FLAWLESS GOTHIQUE MASTERPIECE

Situated somewhere between surrealist masterwork "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Adele's slightly odd "Rolling in the Deep" video, the new Gossip visual is a strange, gothic meld of smoke! hair! eyes! lips! drums! rainbow! choreography! choreography! lips! hair! eyes!

Beth looks beautiful and we watched it all the way through without getting bored so it's a 21st century vidular win!

Is that all there is?

We LOVE (the) Gossip. We do. They were our first 'amazing' gig, Beth Ditto was our first lesbian icon and their emergence in 2006 was one of the biggest catalysts for our explosion of homodom and interest in homo music. We wrote our A-level English Language coursework on the band's history and while instantly we were never into their real early Olympia riot grrl material we've learnt to appreciate it with time. Standing in the Way of Control was our mid-teen years, and as for Men in Love; flawless flaw-free sans flaw. Let's not even get started on the auditory ambrosia which is Beth Ditto's solo EP (should've been titled 'Goddess'). So... why aren't we creaming our knickers all over "Perfect World", the lead single from the forthcoming Joyful Noise?

The song is great. Extremely enjoyable, and a more than worthy album track - or even follow-up single. But we're just not feeling it for 'first single' material. This is a problem we've had with a few bitches lately, and we don't know whether it's us or them. Are our expectations just too high or is the material actually sub-par? Usually we'd look to other peoples' opinions for a watermark but general feeling seem to be just as mixed about this material as our own. I mean, so what if our expectations are high? We've loved each Gossip album more than it's immediate predecessor, so we've become used to hearing even better shit, and not only that but HELLO XENOMANIA. The closest thing we have to modern day House of Motown or Stock Aitken Waterman (shudder), our favourite Kentish producers in the world and the Girls Aloud behind Girls Aloud have their fingers in this massive Gossip pie and we were SO excited. Maybe we're being too negative. We're enjoying the song. It's a lot more lush and 'full' than they've done in the past, which is good we guess.

Maybe we're just fucked off cos we know we probably won't be able to see their imminent supporting tour. Damn gap yah.

(oh, hello Shiny and New's two thousandth post!)

WHY has this only just come to our attention!?

Once upon a time, we had a conversation with Ms. Beth Ditto, via MySpace - would you believe it? Hey, it was 2008. We were in a bit of a stan-frenzy having found ourselves actually conversing with (at the time, and still today) a huge hero of ours, and as you do, we asked her what her favourite Madonna song was. "Vogue" was the response, however it came with a caps lock lecture concerning Madge's re-appropriation of a dance developed by poor gay blacks and Latinos in New York and an imploring to watch the documentation of this phenomonen, Paris is Burning. Three years later, we've fallen in love with said documentary and the very same Beth Ditto is performing said Madonna song in live sets supporting her outstanding EP produced by Simian Mobile Disco.

Do you understand what this means?

Beth Ditto + "Vogue" = the stuff dreams are made of.

Aside from her sudden casting off of her annoyances with Queen M, it seems all too clear that Beth Ditto was born to cover "Vogue". We know the above video is taken from the obviously gay day at Lovebox but to hear the entire crowd yelling the rap to a twenty one year song conducted by a truly modern icon sent more than a few shivers down the spine. It all seems too good to be true. Beth's video for "I Wrote the Book", the lead single from the EP, was unashamedly lifted from Madge's videos for "Justify My Love" and "Erotica", while amongst the first rumours to leak from Madge's own recording sessions for the new album were snippets concerning the heavy influence of Beth's EP on the tracks. Our brain feels like it's been put in the microwave on high.

What did we do to deserve this?

Is a record label exec living in our brainz?

We've been a tad sloppy with this (why is tad our new favourite word? It's shit) but we've both been very fucking busy lately so quite the side eye. Beth Ditto's incredible dance EP with Simian Mobile Disco has birthed an incredibler video in which Beth Ditto re-enacts "Justify My Love" but replaces the whips and chains with routines from "Vogue". What the fuck is going on lately with everyone bumming Madonna? We absolutely love it. The woman herself hasn't done anything in about two years (lazy shit) yet all of a sudden, everyone is paying homages left right and centre. "Express Yourself" has been worn out, with the song being stole by GayGay and the video being re-made by Xtina. Fortunately, World's Number One Dyke Icon Ditto has picked up the mantle and has whipped out two other classic M vidz, putting them behind an amazing dance tune. Werque!

DISCOFAB

This, just revealed on Popjustice, is the PROPER artwork for Beth Ditto's incredible little EP. It's certainly an improvement on the previous blue-waffle-goes-futurist cover floating around the interweb:

Let us warn you, do not google the aforementioned 'blue waffle'. This is not one of those reverse psychology things. DO NOT GOOGLE IT. We have warned you. You have been warned.

(Nearly) all of our dreams have come true.

