OPEN

By ROB JONES
While I’m yet to hear Dwain Chambers carry a note, I would bet all the medals in China that Amy Winehouse cannot run 60 metres in less than seven seconds. Not in those heels.
But the shamed Olympian-to-be and the - let’s be charitable - recovering pop junkie have something in common this week.
Despite […]

By ROB JONES 
If you couldn’t get tickets to a show over Christmas, you can now catch one for free online. One of this weekend’s newspapers invited readers to “watch footage of Britney being dragged away”. The little madam’s life is such a circus, it’s a wonder she doesn’t live in a big top and isn’t […]

The three biggest selling albums of the year were a set released in 2006, another by a well-groomed reality TV show contestant and a debut by someone you’ll either consider the saviour of modern pop or the musical equivalent of nails being scraped down a blackboard. None of these get within screeching distance of our list.
2007 was a […]

By ROB JONES
Thom Yorke and his financially comfortable pals from Radiohead were possibly not relying on In Rainbows to see them to the bank in fits of giggles, but they must surely be scratching their minimalist heads over why more than half of those who own the Oxford gang’s seventh album didn’t bother paying for […]

By ROB JONES
As part of pop’s royal triumvirate, Prince is obliged to pull the occasional bizarre marketing stunt. Alongside floating a giant statue of yourself down the Thames and publishing a book of mucky snaps, the wee feller’s latest move is a little tame, but Michael Jackson and Madonna have never been so foolish as […]

By ROB JONES  
It sounds like something Johnny Ball would listen to when he’s thinking of a number or lunching with Zoë and Norm, but you wouldn’t count on math rock being in a typical algebra teacher’s CD collection.
In fact, if there was ever a musical genre for older folks in tweed jackets to pipe up […]

By ROB JONES
Out last week with soon-to-be-married friends, the pub talk turned to plans for the big day and the evening’s entertainment. As anyone who has loosened a tie to Dancing Queen or slung a limp arm around a stranger’s shoulder for the New York New York finale at yet another nuptial knees-up will confirm, […]

By ROB JONES
Sharon Osbourne: part wrap-you-in-a-blanket mumsy dame who advertises bingo on TV; part bile-breathing witch from the dark side who would scratch off your face at the gentlest of swipes at “the family”. I’ll be choosing my next 500 words carefully in case I end up on her wish list alongside Josh Homme, on […]

By ROB JONES
I’m writing from the veranda of a brightly coloured cottage, four paces from the too-hot-for-bare-feet sand of the longest stretch of beach in Jamaica. It’s at least 32 degrees, my bottle of Red Stripe has beads of ice-cold sweat racing down it, and a six-inch kamikaze lizard has just flung itself from the […]

By ROB JONES 
When I was 14, my voice croaked somewhere between a not-quite-broken rasp and a dog whine and it was still a couple of years away from being officially mannish. My hair was regrettably styled with a highly flammable amount of economy gel, Baywatch was stirring new thoughts and my musical taste stretched little […]