Music

Contents

related areas


 Print this page 

Pick at the pops: 17 September 2007

Michael Parkinson and Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant

more on music

Have your say on
Pick at the pops
Join the forum >>
Latest reviews >>
Mobile music >>
Gig tickets >>

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

“Back then you could leave your front door unlocked, the elderly got the respect they deserved and my mother used to smack me but it never did me any harm, you know” – yes, folks, it’s popular curmudgeon and retiring chat show host Michael Parkinson. Old Parky may never have said those exact words, but we wouldn’t be surprised if he had at some point. In fact, he came pretty close this week in an interview on theJazz radio station: “We did a 70-80 minute show with Duke Ellington, which the BBC put out in its entirety. Can you see that happening now? They’d say ‘Duke who?’” Standards have fallen, you see – radio and TV bosses only want Top 10 acts, leaving Parky unable to champion the unknown in the final series of Parkinson (coincidentally just underway). Considering the old goat has in the past lauded Michael Bublé, Jamie Cullum and Razorlight, we say long live short-sighted TV execs!

More noisy old boys in the shape of rock legends Led Zeppelin, who not only announced a reunion gig at the O2 Arena but found new and exciting ways of fleecing fans into the bargain. A reported 20 million fans crashed the internet trying to apply for tickets last week, and now the band’s management has announced a deadline extension so the last few billion people on the planet can have a go too. Well, that’s a relief. Now lucky punters can have absolutely no chance of getting a ticket, rather than an infinitesimally slim one. And if you do hit the jackpot, you pay £125 for the pleasure. Plus booking fee. When’s the next bus back to the good old days?

Some cheery titbits to lighten the mood: kooky American chanteuse Tori Amos played a song in support of Britney Spears at a recent Melbourne gig – God, Britters, you know things are bad when Tori Amos thinks she can help. And there’s hard luck for a couple of US hip-hop’s more creatively bereft bores with 50 Cent losing the big album face-off with Kanye West on both sides of the Atlantic (US unconfirmed, but UK in stark black and white) and P Diddy seeing his perfume advert banned in the States. More of this sort of thing.

Matthew Horton

Picture: PA Photos

More on Music