When we heard news of this possibly happening a few weeks ago, it genuinely felt like some higher power had delved into the Files of Things We Really Want to Happen and agreed. Beth Ditto is one of our genuine heroes - when we were beginning to develop individual ideas and thoughts on what it's like to be a teenager who happens to be gay in 2007, she was the first figure in music we encountered who seemed to make it fucking cool. "Standing in the Way of Control" was the anthem of that year, and we followed Gossip obsessively from that point onwards. A gig in September of that year saw her jump, writhe and grind on the faces of my friends and I (we were on the front row, duh), before we had a Spontaneous Crazy Moment and threw our t-shirt (which we had written our MySpace address on - bless - and pleaded with her to contact us on it) onto the stage. She picked it up as she left the stage, before coming back on for the encore - wearing it. Actually... *scurries to YouTube* oh no, someone had uploaded a video of her actually wearing my t-shirt but it seems that in the three years that have since passed it has disappeared into the ether. Hang on... *checks photo archives on computer and travels back in time to MySpace* OH MY GOD

We feel sixteen again! We used to exchange MySpace messages occasionally as well, during which (upon asking her what her favourite Madonna song was) she said that we would completely re-think our opinions of Madge if we watched Paris is Burning, the famous documentary about the underground vogue ballroom dances held in the late eighties/early nineties - we still love Madge because she steals everything and we've always known that. This all came about the years during which our musical taste directions were solidifying, and having such interaction with a genuine musical hero of ours was phenomenally exciting. Messaging on MySpace in 2007 was as liberating to interacting with musicians as Tweeting them is in 2011. We had a chance to meet last year when we won tickets to see Gossip in Manchester which included a meet & greet afterwards, 'cept from post-gig, it seemed like they couldn't be bothered as the manager came out and told us they were too tired. Extremely disappointing, but it couldn't dim our love for her.

We have always thought she had a voice perfectly suited for throbbing, dance-floor magic; people have been saying for years that she is one of the few white singers who could pass for black, such is the power of her voice box. Gossip's most recent album, Men in Love, took us as close to dance music as her voice had ever come before, with "Love Long Distance" being a particular highlight, yet it was last year's collaboration with Simian Mobile Disco, "Cruel Intentions", which was Beth Ditto doing dance. It was incredible, powerful, spine-tingling stuff, which was a perfect evolutionary step towards completing her first solo EP with the dance outfit. Cleverly entitled The Beth Ditto EP, it's comprised of four wonderfully crafted pop-dance tracks; "Open Heart Surgery" and "I Wrote the Book" press all the right buttons in terms of euphoric melodrama melded with stomping floor-hitters, while the remaining half "Do You Need Someone" and "Goodnight Good Morning" are more than good.

Beth Ditto EP preview by Deconstruction Records

We love Beth Ditto, and if you don't - you're mistaken.
PS, thanks for coming on this little journey through the past few years of our musical life, we didn't plan for the MySpace/PhotoBucket hacking to cut in half way through!

Stuck In Our Head: "Cruel Intentions" - Simian Mobile Disco (feat. Beth Ditto)

This came on in a high street clothing store yesterday, and despite having featured heavily on our Best of 2009 playlists last year, finally clicked fully. It's been stuck in our heads ever since.

Beth shows her true colours...

Beth Ditto is not in our good books, and hasn't been for a while. We haven't got round to explaining the full story of our unsavoury encounter with our former icon at Latitude Festival, but let's just say she's still got some making up to do. She's making baby steps with the next single from Simian Mobile Disco, a fantastic (and British!) electro duo who made the sound of our summer in 2006 with this. "Cruel Intentions", on which she guests, does exactly what we always hoped a Beth Ditto guest song would do - sound like a throbbing, ominous electro-dance Ibiza anthem - something her vocals are perfectly suited to. The backing track would be thrown away without another thought to it on it's own, which is the downfall of many an electro act who often enough believe they can fill an album with melodies they have put together without vocals. Unfortunately, it is very rare (and not impossible, we can name a few instrumental tracks we adore) that this is sufficient, and Ditto's warbling makes the song what it is. We were hooked on the "Call me up, we'll hang out" refrain which adds an icy poignancy to the closing of the track, and would love to hear this beefed up in a stinky grot of a pub in Shoreditch this summer.

Pensive-face.

Beautiful.

Oh HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL NO.

We don't usually delve into the realms of petty gossip on this site because we're more interested in the MUSICZ BEHINDZ THE PEOPLEZZZZZZZZ, but something has deeply touched and disturbed us and we must VENT VENT VENT. If you are brave enough, go here, and experience it for yourself.

Basically, the brunt of it is that Beth Ditto likes Peaches Geldof and has said she'd do her, because, y'see Peaches has decided like Lindsay Lohan, Jodie Marsh and Mischa Barton's character on the O.C. before her, she must go fauxmo. That's 'fake lesbo', for the uninitiated.

There's a vile quote and everything:

"We love Peaches. She is so much fun. I'm pleased she's discovered the joy of women. I would get with her. There's so much I can teach her."

We've never met Potatoes Geldof, but judging from her general air of stupidity and entitlement and her DREADFULly written column in Nylon magazine, she is about as much fun as a bout of genital scorpions. What's worse is that we saw her hanging out with the Gossip backstage at their show. There's nothing more sickening than seeing people you admire be nice to people you don't.

