Peep inside Sophie’s head

DVDs are great! I love buying them, putting them on a shelf and never watching them. But there was some stuff on the new Peep Show Series 5 offering that looked so promising that I actually popped that shiny little disc into that unshiny matt black tray, pushed it in with my very own actual fingers (no pressing the button on the remote for ME) and then – watched it! Unbelievable.

Things you get on this DVD which are amazing include:

» All the episodes of Series 5.

» The final episode told from Sophie’s point-of-view, which reveals some very interesting things about her character (ie she’s just as selfish and manipulative as Mark and Jez – hurrah!).

» A “who’s shagged who” featurette, which is exciting for two reasons – it’s very funny, and you get to see how much older they all look five years down the line, thus making yourself feel a bit less miserable when you catch sight of your own knackered face in the mirror each morning.

» Some other things that we haven’t watched yet, but will definitely watch one day.

It’s all great stuff, plus there’s also a box set of all five series on the go as well, and everyone loves a box set, don’t they? They just look so bloody NICE on the shelf - even if you never get around to taking off the wrapping and the HMV sticker, never mind actually watching them.

Day 4 - This Is My Life

lowculture Eurovision blogger Squeezy does it twice in one day…

Hello everyone! Squeezy is back on form after a lapse in my updates - even former INTERNATIONAL POPSTARS need a rest from the endless round of parties and interviews. Yesterday I attended the first and second dress rehearsals of the second semi final, which is a big one as it boasts quite a strong line-up – including what is likely to be this years Eurovision winner.

It gets off to an amazing start with my favourites, EUROBAND. Their performance of This Is My Life is full of energy, with a tight-but-simple and effective dance routine, and it really is all about them and their fantastic voices as they have no stage props. Euroband are the one act that I desperately want to go through from this round to the final, as they are such nice people and they definitely love Eurovision – just as well, considering that they are a Eurovision covers band.  When I asked them to sum up This Is My Life in one word, Fredrik winked and replied, with a smile: “WINNER!”. I hope their early starting position doesn’t effect their chances.

Next up is comeback queen and former Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli with her schlagertastic Hero.  Charlotte hasn’t changed anything from her Melodifestivalen performance – and why should she when it works so well? She gives a good vocal and the performance is strong enough to ensure she qualifies.

Ani Lorak is in a league of her own with her performance of Shady Lady. This performance is SO Eurovision and has everything – including the kitchen sink! There are dancers encased in mirrored boxes that light up, a full dance routine and, just when you think it can’t get any better, Ani climbs on top of the box towards the end of the song! It really is amazing and I think it will be the outright winner of this year (I will be using this an my main inspiration for my Eurovision entry next year).

Lithuania and Albania’s performances don’t do anything for me as I don’t like the songs, so it’s the perfect opportunity to get a drink while they’re on.

Era Stupendo, performed by Paolo Meneguzz, was slightly disappointing for me as he seems disinterested on stage – although he did improve in the second dress rehearsal. If You Wanna Have Some Fun, performed by Teresa for the Czech Republic, is a bit of a mess and looks like a bunch of schoolgirls playing in their bedroom. Poor Teresa is out of tune the majority of the time and I can’t see this qualifying.

Ruslan looks petrified as he performs Hasta La Vista and is wearing the same outfit that Koldun wore for Belarus last year -maybe they didn’t have the budget to buy a new outfit?? Pirates Of The Sea from Latvia is something you would expect to see at Disneyland, and is this year’s Vampires Are Alive. Croatia, meanwhile, is the one song in this semi final that I HATE, and I really hope this doesn’t qualify as it is RUBBISH.

Deepzone, with the amazing Joanna, gare great with DJ Take Me Away, and I was impressed with Joanna’s vocals.  It really is all about Joanna in this performance. Simon Matthew gives a rousing performance of the singalong All Night Long - this is the one song that instantly has you singing along by the end.

Morena’s “Vodka” is very disappointing.  Despite the fact that I really like her and think the song is great fun, her performance is a mess. Sadly, she shouts her way through the song and it’s all a bit frantic and sloppy.

My favourites, then, are EUROBAND, Charlotte Perelli and Ani Lorak - and I want everyone to vote for them as they really deserve to qualify.

