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Pick at the pops: 4 December 2006

Pete Doherty

Our weekly round-up of the weird and wonderful world of pop music...

It’s the lull before the Christmas No.1 storm, when anything goes and the trivial becomes momentous.

It’s a time when pop watchers get excited at the news that Hard-Fi’s new monthly video podcast is to feature footage of Richard Archer’s back garden, when speculation is rife that Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell hasn’t even worn the trademark tight white jeans he’s donated to a charity auction, when Katie Price and Peter Andre sell enough albums to get into the Top 20 instead of being hounded out of the country. It’s the silly season, all right.

Thank goodness for the calming influence of Pete Doherty… oh no, hang on. It seems Pete is in the news for the wrong reasons again, having been sentenced on Monday for various offences. He was fined £770 and banned from driving for four months but really he should have been forced to do community service in Dirty Pretty Things.

Also down on her luck is dear old Madonna. It’s been reported that the US TV screening of the catchily titled Madonna: The Confessions Tour – Live From London was watched by only 4.6 million people, as interest in the veteran sexpot wanes. Must be time to adopt another orphan.

Enjoying rather more Stateside success is Jay-Z, triumphantly returning from a spectacularly short ‘retirement’ to score his 9th US No.1 album with Kingdom Come.

He’s now equal with the Rolling Stones, one behind Elvis Presley and 10 behind The Beatles, who keep moving the goalposts by unsportingly releasing new albums decades after they were all alive. No hip-hopper would sink that low, eh Tupac?

And, just in, bad news for listeners with sensitive ears. Nelly Furtado claims that she and Kylie Minogue have been talking for some time about recording a duet together. Hide the glassware.

Matthew Horton

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