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Pick at the pops: 2 January 2007

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

Over the festive period, music paid its respects to the man, the legend, the hairstyle, James Brown. Showman to the end, JB even managed a brief tour after his death, taking in a few hours at his old - and possibly new – haunt, the Apollo Theatre in New York and then a huge funeral party in Augusta, replete with 9,000 mourners and non-stop grooves from his band The Generals. Bless him. Pop stars just don’t die like that anymore.
 
The Godfather of Soul will be hoping for a posthumous career to match Freddie Mercury’s. Rarely out of the music news, the Fredster looks set to be played by Johnny Depp in a forthcoming biopic. Depp could recycle his Willy Wonka teeth and everything.

There was more good news for Queen when Radio 2 announced that the pomp rockers had topped its Greatest British Band Of All Time poll, kicking The Beatles into second place and The Rolling Stones into third. The Razorlights and Coldplays will never match up, will they?

And speaking of charts, Gnarls Barkley were delighted to see the end of the year before Leona Lewis could pip them to the bestselling single gong. Crazy held on grimly in the face of a million grandmothers doddering out to buy the X Factor snoozefest. Can’t there be a rule about who can buy records?

Perhaps the Official UK Charts Company could make one up. After all, they’ve set the cat among the pigeons this week by allowing any download into the chart, whether it’s been released as a single or not. Rock purists fear that Stairway To Heaven could at last be a hit, ruining Led Zeppelin’s “no singles” cachet. The rest of us just fear that Stairway To Heaven could at last be a hit.

Matthew Horton

• 18/12/2006: Girls Aloud v Lily Allen >>
• 4/12/2006: Potty Pete pays the penalty >>
• 27/11/2006: Nelly says no to Playboy >>
• 20/11/2006: Queen's greatest-selling hits >>
• 13/11/2006: Ms Dynamite's high speed crash >>
• 06/11/2006: Glastonbury to go "gay"? >>
• 30/10/2006: McFly hit top spot yet again >>
• 16/10/2006: Girls Aloud v All Saints in war of words >>
• 09/10/2006: Razorlight ready for world domination >>
• 02/10/2006: Madonna's record breaking millions >>
• 25/09/2006: When pop stars reunite >>
• 18/09/2006: Robbie's new footballing chum >>
• 11/09/2006: Monkeys' Mercury delight >>
• 04/09/2006: Foo Fighters save miners >>
• 28/08/2006: Britney gets banned in Asia >>
• 21/08/2006: Radiohead's grumpy greatest hits >>
• 14/08/2006: Natasha Bedingfield's Rocky return >>
• 07/08/2006: The heavyweight return of Meat Loaf >>