Avril Lavigne has no mouth; she cannot scream

Surely the worst things about Avril Lavigne's dubious Japanese-themed video is that:

1. She's plodding about five years behind Gwen Stefani's no-less-uncomfortable pillage-and-repackage of Japanese culture as exotica for the the US market

and

2. The song was co-written by her husband. Yes, that's Chad 'Nickelback' Kroger writing a song about Hello Kitty.

Little Big Ban: No Doubt pull video, claims some of their friends are Native Americans

No Doubt have, within the last 24 hours, unveiled a Western-themed video for Looking Hot, pulled it, and issued an apology:

“As a multi-racial band our foundation is built upon both diversity and consideration for other cultures. Our intention with our new video was never to offend, hurt or trivialize Native American people, their culture or their history.

Although we consulted with Native American friends and Native American studies experts at the University of California, we realize now that we have offended people. This is of great concern to us and we are removing the video immediately.

The music that inspired us when we started the band, and the community of friends, family, and fans that surrounds us was built upon respect, unity and inclusiveness. We sincerely apologize to the Native American community and anyone else offended by this video. Being hurtful to anyone is simply not who we are.”

Yes, they might have phrased it slightly differently, but the did slip "some of our friends are Native Americans into their apology.

To be fair to No Doubt, their defence is pretty solid - they've never been the sort of band you'd look at and think "well, the English Defence League would enjoy this" - which just makes the misstep even more bemusing.

Especially if they consulted Native American experts. Which academic in the field would have said "yeah, go ahead and make a pop video in which cowboys fight with 'Indians'. There won't be a problem with that'".

Gordon in the morning: Oh, you rate the new Williams album, do you?

Given how excitedly Smart has been pushing the new Robbie Williams record, you might have thought that he'd already heard it. But it turns out he's only just heard it. Never mind, though, as Gordon is quick to calibrate his review to justify the heralding it as second coming:

And I reckon ROBBIE WILLIAMS's eighth album, Reality Killed The Video Star, is his best since 2002's Escapology.

Gordon is quick to show us how secure Robbie's system is:

I got my hands on a Press copy of Rob's new CD which he released under the pseudonym Luke Moody to defy internet pirates.

Right. Only Williams has happily been babbling on about how Luke Moody was his pseudonym for the album for weeks, and the picture of the review copy Smart publishes clearly bears the album's real title and tracklisting featuring already discussed songtitles. So it's not really much of a security measure; admittedly, it's one step up from putting a picture of Feargal Sharkey on the sleeve.

Gordon provides a "track-by-track review" of the album. It's like being there:

7. SOMEWHERE: A 60-second string arrangement with good vocal.

Even Gordon tires of a shaky track-by-track by the end:

12. WON'T DO THAT& 13. MORNING SUN REPRISE: Rob introduces brass for the final fanfare. A rousing, upbeat finish.

Elsewhere, Gordon files a crime report:

BURGLARS have battered down the front door of GWEN STEFANI's £2.5million London pad.

Blimey - they broke into her flat?

Erm... no:

But they failed to get into her upstairs flat - and are said to have broken into an apartment downstairs instead.

Oh. So they didn't batter down the "front door" of "her pad", but broke into the building?

The headline on the story is curious, too:

Gwen is target of burglars

So they "targeted" her, by, erm, breaking into someone else's flat? Even Brighton and Hove Albion are closer on target than that.

No Doubt return, sort of

The long-awaited return of No Doubt (anything that stops Gwen Stefani from launching ranges of products) is nearly upon us. Sort-of.

They're doing a Gossip Girl cameo appearance. Sort-of:

"As you know, they're reuniting, they're going on tour, and they wanted to do a TV appearance and reached out to us on 'Gossip Girl,' " Schwartz said. "And then we came back and asked them, 'What about being an '80s band?' So they came on as 'Snow Doubt' and they did a cover of Adam & the Ants' 'Stand and Deliver.' It was amazing."

Why would No Doubt have been in the 1980s? And why would they be named after themselves mixed with a weak pun? Given that Gossip Girl is meant to be set in the real world, doesn't a band apparently having traveled back in time undermine its credibility somewhat?

Stefani: Gonna make toilet water out of your culture

Gwen Stefani has long attempted to bolster her credentials as being in touch with young people by marching bands of pressganged Harajuku girls round behind her.

Now, she's decided she's going to milk some cash out of them, too by launching a range of perfumes in caricatured bottles branded Harajuku Girls.

Which, by implication, means that she's gone one step further from merely appropriating a youth culture that existed quite happily without her, and turned it into a brand name. I await her explanation of how she intends to share the money she's making out of this project with the original Harajuku - perhaps she'll use the cash to fund some more meekly walking in silence behind her.

[Thanks to Eleanor G for the story]

No Doubt, no surprise

We all know what Gwen Stefani has been up to since slipping the confines of No Doubt and being able to get through an album without a couple of cod ska numbers. But what about the rest of the band?

Well, they, too, know what Gwen Stefani has been up to. After all, they've not really been so busy they haven't been able to keep an eye on her. Now, though, they've got the call they've been waiting for:

The Los Angeles pop group made the announcement via an instant message transcript posted on its official Web site (http://www.nodoubt.com), but did not provide specific details.

