Blurred credit lines

I suppose that's going to have wiped the Happy off Pharrell Williams' face, as a US court rule he and Robin Thicke ripped off Marvin Gaye.

A jury decided that the music in rohyp-hop hit Blurred Lines was lifted from Gaye, and ordered a payment of nearly five million quid in damages to go to Gaye's estate.

Presumably, Gaye's family will spend most of this money on legal fees trying to get his name taken off the credits again.

Because that's not much of a victory, is it? Sure, you've got the proof that you were plagiarised, but now that crappy song is going to carry a credit that Marvin Gaye helped write it.

It's like you've broken into your the office your boss uses, and done a massive anonymous poo in the middle of their desk. But then discover that Molly from accounts is saying that she did it. You'd feel obligated to put everyone right, no matter how much you don't really want to be associated with the still-steaming turd. It might be an unpleasant pile of stinky old cack, but you'd be damned if someone else is going to pass it off as their work.

There's the potential for more problems for Thicke and Williams, as now the question of who wrote the music has been settled, they're at risk of being sued by the Friends Of Roman Polanski for lifting the lyrics from them.

Some seconds with Kennedy: Marvin Gaye

It's depressing that American politics has been so distorted by people with guns you can write a song gathering them together, and not even have enough space in the title to mention all the deaths you're mourning.

It was the killing of Bobby that prompted the writing of this track, but he doesn't even get a look in until the fourth verse:



Although Marvin Gaye does the definitive version, the original was a Dion b-side (because nothing honours a dead hero like giving him a b-side to Daddy Rollin').

[Buy: Marvin Gaye's version
Dion's version

[Part of

Gordon in the morning: Kravitz to be Gaye for pay

Lenny Kravitz is being lined up for the role of Marvin Gaye in Julien Temple's biopic.

I guess he could lip-sync to the songs.

If the casting wasn't bad enough, the focus of the film doesn't sound that great, the way Gordon describes it:

Lenny will portray Marvin in the early 1980s when he had moved to London while struggling with booze and tax bills.

Part of me really wants to see Lenny Kravitz pretending to be a drunk man struggling to balance his deductibles column for an hour and a half. Most of me doesn't.

Songwriterobit: Harvey Fuqua

Harvey Fuqua, a member of Alan Freed-endorsed The Moonglows, has died.

Freed had signed the Moonglows when they were still called The Crazy Sounds; they had their first success - the top 20 hit Sincerely - after moving to Chess.

Harvey reorganised the Moonglows in 1958, adding his name to the band's, and - perhaps more significantly for music history - adding a chap called Marvin Gaye to the line-up.

Fuqua went on to establish Tri-Phi and Harvey Records, before taking up a role with Motown developing artists. He wrote, produced and supported any number of acts, even helping out with The Weather Girls.

In 1982, Fuqua reunited with Gaye to work together on the Midnight Love album; the sessions included Sexual Healing. The track turned Gaye's career around, and saved him from what had looked like a pretty terminal decline into drugs and an unhappy ending.

The Moonglows were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2000; that year, Fuqua released a solo album on his own Resurging Artist label.

Harvey Fuqua, who was 80, died in Detroit on Tuesday of a heart attack.

Nobody chose Animal (Fuck Like A Beast), then

The people at Music Choice asked 10,000 Britons what music they played when they shagged. Sexual Healing came first, which makes you wonder if most people are as dull and unadventurous with their lovemaking as the choice of music when they shag. Most scary of all is that the number ten choice is Chris DeBurgh doing Lady In Red. Bloody hell.