Amy Winehouse. Remember her? Bit of a drug problem? Yeah, so things are no better this month. Inconceivably while doing “admin work” (does Amy Winehouse do admin?), the Rehab star passes out at home, apparently with lung disease emphysema. It’s as serious as it sounds, says dad Mitch. “Her lungs are all gunked up. Had [the emphysema] gone on for another month, [doctors] painted a very vivid picture of her sitting there like an old person with a mask on her face struggling to breathe.” And she has another shocker in store when video footage shot by incarcerated old man Blake Fielder-Civil shows her chanting a racist song. She apologises for the song about “blacks, pakis, gooks, nips and gays” and says she is “the least racist person going”. Oh, that clears that up then… This year’s Glastonbury is, critics would have you believe, one of the most controversial in the festival’s history, with rapper Jay-Z breaking the mould of traditional indie headliners. While the fans don’t seem to mind, Noel Gallagher says it’s “not right”. By reply, Mr Beyonce takes to the stage performing Wonderwall. Elsewhere, Amy Winehouse hits the headlines (surprise, surprise) for elbowing a fan when she heads down the front during her Glastonbury set. The smacked fan, James Gostelow, says he was the unfortunate victim of mistaken identity, having taken the hit on behalf of someone behind him who threw a hat at the singer. But he remains philosophical: “Not everyone can say they’ve been hit by Amy Winehouse.”… Ian Brown is at the wrong end of a body part and gets a stitch to his eye after being pulled off the stage by a fan at a Sheffield gig… He could take a few lessons in crowd control from Josh Homme. The Queens Of The Stone Age singer doesn’t take kindly to a fan throwing an object at him during the band’s set at the Norwegian Wood festival in Oslo. The poorly singer snarled: “I may have a fucking 102 temperature and I’ve been puking for two days, but I’ll still butt-fuck you in front of your friends. Go back to your mum’s house, you 12-year-old miserable dickless turd.” Having also called the fan a “chicken-shit-eating fucking faggot”, Homme later has to defend himself against accusations of homophobia… R Kelly is acquitted of long-running child porn charges. However, although several jury members say they believe he is the bloke in a film urinating on a female, they let him off because they aren’t convinced the girl was his underage goddaughter… Rapper Coolio, who had a hit once, is pulled over by police for a routine stop on Sunset Boulevard and is found to have an outstanding misdemeanour for driving without a licence and bailed at $10,000… Rocker John Lydon upsets Duffy at the Mojo Awards. The former Sex Pistol is alleged to have pushed the Welsh warbler out of a way when she put her arm around him for a photo, although Lydon later claims he has no idea who she is… N.E.R.D.’s Pharrell Williams upsets on a bigger scale. Hardened pop queen Madonna reveals the producer made her blub when he got tough during the recording of her latest album, Hard Candy. He says she cried like a baby after she “kept talking a lot of rubbish” and he shouted at her. “It’s totally weird to make Madonna sob, but even stranger when she tells everyone ‘Pharrell made me cry’.”… George Michael announces a brace of Wembley gigs this August called The Final Two, harking back to Wham’s goodbye gig of 1986, hinting he is about to hang up his stage microphone… The biggest whodunnit? – or rather who’lldoit? – in music continues, with Leona Lewis added to the growing list of possible artists who’ll record the theme tune to forthcoming James Bond flick Quantum Of Solace… Dannii Minogue makes no secret of her delight at Sharon Osbourne’s departure from The X Factor. She describes the show and its new line-up of judges, with Cheryl Cole replacing Osbourne, as “a dream”… Tracks from the near-completed Guns ‘N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy are leaked online… Courtney Love claims that someone has stolen dead hubby Kurt Cobain’s ashes from her LA home… Charlotte Church announces she is pregnant with baby number two and that she plans to have up to four more in the next ten years… There’s good and bad news for the sporadically troubled Britney Spears. Prosecutors close a case alleging the singer ran over a photographer’s foot, saying the accident could only have happened because the injured snapper deliberately put his foot in the way. On the downside, she’s dissed by the Pussycat Dolls, who cut her cameo appearance in their new video from the final version… Chris Martin reveals that a Coldplay track featuring Kylie Minogue has been cut from their new album because “at this point, we cannot be that sexy”. Lunar will appear on the next album – “track nine,” he insists, a little too specifically… Coldplay remain “world’s biggest band” contenders. With Viva La Vida, they become the first British band to top the US Billboard singles chart since the Spice Girls in 1997, and parent album Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends also hits the top. Naturally, the album settles in for a long reign at the top of the UK albums chart, while Viva La Vida puts the ghost of Crazy Frog to rest. Their tenth Top 10 hit gives them a first chart-topping single… Usher and Paul Weller each score their third Number 1 album in the UK with Here I Stand and 22 Dreams respectively. But the party is over for Alanis Morrissette as her fifth offering, Flavors Of Entanglement, peaks at a lowly Number 15, while the single, Underneath, gets no higher than 99… Neil Diamond’s tour sees a resurgence in sales, with his latest album, Home Before Dark, returning to the Top 3 and two greatest hits collections elsewhere in the Top 20… Mint Royale unexpectedly find themselves atop the singles chart when download sales of minor 2005 hit Singin’ In The Rain are boosted after Britain’s Got Talent winner, George Sampson, uses it with a dance routine… Guitar legend Bo Diddley dies from heart failure, aged 79. Hugh Jarrett, one of Elvis’s backing singers during the 1950s, dies, aged 78, in Atlanta, a week after a car accident.

