THE ZINE IS ONLINE

AND AVAILABLE TO VIEW... RIGHT... HERE! It took us fucking ages to write and has our articles on;

• Artist of the Year
• New Artist of the Year
• Albums of the Year
• Singles of the Year
• Performances of the Year
• and a fucking amazing Pop Opus 2011 poem which is better than anything you did at GCSE Literature

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

...when we have shit loads of essays and assignments for university to complete, menial wage-providing jobs to perform, presents to purchase (mostly for ourselves) and fabulous European cities to visit for long weekends... and on top of all this, when we decide to produce for no enormous reason a paper zine for our wonderful blog readers. We printed off and posted a few off at the end of December 2010 to realms as far away as Australia, Indonesia, the States and Milton Keynes, and would be interested to see if there's the same amount of... erm... interest in this years. Whether there is or not, we're making one and it's going to be fucking fantastic. You'll giggle your tits off as you sit on your bed, covered in and coughing up glitter, wondering why your New Year all of a sudden looked ten times brighter.

If you'd like a copy - think of it is as our Crimbo present to you - email us at chazandlindy@gmail.com as soon as you can. Last year we spent hours upon hours upon hours of writing, editing, photoshopping (tbqh we use Fireworks but that hasn't transitioned from noun to verb yet) and a fortune on printing and posting but again we're not going to charge for them because above all the zine is a pleasure to produce and we love to know you guys enjoyed it. We're gonna set up a PayPal just in case anyone would like to donate a mere pound or so to cover postage, but that's totally optional. We're definitely not going to start a career as one of those pesky grabbers who stand with clipboards on British high streets soliciting for our credit card details. But you can send them as well if you're feeling particularly flush.

So to summarise: we're making a second zine, send us yr emails with addresses if you want one ASAP, they're definitely 100% free but if you'd like to cover postage we're happy for you to do so. Who knows, one day they might be worth more than a bob or two on eBay. Hurrah!

Update your bookmarks bbys!

We've hit puberty and bought our own domain - we're a real website now! So make sure you change your bookmarks from http://shiny-and-new.blogspot.com to http://www.shinyandnew.co.uk. We feel silly creating a whole post to tell you this, so to fill the space out a bit here's a photo of Madonna looking amazing in celebration of Manchester Pride this weekend, because Manchester Pride is often attended by large numbers of gays and Madonna is also often attended by large numbers of gays.

Happy New Year!

May your 2011 be a million times more fabulouser than any preceding year... x

Baby Cheeses?

Enjoy a mince pie on our behalf, darling readers.

Merry Christmas x

Baby gurlz!

We are so excited to officially present Issue 1 of the Brand Spanking New Annual Shiny & New Christmas Zine, jam-packed-full of sugar and spice! In your personalised little booklet of love you will find;

• Exclusively before anyone else, our World Famous Album of the Year run-down
• Not as exclusive, nor as exciting but Still Amazing Single of the Year selection
• A mammoth re-cap of our Artist of the Year
• Delicate and flowering musings, thoughts and poetry from your favourite S&N guest-writers
• Cut-out lyrics to keep and use when you're taping the Christmas chart show to dance and sing along with post-turkey!
• What would this bullet-point list be without the final point of: "And much more!"

The orders have been flooding in (exaggeration has always been one of our finer points) and we're ready to print and post starting with next week. To get your order in for your FREE Shiny & New Christmas Zine, e-mail us at chazandlindy@googlemail.com or direct message us on Twitter @shinyandnew with your full name and address, and before Christmas Day you'll find a cute little brown envelope full of glitter, tinsel (well, it depends how much we can fit in) and of course your very own copy of our first ever print edition. Who knows... they may be quite valuable one day.

The cut-off point for orders will Sunday 19th December for UK orders, and Friday 17th December for international orders. You want it for Christmas, right? It wouldn't be the same without it. Get e-mailing!

Right, gurls.

