Entertainment For Lively Minds
Cheryl Cole is on the cover of the new Q
Posted by DrJ on 22 December 2009 - 10:39am.
I used to religously get Q every month, way back in the day of the Ellen editorship. I stayed with it for a long time, it did a pretty good shift during the britpop years to cover the stars du jour. When edition 200 featured paparazzi shots of a naked Courtney Love on the cover, it was time to say goodbye (especially if anyone remembers the doorstep that was the amazing Q 100). Putting CC on the cover makes me feel like an old fogey (I'm 35) - this magazine doesn't care about music anymore does it? I'm not anti-pop as my Robbie fandom will attest, but this is celebrity stunt publishing, non?
(If there is any conflict of interest in having a Q thread here feel free to delete Mr.L.)
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Seriously
this is not an affectation, who the feck is Cheryl Cole ?
If it isn't an affectation
If it isn't an affectation why not just google her?
Because
when I'm having a conversation on a blog, and also making phone calls and replying to emails as well, I do not always have the time to google. Is that ok with you ? Your fairly new and maybe you're not in the best mood this morning.
She's a
racialist that knocks about in nightclub toilets Robert. These sort of facts aren't available on Google. You're welcome.
I've had a look
and she's bit brazen isn't she. Very Matalan.
How dare you
She's the People's Primark Princess
C'mon
Feel the snobbery.
True
She dresses almost entirely in Alexander McQueen, I've been told by people "in the know".
Still not
very classy though. Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Rampling,now you're talking.
Anyway
different tastes and standards is always dismissed as snobbery these days in our Blair created lowest common denominator benchmark society. I'm not saying ban her for God's sake, each to their own and all that, but I'm not obliged to like what she represents either.
But given that, at 10:45 this morning, you had never even heard
of her and didn't have time to Google/Wikipedia her, you must have done some pretty intensive study over the last 4 hours to decide you don't like what she represents.
Is there really not a single GA track that you feel has any merit or do you not get on with straightforward pop music? I'm genuinely interested to know.
I'll be absolutely honest; I neither like nor dislike her. She's a member of a good group who follow a long and illustrious tradition - The Andrews Sisters, The Chordettes, The Shangri-La's, The Ronettes, The Supremes, Bananarama. Will history view GA in the great pantheon of girl bands? I'm not so sure yet.
Oh god, what a load of
Oh god, what a load of pompous nonsense. It has nothing to do with tastes or standards. Referring to someone as 'Very Matalan' or 'The Primark Princess' is pure, undiluted snobbery.
I am entitled to
be a 'snob' just as you are entitled to be a supercilious eejit.
Still here Mr C?
I thought you'd spat your dummy out.
Anyway, that's my last word on the subject. I've no desire to get into a Middlerabbit / Archie situation.
Ah, but I have
manners. I don't lunge unprovoked at people due to genuine pomposity and rudeness, Old Boy.
Gentlemen
If you're going to continue in this manner, I'd appreciate it if you could do it by e-mail. Thank you.
I've no desire to continue
I've no desire to continue in the aforementioned manner. In fact, in the festive spirit, I'd like to apologise to RobertC for being a) a snippy bugger and b) a bit Citizen Smithish.
Excuse me
Re: my comment 'the people's Primark Princess'
It. Was A. Joke. Cheryl Tweedy/Cole's background is not dissimilar to my own so I'm hardly likely to attempt to pull any social points on her. But thanks all the same for caring.
And for the record, I happen to think Girls Aloud have made some really rather good records. However, this is tempered by the thought that those records could have been made interchangeably by five other half decent looking girls with half decent voices (as they all are) - the songs and the production are all and they are not responsible for those. But there's nothing wrong with that either, as anyone who likes a bit of Motown (to provide just one example) will testify. I wasn't impressed with her solo single - I thought it was a bit lacklustre to be honest.
What Cheryl Cole is indicative of is a certain Heat/X Factor demographic. And that, it cannot be denied, is pretty much marketed all over the media as being trashy and low-rent. She seems fairly content to be presented that way.
"anyone could do it"
is up there with "it's just noise" and "you can't tell whether they're boys or girls" in the pantheon of Daddish criticism of music.
