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Pick at the pops: 19 May 2008

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

Brace yourselves, readers - we open with shocking news this week. Superstar DJ Norman Cook has announced that he’s dropping the name Fatboy Slim. Yes, Fatboy, currently celebrating the seventh anniversary of his last Top 10 hit, will no longer be around to excite the 200 or so people who still buy his records. Here’s Norm: “Yes, I am ditching the Fatboy Slim name, but I can’t tell you the new one… because I’ll get myself into trouble.” Oh, please tell us, Norman. Please.

As if one shock wasn’t enough, news also broke this week of a feud between slips of lovable indie lads Luke “The Kooks” Pritchard and Alex “Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets, how the hell did he pull Alexa Chung?” Turner. Luke revealed that he once “had to kick Alex in the face because he was trying to pull the leads out of my guitar pedals”. Outrageous. Well, we’re sure Turner had his reasons – sparing the world another Kooks song, for one.

One rock ‘n’ roll pair-up that would have been worth seeing was scotched by the leathery Peter Pan of weirdly chaste light entertainment, Cliff Richard. Many moons back, Sir Cliff was offered the chance to meet the King himself, Elvis Presley, but snubbed him because “he [Elvis, that is] was going through a really big, fat… he was grotesquely overweight”. Cliff decided that he’d wait for the Colonel’s boy to slim down before arranging a photo op for his wall. Oops. Shortly afterwards, of course, Elvis slimmed down quite considerably, but was no longer all that photogenic.

There’s an obvious lesson there, something about grabbing your chances while you can, which brings us neatly to this month’s hot ticket: Stereophonics at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. The pocket-sized plod-rockers are throwing a party to celebrate the recent Welsh Grand Slam (whatever that was), and insist that entry will be free. They’ll be supported by regularly forgotten Feeder, X Factor horror Rhydian Roberts and M People foghorn Heather Small. Free? That seems a bit steep.

Matthew Horton

• 12/05/2008: Doth Sugababes protesteth too much? >>
• 05/05/2008: Amy not ready to work on music >>
• 28/04/2008: Shakira collaborates with Gordon Brown >>
• 21/04/2008: The last word on the Jay-Z at Glasto debate >>
• 14/04/2008: Beyoncé and Mark E Smith fight the animals >>
• 07/04/2008: Lennon and Mills - separated at birth? >>
• 31/03/2008: Leona topples Wilde record >>
• 24/03/2008: Rihanna the "new Britney"? >>
• 17/03/2008: Madonna in B12 shocker >>
• 10/03/2008: Bjork gets political >>
• 03/03/2008: Keef disses Led Zep >>
• 25/02/2008: Mark Owen gives KT Tunstall his last quid >>
• 18/02/2008: Aretha or Tina - just who is the Queen of Soul? >>
• 11/02/2008: We mourn the Spice Girls - again >>
• 04/02/2008: Winehouse and Spears - will the madness end? >>
• 28/01/2008: Oh no! Simply Red and UB40 have split up! >>
• 21/01/2008: Annie Lennox and The Verve won't pave streets >>
• 14/01/2008: Robbie and Coldplay turn on EMI >>
• 07/01/2008: Out with the old, in with the new >>
• 2007 archive >>
• 2006 archive >>