Us here at S&N have had an amazing two and a bit years typing up what's swirling around in our noggins and we want to enter a new medium... by taking a step backwards. We're in the process of writing and printing our very first annual (if it's successful) zine - Shiny & New, but on paper. It'll feature our World Famous Album of the Year run-down, and some very special pieces on very special people. We've even got some exciting guest writers lined up, including but not limited to our grandmothers. But the thing is... there's no point in putting all this work in (we're doing degrees ya know!) if no one is going to order one. It will be completely, entirely free so we're writing, printing and posting you a sparkling Shiny & New Zine all off our own backs. The saints we are. So... if you want one, you better ask for one quick. Email us at chazandlindy@gmail.com, or direct message us on Twitter @shinyandnew with your name and address, and we'll add you to the list. You're all fabulous, we love our readers, you're why we carry on doing it. So if you want to make your Christmas shinier (not sure about 'newer'), tell Santa (well, us) you want an S&N Zine from his big, bulging sack. Ta!

Shiny & New Turns 2: #1 "Get Together" - Madonna

“Do you believe that we can change the future? / Do you believe I can make you feel better?”

In 2005, Madonna was past it. In the general view of the public, the glory days of her career were long behind her and she had simply become too serious for her own good. How could the same woman who would make your heart flutter as she sang "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free" record the angry, dark "American Life", or the minimalistic, barely penetrable "X-Static Process" in 2003? Of course, the eponymous album was critically acclaimed despite being the lowest selling LP of her career (it still made number one) yet she wasn't the same Madonna. And then she decided to try on a purple leotard. Confessions on a Dance Floor all but erased the memory of the experiments with French philosophical electro of two years before, and was directly inspired by the thumping bass lines, infectious samples and euphoric vocals of her early career. "Hung Up", over twenty years into the woman's career, became the biggest selling single in her recording history, and Confessions went to number one in twenty two countries.

I wasn't even a Madonna fan in 2005. I knew of her, as any listener of music does. I'd received Ray of Light as a present when I was eight years old, listened to it a couple of times and put it at the back of my collection. I'd bought the "Die Another Day" single in 2002 on account of it being the finest James Bond theme, no discussion, but it wasn't until I was sixteen or seventeen when I had my "Eureka!" moment and realised just how enormous her back catalogue of fantastic, challenging, exciting, moving, beautiful, clever music was. I’m not ashamed to admit that in the past three years, Madonna has been the single most important influence on my music tastes. I’ve discovered countless new artists, many quite unlike Madonna, simply through associations. One of the most recent examples would be Meshell Ndegeocello, an African-American lesbian singer-songwriter who happened to feature on a Bedtime Stories track in 1994 – I now have her entire back catalogue and count her amongst my favourite women in music. So you get it right? In my iTunes solar system, Madonna is the Sun. But Bjork is Jupiter, duh.


“Get Together” was the very first song I purchased from iTunes, the very first Madonna song I went out of my way to find, and the very first Madonna song I listened to on loop. Over and over again. Still today, nothing can put me in a mood quite like “Get Together” – it is essentially three minutes of melancholy euphoria, that dichotomic staple of very good pop music, that very few artists manage to master. In a bold nod to her very first album, the bass line is lifted directly from 1982’s “Holiday”, which possibly explains the rush of joy experienced through listening. Ask most Madonna fans what the happiest song she has is, and they will probably answer “Holiday”. The synths are overwhelming and enveloping – it is a breath taking experience I can only liken to the sensation of walking to the edge of a skyscraper and placing your hands on the ledge, or standing at the front of a boat and seeing a horizon of sea and nothing beyond it. The listening experience is infinite and potent.

That endless optimism is a feeling I have only begun to experience in the past couple of years, since beginning my very first long-term relationship. My affection, my adoration, my heated, impossible to quench yearning (you can go get the sick bucket) knows no bounds. It feels like it can go on forever, with no end in sight. There is no wall, there is no limit, there is no frontier. I’ve never known it before. It is a feeling I feel lucky to have, and is what keeps me on my toes. When I watch Madonna perform “Get Together” on the Confessions Tour and burst into a euphoric dance floor spin in the emotional climax of the song, I feel a rush of pure, uncontrollable, immeasurable love for the other person I proudly write this blog with.