Amy Winehouse is accused of headbutting a man during a night out in Camden. Such sociable behaviour evidently impresses the under-25s. In a poll of young people by Sky.com, the singer is voted the ultimate heroine. Jailbird Pete Doherty, who comes second in the list of male heroes, behind footballer Steven Gerrard, is moved to a segregated area of Wormwood Scrubs for his safety after he is told of plans by other inmates to attack him. A prison source described Doherty as pale, “like Caspar the ghost”… Vanilla Ice is not so nice nice, baby. The rapper is held in jail overnight after his wife claims he kicked and hit her, although she later admits Ice merely pushed her and he is charged with simple domestic battery… Drink-driver Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots is sentenced to spend almost 200 hours behind a different kind of bars… Snoop Dogg is finally allowed back on British soil after judge Neha Bird overturns a decision to deny him a visa following a fracas at Heathrow Airport in 2006. Bird said there was no evidence Dogg was in the wrong after seeing a footage of the rapper playing with children at the airport and being pushed by a police officer… A giant inflatable flying pig used in Pink Floyd’s stage shows for more than 30 years floats away during the band’s former bassist Roger Waters’ performance at the Coachella festival. Organisers offer $10,000 and four festival tickets for life for its safe return… Singer and music producer Calvin Harris also loses track of his belongings. The DJ’s laptop containing a new album goes missing in the chaos following the opening of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. It eventually turns up – but damp. “The music sounded shit,” says Harris, presumably referring to the damaged recordings… One of Harris’s musical “producees”, Kylie Minogue, passes on advice to women everywhere when she reveals on the Ellen DeGeneres US chat show that her cancer was initially misdiagnosed when her first mammogram apparently showed nothing untoward. “Because someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right,” she said… Alicia Keys hits a bum note with 50 Cent. Blender magazine quotes the ivory tinkler as saying that “Gangsta rap was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other”. In response, Fiddy says his perception of Keys has changed. “I don’t like that classical music shit she be doing,” he complains. But Keys insists she is misrepresented: “The point that I was trying to make was that the term [gangsta rap] was over-sloganised by some of the media causing reactions that were not always positive.”… Mark E Smith also lets his mouth run away with him. The RSPCA investigate The Fall icon’s “irresponsible” claims that he killed squirrels eating his fence and doesn’t mind running over seagulls… Damon Albarn reveals that his next album, due out in the summer, will feature a 100-piece Chinese choir and will be entirely in Mandarin… A friend of entertainer Tommy Steele dispels an old myth that Elvis Presley never visited England. Bill Kenwright claims Presley flew in for a day trip around London with Steele. “Tommy took him round and showed him the Houses Of Parliament,” Kenwright insists… It’s a nice month for a white wedding. Lou Reed gets hitched to fellow artist Laurie Anderson. And a New York clerk reveals that an official marriage licence is filed for Jay-Z and Beyonce, although the honeymoon period seems to be over by the time they reach the Hollywood Bowl for an event in honour of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Jay-Z raps over the DJ’s music until his new wife’s Crazy In Love comes on and he says, “Let’s play something else”. Meanwhile, there is some cheeky knot-tying planned for Gabriela Irimia. The Cheeky Girl gets engaged to MP Lembit Opik… Phil Collins announces he is giving up recording music. He’ll continue to write, he tells The Times, but that he’s more interested in his Battle of the Alamo memorabilia… Following Ali Campbell’s departure after nearly 30 years, UB40 find a new singer: his professional spoon-playing brother, Duncan Campbell… Evidently, someone hasn’t forgotten Ringo Starr’s comment that he missed nothing about his home city of Liverpool. A floral tribute in the city to his old band The Beatles is destroyed by a vandal who cuts off Starr’s head, but leaves John, Paul and George unscathed… More than 600,000 people download the new Coldplay single, Violet Hill, in the first 24 hours of it being made available online for free… Mariah Carey seems to have put her Glitter glitch behind her. Touch My Body, the first single from her 11th studio album, E=MC2, is her 18th US Number 1 single, taking her past Elvis Presley’s total of 17 and just two behind record-holders The Beatles… Leona Lewis follows up her American success on the singles chart with a chart-topping album, the first by a British female in the US. Spirit sells 205,000 copies in its first week… Kylie Minogue’s US campaign is less successful, when, despite heavy promotion and TV appearances, her album, X, misses the Top 100… In the UK, Madonna racks up a not unlucky 13^th Number 1 single when 4 Minutes, her collaboration with Justin Timberlake, knocks Estelle from the top of the chart… On the albums chart, R.E.M. steer themselves to an eighth chart-topper with Accelerate, The Rolling Stones match the position of their last studio album when Shine A Light peaks at Number 2. The Kooks go one better than their million-selling debut, when follow-up Konk reaches the top. The Last Shadow Puppets, Arctic Monkey Alex Turner’s side project with The Rascals’ Miles Kane, also land at the top with The Age Of The Understatement. And a reunited James must be pleased when album Hey Ma sneaks in to the Top 10… Humphrey Lyttleton, jazz musician and chairman of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, dies following an aneurysm, aged 86. Al Wilson, who had a US Number 1 hit in 1974 with Show And Tell, dies, aged 68, of kidney failure.

