Why did she bother coming to the UK to ‘perform’ on the X Factor last weekend? Seriously, she did not sing one word of her latest tripe offering of a song. Every contestant on the show sings to a very high standard every week, put 100% effort in, and pray and hope for the opportunity for a career in music. Britney got lucky. She was cute and could dance, she was in the right place at the right time. She doesn’t write or even sing her own songs!

She did not mentor any of the contestants – unlike Take That, Will young, even Mariah Carey, the biggest diva on Earth, helped out the contestants with advice, offered encouragement, and actually performed live. Britney swans in at the last moment of the show, prances around in hot-pants for a few minutes, shaking her ass in everyone’s face and somehow thinks everyone loves her.

I know this was last week, the reason I’m writing this article this week is because Paramore performed live recently with their new song, Decode, and completely wiped the floor with Britney’s ‘performance’. With the likes of Britney, the Pussycat Dolls, and all the other big-boobed or long-legged talentless whores in the music today, it’s a relief that there are some skilled people left out there.

Upgrading to Vista, (unlike downgrading to XP) was as easy as anything. Just shove in the CD, put in your code, and press next. Done.

Vista instantly looks very good without any customising or setup. This could be because XP is actually very old now, and looks dated by today’s standards. Even so, Vista looks very flash right from the go. After installing key drivers from a CD (supplied with my machine) connecting to the Internet was a breeze, and from there I downloaded all my usual applications such as Firefox, Steam, and such, without any problems.

This was the point last time where I got stuck. Gaming was slow to the point of being unplayable, Firefox worked but was slow, and many applications crashed all the time or were totally incompatible – even with the ‘XP compatibility mode’ enabled. Within a week I had had enough and went back to XP.

This time around however, it was very smooth sailing. Updates all downloaded and installed fine, it looks great and I can’t think of anything that doesn’t run as well as it did on XP. Even anti-virus software, which was a real pain initially, now runs perfectly. If you’re running Windows Aero the Explorer menu’s looks fantastic, and there are so many neat touches (transparency, windows switching, application previews etc) and considering there is no lag in performance when compared to XP, its pleasantly surprising.

So, if you are still on XP and your hardware can manage the demands of Vista, I would highly recommend you make the switch.

Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand, two of the UK’s best comics have been wrongly stripped of their jobs. I could write pages on exactly why they have been wronged, but I’ll put it to you this way. The day after the broadcast, 8 complaints were registered, by the end of the week, 19 complaints, two weeks after that, around 30,000 people thought it necessary to vent their anger.

A major part and contributor of this is my arch nemesis – the media. Those bastards that decide what should be popular, who should be famous, and what constitutes as news. Case in point, some papers like the Sun, accept that maybe people don’t buy their paper for cutting edge reporting or highly reputable doumentation, because no offense (irony intended) men buy it for the breasts on page 3, women buy it because it will have reports on the latest crack whore to sell their sympothy story. The Daily Mail tells us of a new reason to slit our wrists every day, and most of the others are biased in some way.

My point is that the media do not actually report news. They tell us what to think and put their own spin on news stories. An excellent quote from a Harry Potter book (can’t remember which) is “the media exists to sell itself, not to report”

Getting back to the whole Ross/Brand/Sachs situation. Because some stuck-up, hypocritical daily mail readers didn’t like comedy coming from two under 60 year olds, close to 8 million listeners have to miss out. If you think about 30,000 complaints out of 8 million – it’s nothing at all.

I’m on the subject of hypocritical whingers, Muslims have been quiet recently, but lets not forget the list of things which have upset them – A kids teddy bear, a danish cartoon, a football, Avril Lavigne, a puppy, Apple. I could go on but thats enough for now.

*Edit – no its not, full list here and discussion here.

If anyone watched ‘Live at the Apollo’ last night on BBC1, fronted by the ‘family-friendly’ Michael McIntyre, you would have noticed that he swore twice, which is twice as much as Jonathon Ross swore on Radio 2 a few weeks ago.

I don’t like a lot of things on the TV and radio. I don’t like for example, Time Team, Terry Wogan, anything with the word ‘celeb’ imbedded in it, but I don’t complain and have a furious meltdown, venting my spleen to anyone who will, or won’t, listen.

My point is that if you don’t like something, don’t watch/listen to it!! Why should I, and millions of other listeners, miss out on the massively talented Ross and Brand shows just because SOME people (a vast minority) don’t like it?

Main influences of the band have been cited as Queen, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, and Weezer. Whilst none of these are particularly prevalent in the bands overall sound, there are subtle nods to these bands both musically, lyrically and dynamically in the band’s music. Battelle in particular, embodies the energy and direction of the band. A versatile vocalist and guitarist, he has developed a unique stage style and appeal which has grown to include alternative slide guitar techniques, and the crowd-pleasing ‘flip-catch-guitar-solo-with-shoe’ move. Certainly at the Paramore gig this was unexpected, and the energy and enthusiasm shown rubs off onto the crowd. To sing, play and be a frontman takes tremendous skill and confidence, and when he pulls it off right, it seems like they’re the only band in the world. So, having listened to Say No To The World, here’s what I think.

Elysium is a truly thunderous opening to the album and a slap in the face to anyone who may doubt the bands potential or enthusiasm. (Note; the Youtube version is not the album version.) In a Jesus of Suburbia way, the song incorporates many different styles and rhythms in the one song, and being just shy of 6 minutes long, isn’t overly long either. The tempo starts fast and grows faster and faster until roughly halfway through when the song winds down to a slow drum-dominated beat where its hands in the air clapping/swaying/lighters in the air time. After a brief guitar solo, the song picks up speed again and finishes slightly slower than the start, presumably because Steven is knackered by this time.

Followed by this is Unleash The Sands Of Time, which is easily the catchiest song on the album. ‘To say goodbye is the hardest thing in life’ will stick in your head for weeks after hearing it a few times, and the overall song is probably my personal favourite. As with Elysium, the guitar riffs are very catchy and Steven once again displays his wide vocal range with high and low pitches throughout. At the Paramore gig, this was the song where everyone I could see was clapping and singing along which gives you an idea how good this song is.

Track 3, Silence, reminds me of a heavier version of The Bravery’s song, An Honest Mistake, because of the focus on symbols and short stop gaps in the song. Distortion effects on the vocals are cool and unlike some songs, don’t ruin the sound at the same time. Ethereal and Predators In A Maze are the only real ballad-y song, and is a break from the rest of the 100mph songs. Genevieve is the heaviest song on the album and there are some absolutely fantastic guitar riffs and solo’s thrown into the mix as well as crashing drums, and is the song which shows what the band is about. Playing loud, fast, catchy songs, and Blood Is Sharp is similar, catchy and loud.

LostAlone have toured and performed with some truly big names, including (of course) Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and made a huge impact at the Give It A Name festival. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) has also singled them out to keep an eye on, so have a listen to the links above and see what you think. I think what is great about LostAlone is that while not a totally unique band, they do have their own style and appeal. They’re fresh and just play straight up rock music, which is refreshing in the current indie and emo dominated scene at the moment.

Overall – 8/10