"I have cabin fever. Maybe we should play some shows or something," guitarist Tom Dumont wrote. Vocalist Gwen Stefani answered, "I think we should go out now. I don't think we should wait. Pack up the babies and get a bunch of nannies. So fun! Would be so inspiring to get out there and play all those songs again."

The group then discusses how continuing to write new music on the road would be inspiring, and vows to alert management to its plans.

It's perhaps appropriate that a band whose career has been so built on pastiche would comeback through a faux IM transcript.

Stefani's perfume business is not expected to be affected.

Gwen Stefani commits to hours of backcombing before school

Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossfromfriends are laying a plan that just shades into child abuse: raising their kid as goth:

'We are going to put him in a black room,’ [Gavin] says!

‘It’ll be a Goth baby so it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl.’

We're not quite sure when 'goth' became interchangeable with your gender-identification - perhaps we missed a vote.

Actually, we suspect this is actually a sly dig at Pete Wentz's blind panic at the thought of a boy liking pink.

Most of these men sing like Suggs

Why you should never regift: Gwen Stefani apparently loves Suggs, and sent him a pair of tickets for her London show last year:

[Gwen] stopped the gig and turned the spotlight on the audience asking, "Where's Suggs? I've heard he's here tonight."

Trouble is, he wasn't: he'd just passed the tickets on to his daughters. He was probably off making fish finger adverts or something.

Gavin Rossdale gets his chance

You might have been wondering what Gavin Rossdale's been up to recently.

Oh, come on, you might. Perhaps in case it comes up on an end-of-term quiz or something.

It turns out, he's been busy working on a debut solo album. A source told the Mirror:

"Gwen loves London so she doesn't mind staying here while Gav promotes the album. After months looking after their 19-month-old son — Kingston — it's Gav's turn to go out and bring home the bacon."

Normally, "bringing home the bacon" is a term which means "spend some time as the main wage earner in the household", but in this case, bearing in mind the likely demand for a solo album from the singer out of Bush, the source probably does mean it literally. There might be enough for half a dozen eggs, too.

Luckily, Gwen's combination of in-demand back catalogue, fashion line and perfume ranges means that the family will continue to tick over while Gavin has a go.

Malaysia tells Beyonce "not dressed like that, you're not"

Beyonce's planned Malaysia date has been axed after local religious groups pushed to have her act sanitised in line with local sensibilities.

Gwen Stefani - who faced similar restrictions in August - complied with the rules, deciding that it was more important to open up the large market and make some money ("more important to bring her music to Malaysia") than to worry about the implications of having her dress style dictated to her by a religious group.

Stefani agrees to put it away

In order to try and stop a bunch of Muslim students from campaigning to have her Malaysia gig cancelled, Gwen Stefani has agreed she won't wear 'revealing' outfits onstage.

The student union's vice president, Abdul Muntaqim, told the Associated Press: "Her performance and her attire are not suitable for our culture.

"It promotes a certain degree of obscenity and will encourage youth to emulate Western lifestyle."

We're not sure that simply covering up her belly button is going to satisfy anyone under those circumstances - surely even her stupid houndstooth cap, while demure, is dangerously Western?

Rozalita Abdul Rahman from concert promoters Maxis Communications Bhd said: "Whether it concerns the singer's attire or the security for the concert, we will abide by the rules and guidelines and assure that nothing will go wrong."

Siti Zaleha Baba, a senior official at the Malaysian Culture Arts and Heritage Ministry said: "There is no problem so far. [The concert promoter] has told us what clothes she will wear for the concert."

Mind you, everyone thought that PJ Proby was going to be a safe bet back in the day.

Akon: sorry not the hardest word, just confusing

Akon, the man who dry humps underage girls, has got a bit of a problem understanding the concept of "I'm sorry." He's written a song to "apologise to Gwen Stefani" for costing her thousands of dollars in tour sponsorship. He's called it 'Sorry, Blame It One Me'.

Only, in the lyrics, rather than accepting the blame, Akon doesn't:

"I'm sorry for the hand that she was dealt
And for the embarrassment that she felt
She's just a little young girl trying to have fun
But daddy should of never let her out that young"

So, in the song "blame it on me" he blames fate and her dad. Rather than himself. And seems to think the problem is that the underage girl he simulated sex with was "embarrassed" rather than the whole him looking a little bit Gary Glitter.

The worst aspect of this affair is that by turning it into a song, we're all now going to have to suffer. And Akon is no Union Gap.

Stefani sues

Gwen Stefani, or the part of her organisation that deals with the fashion designs, is suing Forever 21, who they claim have ripped off the LAMB line.

Obviously, they need to protect their intellectual property so they can sort out some sort of payment to the teenage Japanese girls whose ideas most of the broad themes were in the first place.

Something is growing inside, but we don't talk about it, do we?

The possible pregnancy of Christina Aguilera has been exercising gossip sites for a few weeks now, with no official word - not even so much as a coalman saying he'd been asked to deliver a couple of extra sacks and to make them "good and tasty."