Paul McCartney’s divorce battle with Heather Mills concludes, with the leggy former nude model, whose evidence is described by the judge as “inconsistent and inaccurate”, awarded £24.3 million. Mills describes the settlement as outrageous and pours a jug of water over her ex-husband’s lawyer, Fiona Shackleton. The former Beatle must be wondering why he ever let her go… Rick Astley is back in fashion, inadvertently spawning a new term when a phenomenon known as Rickrolling explodes around the world. A widespread Internet joke sends users who click on seemingly innocuous weblinks to a video of the Lancashire singer’s 1987 chart-topper, Never Gonna Give You Up. “It makes me laugh,” says Astley. “I’m sure it annoys a lot of other people.”… Britney Spears proves she has remarkable talents beyond singing and parenting. Her guest appearance on US sitcom How I Met Your Mother is an unexpected triumph. She gets positive reviews for her performance and comic timing as a ditzy receptionist and the show gets its highest-ever rating… Unlikely people to be encouraged to get naked, number 431: Amy Winehouse. The oft-dubiously dressed diva undresses – but for good reason. She poses nude, with any remaining modesty covered with a guitar and gaffa tape, for Easy Living magazine to raise awareness of breast cancer. Giant-foreheaded, caramel-voiced soul star Sade also peels off in support… Rapper Remy Ma faces up to 25 years in the clink after she is found guilty on assault and weapon-possession charges, having shot at a friend last summer… Ricki Rockett, drummer with rockers Poison, is arrested on rape charges after an alleged incident in Mississippi… Lisa Marie Presley feels pressured by tabloid slurs to admit that she is pregnant. She prepares to sue The Daily Mail, which remarked that she was “piling on the pounds”… Smashing Pumpkins are suing Virgin Records, reporting that their former label are using their name for a Pepsi Cola promotion without permission… Nashville fourpiece Be Your Own Pet’s new album Get Awkward is living up to its name. Three tracks have to be removed from the US version because their lyrics include references to violence and murder. As well as their language, they might also want to clean up London’s Vision Videobar. At the end of a gig at the Dalston venue, the band start a food fight by firing whipped cream into the crowd… The Rolling Stones play Blackpool for the first time since they were in their early-20s. The town’s council lifts a 44-year-old ban imposed after the band last performed at the Empress Ballroom. At the 1964 gig, 50 people were hospitalised following a riot that broke out after Keith Richards reportedly kicked a fan who spat at fellow guitarist Brian Jones… Guinness is not good for The Pigeon Detectives, it turns out. At a Saint Patrick’s Day gig at LA’s Spaceland, lead singer Matt Bowman tells the crowd that the Dublin-brewed black stuff is free at the bar. Venue managers aren’t amused and turf the band out of the venue after their set… It all goes Pete Tong at an 18th birthday celebration in Devon. When the DJ gives a shout-out to party-goers during his Radio 1 show, 2,000 gatecrashers flock to the birthday girl’s Grade II-listed home, leaving it in a mess. Although Tong did not reveal the address, the house owners blame his reference to a mansion party in the village of Bovey Tracey for the trouble… The South By South West festival in Austin, Texas, is as chaotic. A thousand Fucked Up fans begin moshing to an unofficial set on the Lemar Pedestrian Bridge by the hardcore punk band, but as the bridge begins to buckle, revellers leap in to the water for safety. Elsewhere at the festival in Austin, Texas, Michael Stipe dedicates a new REM song, Until The Day Is Done, to Heath Ledger, and The Lemonheads play their 1992 It’s A Shame About Ray album in full… Madonna is inducted into the US Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame along with Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp and the Dave Clark Five… Justin Timberlake, who appears on five songs on the Material Girl’s new album, reveals that during one recording session Madonna told him to drop his pants, before giving him a vitamin shot in his backside. “It was one of the greatest days of my life,” said Trousersnake. “That’s what she will continue to be for all of us: the shot in the ass, when we really need it.”… Gnarls Barkley’s return stalls when the video for Run is banned by MTV because its strobe effects may trigger epileptic seizures… Move over Kim Wilde. The X Factor winner Leona Lewis has charmed America. After a turn on Oprah Winfrey’s show, the Hackney warbler’s Bleeding Love becomes the first single by a British female to top the US singles chart since Ms Wilde managed it with You Keep Me Hangin’ On in 1986… In the UK, Amy Winehouse returns to the top of the album chart with the deluxe edition of Back To Black, but a potential successor to her throne in the guise of Duffy, with her debut Rockferry, leads the way for the rest of the month. Goldfrapp’s fourth album, Seventh Tree, grabs the runner-up slot, but, elsewhere, the boys march forth. The month’s other new entries to the Top 10 are from Donny Osmond, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, One Republic, The Temptations, Muse, Elbow, Bryan Adams, Mike Oldfield, Van Morrison, Panic At The Disco, Raconteurs, Foals and Guillemots… On the singles chart, Welsh singer Duffy also leads the way with Mercy, eventually yielding to Estelle and Kanye West’s remix of American Boy. Madonna’s collaboration with Justin Timberlake, 4 Minutes, appears in the Top 10 on downloads alone, a month before its physical release. And Westlife are finally showing signs of defeat when their 22nd hit, Us Against The World, becomes their first to miss the Top 5 in both the UK and their native Ireland… The sun continues to shine on Take That. Beautiful World, a film of their European tour, becomes the fastest selling music DVD in British history and the first to sell more weekly copies – 64,000 – than the week’s Number 1 album… Jason Rae, saxophonist with Haggis Horns and husband of Corinne Bailey Rae, dies of a suspected drug overdose, aged 31. Sean Levert, singer and son of O’Jays singer Eddie Levert, dies, aged 39. Neil Aspinall, The Beatles’ one-time road manager and chief executive of Apple Corps Ltd, dies, aged 65, after being treated for cancer. Jamaican reggae star Mikey Dread, who recorded with The Clash, dies of a brain tumour, aged 54. Ola Brunkert, a former session drummer who played on all of Abba’s albums, dies, aged 61, after apparently smashing a window by accident and cutting his neck on glass.