•

So here ends the usage of first person pronouns. Our twenty songs are up, and like we said at the start of this list; they are twenty songs which hold, to use a cliché which has been in use since the dawn of Dolly Parton, a special place in our hearts. They may or may not be the finest work by that artist, and they may or may not be our favourite song by that artist, but they are the most special piece by that artist who is/are special to the two of us. We have enjoyed writing this blog for the past twenty four months more than we ever thought we would, and we want to do it for a good while longer. Thank you for reading.

P.S. Thank you to Richard Croft for giving us the inspiration of charting a series of songs which hold significance to us. If you haven’t already, his blog, tracking a whopping one thousand and one songs through his listening life, is a must-read. Start at the end and make your way through!

More Google Creepiness...

Everytime music news is slow we like to check up on what weird google search shit has lead people to our blog. It's an international blogging sport. The recent crop isn't all that weird in comparison - we'll never get over people finding our blog via 'peter kay sharted' (beyond disturbing) - but we hope you enjoy them nevertheless:

• katie melua smoking
• drastic shinies
• emilie+sapphic
• fuck katie melua
• gay pictures
• insert lame joke
• shiny leotard

And worst of all:

• pussyflappen

Horrifying.

Express Yourself.

Today is a very very very special day (no it's not the day Madonna's critically acclaimed novella The English Roses - Ready, Set, Vote is released to paperback... see above). It's the day you get to tell Britain not to go for second best baby, put your vote to the test, you know you know you've got to make Britain express itself because then you'll know its love is real (?). Okay that didn't work nearly as well as we thought it would.

Anyway, vote carefully, and as for our voting allegiances, we shan't say (all part of our feminine mystique, as Linda LaHughes would say) but considering how shirtlifter-orientated our whole blog is, we're thinking it's quite obvious.

Happy voting!
xoxo

EASTER LOLZ JESUS.

Just what you want at this holy time of chocolate and lamb shanks (?) - a song about rape and sexual abuse that uses crucifixion as a metaphor for... well... not sure. Self-pitying? Self-blame? Self-hatred? Low self-esteem? Depression? Anti-feminism?

Whatever, we hope you have a Happy Easter Time and remember that Jesus died for you, so that you could gorge yourself on Creme Eggs and contemplate suicide when you notice how fat you've become.

xoxo

P.S. Oooh never noticed how 'crucifixion' has an x (a CROSS) in it. How cryptic. Must be a conspiracy. *rings up Dan Brown to suggest sequel to The Da Vinci Code*

In the spirit of creepiness...

More things people have googled that somehow lead them to stumble across our site:

• sade -de -marat -marquis
• peter kay sharted
• ferocious grape
• afternoon licking
• shakira horrible

Quite just how strange you would have to be to google "peter kay sharted" we have NO idea. We can only fear for our lives.

"Are you having a good time tonight? That's good cos you can't have your money back."

Well, as it happened we didn't want our money back. It had it's cons, but 'boy' did it have it's pros. The Monster Ball starring Lady GaGa rolled into London on Friday night and yours truly were there to bathe in the glory, filth and glow of the hermy herself. Upon seeing the YouTube videos from the beginning of the tour in the US, we were extremely skeptical. The show looked like it was lacking in basic choreography and movement, with much of it based on GaGa standing astride a large LED-framed box and barking commands at the audience. The barking was apparent in the revamped UK tour, yet we could not have asked for more kinetic activity. We loved seeing the choreographies directly lifted and brought to the stage from "Just Dance", "Poker Face", "LoveGame" and "Bad Romance" - the routine in the performance of "Telephone" got us all warm and tingly simply because of the anticipation for the (now revealed to be twelve minutes in length) video coming soooooooon.

The costumes were typical GaGa - what do you expect? - and the huge fuck-off new disco stick was fabulous. She could not have been more energetic - engaging with the crowd constantly, a brand new routine in each consecutive song or so it seemed, shouting out to her gay boys... We did leave the arena feeling a little oversaturated with the constant ramming down our throats (not often we get tired with that) of the "monster/little monster/Glitter Way/Monster Ball" shit though. To be honest, it's great and it's imaginative and different that she attempted to make her concert a little more musical theatrey and bring more showy elements but it just wasn't executed well enough to seem remotely convincing. The different themes and skits were too much of a detraction from the performances themselves, and we simply believe they should have been there to bolster and enhance them. The gaps between songs and performances took its toll towards the end of the night - it just seemed like there was too much excess which could have easily been cut out. We've seen a great deal of succinct, tight and consistent concerts before to not notice this with GaGa.