In other news, the haggard, washed-up Gigliola continues to embarrass herself wherever she goes. I think it’s time for her to retire from this game, as Squeezy is younger and MORE FAMOUS than she is!

Eurovision - 8 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

Ukraine: Shady Lady, Ani Lorak/Ані Лорак

“There are many shady ladies here,” declared Ani Lorak a couple of days ago, as she described the scene around her during rehearsals in Beograd. And we can imagine to whom she was referring too. This particular shady lady, however, has arrived at the contest with mirrored, back-lit cabinets, which is very exciting. She’s combining the cabinets with excellent vocals. Indeed, judging from this year’s rehearsals, many of the best performers can actually deliver the goods live, and with a routine. Ani is the face of Schwarzkopf in Ukraine, and it is quite clear why. She has lovely hair.

Ukraine, ten points. L’Ukraine, dix points. Back-lit!

Eurovision Legend of the Day

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Call Me, Feminnem

Even from the still in the YouTube box below, you know that words are not necessary.

How Eurovision can save the UK

Realising that we no longer produce the best pop music. It is very true – the gays have gone, and we’re left in the musical wasteland of bloody Coldplay and Keane and other bands whose names are too tedious of me to think about. I don’t want to see men with egos strumming guitars. I want to see amazing women with egos fondling microphones. I want to see fit men with egos who just KNOW. Like every good UK and US popstar, we should look north to Sweden. They are the ones producing the best pop music. Realising that we’re not actually all that anymore can save the UK.

Eurovision - 11 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

France: Divine, Sébastien Tellier

It’s French day today, and I’m going to go one about Serge Gainsbourg for a bit. Now, normally, you wouldn’t think that the French had really cared about Eurovision in recent years. Long gone are the halcyon days of Gainsbourg-penned melodies. However, Sébastien Tellier may just well be Gainsbourg’s heir (and not only for the fact that he was quoted as saying that ‘seul le cul m’intéresse’ in an interview a couple of years ago). Divine has caused a slight controversy in France by not actually being a French-language song. However, despite this, it actually couldn’t be any more French if it tried. Long around on the musique électronique scene, Sébastien has been involved with Air and Daft Punk in the past, and it shows, with the particularly Parisian electronic sound that seems to accompany an awful lot of boring dinner parties on our side of the Channel.

France, eight points. La France, huit points. Ordinateur!

Eurovision Legend of the Day

Luxembourg: Poupée de cire, poupée de son, France Gall

Poupée de cire, poupée de son was Luxembourg’s entry to the 1965 contest, and is an absolute classic of sixties’ Eurovision. Written, composed and produced by Serge Gainsbourg, the song is yé-yé at its finest (meaning ‘wax puppet, bran puppet’, or ‘puppet of wax, puppet of sound’, depending on who you ask) and featured a stunning performance from the then 17-year old France Gall. The camera just focuses on the closest of close-ups on her face, whilst France, seemingly without nerves, allows herself a bit of a head-shake as a routine, as her raw voice totally overpowers the orchestra, and [OK, that’s quite enough – Ed]. Poupée de cire… appears on the album Les Sucettes, the title song of which is essentially an ode to oral sex, although the young France says she had no idea it was about that at the time it was recorded. Given Gainsbourg’s track-record, I’d be inclined to agree – him telling Whitney Houston live on a French chatshow that he’d like to fuck her, and the song Je t’aime, are quite tame compared to the song Lemon Incest - which he performed with his daughter. Poupée de cire, poupée de son, then - iconic Eurovision.

How Eurovision can save the UK

Bhangra! Given that there is a huge audience for bhangra in the UK, it is therefore an integral part of our culture, and should be entered for Eurovision. I’ve often thought it was strange that no one has tried it already. Giving all the ‘credibility’ nay-sayers a big slap, no one could argue that any bhangra-themed song would be unoriginal – and it would definitely sound unlike anything else in the contest. Bhangra (with a key-change) can save the UK.

Sure as eggs

Back in the day, I used to work at Top of the Pops Magazine, and someone there had the hilarious idea to get popstars to decorate hard-boiled eggs as themselves. Most of them told us to get lost, but no less a personality than Rachel Stevens HERSELF stepped up to the paints, and laid us a beautiful egg in her own image.