Here are ten other musical slouches who took more than a decade to get a new album out.

Vashti Bunyan – 35 years between 1970’s Just Another Diamond Day and 2005’s Lookaftering

The Eagles – 28 years between 1979’s The Long Run and 2007’s Long Road To Eden

Kick Axe – 18 years between 1986’s Rock The World and 2004’s Kick Axe IV

Yusuf Islam – 17 years between 1978’s Back To Earth, as Cat Stevens, and 1995’s The Life Of The Last Prophet

Crowded House – 14 years between 1993’s Together Alone and 2007’s Time On Earth

Kate Bush – 12 years between 1993’s The Red Shoes and 2005’s Aerial

Kool & The Gang – 11 years between 1996’s State Of Affairs and 2007’s Still Kool

Bob Seger – 11 years between 1995’s It’s A Mystery and 2006’s Face The Promise

Take That – 11 years between 1995’s Nobody Else and 2006’s Beautiful World

Peter Gabriel - 10 years between 1992’s Us and 2002’s Up

Arctic Monkeys have a few more statuettes for the downstairs toilet. At the Brit Awards, dressed as country gentlemen, the Sheffield fourpiece collect gongs for Best British Group and Best Album, for Favourite Worst Nightmare. Take That also win a brace, nabbing Best British Single, for Shine, and Best British Live Act. Kate Nash wins the Best British Female honour and, despite not being much of a singer, Mark Ronson is named Best British Male. Paul McCartney receives the Lifetime Achievement Award… At the NME Awards, the Arctic Monkeys triumph again, winning Best Band, Best Track for Fluorescent Adolescent and Best Track for Teddypicker, although The Klaxons take the Album Of The Year award for Myths Of The Near Future. Kate Nash wins Best Solo Artist… On a bigger scale, Glen Hansard from Irish band The Frames wins the Oscar for Best Song for Falling Slow from the film Once… Aretha Franklin asks Beyonce for a little more Respect. She calls the Destiny’s Child singer’s introduction of Tina Turner as the “queen of soul” at the Grammy Awards “a cheap shot for controversy”. However, Franklin, long known as the “queen of soul”, ended her statement with “Love to Beyonce anyway”. Visa issues keep Amy Winehouse from attending the ceremony, but she wins five Grammys anyway, including Record of the Year – much to Natalie Cole’s disgust. The Unforgettable singer said rewarding Winehouse while she is having drug issues is setting a bad example. American record buyers are less fussy. The week after the awards, Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black album jumps from outside of the Top 20 to Number 2 on the Billboard album chart… Canadian Feist wins the Shortlist Music Prize for her album The Reminder… Ireland selects its entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest and, frankly, a national legend is not amused. Former Eurovision winner Dana says the public’s vote for singing puppet Dustin the Turkey makes a mockery of the competition. “They love puppets in Europe,” said the All Kinds Of Everything singer. “If, God forbid, he wins, we’ll probably have more puppets than people next year.”… Slapped wrists all round for a bunch of musicians. There’s a rough ride ahead for Grooverider. The BBC Radio 1 DJ, born Raymond Bingham, is banged up for four years in Dubai after he is caught in the emirate with two grams of cannabis… The Game is sentenced to 60 days in jail after a fracas last year. The rapper pleads no contest to possession of a firearm after he allegedly punched a basketball player and then produced a gun and threatened to shoot him… Former Blue boy Lee Ryan is charged with assault for allegedly attacking a taxi driver… Bobby Brown is to carry out a year of community service mentoring youngsters in Brockton, Massachusetts, as punishment for cocaine possession… Boy George pleads not guilty to charges that he falsely imprisoned a male escort at his home and handcuffed him to a wall… Britney Spears’ curiously named manager Lufti is served a restraining order after allegations that he held the singer hostage and gave her drugs… Photos of Lily Allen in a corset clutching a whip have been shelved after she is dropped as the face of Agent Provocateur. She begins filming a new chat show this month and dismisses reports that audience members walked out during the recording. The first episode of Lily Allen And Friends overran, Allen says, so some people had to leave to catch trains… Dave Rowntree is also branching out, with the Blur reunion looking permanently off the schedule. The drummer is selected by the Cities of London and Westminster Constituency Labour Party to stand in the next election… Spice Girls record a video for their fans to end speculation that the group have ended their tour early because of in-fighting. Their families are their priorities, they say… Dolly Parton postpones her American tour because of back pain brought on by her breasts, which she reveals she has nicknamed Shock and Awe. “You try wagging these puppies around a while and see if you don’t have back problems,” she says… An impromptu Frank Black gig in Dublin is stopped by police concerned about overcrowding when 1,000 fans turn up to see the Pixies singer at St Stephen’s Green… Björk fails to amuse Serbia. After dedicating her song Declare Independence to Kosovo at a Tokyo gig, she is swiftly removed from the bill of the Exit Festival in Serbia… Staff at The Cumberland Arms pub in Newcastle won’t be inviting punk band Pills From America back for another gig. Lead singer Mark Wadlaw sparks a brawl after sticking his hand inside his pants and then smearing excrement on the face of a fan, who then punched him. Perhaps the toilet door didn’t have a lock… Fur-browed Oasis singer Liam Gallagher marries Nicole Appleton on Valentine’s Day at Westminster Register Office. The All Saint is no doubt moved that it’s the same venue where the Oasis front man married his first wife, Patsy Kensit… In New York, Jennifer Lopez gives birth to a girl and a boy… Critics Choice Brit Award winner Adele tops the album chart with her debut, 19, while fellow rising star Duffy tops the singles chart with Mercy. Jack Johnson and The Feeling also score Number 1s with Static Through The Silence and Join With Us respectively. Michael Jackson is set to get a bit more in the bank to help with those repayments. A 25-year-anniversary release of Thriller enters the chart at Number 3. Nickelback’s Rock Star finally peaks at Number 2 on the singles chart, a record 17 weeks after it first entered… Mike Smith, lead singer with The Dave Clark Five, dies of pneumonia, aged 64. Buddy Miles, drummer for The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band Of Gypsys, dies following congestive heart failure, aged 60. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Beatles’guru and meditation teacher, dies, aged 91.