We don't want to overly concentrate on the negatives though. Apparently it shortens your life. The opening number is easily in our top five concert entrances of all time (ooh there goes a new idea for Top Ten of the Week!), with the brilliantly atmospheric projections giving way to lots of vogueing and posturing. With every fluid movement of her limbs the crowd roared, and who could blame them? Everyone in that quite large room was in awe of the ho on stage and quite rightly. The finest show we have ever seen for someone's very first solo arena tour, and we probably wouldn't expect anything less from Lady GaGa.

Special S&N Field Trip

Guess where we're going tonight?

Our exciting and controversial new feature...

As eagle-eyed Shiny & New followers will have noted, we have a new 'read more'/'after the jump'/'get more clicks for our website' feature that we have currently applied to our ENTIRELY UNIQUE (*glares evilly at specific point in interweave*) patented feature: 'Hot Right Now'.

The idea was, really, that quite often our fairly long 'Hot Right Now' charts clutter the main feed and lead to unnecessary scrolling down. Plus, we're aware that the feature is not interesting to everyone, so we thought we'd give you all the CHOICE to click 'read more' and peruse the chart at your leisure.

This is the bit where you go down to the comments and tell us how you feel about one of the most boring developments in blogging ever to happen. We may only get comments once in a fluorescent beige moon, but they are important to us. And we KNOW (through the miracle of Google Analytics - a tool both powerful and frightening) that we have a lot of readers, so let yo voices be heard, even if it's just to say that you either didn't notice or you don't care.

Thanks so much. We'll be grateful grapefruits.

xo

A late addition to our 'What's Shiny & New for 2010'...

Rated R Tour,
Live at Manchester MEN Arena,
Sunday May 16th 2010

Previously: 'What's Shiny & New for 2010'

Mon amour...

While it is clear that we are not primarily a social-awareness or humanitarian oriented blog, there are some things you just can't ignore. We're sure you've already given something because only amazing people read our blog, but in the ridiculously small chance you haven't, purchasing "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" featuring Jay-Z, Rihanna and a couple of Irish losers from some band, would be an excellent start. We're not going to preach or anything because there's nothing worse than sounding like Bob Geldof but sometimes you really do need to give.

Drumroll please...

1. New material from Robyn.
2. Madonna’s next studio album
3. Goldfrapp Return…
4. GaGa's Monster Ball Tour Live at the O2
5. Joanna Newsom
6. New music from Ellie Goulding, Delphic, Marina & The Diamonds and Hurts.
7. Kelisssssssss!
8. P!nk's Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour Live at Ricoh Arena
9. Róisín Murphy and her material, however it’s released.
10. Pixar’s Toy Story 3
11. M.I.A.’s new work.
12. Whatever it is Xtina Aguilera has to offer.
13. Drew Barrymore’s Whip It!
14. Lady GaGa’s third (yes, third) studio album!
15. SATC 2 (yes, it will be dread, but we are gay)

We've been RUBBISH.

Quite frankly, your Shiny & New writers have been simply appalling. To be fair it was the Christmas/New Year holidays, but it's now the 8th and we still haven't returned to the dizzyingly high standards of pre-Navidad. But it will change. We promise.

Coming soon to your favourite amateurish music blog:

• Albums of the Year 2009
• What's Shiny and New in 2010
• General amazingness.

Back to the gym!

Long time no speak?

What a fabulous Christmas we had. Plenty of excellent food, moderate to good television, reconnecting and enjoying family and friends, and of course a big satistifying sack from Santa.

We will be back with a big in 2010. Soon we will be bringing you the second annual installments of Albums of the Year and What's Shiny and New, and then the fun really will begin. We will leave you now to finish off the turkey in the fridge and continue watching RSC members do a 'flash mob' at Waterloo Station. Nothing on Janet Jackson's.