Pet Shop Boys deny their Lady GaGa song is totally about Lady GaGa

The Pet Shop Boys Ego Pop isn't about Lady GaGa. Of course it isn't. They say it isn't, anyway:

When asked whether the song was inspired by Lady Gaga, Tennant told Attitude: "It's not specifically about Lady Gaga, it's about the modern pop star. Pop music is very ego-driven these days. The modern pop lyric is like a diary almost. In other words, people don't imagine, they just say what it is... A lot of lines [in the song] are direct quotes from what people say in interviews. 'I am my own demographic' is a direct quote."

Hmm. It is, is it? Challenge Accepted.

Obviously, Google is already starting to silt up with Pet Shop Boys lyrics if you go searching for that phrase; and it crops up in the odd dating site profile and - amusingly - in someone else's lyrics. But the first musician using those words who crops up is Jof Owen of The Boy Least Likely To:

I like most of our songs because I kind of wrote them so that someone like me would like them. I am my own demographic. But if I had to pick just one, then there’s a song called "The Boy With Two Hearts" that I’m really proud of on the new album. We recorded all the brass parts with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. I remember the demo was quite mournful in a really sweet way and I ended up writing relatively simple words for it. It sounds quite sad and Christmassy, and it reminds me of the theme tune to The Flumps but I don’t expect anyone else will think that.

Surely anyone who works with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band to create something like The Flumps can't be the target of Neil's ire?

Begie Adair is a musician in her 60s making music for her generation. Or, as she puts it:

“I always tell people that when it comes to marketing, I am my own demographic,” Beegie laughingly explains. “All these are tunes that I loved when I was in high school and college.”

That seems to be a fair application of the phrase, and her work surely sits outside the remit of Ego Pop?

Perhaps it's not a direct quote at all - maybe the original was "I'm my own demographic". Could Ego Pop be taking aim at, erm, Oregon busker John "skeet" Gretzinger:

I made it my business to learn a few more songs each week from the radio and the rest is history. I'm back to busking pretty much full time again at 59 and having a ball. I'm kind of semi-retired. I don't play in bands or with other musicians at all anymore. I’m too old and grouchy for a band. Too many headaches! Yikes! I couldn't take all that now. And their girlfriends will drive you nuts! Nope! Just me, by myself. I do about 350 - what you might call, classic rock songs. All covers. I don't write. Never have. But it’s cool, because I'm my own demographic! The baby boomers love me. It’s a trick. I just play what they want to hear. But it works for me.

Again, it's hard to see Neil grumbling away over that.

It's possible that the quote doesn't exist online, of course - not all human knowledge has yet been squirted onto the wires (you can't find Hayley's Cake single You Do Voodoo online, for example) - but it seems odd that Tennant would be so certain about it being a direct quote if it wasn't citeable.

More to the point, as the quotes above show, claiming to be your own demographic doesn't have to reek of ego; it can just be a simple statement to the effect that you're part of the audience you're targeting - surely something of a relief compared with men nudging fifty playing to rooms full of teenagers, yes?

Still, all this is something of a sideshow, isn't it? It's about Lady GaGa. Or Madonna. Which is the same thing.

Bookmarks: Neil Tennant

Humanizing The Vacuum has exhumed Neil Tennant's 1992 Details piece in praise of hate:

Positivity is fundamentally middle-class. It’s about having the time, the space and the money to sort out where your head is at. Therapy is just another side of positivity. It’s a leisure activity, a luxury for people who don’t have any real cares. It’s new age selfishness, the new way of saying that charity begins at home.

And positivity makes the world stay the same. Hatred is the force that moves society along, for better or for worse. People aren’t driven by saying, “Oh wow, I’m at peace with myself.” They’re driven by their hatred of injustice, hatred of unfairness, of how power is used.

Neil Tennant misses Top Of The Pops

I yield to nobody in my admiration of Neil Tennant, but a grumbly interview about why Top of The Pops isn't on any more and people "stealing" music makes him sound like something out of a different era.

Mind you, the BBC News site suggests that Tennant has "slammed" the corporation, which is perhaps putting it a bit strongly:

He added he thought as part of the BBC's public broadcasting, the corporation should be keeping its "astonishing archive" of musical footage up-to-date.

"[That is] why we like the BBC, because they do things that should be done but don't always make complete commercial sense."

It actually sounds more like he understands it had to go, rather than "slamming" anyone or anything. Indeed, it doesn't actually sound like Tennant much cared for the show by the time it was axed:

The star, who has had hits with West End Girls and Always On My Mind, said a former BBC employee who now works for ITV had told him why the show had to go.