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 being widely unforgiven by anyone of the slightest sporting influence for taking performance-enhancing drugs, sprinter Chambers has just been selected to represent Great Britain in Beijing this summer - a decision that has prompted derisive snorts audible over the JCBs in Stratford from Dame Kelly Holmes, Lord Sebastian Coe and other lesser-ranked sports stars.

Likewise, Amy’s haul of five Grammy Awards on Sunday hasn’t gone down well with everyone. Celebrity daughter Natalie Cole, who jointly announced Winehouse’s Rehab as Record of the Year, tut-tutted that honouring the beehived diva sent out the wrong message to struggling, more wholesome bands.

It’s understandable to raise eyebrows at the approval of an athlete who took drugs that gave him an unfair career advantage. But anyone who caught one of Winehouse’s shambolic mid-meltdown shows last year, before she ended up pulling the tour altogether, can verify that drugs do not work in every line of business.

Vetting process

Cole knows well enough that the music industry is not for the easily tempted. Exactly what proportion of struggling acts does she think are getting through long studio sessions on caffeine and rich tea biscuits alone?

Or does Winehouse warrant a greater punishment than more casual, softer drug users because her addiction is particularly severe? Is it OK for cocaine fans to have industry recognition up until the point that they end up in rehab or get caught out by the national papers? Presumably Winehouse didn’t make her first foray into mind-altering activities with a shot of heroin. Cole is obviously not from the “nip it in the bud” school of teaching.

So, where do you stop the vetting process? Should we discourage young music fans from listening to The Beatles because they were partial to a bit of LSD with their coffee? Is it reasonable to worry that Nirvana fans are going to overdose or blow their brains out if they listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit too much? Indeed, maybe Cole should hand back the three Grammy Awards she won in the 1970s - roughly about the time she was busted for heroin possession.

Reverse psychology

The genuine shock and delight on Winehouse’s healthy-looking, post-rehab face when her Record of the Year award was announced suggests her Grammy cargo might be enough to make her think about what she can achieve when she has her full wits about her.

It’s a risky gamble to bank on the opposite psychology and assume that blacklisting artists on drugs is an incentive to clean up. If anything’s likely to send a recovering addict for the tin foil, it’s a feeling of worthlessness from being publicly chastised.

There are plenty of other ways to get the message across. It would be no bad thing for record companies to introduce random drug-testing to keep their artists, at the very least, at a safe level of dependence. An artist so regularly off their face that they spit and slur their way through gigs is useless.

Winehouse was in a different place when she recorded Back To Black. If she can’t keep her nose clean for album number three, she won’t hear her name called out on many more awards occasions. But these trophies should be handed out for merit and Back To Black is a great album. If other artists, sober or not, don’t find themselves on nominations lists, they simply have to try a little harder.

The New Yorkers are on the NME Shockwaves tour because of last year’s fine album, Let’s Stay Friends, a lively and rich commotion of dark alternative anger and poetic indie. It has the youthful vigour and invention of a debut by some smart-thinking teens. But, no. This Savy lot have been around since the mid-’90s and their shows are notorious for Harrington’s bent for fancy dress and stripping to his pants. If you’ve come here unprepared, you’re in for a shock.

Harrington wastes no time in familiarising himself with the audience. Before he utters his first note, he bounds off the edge of the stage and is having his bald and bearded head patted by the front row.

Showman

Throughout the next 90 minutes, the showman can’t keep away from the crowd, often literally losing himself several feet deep into the throng.

A people person, you might call him. Though he would possibly be hanged in some countries for one or two stunts. At one oh-my-god-what-is-he-doing? moment, he pulls a subservient teen on to the stage, coaxes him a little too easily on to all fours and rides him like a horse. The rest of the band continue as if this is perfectly acceptable behaviour.

On another occasion, he leans his groin into the large speaker at the front of the stage and grinds back and forth in a way no object has been violated by a singer since Madonna raped a cushion to Like A Virgin nearly 20 years ago.

Harrington is as comfortable striding about the stage with his generous bare gut on display as he is in costume. This is not a man with body issues. Tonight he is, briefly, an angel, complete with wings and halo. Later, he squeezes into a red skintight catsuit and cape. He looks like Santa’s rebellious anti-hero brother.

Distractions

Colourfully delirious as it all is, the gimmicks and Harrington’s tendency for going walkabout mid-audience can be an unfortunate distraction from the music and blunt the vocals. The occasional more-grounded performance wouldn’t go amiss. Sometimes, after an hour of pantomime, you want a little Branagh.

With the band having taken a six-year hiatus before Let’s Be Friends and only six tracks from that album getting an outing tonight, much of the set will not have rung many chords with a lot of the young crowd.

Single Patty Lee and The Lowest Bitter stand out, although the song structures’ subtle shifts get a little lost in the frenzy.

A commendable and well-chosen encore of The Pixies’ Debaser earned the loudest applause of the night, although the Fav four would benefit from Frank Black and family’s knack for delivering grubby anthems with precision sharpness every time.

Still, you can’t quibble with the entertainment value for money. Harrington’s reluctance to settle down for half a minute is entrancing. The phrase about there never being a dull moment might have been coined at a Les Savy Fav gig.

With Beth Ditto working on The Gossip’s next album, there’s a space for unconventional singers on the cover of a dozen magazines. Expect to see more of Tim in 2008. 7/10  Rob Jones
 

Britney Spears isn’t well. Official. But 2008 can only get better. The first month of the year opens with the singer being wheeled out of her home on a stretcher and straight into the back of an ambulance after an alleged showdown with police because she failed to return her sons to estranged hubby K-Fed. Unsurprisingly, she later loses visiting rights. At a custody hearing, she fails to even get into the courtroom. When she is mobbed by photographers, she hollers to be allowed back into her car. Before the month is out, she has been admitted to UCLA Medical Centre by a psychiatrist, allegedly as a danger to herself and others… She is possibly the only star on the planet to make Amy Winehouse look a picture of glowing health. But the Grammy nominee’s rehabilitation is still in doubt. A week after she is caught on video allegedly smoking crack, a briefly blonde Winehouse finally says yes to rehab. In letters from jail, ’Im Indoors Blake Fielder-Civil warns that his wife must give up drugs or she’ll end up dead. “Every day I fear the prison chaplain is going to walk into my cell and break the news that Amy is dead,” he says… After filming a TV documentary in Colombia about the cocaine trade, Blur bassist and former user Alex James compares the drug to “a relentless trail of death”, commenting that it is funding a civil war… The ticker’s fine, insists Sir Paul McCartney, who says that claims he had routine heart surgery are exaggerated and that he simply had tests for a minor irregularity… As UB40 prepare to release their 24/7 album, band leader Ali Campbell decides after nearly 30 years that he can’t spend another hour in the band. He claims he had issues with their management, although the remaining band members say he left to pursue a solo career… The Kooks are a little less kooky, as bassist Max Rafferty quits… Good news for lovers of not-very-good boy bands: the official New Kids On The Block website is reactivated, with a new video asking fans if they are ready for the return of the 1990s boy band. But member Danny Wood denies a reunion is on the cards… EMI restructures and axes jobs – and the label’s bands are unimpressed by the changes. The Rolling Stones sign a new deal with Universal and The Verve are allegedly withholding their new album until they’re comfortable about the label’s finances. Given the relative flop of Rudebox, few will be concerned that Robbie Williams is also threatening to sit on his next release, with his manager Tim Clark saying of the label, “They are going to decimate their staff.” At least Rudebox finally proves useful for something. More than a million unsold copies are being sent to China to be crushed and used for road surfing and streetlighting… Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder wins a Golden Globe for Best Original Song for the song Guaranteed from Into The Wild… The unlikely winners of a Best Pop Award, in the South Bank Awards, Arctic Monkeys earn a record seven nominations in the Shockwaves NME Awards, including Best British Band, Best Album and Best Track… Courtney Love announces she would like Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Gosling to portray her and late hubby Kurt Cobain in a movie based on a biography of Nirvana singer Cobain… George Michael signs a publishing deal to write a “no holds barred” autobiography… Lily Allen suffers a miscarriage and newspapers report her split from boyfriend Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers soon after… British Sea Power’s cornet player, Phil Sumner, is out cold for three minutes at a gig in Leeds, when he jumps off an amp at the Irish Centre and lands on his chin. He breaks a molar and needs stitches… Guitarist and songwriter Stephen Stills recovers after surgery for prostate cancer… Morrissey loses his voice during a gig at London’s Roundhouse and ends the show after three songs… Radiohead’s secret London gig gets even more secretive when they change the venue at the last minute. When 1,500 fans turn up at Rough Trade East on Brick Lane, the police shut down the concert and force a last-minute switch to nearby 93 Feet East… Luck doesn’t pick up for Amelle Berrabah. The Sugababe’s boyfriend has barely been stitched up after being attacked by a man with a machete when she is arrested and hauled in for police questioning after causing criminal damage to a neighbour’s car. She is bailed until next month… Björk is still not a friendly flyer. The Icelandic singer, who famously dragged a photographer to the ground at a Thai airport in 1996, rips another snapper’s shirt in half when she lands at Auckland International Airport in New Zealand… The Shins keyboardist Marty Crandall is arrested for assaulting girlfriend Elyse Sewell, but domestic abuse charges are dropped due to insufficient evidence… Less painfully, Natalie Imbruglia splits from husband Daniel Johns of Silverchair… Christina Aguilera gives birth to her first son, Max… Madonna is named the highest-earning woman in pop, netting more than £36 million in the 12 months up to June 2007… Radiohead’s In Rainbows finally gets a physical release and hits Number 1 in both the UK and the US. There’s a new Amy in town when Ms McDonald’s six-month-old This Is Your Life hits the top in the UK. Scouting For Girls’ self-titled debut also makes Number 1. On the single chart, Swedish DJ Basshunter finds himself at the summit with Eurodance hit Now You’re Gone, which keeps 19-year-old newcomer Adele’s Chasing Pavements and Britney Spears’ Piece Of Me at Number 2… Fortunes singer Rod Allen dies from liver cancer, aged 63… Keith Baxter, drummer with Britrock 90s band 3 Colours Red, dies of liver failure, aged 36.

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 getting papped regularly flashing her marital box while stepping off her unicycle.

A couple of years ago, even Relate counsellors wouldn’t have advised Britney Spears to persevere with marital leech Kevin Federline, a proper tinker who looked like Vanilla Ice’s miscreant little brother.

The former world’s sexiest woman-turned-greasy scanger only needed to dump her ever-vested interest and she’d be back on the straight and narrow, so we thought.

It seems we had our woollen hats yanked tightly over the blinkers. For the first half of her career, Britney played the cutesy virgin. You could have frozen butter on her lily-white tongue. But she could only keep up the pretence for so long.

The two kids and two marriages, and a wedding breakfast from Wendy’s, all seemingly in the space of a whirlwind three months, suggested she had wearied of reigning in her chav tendencies for the cameras.

Bride before a fall

Spears was 22 when she pulled on a baseball cap and jeans and married her mate for a 5am fairytale wedding in Las Vegas. It was annulled less than three days later because the singer “lacked understanding of her actions”, a definition that might be attributed to almost everything she’s done since.

For all the travelling and enviable enriching experiences, Spears is no more worldly wise than the 16-year-olds who get knocked up by acne-faced hoodies in the school year above.

Having lived under a press microscope during the late teen years that she would probably otherwise have spent in Louisiana getting fingered by randy adolescents and being sick in the back seat of a car after a glut of cheap gin, she seemed to be making up for missed opportunities with one party after another.

I didn’t have much sympathy for Spears when her knickerless post-split three-month bender culminated in an all-over self-scalping.

Jaw-dropping as it was, it seemed as much a conscious shock tactic as it did the onset of a bona fide meltdown. Her subsequent stints in rehab and car-bashing seemed of little more concern than when other normally placid stars snap. When Hugh Grant throws a tin of baked beans at you, you have a story. If Britney flicks you the finger or nicks a lighter, so what?

The year’s series of incidents and misdemeanors suggested that her mothering instincts were less convincing than her hairdressing skills, with Sean Preston Lancashire and the other one being carried about like dolls.

She seemed equally unbothered by her own career, while at the same time flogging it to a slow death. For her comeback at the VMA Awards, she moved with all the spark of a narcoleptic under general anaesthetic, having forgotten to check in the mirror that she was wearing anything over her underwear.

The shock of the shrew

But more shocking than watching Britney being groped by a troupe of 800 dancers are the latest scenes of the fallen starlet being dragged out of her house by the emergency services after four hours of negotiations to return her kids to K-Fed, who, by comparison, might now be in the running for North America’s Dad of the Year contest.

Being strapped to a stretcher and wheeled into an ambulance is parental custody distress at a new level.

She’s a heavy dose of diazepam away from being fitted for a jacket with extra long arms and residency in a room with clouds for walls. Don’t be surprised if next weekend she’s snapped snarling like a wolf and foaming at the mouth while talking to her hand about the little people who live in her head.

The poor girl is clearly on the brink and the mountain she has to claw up to restore some creative dignity has doubled in scale. Not blessed with any obvious talent – a weak voice; mostly forgettable songs – she once appealed to girls who wanted to be a girl-next-door-done-good like her. And she helped many a young boy get to sleep at night. She’s unlikely to be anyone’s icon or turn-on now.

Commercial failures, dubious marketing choices and controversial quotes fade from memory, and a purple patch can reset the equilibrium. But the image of a dishevelled Britney looking like she might be sectioned will be hard to erase. She seems to have settled quite nicely into the role of someone best avoided both professionally and personally. Even another Toxic won’t turn things around.

When is Britney going to die?

There is now a website predicting Britney’s ultimate downfall. I’m sure whenisbritneygoingtodie.com isn’t in the Favourites listing on the Spears’ home computer, but perhaps the singer should log on – although the gallery doesn’t include any photos likely to make it into the family album. “Look, Sean, here’s mummy with her squaddie haircut… oh, and there’s mummy being taken away by the doctors.”

The low expectations of her survival might be a wake-up call. Even Amy Winehouse hasn’t been honoured in such a way. The website is offering a Playstation 3 to whoever chooses the date closest to when Britney buys the farm, which suggests she’s not expected to make it to the release of Playstation 4.

Britney’s clearly not cut out for fame. It doesn’t look like even a couple of years out of the limelight would do it. Now would be a good time to slip out of view permanently and think about a career change. Her 16-year-old sister might be on the look out for a nanny in about six months. On second thoughts…

The Spice Girls are swinging and shaking it once again, launching their comeback tour in Vancouver. Of the five girls, only Victoria Beckham is denied a solo singing spot. She is instead allowed a mock catwalk moment to mark the significant contribution she has made to world fashion. At a Las Vegas show, Emma Bunton gives Too Much and sprains her ankle during a performance. Although Baby arrives in London on crutches, the band generally get the thumbs-up when they play their first UK gig at the O2 Arena… But the cheers are nothing compared to the unanimous applause for Led Zeppelin’s brief reunion after nearly 20 years. Following their highly rated one-off gig in aid of a charity funding university scholarships, Jimmy Page hints a world tour may be on the cards. “It’s a bit selfish to do just one show,” he says… Liza Minnelli is rushed to hospital after collapsing during a gig in Sweden and falling off the stage into the arms of the show’s production manager… CSS cut short a gig in Brighton after singer Lovefoxx is clobbered in the face by a shoe thrown by a crowd-member… Perhaps they share fans with Marilyn Manson. When the band’s bassist, Rob Holliday, is hit by a bottle thrown at a Manchester gig, Manson gently attempts to gently difuse the situation by pointing to the perpetrator and telling the crowd: “I just want to be sure that you guys know that I did not say, ‘beat the shit out of him’. No matter what, don’t beat that guy’s fucking skull in.”… The Police’s tour tops the list of high earners in North America, grossing nearly $132 million, with country artist Kenny Chesney in second and Justin Timberlake third… Sugababe Amelle Berrabah is traumatised after her boyfriend is caught in an ugly moment on Christmas Eve. Freddie Fuller feels the wrong end of a machete and needs several hours of surgery on an arm and a leg which were hanging off after he is attacked outside a pub. Ouch… Amy Winehouse “heard a noise and went outside to investigate”, which is why she was clocked at nearly 6am in Bow wearing just a red bra on her top half. Two weeks later, she is arrested in connection with the bribery case her husband has been imprisoned for… Robbie Williams apologises and agrees to pay undisclosed damages to former Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith, who claimed the lyrics to a track on Robbie’s Rudebox album accused him of stealing money from the band… Court documents report “multiple child abuse and neglect allegations” against Britney Spears. The dysfunctional singer is perhaps not the best guide to pass on parenting tips to 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn, who announces she is pregnant. Granny Spears allegedly shelves her book, Pop Culture Mom, on hearing the news… Lily Allen is “thrilled” to be expecting her first child with Chemical Brother Ed Simons… Radiohead’s management respond to claims in The Times that the band left EMI because they demanded more than the record label’s offer of £3 million to re-sign. Manager Bryce Edge said EMI refused to discuss copyright issues on Radiohead’s back catalogue… Jay-Z’s taking it easy. As well as announcing he will step down as acting president of Def Jam in the new year, he denies rumours that he and squeeze Beyonce got married in Paris after they were spotted with matching “wedding ring” tattoos… The future looks bright for former Mis-Teeq singer Alesha Dixon. She says that winning this month’s final of Strictly Come Dancing saved her life. She felt suicidal 12 months ago, after discovering her husband, So Solid Crew’s Harvey, had been having an affair with Girls Aloud reject Javine and then getting dumped by her record label… A teacher at a Connecticut school calls the police after hearing three teenagers performing Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle over the PA system and mistakenly believing “You’re in the jungle baby, you’re gonna die” is a death threat… Klaxons are the NME’s darlings of 2007, with journalists naming Golden Skans and Myths Of The Near Future best track and best album of the year… Electro-pop band Hot Chip reveal that they turned down a track Kylie Minogue wrote for them that included animal noises. “It was totally bizarre,” said vocalist Joe Goddard… Kylie, who stars in the Christmas episode of Doctor Who, and Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B find themselves with an OBE on the way, when the New Year’s Honours List is revealed. Jethro Tull vocalist Ian Anderson is to pick up an MBE… Birmingham fourpiece Envy & Other Sins are another hot tip for 2008 after winning Channel 4’s mobileAct unsigned competition and a £1 million contract to boot… Shy Scot Leon Jackson is the unexpected victor of The X Factor, beating classically trained Welsh favourite Rhydian Roberts – although there are claims that Roberts’ fans are unable to get through on the phones to vote… Jackson becomes the third X Factor winner to have the Christmas Number 1, with first-week sales of 275,000 for his cover of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston’s When You Believe… Thanks to download sales, Mariah Carey’s own All I Want For Christmas returns to the Top 20, along with classic festive offerings from Slade, Wizzard and Wham!… The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale Of New York becomes the first single to appear in three consecutive Christmas week Top 10 rundowns. Radio 1 initially censors the word “faggot”, but, following complaints from listeners, the station reverses its decision… Arab Strap guitarist Malcolm Middleton fails to break the Top 30 with his anti-Christmas offering, We’re All Going To Die… Katie Melua and Eva Cassidy’s gentle version of Wonderful World fares better, hitting Number 1… Leona Lewis winds up the year with the biggest selling single for Bleeding Love. Although her album, Spirit, is the first of the 21^st century to top 100,000 sales in each of its first seven weeks, it just falls short of catching Amy Winehouse’s 1.58 million Back To Black to become the year’s top album… Fist-friendly soul singer Ike Turner dies, aged 76. When former wife and sparring partner Tina Turner refuses to comment on his death, his old pal Phil Spector lays the boot in. “Ike made Tina the jewel she was,” he says at the funeral, adding that her autobiography, in which she detailed his abuse, was “a piece of trash”. Pianist and multiple Grammy winner Oscar Peterson dies of kidney failure, aged 82. American singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg dies from prostate cancer, aged 56. Rapper Pimp C, who performed with Jay-Z and Outkast, dies aged 23, apparently of natural causes. Glastonbury Festival co-founder Arabella Spencer-Churchill dies after a battle with pancreatic cancer, aged 58.