self-involved drivel of Liam Gallagher's the universe is going to be indifferent to on that particular day. It's just standard fare to focus on the latest daily developments in the music industry, and to try and prise some gems from the swirling storm of human detritus that most if it is. When you spend your time writing about new music in the 21st century, and want to make a career out of it, that's your sweet smelling bread and butter.

And yet today it just suddenly struck me that it takes mere minutes for some new release to set the online community of journalists, bloggers and Twitterers abuzz with excitement. A new track or EP or mixtape can be released in the morning and, by dinner time, have everyone straining their keyboards with excitement.

Today, for example, James Blake (English electro/post-dubstep songwriter) and Drake (mellow Canadian rap artist) were the subjects of a new mixtape entitled, surprise surprise, James Drake, crafted by DJs Bombe and Mr Caribbean. Due to some highly unfortunate quirks of online fate, I have yet to hear it. However, I am a bit desperate to, and the pursuit to find a site which will currently stream it to my computer is monopolising my evening. This mixtape has been the subject of blog posts, tweets and news updates all across the music press throughout today, and it's, for this evening, the hottest record around. Just like that, in a matter of hours, its become the thing that everyone in the independent music business is interested in. And that is just mind bogglingly absurd!

The fact that that is possible is reflective of so many things. It's reflective of the spreading power of social networks, which we're all painfully aware of. It's reflective of the hyping nature of the blogosphere, with every electro blogger and his mum flagging the thing up before you can say "chillwave". Also, it's reflective of the opportunities afforded to young musicians these days. True, James Blake and Drake have had plenty of big names and institutions backing them up, but they're only 21 and 24 respectively. Their music's their own, and Drake is signed to Young Money, one of the best and most forward thinking hip-hop labels around. I'll be the first to spit at the trashy, vacuous, Major Label orchestrated, self-prostrating "pop music" that claws its way into our eardrums like some crazy reverse image of the stomach splatter scene from Alien, but that climate has created a fantastic reactionary spirit in independent pop music.

It may also reflect the fact that the internet affords us the ability to create our own channels to access the information relevant to us ASAP. Through the people I choose to dominate my Twitter feed, through the websites I favourite, through the mailing lists I sing up for, I create my own little world. For someone else (most of my friends - hi if you're reading this!), this kind of stuff doesn't travel to them quickly, if at all. Stuff travels super fast on the internet, but there's so much of it that it often only goes to the people who are looking for it. Sure, the internet's this massive universal thing which does - often through Facebook - create an environment where EVERYONE becomes aware of something, but often things actually happen in niches, or separate cultures which have their own place in the online world. And that's, I suppose, why I notice stuff travelling so fast. I'm part of a community which is now built on the rapid spread and acquisition of art and information.

So it's been odd just considering the speed with which music, and pretty much everything really, travels online. You just take it for granted in the world we live in, a world geared towards instant gratification, populated by a generation of perennial Veruca Salts. If people want something, they expect to get it in seconds. Sports results, release dates, new stories, videos, anything. Anyway, I'm sure this observation will become mundane again soon.

Now, let's find that James Drake mixtape.

P.S. I managed to get hold of the tape whilst I was doing the spellcheck on this. Can't be bothered to rewrite the post. Hope I don't undermine my entire stance on the rapid, self gratifying, internet based accelerated culture we live in or anything.

Britain's Got Talent - Hate To Say I Told You So...

Well I've had a highly eventful couple of weeks and so keeping to my resolution to write 2 blog posts a week has been something of a struggle, but here I am once again. It's sad though that I'm writing on such a sour topic today, but it's something I really feel the need to write about.

Towards the end of last year, I wrote a pretty vitriolic post about how Simon Cowell thinks every member of the great British public is a blithering idiot. He sits in his huge, supervillain palace, shaped like a giant X, strokes his fluffy white cat named Louis and cackles maniacally as he sucks money out of our pockets year after year. Anyone with half a brain cell has been able to tell from day one that his "talent shows" - beginning with Pop Idol and now stretching to Britain's Got Talent and its American counterpart - have been nothing but manipulative business moves. But recently I read something which added a whole new, sickening dimension onto the devious git's empire.

Simon Cowell may not be a judge on BGT any more, but the show is still part of his media empire, SYCO. So he's still top dog. I recently read an e-mail, published here anonymously, from an executive of Sony Music UK, who's worked closely with SYCO in relation to BGT.

In it, he reveals how current contestant and hot favourite Ronan Parke, a 12 year old singer, was fist discovered and SIGNED by SYCO two years ago at the age of 10. Over the past two years, he's been groomed to a terrifying degree, trained and controlled in every area in order to get him ready to win BGT 2011. And, as far as the writer of the e-mail is concerned, he WILL win. Simon Cowell has made sure he's been groomed and given a sexualised image to impact on the public and, at the end of the day, to rival Justin Bieber in the pre-teen market. The vote is already rigged apparently, which isn't something that doesn't surprise me and shouldn't surprise you either.

The thing that really gets me here is that, in the 21st century, a company run by a man who has for years been the face of Saturday night FAMILY entertainment, has groomed and sexualised a 12 year old boy. Apparently, young Ronan's always been a bit fey and effeminate, but some kids are at that age. The marketing appears to have been "we can't man him up, so let's start firing G-A-Y on all cylinders". I mean, watch his "audition". What 12 year old kis dresses themselves like that? Children - and yes he is a CHILD - should never be settled on their appearance at that age, and they certainly shouldn't be shoe horned in to a sexuality they're not comfortable with. They've twisted this poor kid's entire life and personality into an image that they want to sell. Regardless of what your views on sexuality are, it is never right, in any circumstance, to take a 12 year old boy who is nowhere near coming to terms with his sexuality, and to purposefully groom his personality, mannerisms and image. It's wrong do that in ANY fashion, not just a sexual one. And it's all made fine and dandy by the fact the Michael Macintyre is a few feet away, bumbling around with his fat, yellow grin like Mr Blobby on a good day at the races.

It was conditioning like this that turned Michael Jackson into a frekish, lonely, highly disturbed man-child. Pressure like this that hooked Judy Garland on pills when she was barely out of her nappies. The 21st century music business is a devious, unscrupulous place, but I really thought that THIS would be below even the scuzziest lizard in a suit these days. But it appears not.

Glamorous child abuse will be pumped into your living room each night this week, surrounded by flashing lights, crocodile tears and two bumbling Geordie idiots who have Simon Cowell's feelers so far up their anuses that he could pull out bush tucker they ate four years ago.

So happy viewing folks.