Yes, anyone COULD sing a load of songs by Xenomania. So why haven't they? Girls Aloud's success, spanning several albums, is unprecedented. Nobody else could do it, even given the songs. They are a fascinating and brilliant phenomenon.
No, that's the point
lots of people have sung a load of songs by Xenomania, and with no little success.
It wasn't actually a criticism of Girls Aloud, just an observation that much of the creative impetus comes from the production side - like I said, there are quite a few GA songs I do like. And, much as some of us here don't like to admit, this kind of production line is a big part of the pop music culture - it's quite possible that a number of Motown or SAW (to pull out two examples) songs could have been sung by any number of groups on the labels and they wouldn't have sounded any better or worse.
Snobs rule
It might be looking down on Mrs Cole with the Primark reference, but I look down my nose at any arse who is paid a fortune to advertise hair shampoo yet confesses to wearing hair extensions.....PIECE OF SH*T!!!!!
A pedant writes...
The TV ad does have a caption explaining that Ms Cole is wearing hair extensions.
If the client is happy for her to wear extensions whilst advertising their product, and clearly states so on a caption, who are we to criticise her as an individual?
Ahem, m'lud
She was cleared of racially aggravated assault.
But guilty of assault occasioning ABH
Sentenced to 120 hours of community service and ordered to pay £500 in compensation, as well as £3,000 costs.
Indeed so
But I was responding to the earlier post which referred to her as a "racialist". Irrespective of proximity of tongue and cheek, I suggest it's a tad risky to accuse her of a crime for which she's been cleared.
Not just risky
but ridiculous.
Call me old-fashioned but I prefer to reserve terms like 'racialist' for people like Nick Griffin and the Ku Klux Klan, not Cheryl Cole (it might be pertinent at this point to remind people who her husband is) and Tony Beek / Anton du Beke.
Using the term "racialist" can be
ridiculous. That's why I used it. I was being ridiculous. If I'd used the word "racist" then I'd deserve a good emptying of my coffers by Cheryl's lawyers.
I'd also have no evidence that Cheryl Cole has ever been charged with "cottaging" and would like to make that crystal clear re my O.P.
As I said
these are the cold hard unequivocal facts based around apologetic words missing from Google. Hell's bells I need a drink.
Missing from Google?
If you Google 'Cheryl Cole', the second link is to Wikipedia which contains an entire section relating to her personal life - including her offence.
In reply to "why not google her"
I was suggesting that an internet forum provides immediate opinion which may be short of fact. But the lack of drink led to a high level of rot in my post.
I have no reason to google the lovely Cheryl. I follow her every move. Every move. EVERY move.
Joke removed
Yes, I'm a coward.
Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary
Oddly enough :-)
Not a problem really - just
Not a problem really - just reflecting (as they have always done from the mid 80's) the huge selling artists. Maybe it's taken up a bit of the slack from the demise of Smash Hits.
Lily Allen was on the cover not long ago.
Apparently Cole has a few
Apparently Cole has a few harsh words for young Lily in this very interview. The Word's blacklist awaits!
I stopped buying it....
...when Christian Aguilera turned up on the cover. Nothing against her, as she can fair sing, but I had moved on. Took me years to find another magazine that I enjoyed as much as I had Q from 1988 to 1996 or whenever that was.
Me too...
The Christian Aguilera cover flopped onto my doormat and I'd cancelled my subscription within the hour. To be fair, it had been going downhill for a while and seemed to be built solely upon lists, so I was happy to see it go... but yes, in its prime, Q was the best.
Christina
Aguilera has been on the cover of Word too, to be fair. With the same picture repeated inside - stockings and suspenders if I recall. Needs must. Actually, she's a pretty good singer, unlike Ms Cole and Ms Allen. I remember being amazed at how she got away with this, in an OTT modern female singer kinda way. I bet she could sing her new single live on telly though:
I'm sorry...
but that was bloody awful. Everything that made the original great - the groovy swagger, the sparse and perfect arrangement, the wonderful musicians that listened to each other - is lacking. Yeah, she can hold a tune, but surely we require more than that from our pop stars?
Uggh
I hate it when pop stars try and get "rock credibility". They don't need to cover hoary rock chestnuts and they don't need to wear goth makeup and have clunking, patronising magazine covers explain how they "rock".