"He explained to me at great length that the public aren't interested in music unless its heavily editorialised - by which he means X Factor.

"If you look back over the presentation of Top Of The Pops in the 90s, cynicism crept into the way it was presented.

"In the past, everything - the rubbish and the good stuff - was presented with enthusiasm. And I think its up to the public to make the taste decisions - not the DJs presenting."

It's actually wider than that, Neil: instead of the running order being dictated by the chart positions of records, it became an editorially-selected choice; moving from a dumb list to a cheerleader service.

Tennant then offers what sounds like a pretty comprehensive argument against reviving the show:

"I think it must be really strange to be a new artist. Like if JLS are number one on Sunday, they won't have that great moment of being crowned that week's Kings Of Pop."

Anything that would make JLS labour about under the misapprehension that they were in some way pop royalty, surely, is broken beyond use?

Tennant then turns to those downloads the young people are all doing these days:

"It would be great if 30% of us could get a car for free, but it's not going to happen," he said.

"And I don't see why people should think they can."

Oh, Neil, Neil, Neil. You really don't believe that a manufactured car is like a digital music file, do you? That digital music is more akin to oxygen?

It turns out he doesn't buy the whole 'the supply is almost unlimited' argument, either:

He went on to describe an article he read on the internet, which suggested music should be free like water.

"I thought 'have you seen the water rates in London?'

"If you wanted to pay £700 pounds a year for music, I think we'd all be really happy.

He does seem to have worked in a complaint about the cost of water, too, which is quite impressive.

There's an important difference, though, between water and digital music anyway - water companies have to maintain the infrastructure which delivers the water. Oh, and are dealing with a finite resource which requires enormous storage space to smooth out the differences between supply and demand.

Not that - as far as I know - anyone has ever suggested charging for music as if it was water; the 'like water' case is actually about treating music as a utility rather than a distinct product - a pipe, rather than a bottle of water.

Oh, and the average water bill in the UK is £330 and the average charge by London supplier Thames Water being £295. I suppose Neil must live in a larger house than most of us, though.

Tennant's solution? Erm, something akin to the water rates:

"I think we should have a licence somewhere between the water rates and the BBC TV licence and then you could have it for nothing and it could be farmed out on a download pro rata basis."

What does that even mean, Neil? And why should some internet content - music - be licensed, when a lot of other stuff is available for free online? If musicians should get some money everytime a track is listened to, why shouldn't that licence cover people who make animated lego films, or write blog entries about Boris Johnson? What's so special about Paolo Nutini that he should be rewarded when his content is accessed online, when, say, Kirstie Allsopp tweets for free?

The licence idea appeals simply because everyone knows that online music, left to fight in the market place, is worth almost nothing. It's like bakers suggesting that people should be forced to have a bread licence, and then they'll be happy to let people take the stale bread from their dumpsters.

Gordon in the morning: Your cut-out-and-throw-away guide to the Brits

It's Brits day, the most important day in the year for record company executives and Gordon has published a small guide to everything you need to know.

Like Coldplay being involved, for example. That tells you all you need to know.

Coldplay are thinking of doing something nice for their fans. Chris Martin is worried about the high cost of tickets:

“What we want to do is try to giveaway a live album for free.

“We’re playing a lot of shows in the summer and I think what we would like to do is — bearing in mind the recession we are in — record the live album then give it as a gift.

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“We are just trying to work out how to do that.

“It’s obviously a bit tricky in terms of record contracts and things but it would be great.

“It’s a way of saying thank you.

“It’s a tough economy and people are paying a lot of money for tickets.

“We are trying to work out a way that, when you hand your ticket in at the door, you get given the recording.

“It would be such a cool thing to do.

“We just feel really grateful at the moment for all the support we get from our fans.”

Actually, that is quite a nice gesture, but to be honest: if you're worried that your fans are paying a large price for tickets for the gig, why not just drop the ticket price?

You know who the real losers will be, though? The poor music lovers who've been dragged to a Coldplay gig by loved ones or children who actually like the band and will not only have to sit through a show, but will have an album of live Coldplay foisted on them, too.

Coldplay's life right now? It's crazy, right Chris?

Chris adds: “We are touring until November. We fly straight to Australia after the Brits, which is crazy."

God, yeah. That's absolutely crazy. Getting into a plane and flying across to do some work in a foreign country. It's not like people in every field of business do that every day, is it?

With a straight face, the Kings Of Leon try to pretend that the Brits mean more to them than The Grammys:

Frontman Caleb says: “We always knew The Brits was the Grammys of the UK. So we basically knew that was our Grammy. It was always the biggest shot that we had."