A glamorous Gossip video...

There's a lot of gold in this video, and a fair amount of glitter: two things you can never have too much of. There are also some shots of people standing in front of eachother moving their arms around so it looks like they are a Hindu god with 6 appendages. Let us tell you, readers, that when we were a wee child and saw both Kylie Min-ogg-yew and S Club Juniors (bear with us) recreating this exotic and mesmerising visual trickery on Top of the Pops we were inspired to take up a career as a popstar, just so we could do this on stage. That'll be all.

We forgot to mention...

We were on the front row for the beyond-existing-words Gossip gig at the Scala in Kings Cross on Thursday night, and were blown away all over again by the tremendous amount of energy the entire band, particularly everyone's favourite skinny-bitch-destroying-vagina-inclined-towards-diva, Beth Ditto, emits. We were especially pleasantly surprised with the new material the band played from the eagerly awaited Music for Men. The band have infinitely improved by adding a fourth member to their live band, with a new guy taking over Brace Paine's former bass duties, allowing him to add a guitar, synths and keyboards to the formerly-destined-to-grow-stale-very-soon mix. While their older material still holds up to it's thumping, aggressive power of pre-Standing in the Way of Control days, an injection of new aural adventures were required and they work to impressive effect. Two of our writers were stars of the show for brief moments during new song "Men in Love" when they demonstrated their own 'love' for La Ditto. Ahem!

Of course, as with every post-2006 Gossip gig, the atmosphere and energy of the crowd is quadrupled with the Standing climax, as still three years after it bombarded it's big lesbian boobs through the UK charts and Skins adverts alike, 60% of Gossip 'fans' were only at the gig for that song. We weren't complaining as it's acceptable that these 'fans' will only learn the brilliance of their new material through attending the gig in the first place. It's enjoyable to see them still performing the material from the days when they were actually still an independent label band, something rarely seen in bands who 'hit the big time' for want of phrase less loaded with fromage, particularly slow burner "Yesterday's News" and stomper "Fire/Sign". The material from their 2006 album was also much appreciated, however the new material shone like a big gay diamond dangling from Ditto's left lobe. We cannot wait to get our grubby hands on a fresh copy from HMV (yes, we are making a point of purchasing a physical copy from a physical shop, physically!).

Closing the set with a rendition of Tina Turner's "Private Dancer", sung from the middle of the crowd, Dittodonna left the stage with her bandmates to hang out with the glorious likes of Peaches "Massivest Twat In London" Geldof (unfortunately for their street cred, but we've given up trying to look for that!) and we went home enormously satisfied on a belly full of chicken baguette, donuts, McDonalds fries and human persperation all the way from Portland, Oregon. Apologies for the blurriness of the photos below. The purpose is to demonstrate the energy of the show (evidently there), and how close we were!

Recommendations
"Heavy Cross" - Gossip
"Yr Mangled Heart" - Gossip
"Private Dancer" - Tina Turner

Stuck In Our Head: "Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix)" - Gossip

After only just getting over the brilliance that is the brand new, re-recorded high quality version of long-circulated Gossip demo "Heavy Cross", we are faced with the unbelievable Fred Falke remix we've just got our greedy little hands on. Transforming the almost sinister, ruthless tone of the original into a euphoric, upbeat yet unmistakeably confident dance floor filler, which we hope is exactly what is does. Fills dance floors.

Eargasms abound!

A Genuine Vision of Beauty

This was the highlight of Radio 1's so-called Big Weekend. We weren't there, but we still know.

Beth ditto being gorgeous...

That is all.

Public announcement

As warm-up preparation for the lengthy list of dates they are embarking on at festivals around Europe this summer, Gossip have announced a short tour of the UK. When we say short, we mean two dates. Manchester and London. We have tickets for the latter.

Oh Beth... you didn't NEED collagen and now you look like Jocelyn Wilderweiner! This is why you shouldn't get plastic surgery...

That wasn't very funny. WE CAN BUT APOLOGISE.

Int she gorgeous?

Apparently (according to Jezebel) Beth Ditto isn't happy with these new pictures from Out magazine... we have no idea why! They're not the fiercest things ever shot but she sure looks fine (and that was fine, as in, "fiiiiiiiiiiine" not as in "just fine").

It's not often that we say this but...

What a (genuine) LEDGE.

*CUMS*

On the last News Toilet we featured a link to a thingy about a new magazine called LOVE, edited by the entire team of POP magazine (which must now be defunct? or is it still going?)... anyway we were lead to believe that the cover of the first issue would be the perennially annoying Agyness Deyn dressed as the Queen.

Praise the Lord because apparently it's not. Apparently it's this! Which is much much better isn't it?

We love Beth Ditto. She's the epitome of fabolusity and we'd much rather have her naked on the front of LOVE than that anorexic tard. They're probably doing that 'multiple covers' thing and releasing more than one, though. (UPDATE: they are... there are more covers with Lily Donaldson, we think and Iggy Pop).

BOYCOTT THE DEYN.