Christina needs no more proof than this of her brilliance:
I agree
But the general thrust appears to be that we don't even require pop stars to be able to sing. CA can certainly sing, though I agree she is lacking in taste!
It's not about the music
It's all about sales and targeting the common denominator. Cole on the front of Q and Simon Cowell on the cover of NME are aimed at the Heat/Closer market.
Maybe music lovers are in a minority now?
They're for floaters
Surely the cover is there primarily to grab the floating buyers. If you subscribe to a magazine then the cover is not aimed at you.
Funnily enough
I've thought about using a rolled up copy of Q to deal with a floater.
Hope it's not the current issue.
Mind you, it's shiny paper. You could probably run it under the tap.
I bought the first issue...
... and continued to buy it for several years.
Dropped off somewhere in the early-90s, picked up a few since then...
Stumbled across a full set on Ebay this time last year, and at a reasonable price.
Decided to "invest", and also subscribe to the magazine.
I must have read only about thirty pages in total from the last 12-months' worth of editions.
Ended up flicking through it on delivery day every month – and then ditching it under the coffee table, never to be picked up again.
It's just dissolved into something flat, bland and cloyingly narrow. Extremely irritating.
Just how much Kasabian and Killers can one reader take?
There is nothing thought-provoking or even reasonably interesting in there these days.
It's not even that well-written any more.
So I sold the complete set about a month ago amidst a storm of yawning indifference.
Goodbye Q, from the young man in the twenty-second row who sees you as something less than worth wasting a few minutes a month on.
To an extent...........
I'd say it's fair improved since Paul Rees took the helm in the issues I've read. There are some decent articles and columns in there - the John Harris columns are always readable - type face is way too small though (or is that just my eyes?) -
I only now read Q if the cover appeals....so I guess which is why the cover tries to reflect the biggest selling, most newsworthy Brit pop/rock star du jour. Cole, like it or not, is undoubtedly Queen B at the moment and I wouldn't be at all surprised if sales receive a huge spike, despite January being a traditional poor seller.
Q MAGAZINES FROM ISSUE 1 TO ABOUT 250 FOR SALE.
You can have the lot for about £20 quid. Which is what I will pay you to lug the buggers out of my garage loft and give me back two cubic yards of junk space.
I would advise the use of a substantial 4x4 vehicle for this enterprise, as I will not pay for any collateral damage to your purveyance of choice.
Errr....she makes music
And quite a lot of good music - Girls Aloud are excellent and her solo stuff is really good. She's probably the biggest pop star in the UK. She doesn't play a guitar, but apart from that she's pretty well qualified to be on the cover of a music magazine.
Am I missing something? Are pop stars not allowed to be really famous any more?
Old fashioned
I think it's the old fashioned idea that they can do more than pose about in their underwear. Sing, for example. Even write the odd song. As the face of an efficient production machine she does well though, you're right. Once they'd rebuilt her face, hair, figure etc.
I don't think that's fair
She does a fair bit more than just pose around in her underwear. That's a bit demeaning...
She's one fifth of the biggest girl group of the decade, she has just released her debut album which flew off the shelves, spawning a mega-hit first single (which is really really really good) and her next single looks set to follow suit, which given that it's quite a departure from the average pop song, is pretty remarkable.
She can sing really well - if as she you say she's the "face of an efficient production machine", then she's also the voice.
Elvis never wrote a song in his life. What about the Motown artists? Just faces of an efficient production machine?
I suspect
All of the above is due to the efficient publicity machine which surrounds her and the endless exposure she gets on the TV/radio. Plus her undoubted (if man-made) attractiveness. Nothing to do with her own modest talent. She couldn't even sing her single on her own TV show.
The point I'm trying to make is...
She makes music, lots of people really like it (myself included) so I don't understand why there should be any sort of fuss about having Britain's biggest pop star on the front of a pop music magazine.
I don't see why the usual Q parade of Killers, U2, Coldplay are acceptable if she isn't. They might all write their own music but it doesn't make it any better. If it's a good tune I don't care if Postman Pat wrote it.
