Shakira misses an open goal

The drafting in of Shakira to do the Official World Cup anthem this year hasn't exactly gone down well in South Africa:

"It's horrible," local fan Lindi Munonde said. "I'm not standing for it. I mean what is our president doing about it?"

Yes. Something must be done.

South Africans are understandably upset that - having proved they could build an infrastructure to support the event, and decided to use the football as a way of proving themselves as good as any other country - someone decided they were incapable of knocking out a cheery, cheesy ditty:

"I love it that South Africans are just coming together as South Africans and saying, 'We've got our own people and it's an African World Cup. It's ours,"' 702 Talk Radio presenter Jenny Cryws-Williams said. "We are going to put on a fantastic World Cup. Why don't we have South Africans doing it for us?"

If that's upsetting, the last line of the report will shatter hearts:

Toronto rapper K'Naan's "Waving Flag" has been adopted as Coke's officially licensed anthem for the World Cup.

The World Cup has an officially-licensed Coke anthem? What exactly does that mean, besides anyone who thinks about it feeling a little queasy?

Shakira: Selflessly shopping to save your ass

Shakira - spokesperson for footwear firms and sometime singer - is out at the shops. But she's doing it for you, you ungrateful wretches:

"I do like to enjoy things any normal girl my age enjoys: I jog in the park, watch really bad movies. I used to feel guilty - I am a Catholic girl after all - but today, the way I see it, shopping keeps the world rolling. A world where people don't consume? The economy gets worse."

"I have no choice but to buy small coats for my dogs. Imagine if my dogs didn't have coats - there would be no dog-coat-manufacturing industry at all. Do you really think I want the families of dog-coat-manufacturers out of work? Could you live with that on your conscience? Now, I have to go in order to perform good works for the manufacturers of lobster bibs and champagne flutes. Ah, curse my conscience."

Gordon in the morning: Now post-feminist

Friday morning, Gordon was showing signs of heading off for the barricades:

What a refreshing change. Many women in showbiz will happily get their kit off just to stay in the spotlight.

So, is Gordon going to stop that sort of thing happening in the future? At least on his watch?

What do you think?:

Since landing her deal with the underwear giant she's rarely been seen in clothes.

That's Katie Green, spread without a top all over an office.

But hang on a moment... What's this?

BLIMEY. Is it just me or are pop videos getting filthier?

LADY GAGA touching herself and KATY PERRY kissing girls - it's just going too far.

Really, Gordon?

Yesterday, snaps of the SUGABABES rubbing themselves up against a steamy window emerged.

And today, SHAKIRA looks like she's in the buff and doing a contortionist's act.

But don't worry... he's not really upset, just setting up the hilarious double-take punchline:

On second thoughts...

And then he runs the photos. Ho-ho-ho.

By the way, you've got to love the use of the word "emerged" in regard to the Sugababes photos, as if they arrived on his desk by some process that was part-nature, part-espionage, rather than their publicity team ringing up and asking what format he wanted the pictures of the Sugababes in.

Lucky that my demands are small and humble, so you don't mistake them for Madonna's

The second slightly-less-high-profile 360 degree tours-and-records deal for LiveNation: Shakira has thrown her lot in with them for the next ten years.

Cerys Matthews naked cheeks

No, no, her face cheeks - Cerys is heading a campaign to encourage women (and, presumably, men) to go a day without make-up:

“We’re so used to all these images of perfection that we’re at the point where we don’t go out without make-up, which is ridiculous,” she says.

“I’ve got a daughter who’s four and she’s make-up mad. She’s into Shakira in a big way. It’s spooky how quickly she’s jumped aboard the ‘sexy painted lady’ look. I want her to grow up knowing she’s absolutely perfect just as she is.

“I like Tilda Swinton not wearing make-up on the red carpet and I hate it when people make fun of that. I think we forget how beautiful we can be without make-up, when you’ve been for a walk in the country and you’re glowing naturally.”

It's somehow - although the Wales On Sunday doesn't quite explain how - meant to raise money for the British Skin Foundation and, somewhat less nobly, to sell bottles of mineral water.

Shakira and Beckham take on Chavez

The cancellation of a gig by Alejandro Sanz, after he'd criticised Hugo Chavez, was meant to have been a quiet cancellation. Not now, unfortunately, as celebrities have got involved. Shakira, David Beckham and "music's Ricky Martin" have signed a letter calling on the singer to not be silenced.

Actually, though, he hasn't really been silenced - he's just been refused permission to play at a state-owned stadium. It's not acceptable that the government should cancel the date because Sanz called for a referendum on recalling Chavez from the presidency, but from the reports we've seen, he's not being banned from performing, only from performing at a venue underwritten by the state he disapproves of. It's not so much a question of censorship as whether Chavez is using state property as if he was a media company CEO.

