I can’t believe how crazy the music industry is currently going about this years Christmas number one. There is a ridiculous amount of chat surrounding a campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to beat off Simon Cowell’s music machine to the top spot. I’ve had a lot of people asking me what my opinion on the whole situation is. Personally, I have about as much interest in who wins the race to the Xmas top spot as I do watching Sonia from Eastenders cover herself in baby oil before gyrating up and down against a vat of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.The charts in general hold no meaning to me in the slightest. They just provide an opportunity for the big record labels to take their “squeaky clean butter wouldn’t melt” artists and place them on a pedestal against others from the same family. The whole thing is a farce. Depending on how marketable the individual is, depends on the level on promotion that the label are willing to invest, and from that will then determine how they get on in the Sunday countdown. The whole thing is bull shit and I can’t be bothered with it.
It wouldn’t matter if Rage Against the Machine, X Factor, Mr Blobby or my mate Dave was announced as Christmas number one. I still wouldn’t care. I’ll be too busy eating my turkey to give it any of my attention.
Now, onto more important matters, The Velvet Underground shared a stage for the first time in ten years this week at New York's Public Library. Lou Reed, Moe Tucker and Doug Yule took part in a debate on the legacy of The Velvet Underground.The event saw Lou Reed hail Moe Tucker as the best drummer he has ever worked with. "I've tried since then to get a drummer to do what she did, and it's impossible. They can't," Reed said. He went onto say, "If we sped up, she sped up. Instead of having a drummer who'll sit there trying to hold the beat down, our songs speed up and slow down all over the place."
Now a discussion on the New York band wouldn’t be complete without mention of Andy Warhol. The iconic artist produced TVU’s debut album. "Warhol was one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life," Reed explained.
"Without him, [The Velvet Underground were] kind of inconceivable. When they hired us to make a record it wasn't because of us, it was because of him. They didn't know us – they thought he was the lead guitarist or something!"
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