It then fell to me to photograph these eggs to go in the magazine, so they were gingerly handed to me with the immortal instruction: “DON’T DROP THE FUCKING EGGS!”

Of course, the very first thing I did was let Rachel Stevens The Egg roll off the table and shatter into pieces. Not to be deterred, I took a photo of her anyway and just touched up the cracks in Photoshop – which is probably not a million miles away from what actually happens to most popstar photos before publication. Apart from Rachel’s, of course – we’re sure she has a skin like purest alabaster.

Anyway, this rather long and not-especially-interesting anecdote came to mind when I heard about E4’s E4.com’s Egg Fight, in which eggs done up to look like celebs must face trial-by-microwave to see who pops first. It’s probably the closest you’ll ever come to seeing Jordan, Jodie Marsh and Kerry Katona being boiled alive on the internet, and that has to be worth two minutes of anyone’s time.

There’s a load more web-exclusive stuff to look at too, including two young Scots travelling the world performing 101 Challenges set by E4 viewers. Most lowculture readers will probably think they’re a pair of idiots, but they do seem to get their kit off quite a lot, so that’s something at least.

Eurovision – 12 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

Norway: Hold On Be Strong, Maria Haukaas Storeng

I may have gone on the record previously as saying that this was a weak entry for Norway. However, having listened to it many times, seen it performed, and accosted the singer herself, I now realise how wrong I was. Hold On Be Strong is a storming ballad, with lyrics in the best Norwegian tradition of introspective analysis of the self. Sings Maria:
Love can be hard sometimes,
Yes, it can catch you off guard like bad crimes,
Yes, it can make you depressed and angry,
Make you say: “Why me, why won’t anybody try me?”
More subtle than Sweden or Iceland, and just downright better than Denmark, Maria’s paean to loneliness and love needs to go through to the final to show the likes of Ireland, Spain and Estonia how it should be done. And for the UK, it should be a lesson in how to bring so-called ‘credibility’ to the contest, but actually making the song memorable.

Norway, ten points. Norvège, dix points. Catchy!

Eurovision Legend of the Day

United Kingdom: Don’t Play That Song Again, Nikki French

‘One of Britain’s top female singing exports’, the amazing Nikki French represented the United Kingdom in 2000 with Don’t Play That Song Again. Sadly, that’s just what many people did do, but they are just WRONG. Simply unappreciated by the UK public (that actually selected her and then sent the song to number 34 in the charts) and the European voters, who decided that Denmark’s Brødrene Olsen, with their Cher-stealing Fly On The Wings Of Love should win, Nikki actually did all of her song without the assistance of the vocoder, and with a routine, so she was actually better. Still very much on the circuit, we all adore Nikki French. Rumours that Kelly Llorenna is doing it next year have been unsubstantiated. Deeper voices do travel further, though, so that’s a plus.

How Eurovision can save the UK

No judging on the night. This year’s pre-selection was an utter disgrace, not only for the way that Terry Wogan was given actual power in terms of deciding who would go through to the final, but also for the way that the performers were judged by John Barrowman and Carrie Grant in the manner of The X-Factor. It wasn’t an amateur talent contest, these were industry professionals who wanted to enter the contest to gain more attention for their music, not naïve beginners with DADS WHO ARE DEAD. To sit there whilst the judges tore their performances to shreds was an utter humiliation for all concerned, and surely career-damaging. Getting rid of ridiculous judging panels can save the UK.

Eurovision – 15 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

Czech Republic: Have Some Fun, Tereza Kerndlová

The most ridiculous video. Someone spent the budget on booze and poppers, it would seem, so everyone else decamped to a coffee shop and put the song on on the stereo whilst Tereza (the face of Maybelline New York) mimed along and served a few customers whilst she was at it. Efficient, at least. However, that dog is contravening EU hygiene regulations.

Czech Republic, eight points. République tchèque, huit points. Quite good.