Actually, that sounds more like they'd assumed the qualifying bar had been set lower for winning a Brit. Still, it's nice that Caleb knows to flatter the provincial audience.

It's funny that one-third of Gordon's Brit coverage is handed over to the Kings Of Leon, though - wasn't Gordon saying just the other day how there's so much major British talent you can hardly find space to fit it all in?

The Pet Shop Boys interview is palmed off to Chris Stroud - somehow, had Gordon written it, I doubt you'd have got a plug for the Friendly Fires in there. And you can't go wrong with Neil and Chris:

Singer Neil, 54, explains: “Chris never usually gets excited about awards. When we won for West End Girls, he watched the event from the comfort of his living room.

“He’s coming this time, though. If you’ve got the entire music industry saying they quite like what you’ve done over the years, you can’t be too cynical.”

Chris, 49, says: “I thought they only gave this kind of award to rock bands.

“It was a real surprise. But it’s also our silver jubilee this year. So I reckon we should stage some street parties to mark the occasion.”

Gordon, meanwhile, is sticking himself in the middle of his story about Ant and Dec releasing 'competing' charity singles for charity. The pair are trying to help out cash-strapped ITV, and raise awareness of the plight of a channel too often ignored in these days of well-crafted entertainment. "It's all too easy to turn away from ITV, especially when times are hard and you feel you've heard all their stories too many times. We just want people to give them a second chance" explained Ant.

Gordon's teamed up with Ant, or possibly Dec, to throw his support behind his record rather than Dec's. Or possibly Ant's. It's not like he's been assigned one by the PR team, though. Oh, no:

Dec is a good man, but he lost the vote of me and every other bloke in the UK when he started dating Sky Sports stunner GEORGIE THOMPSON.

"Oh, yes, I shan't be buying that young man's charity record, as he has apparently had a date with somebody I've never heard off from the football programme."
Here's Gordon and TV's Ant "at Bizarre HQ". Gordon is explaining the ancient craft of journalism to Dec - "and then you click on the little pair of scissors, and then come back here and click on the pot of glue, and change all the bits where it says 'Heat has been told' to 'I, Gordon, have been told'..."

Damon slams Pet Shop door

Who knows the real reason why Daon Albarn has blocked the Pet Shop Boys from using their Girls And Boys on the new remix album. The Sun has a source which says it knows:

A source said: “Damon complained that they had made the song sound like their own.

“He was also annoyed when he heard NEIL TENNANT supported OASIS in their Nineties chart battle with Blur. Neil said Damon was pretentious.

“He’s just proved him right.”

I'm sure Neil Tennant would be the first to point out that, erm, there's not actually anything pretentious in refusing to allow a track to appear on a compilation album. Like The Sun, we don't really have a clue why he's said no, either, but we'd guess it's more likely to be because Albarn doesn't really like the track, has come to see it as a bit of an albatross round his neck, and would rather concentrate on animated monkey operas or whatever it is he's doing now.

Go back West

Things are a bit itchy between Russia and Estonia at the moment, with that moving of the bronze soldier commemorating Soviet war dead being just the focus of a long list of grievances between the two nations.

So it probably wasn't wise of Neil Tennant to turn up to play Tallinn and start addressing the crowd in Russian.

Victoria Newton has some fun at Neil's expense, rustling up an outraged fan:

One insulted fan vowed to throw her Pet Shop Boys CD collection into the Baltic Sea.

But perhaps Neil has an excuse for not knowing about the recent native Russian riots in the city - maybe he relies on a newspaper which hasn't mentioned them. Like, ooh, The Sun, for example, which has only mentioned 'Estonia' six times on its news pages this year - twice to mention that its the only place in the EU (along with Ireland) with more muggings than the UK, once to acknowledge the nation taking part in the Afghanistan war, twice in some story about football, and once in a story about a rape.

Hot shot boys: Tennant and Lowe cheat death, a bit

As if the story about the flaming meteor shards nearly hitting a plane wasn't enough to spark a whole revival of the Airport movie franchise, the sizzling space rock nearly took out official national pop heroes.

Yes, The Pet Shop Boys were on the plane. How did they cope with such a terrifying ordeal? Neil reveals all:

“We were blissfully unaware of it. We didn’t know anything had happened until the next morning when the waitress at breakfast said, ‘Are you glad to be alive?’

“Then we realised with horror what had happened. Our friends and families started calling us in a panic to find out if we were OK.”

Hats off to the graphics department at the Sun for managing to produce a fairly accurate illustration of the crisis: