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Pick at the pops: 19 November 2007

George Michael and Geri Halliwell

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

If there’s one thing 2007 will be remembered for when the day of pop reckoning comes, it’s reunions. You were no one if your band didn’t reform – and you were often no one if it did. So will 2008 bring more of the same? Well it will if concert promoter Leonard Rowe gets his way. Laughing Len is currently trying to reform the Jackson 5, and claims that Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon are all on board. Hmmm. Anyone missing? Oh yeah, Janet’s apparently up for it too.

The last reunion of this year to test the chart waters is the Spice Girls rollercoaster, trundling into town as we type. Geri Halliwell is said to be narked off, because she had asked notorious steering wheel-cuddler George Michael to pen their comeback single. George took a typically relaxed approach to the writing of said song, forcing Geri and Emma Bunton to knock off ‘Headlines’ instead. No wonder she’s peeved with him.

The other big music story of recent months was Radiohead’s audacious “fix your own price” online release of latest album In Rainbows. This was so successful that other artists are taking a leaf out of their book. There’s Courtney Love, for one. Everything she’s ever done well “has been because everyone said I was crazy to do it” so she’s taking another risk by releasing her music for free. That’s no risk, Courtney; it’s the only way anyone will listen.

There have even been rumours that Oasis were going to let fans fix their own price for their next album, but Liam Gallagher says “over my dead body”. Well, they wouldn’t make a bean, would they?

The Beatles’ catalogue is finally going digital next year. When asked why it had taken so long, Sir Paul McCartney mused, “You’ve got to get these things right. You don’t want something that’s as cool as that and in three years’ time you think, ‘Oh God, why did we do that?’” Reading between the lines, Macca’s saying, “No bloody way are we putting this stuff out for free. Do we look like mugs?” Shrewd operator, old Sir Paul.

Matthew Horton

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