Eurovision Legend of the Day

Switzerland: Ne partez pas sans moi, Céline Dion

From Dublin to Las Vegas and beyond, this early Céline number is outstanding. Reaching the very heights of Eurovision splendour, with effortless vocals, she does not miss a single note (even if she gets the words slightly wrong at the end, oops). This is one of the last proper old-style Eurovision songs that seriously stood a chance, before ridiculous metal-rock (I think it is called) monsters, and overwrought GREETINGS (who most certainly did not perform to Céline standards on the night) infiltrated the security barriers around the stage.

How Eurovision can save the UK

Get rid of Terry Wogan! Yes, a controversial one, but let’s admit the truth (and see if anyone is actually reading this). Wogan is not funny. He doesn’t actually like Eurovision. And, in essence, HE is responsible for this year’s UK entry. Most unforgivably, perhaps, he talks over the songs, including the UK’s entry last year, Scooch. This is just not on. (Although if it is as a result of the pints of Baileys, then I can maybe understand it, as my actions under the influence of drink - Kopparberg Pear or Mixed Fruit before they reduced the alcohol content to a pitiful 4%, if you’re going to the bar - would be comparable. Or much worse. Come to think of it, aquavit, vodka and whisky are all acceptable too). Perhaps it is time to hand over to Paddy O’Connell, commentating on this year’s semi-finals with an eyebrow raised just enough, but with an obvious love and, more importantly, respect, for the entries. Getting rid of Terry Wogan from the commentary box, and especially any future judging panels, can save the UK.

Eurovision - 16 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

Malta: Vodka, Morena

Seemingly not a fan-favourite. I don’t care. From the moment Morena graces the Maltese stage with HAIR and EYES and LIPS and LEGS, she basically owns the entire island. And this is before she’s even gone into the crowd mid-performance to get everyone off their arses and clapping along. Spy One to Spy Four, Morena is Mata Hari, but without the double-agent-shagging and treason. She is on our side. And the video is fantastic – she needs to be in the new series of Spooks immediately.

Malta, ten points. Malte, dix points. Fabulous.

Eurovision Legend of the Day

Iceland: Minn hinsti dans, Páll Óskar

Those who know me are well aware of my long-standing love for Pálli. I met him the other day, and just stood there speechless, whilst he looked at me intently and perhaps with some confusion. My normal way of pulling, then. And it turns out he’s my height, so I could have been ‘in there’, as they say. Regrets, regrets. This, then, is The Moment That Eurovision Changed Forever. With his PVC-clad contortionists, Páll sings of London, Paris and Rome, drinking Cristal champagne, and how he regrets nothing (unlike me), as he dances his last dance. In Icelandic. Making the performance just as important (if not more so) than the song, Pálli set the standard for so many future acts.

How Eurovision can save the UK

Gays! A Swedish acquaintance of mine says that the sorry lack of proper pop in the UK charts is all down to the fact that the gays have all gone from the industry. I agree. Straight men are more than welcome to view Eurovision from a distance, but they must not have any involvement in songs, performance, dancing or voting. Gays can save the UK.

Eurovision - 17 days to go!

Eurovision 2008 Song of the Day

Iceland: This Is My Life, Eurobandið

This is a massive song, performed with aplomb (yes, a big plomb) by Friðrik and Regína, with the legendary Páll Óskar pulling the strings (he’s already sacked the back-up dancers for something much more amazing instead. They’re pissed off – we don’t care). Slightly late for the nu-rave revival, it doesn’t matter, because this is going to be fucking amazing when it is performed. Having heard a recent live rendition of this, they are going to bring the house down in Belgrade. So that will be an early exit from the semis, then. Here is the extraordinary video, featuring Perez Hilton’s Icelandic cousin.

Iceland, twelve points. Islande, douze points. Amazing.

Eurovision Legend of the Day

United Kingdom: Making Your Mind Up, Bucks Fizz

Cheryl Baker, you are outstanding. The week before last, twenty-seven years after winning the Contest, you stood up proud on stage, allowed Mike to check that it was OK, and then let him rip your skirt off as your executed a perfect key-change. YES! Dedication’s all you need.

How Eurovision can save the UK

Key-changes! This year’s entries for the (joke that was the) pre-selection were conspicuous by the absence of any key-changes anywhere. We require key-changes. They turn great songs into amazing songs. If they are crowbarred in as audaciously as possible, even better. The key-change can save the UK.