Pop Musik #2

Our fave pop music fanatic is back! Columnist @JackDMurphy proves that last week’s prediction about Adele v2.0 (AKA Leanne Mitchell) was correct, draws our eye to yet another case of Simon Cowell being financially frivolous, and gives his opinion on all the Azealia drama.

I don’t like to say ‘I told you so’ but Leanne Mitchell, winner of BBC talent show The Voice (remember? No? Don’t blame you) managed to sell just over 6,000 copies of her winner’s single. To put that into perspective for you, Gary Barlow’s number one single sold over 89,000 copies. Leanne missed out on the UK Top 40 completely, peaking at number 45, ironically her fellow contestant Bo Bruce (who came joint second) was riding high in the top 5 of the iTunes chart with Search The Night, an EP that she recorded TWO YEARS ago. Hopefully Leanne’s debut album, which is due to be released later this year, will fare better and prove her critics wrong.  As much as I rolled my eyes at The Voice every week, I never missed an episode and admittedly I was at a complete loss this weekend without it on my TV. How long until X Factor starts again?

Speaking of which, did anyone else wonder why Simon Cowell (who’s currently ill with bronchitis) flew Louis Walsh stateside to stand in for him at the X Factor USA auditions? Of all the mega stars SiCo has at his finger tips he pays a cool £160,000 for private jet return for Walsh to cover for him for 2 days? First Boris Johnson on David Letterman’s show, now this. Our international public image is getting a thrashing. But hopefully the announcement of Adele duetting with Leona Lewis at the Olympics opening ceremony next month will stamp that out and put Britain back on the credibility radar.

It was a good week for another X Factor judge this week; as well retaining his number one album spot, Gary Barlow’s single ‘Sing‘ also nabbed the number one spot. And if that wasn’t quite enough to sing about, it was also announced this week that Gary – an award-winning singer-songwriter and lead singer of arguably Britain’s biggest boy band (or should that be ‘man band’?) – will be receiving an OBE for his contribution to music and to the diamond jubilee.  Very well deserved, if you ask me.

Even before the release of her first album, Azealia Banks is no stranger to stirring up some drama and this week has seen her shake things up even more. Earlier this year Banks confirmed that she would be dropping out of all of her UK live appearances to focus on her album; however, this week has seen her ‘amicably part ways’ from her (and Lady Gaga’s) manager Troy Carter.  I’m not convinced at just how ‘amicable’ this parting was after Banks took to Twitter to say this –

“I know who you are yes…You short bald man…I know you planted these false stories. Guess what?: I’m still not going to let you manage me again. I’ve dealt with enough cyber bullying to see right thru this. I will definitely be working BY MYSELF and saving MY 20% On management commissions while I avoid you sharks in the water….”.

This change in management has meant that Banks’ name has (for now) stayed on festival line up posters and websites – so does this mean that she is in fact touring as she first promised? I think (and hope) so!  After publicly dumping her manager, this week then saw her dramatic exit from Twitter, deleting her account and encouraging her millions of followers to keep an eye on her Tumblr instead. On the blog she claims that she’s leaving her rap roots behind – in a post titled ‘No Longer Wishing To Be A Rapper’ she said, “From now on I’m a vocalist, and will not be associating myself with the ‘rap game’.”

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what comes of all this as Banks is still set to take to the 1Xtra stage at Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend on Sunday 24th June. Still no news on who the Special Guest will be on the Sunday, but Radio 1 has confirmed that Saturday’s will be Nicki Minaj. With Minaj setting the bar high, I’m on tender hooks as to who will be Sunday’s special guest! Stay tuned…

-Jack Murphy