In fact, we're not even sure if we can take the statement from Xtina's pop as a confirmation - he and his daughter don't get on and so he's probably relying on the same E! blogs as the rest of the world:

[He] told American magazine Life & Style: "I'm so excited. I want Christina to achieve all her goals. I wish her all the happiness in the world."

We're not entirely comfortable with the idea that creating a life should count as a "goal", like finally cleaning out the back of the fridge or completing the chapter where Captain Jack and the Doctor muck about with the machine re-writing their DNA with sexy results. ("I told you it'd be too heavy to lift" would be in there somewhere.)

Sky News have also found "a source" - we think this "we read in another magazine" that's explained Christina's decision to press ahead:

A source is reported to have added fuel to the speculation fire by saying: "She's thrilled. She's feeling wonderful and taking good care of herself.

"Christina's seen women with great careers, like Gwen Stefani, also raise great kids, and she feels as if she can follow their example."

Yes, Gwen Stefani has done a great job of raising Kingston - one of the few celebrity children to not constantly be popping up in TMZ embarrassing their parents. Mind you, being fourteen months old does mean some of the more extreme decisions required when raising a child haven't exactly exercised Stefani yet.

Doubts resurface

Over the weekend, theotheronesfromnodoubt joined Gwen Steffani on stage for one of their songs, and to remake their remake of Talk Talk. It's up on YouTube; it was the first time they'd been together since 2004.

Event Verizon: Akon blows his contract

US telecoms giant Verizon has hung up on its deal with Akon, and deleted him from their phonebook. It was all going so well, until Akon went to Trinidad and simulated sex with an underage girl on stage.

There also seems to be some suggestion he might have promised the girl a trip to Africa as some sort of prize in a non-existent competition, which makes him not only seedy, but grubby in a whole lot of other ways.

Akon has suggested the whole thing was the spirit moving him, or something:

"I got carried away," Alleyne, a pastor's daughter, said in a public apology last month after a local TV station aired the footage. "I started to dance, as well, but I never thought it was going to be like that. I was shocked. My head was hitting the floor."

Luckily, though - or perhaps, unluckily - he managed to pick up his head long enough to get to the end of the routine where he pretended he was fucking a teenager on stage.

There is, of course, an innocent victim in this - Gwen Stefani, oddly enough. Akon was opening for her on her US tour, and so keen are Verizon to distance themselves from even the merest hint of underwriting the activities of a kiddie-fiddler, they've yanked their funding for that, too:

"This week the partnership ended," Verizon said in a statement to Fox News. "We have music services on our cell phone service and we were promoting him as one of the artists. The other part of the sponsorship was the Gwen Stefani tour, of which he was an opening act. We are no longer sponsoring the tour."

It's not yet clear if the loss of this sponsorship will force Gwen to cut back on the number of muter Japanese children who will follow her around backstage.

Parker bowls Stefani over

Sarah Jessica Parker, off that programme a few years back, has tried to promote her new horse couture - sorry, haute couture, I don't know why Sarah Jessica Parker always makes us think of horses - by complaining about how much you have to pony up for Gwen Stefani's clothing range:

[T]he actress calls Stefani's designs "much more avant-garde" than her own, adding, "I don't want to do that for women, because that's not their lives." She also doesn't approve of the high cost of L.A.M.B. fashions. She says of her Bitten items, "You're going to be able to buy $200 worth of clothes, leave that store with six bags and be able to pay your utilities and take your kids some place special for their birthday."

Or, of course, you could go to a shop that hasn't employed someone to slap their fadingly-famous name on the label, buy $100 worth of clothes, leave the store with one bag being used for all the clothes, pay your utilities, eat well for a month and still take the kids to the zoo. And not look like you're a half-wit who needs to be told by the woman out of Kate-And-Allie-With-Dildos what to wear.

Gwen Stefani's Milwaukee date goes walkies

No word yet as to why, but Gwen Stefani's planned June Milwaukee gig is off.

From the man who brought you Jesus' grave

The increasingly curious world of James Cameron offers entertainments and delights. Last week he was running round telling anyone who wanted to hear that he'd found Jesus' grave; this week, he's pushing the idea of making pop videos in 3D. Interscope Geffen A&M Records has rushed forward to embrace the concept:

"When I saw what James Cameron was doing with his dedication and wizardry to the 3-D platform, it seemed like the perfect combination for us to do some groundbreaking work," said [Jimmy] Iovine.

Times, supposedly hard in the music business, not so hard as to piss away money on the sort of wonky concept that barely managed to amuse the simpler 1950s audiences for a fortnight and scraped together a half-hour of novelty in the early days of TVS. They've already poured cash into making a 3D video for a Gwen Stefani single (the video has never been shown) and so are thrilled at the idea of burning through more money making 3D live concert films.

And, yes, it does still require you to wear those glasses with the Quality Street wrappers in the lenses.

Jaws 3D, anyone?

Gwen Steffani is a bag

Well, sort of. She's launching a range of handbags and wallets as a prelude to bringing out a whole load of clothes in her, um, distinctive style. The stuff is marked with "Gwen's favourite words" (music, angel, baby, love and lamb, apparently rather than gwen, gwen, gwen and gwen).