HEAR new music: Rihanna's "Russian Roulette" & Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance"

New Song Alert!
All we need is Radio GaGa, Radio RiRi, Radio ... something

Today we present new songs from two of the hottest females on Planet Pop (pause to appreciate word perfect patronising late '90s record company press release jargon). We kick off with the brand new hot-off-the-interweb first single from Rihanna's long-awaited new album. Titled "Russian Roulette" the song has been met with bad buzz on the net, with fans complaining that it is boring. I think it's a decent song, but it sure is an odd lead single. Leaked RiRi songs like "Hatin' On The Club" and "Emergency Room" were both much better. Also, this is the second Ne-Yo-penned Rihanna single concerned with murder (remember "Unfaithful"?), is he trying to tell us something? And is it not a bit weird to have lyrics about guns and the sound of barrels spinning and a shot being fired considering her association with violence this year? A bit creepy, really.

Rihanna has also decided to wear pretty much only barbed wire on the single cover. She seems to get away with near-nudity in a way that not many other mainstream pop artists can. Nobody seems to even bat an eyelid. Good on her. It comes as no surprise, then, that her new album is titled Rated R.

Anyway, have a listen and see what you think.



Our second new song is Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance", which is the first release from her repackaged debut album. Rather than release a whole new album, GaGa is re-releasing The Fame as The Fame Monster with eight new songs.

"I think re-releases are unfair," GaGa pips. "It’s artists sneaking singles onto an already finished piece of work in an effort to keep the album afloat. Originally [my label] only wanted me to put out three songs and now it’s much more than that. It’s a new album’s worth of material."

In the digital age re-packages are even weirder, but I appreciate that she has put in the effort to make it a worthwhile purchase.

The song is a real grower, and let's be honest, much better than Rihanna's effort. Methinks they should work together.



Scott Keenan
Woah you got me hatin' on the club / Because it took my love o'clock

New Kids On The Block Cancel Australian Tour

NO Kids On The Block
Full Service FAIL
New Kids On The Block have cancelled their Australian tour.
AND I AM ROPABLE.
Donnie Wahlberg has left a nice blog on their website to explain why.
“Like many of our fans down under we too are saddened,” he writes. “Australia has always, ALWAYS, been one of our favorite places to travel to. And quite honestly we tried very hard to make it work. However we are, in fact, in the middle of a worldwide recession and we just cannot make it work. That is the simple truth.”
He then promises: “We can only assure you that when the recession’s stranglehold on the world’s economies eases up a bit we will find a way to make this work.”

Well, that might be fair enough DDub, but let’s break a few things down:

* Ticket prices for the shows were too high (the average price was $125, up to $175). Their fans are now in their late twenties and early thirties and plenty are pumping out kiddies. I had four (count them!) friends who were eager to go but balked at the price.

* The venues were too big (in Sydney they were set to play Acer Arena, rather than the more sensible Entertainment Centre).
* The group refused to do any promotional interviews. Who launches a massive tour in this day and age and refuses to speak to media? I mean, there are five of them. If they set aside an hour or so each they could have knocked over half the outlets in the country. It's not 1990 any more, bitches – you gotta do promo! Would it have saved the shows? I don’t know, but it seems like a pretty simple thing to do, no?

They also refused to do Australian promo when they released their rather good new album The Block. Why? Needless to say, despite duets with Lady GaGa and the Pussycat Dolls, it didn’t exactly bother the charts.

Klassic Kids: Because Boston teens love to surf

And while you might think they needed big budgets and staging to put on their all-singing, all-dancing spectacular, The Sun’s review of their Manchester gig would suggest otherwise.
“While the likes of Kylie Minogue, Coldplay and Kanye West blow the budget with dazzling audio-visual spectacles … [NKOTB’s] stage was almost barren, with just a raised walkway and rather limp hydraulic platform that the lads gyrated on from time to time.”
As you may be able to tell, I am a little disappointed. It would have been awesome to see the show and while Donnie says differently, I do doubt they’ll make it here again.
BAH!

PS: I just got slagged by crazy NKOTB fans on Twitter for tweeting “Lazy, selfish @nkotb can bite my ass for cancelling their Australian tour. You heard me ddub! BITE IT!”
Apparently “true fans” are mindless zombies who just write gushy tweets to Jon Knight and aren’t allowed to question their idols. A bit like Nazis, but with scrunch perms. Hey, I have the NKOTB dolls blockheads, back off!
Also, I would have written “arse”, but I was concerned Donnie wouldn’t understand.

Scott Keenan
Them Dirty Dawgs o’clock