The sudden media interest in a gig in Valenzuela was, of course, in no way an attempt to move the news agenda on from the awkward resignation of Spielberg from the Olympics.

Shakira shares with shaken and soaked

As charitable donations go, forty million dollars is pretty hefty. That's how much Shakira (described by the Times of India as "the kind-hearted pop star") is handing to South America to help after the Peruvian earthquake and the Nicaraguan hurricane.

A lot of good work for charidee

Let's just preempt the comments box and say: Yes, we know Annie Lennox's Band Aid style single is in a good cause and, yes, it will raise a bit of money.

However, wouldn't it be better all round if Shakira, Joss Stone, Dido, Celine Dion, Pink, Fergie, Gladys Knight, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Etheridge, KT Tunstall and Madonna all released a proper single - one that they might have released anyway - and gave the money from that to Nelson Mandela's 46664 Aids charity instead? Wouldn't that raise more money and, indeed, mean that the artists involved could feel a sense of actually contributing to the cause by redirecting some of their royalties, rather than just spending an hour or so making a record that nobody would really want for its own merits?

You, YouTube and The Music: Live Earth

Some Live Earth videos from YouTube, of varying attractiveness:

Al Gore talking
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
Hips Don't Lie - Shakira
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Yusuf Islam - Wild World (hopefully wiping the James Blunt version)
Nunatak's Antarctic leg
Crowded House winding up Sydney
Barriers collapsing during the Linkin Park Tokyo set

Isn't this mentioned in Revelations?

Not that Shakira's live show is sluggish and has "dirty" vocals, but that a lady emerges from under a giant snake and covers AC-DC?

We really must thank them

Due to an idiotic internal postal service, we've only just got hold of last week's Music Week with the year end charts in it. Thanks, guys.

What's obvious about the state of music from looking at them is just how quickly singles acts burn out now - of the Top 50 selling singles acts this year, only nine were on the list for 2001; and only three of the top twenty were in the top 20 last year (Atomic Kitten, Blue and Westlife, since you ask.) The biggest selling seven inch was The Jam's anniversary repress of In The City, which still only managed 5,555 copies despite a pocket-pleasing 75pence price tag. But more seven inch singles were sold than any year since 1998, and although the format now accounts for only 0.6% of the singles market, that's double its 2001 share.

There's some oddities in the singles chart - topped by Will Young's Evergreen, a stain of shame that the year shall have to wear for all eternity. Addicted to Bass by Puretone is up at 37; surprisingly Tainted Love by Marilyn Manson made the 100; Sophie Ellis Bextor's Murder on the dancefloor was higher placed (87) than Get Over You (89), despite having been split its sales across the Christmas and New Year 2001-2 break.
Albums sales saw Frank Sinatra doing well for a dead bloke, moving up from 33rd to 30th biggest album act, and there was a plummeting in popularity for the Stereophonics which gives us hope for the future. But best selling album was Robbie Williams' escapology, edging the much better Pink from the top of the chart.

Now 53, 51 and 52 dominated the compilation chart; just ahead of Pop idol's Big Band Album.

The airplay charts are interesting - if you like this sort of thing. Overall, Kylie's love at first sight was the most played track on UK radio. Surprisingly, Shy FX Shake UR Body topped Radio 1's list (569 plays over the year); Travis' Flowers in The Window shuddered Radio 2 to a halt 199 times. The commercial network pressed the button to make Liberty X's Just a Little take us up to the news one million, one hundred and forty four thousand, six hundred and twenty two times - a cummulative audience of just over forty five million. And as if the fear of poison in the underground and the congestion charge wasn't bad enough, people in London had to endure 1,352 plays of How You Remind Me by Nickelback on Capital Radio.

On telly, MTV filled the few gaps where it wasn't going "We have the Osbournes - aren't we wonderful" by sticking Shakira's Whenever, Wherever on 750 times; it was also the most requested on The Box, getting 973 plays.

Scary goth skeleton news service

Shakira gives third world kids running shoes - "Hey, we spend sixteen hours a day making these bloody things just for you to give them straight back to us?"... Noel Gallagher bans Christmas from his house as he finds it depressing - oddly, the exact same reason that Oasis are banned from our house... Port Vale send begging letter to Robbie Williams - "Please support Stoke instead", we imagine... FridayThing launches campaign for 'Real Christmas Number One' - is promoting The Cheeky Girls over Girls Aloud really striking a blow for proper music?... Results of World Service 'best song ever' announced - defintively proving which special interest group is best at fixing online votes... Billboard writers select Coldplay as best album of 2002 - encouraged to get out more, try speaking to girls in 2003

"Shakira fans are the worst"

Just in passing, an amusing aside from Tony Hicks of the Contra Costa Times on how the internet has now expanded the global reach of hate mail directed at provincial press music reviewers.

[UPDATE: We're hoping that the Internet Archive still holds this piece, but it's not working at the moment]