Plus I'd definitely rather read an interview with Cheryl Cole than Bonio, Brandon Flowers or Chris Martin
Yes
I agree. One of the best pop groups for a very long time. And what's the problem? Do people want a never ending parade of Beatles on the cover?
Nope
that's what I don't buy Uncut/Mojo for.
Mind you Uncut had some up and coming NY Hipster type band on the cover the other month. All skin tight strides, sunglasses and German backing singers - what the f*ck is that all about? Luckily their latest cover announcers an in depth focus on Bob Dylan's year in Uncut in this month's Uncut.
Well fine
each to his own. I have never knowingly heard her and have no desire to, but that doesn't mean no one else should, clearly.
If you've never heard her,
If you've never heard her, why the negativity? Girls Aloud are utterly fantastic, but I don't like her two solo singles, thus far.
Errr...
...how do you know she can't sing then?!
You see that Cheryl Cole?
You fancy her, you do. You want to snog her.
There's a queue......
Get in line. No cuts.
Cheryl Cuuurrrl
The Beatles mimed on TV and the E-Street Band mimed at the Superbowl. It's not new. It's not a modern phenomenon. It's just the way TV often works.
But in this instance, she did sing the song live, AFAIK, albeit not particularly well. Now I love Girls Aloud, but I think the solo record is weak, and to be honest I'd much rather she had mimed. If it's mainstream pop, I don't care about any kind of perceived notions of authenticity because, quite frankly, I don't think it's relevant. Apply this thinking across the board and you may as well ditch all movies containing CGI and only watch Dogme95 productions, or refuse to view cooking programmes where the dishes aren't cooked in real time.
It's about being entertaining. Full stop. Now if you don't find it entertaining that's completely, absolutely reasonable, but all that stuff about publicity machines and what she wears and whether her face has been rebuilt or not really shouldn't really form the basis of your opinion of the finished music, should it? Judge the artefact, not the artifice.
Industry bods please answer..
Can you use an Autotune-esque facility on live vocals?
As far as I know...
Yes, I believe it's used fairly regularly.
Yeah, but no, but yeah...
The crux of the Cheryl mime "controversy" was that she's herself a veteran of a talent show where she had to sing live every week, and she's now judging other hopefuls who are all singing live too, so the notion of her miming (rightly or wrongly) seemed off-message. Lady GaGa managed to sing live, I honestly can't see why CC couldn't, though I agree that it's not the be-all and end-all for a pop act.
On the night, she ended up doing the compromise of singing along to her own pre-recorded voice, allowing her to drop out whenever she felt the need without losing the vocal. And yes, there are autotune-alikes which work "live," but tend to make the vocals sound nasal, which can be a giveaway if you listen for it.
And hey, maybe part of musical success is earning the right to mime to your own records without scorn...
Point of pedantry for m'learned friends...........
Presley has a writing credit on Love Me Tender. Possibly in the same way as Ridgeley has a writing credit on Careless Whisper but, there you go...........!
Further pedantry:
Apparently, once massive popularity had been acheived, the 'Colonel' insisted writers give Elvis a co-writing credit or he wouldn't record their songs. (My source for this is the Goldman hatchet job, mind...)
Apparently
the Colonel demanded 50% of the publishing of "I will always love you" from an at-the-time pennyless Dolly Parton, on the basis that 50% of an Elvis hit is better than 100% of nothing. Needless to say, Dolly declined, and went to to say that she has earned more from that song than from all her other publishing put together. Smart girl, Dolly.
Standing up to the Colonel
Thank you Twango for giving me yet another reason to admire Dolly P.
I've tired of her
I don't mind her as an X Factor judge, though her constant 'you look like a little pop star' comments pall, but musically I don't think she's up to much.
She's merely a pop fox, nothing more, nothing less.
Apparently Guardian columnists moaned about Abba
Back in the day.
Indeed they did
I watched ABBA win Eurovision with Waterloo and everyone thought they were laughable.
I gave up on Q
When they gave the 2nd Razorlight record 5 stars.
Yeah, Cole might not be an
Yeah, Cole might not be an amazing singer but as part of Girls Aloud she's a brilliant pop star and has released some of the best pop music of the last 20 years.
Aye
..and she's a north east lass as well...........she's got EVERYTHING going for her !
Is it just me?
Easy on the eye she might be, and a nice person so long as you're not a khazi attendant, but she does seem to have the personality of a damp cardboard box.
My last Q was the one which gave both Semisonic's All About Chemistry and Daft Punk's Discovery five stars.
"My last Q was ..."
"When did you pack in Q?" is the new "what was your first gig?".
Having said that I can't remember mine. Though I imagine some fatuous list was involved.
Issue 200, seeing as you ask
HAving read from issue 1. I have occaisionally picked it up at a local magazine stall since, where they sell back issues of music mags at @3 for £1.50. Based on this thread I dropped by this lunchtime and picked up a few of this summer's Qs (covers with Lily Allen, Noel Gallagher and Bruce Sprinsteen) and shall investigate this evening.
Noel G always gives good
Noel G always gives good interview, so you're guaranteed at least some sort of read for your £1.50.
Issue 200 here as well
Although the last couple of years were force of habit and often went unread.
Ditto
I also read from issue 1 but gave up at issue 200 (it seemed a nice number to go out on). I had got to a point where I was buying Q, Empire, Mojo and The Word but I was only really reading The Word thoroughly. I'd accumulated far too many back issues so something had to give - now its just The Word......
No Borders, No Q
Yep - 200 here too (actually it may have been 202 as I had a sub but 200 was the magic number). I wonder if I'll ever open a copy again as in recent years I've only ever picked it up in Borders for a browse first and from today that's not going to happen again.
Is that the same
Daft Punk's Discovery that's featured as one of the ten albums of the decade in the current issue of "The Word", a popular pop periodical? A view which, incidentally, I share.
I think Discovery's a great album
So, for that matter, is All About Chemistry. But not ***** to my mind.
Good Fur Q
maybe the Word could follow their lead and put Lady Gaga on the cover.
Yes
please!
Only if her beard is showing
Usual sort of photo shoot for Lady G., then.
Ashley Cole
now there's a subject worth a thread of it's own. Why the fragrant, lovely Eliza Doolittle of the noughties is wasting her time with that overpaid............oh right. He is a waste of good oxygen though isn't he?
I have little difficulty
I have little difficulty keeping my enthusiam for Ashley Cole under control, let's put it that way.
So...
...you've not heard the rumour about that marriage then?
I've heard it, but don't
I've heard it, but don't believe it for a second. It's all too far-fetched.
OK, give us a clue
or direction to the relevant online sources...
EDIT - ah, I see. Thanks.
How he could play away from home
whilst having a missus like Cheryl Cole is beyond me...aren't men weird?!
Aren't they on one of those showbiz contracts?
Think Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
I think it was a mutually beneficial partnership....
At the time.....
Wouldn't be the biggest shock in the world to forsee a parting of the ways in 2010 now Cheryl has hit megastardom
What the deuce?
edit - double post
The South Park episode about Tom 'n' Nicole is definitely
worth searching out - Cruise gets in a strop and shuts himself in a closet. Cue everyone shouting at him Come out of the closet, Tom
I don't know if I changed or
I don't know if I changed or Q. I'm a bit older than the OP, and have moved from being an avid completist to getting it if it's around.
'm pretty sure that my musical tastes haven't altered all that dramatically. However, where I source my information HAS changed, and more by necessity than choice.
I moved to the States 7 1/2 years ago. Then, I moved heaven and earth to get Q, Empire, and Private Eye with every edition (I know, subscriptions are available...)
Now my British staples are Empire, Private Eye, WSC, and The Word. I find something in each of those that grabs my attention and speaks to my cultural demographic and attitudes.
That emphatically does NOT include la Cole or her ilk.
Of those four, Cheryl Cole has recently appeared in
at least two...
have I missed something?
a pretty, quite successful, pop star on the cover of what is a pop mag these days. remind me again, what's the problem?
Quite so
much, much better her than bloody Coldplay or Bongo again.
Its Not About Music Anymore..
We are all getting old...
No different to having Aguilera on the cover
On which, while I've previously felt Aguilera typifies the Carey school of over-singing, I'm intrigued that her new album features songs written by Ladytron, MIA, Goldfrapp and Sia.
Sia
She could teach Aguilera a thing or two about over-singing.