Glenn Sez: The Spice Girls, Mark Ronson, Justice, Rihanna

Hi guys! It's me again with some stuff about music that probably doesn't interest you!!

The Spice Girls are reforming! To celebrate this momentus occasion I decided to list a few things that are better than The Spice Girls so you can guage how supremely hilarious/awesome this news is.

THINGS THAT ARE BETTER THAN THE NEWS THAT THE SPICE GIRLS ARE REFORMING FOR A WORLD TOUR:
The Sun - Because the sun is pretty awesome if you think about it.

Chinese Takeout - Really! I love Chinese take away food. My dish of choice is the Cashew Beef. Mmmm.

That Episode Of Seinfeld Where Elaine Lived In A Janitor's Closet Just So She Could Get Chinese Takeout - And then the residents of the building made her take the trash to the garbage tip because they thought she was the janitor when really she was just there because the chinese restaurant wouldn't deliver to her side of the street. omglol, right?!

The Secret World of Alex Mack - 5.30 ABC every day was Alex Mack and I loved it!

Loony Guests On Late Night Chat Shows - Like when Crispon Glover was on Letterman.

Tim-Tams - They are the greatest biscuit ever known to mankind.

The Lyric "Ziga-Zig-A" - Let's face it, this is the single greatest lyric in the history of music. Bob Dylan? Pfft. He doesn't know anything about writing lyrics when compared to the awesomeness that is one of the best pop songs ever, "Wannabe".

...and that's about it, really.

Mark Ronson's CD Version has been out in the UK for yonks now, but it's only just come out here and even though I heard it yonks ago too I only really thought of mentioning it now. By now you've surely heard the amazing version of The Smiths' "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" retitled simply to "Stop Me" and featuring the vocals of Aussie lad Daniel Merriweather. It's the best song on the CD for sure (they sample lyrics by The Supremes!!!) but I am also quite partial to Ronson's version of The Zutons' "Valerie", now with vocals by Amy Winehouse - her voice is so good. And I also quite like "Oh My God", originally by the Kaiser Chiefs, and now by Ronson with Lily Allen. Ronson's version of Britney Spears' amazing James Bond Theme "Toxic" with lyrics redone by the late Ol' Dirty Bastard and Tiggers is truly bizarre and bonkers, but is kind of fun. Definitely have a peek at the album. You may be surprised.

Justice are being buzzed a lot lately as "the new Daft Punk" and it's fair to say that the title is entirely justified. If you haven't heard lead single "D.A.N.C.E." (which sounds like old school Jackson Five mixed with, you betcha, Daft Punk) then GO LISTEN TO IT RIGHT NOW. It's actually about him too so it makes sense, really. Outside of that obviously radio friendly single the CD † is filled with less in the way of mainstream poppy music and more funky European dance. I am loving "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy" featuring Uffie and "Dvno" fearuing, er, Dvno. It's a pretty great album all up and better than Daft Punk's last CD Human After All (of which I was actually more of a fan than most.)

Lastly, as if all my talk about Rihanna hasn't worn you out: here's more! When I was out on the town last night not only did we hear "Umbrella" multiple times which resuled in the club going off their rocker (seriously, it was like everybody there instantly turned into a pack of feverish rabid... somethings), but they also played "Don't Stop The Music". I originally said that when this song is played in a club it'll make people's heads explode and during this song it was a bloodbath. She still has yet to release "Shut Up and Drive" as her second single, which will be followed by "Don't Stop the Music" as the third. If they're already playing it in clubs then it's going to be huge.

Thirteen Random Observations About Different Things

1. I saw my neighbour of two years today for the first time. He always has his blinds down and I never see him, but today he was out doing gardening! I just assumed he was a clichéd serial killer living in seclusion with an ever-growing collection of corpses filling up his garage.

2. I just watched Lars Von Trier's Idioterne. It was bizarre. I don't think I liked it.

3. I thought my computer had crashed! But it turned out it hadn't! And that was the end of that fascinating story.

4. I walked down to the shops before and someone had tied their dog to a pole so it wouldn't run away (as you do). But this dog actually looked like one of the hyenas from The Lion King. I was hoping it'd start sprouting sassy R-rated Whoopi Goldberg jokes. Alas, it merely barked at me and I scampered away because...

5. ...I hate dogs. I was chasing around one at work the other day for 30 minutes! It kept running back into the store (and I was in charge). And because we didn't have a Yellow Pages to get a number for a vet or a pound I decided to use 12456 Directory Assistance, but it turns out we can't call that from work so I had to go upstairs to use my mobile phone. The vets I contacted were closed so I rang the lost animal home and they were all "We don't collect animals" and gave me a number for the council, so I rang the council and they were closed and then I exploded into a million different pieces. That's why I like cats. Cats wouldn't do that!

6. I had a dream last night that Ja and I were having a big fight about Hostel (shocking, right?) in this 3D parallel universe and then I mysteriously jumped on the stairmachine at the gym and out popped Ja with Tori Amos. They ripped my face off. Or, a layer of face? Cause I still had my face after it. Still, Ja and Tori Amos ripping your face off? Not recommended!

7. Did I ever tell to go buy Amy Winehouse's Back to Black and Armand Van Helden's Ghettoblaster CDs? Cause you should. Ghettoblaster is the one with the most boring album sleeve in the history of music. No joke.

8. Did I also tell you about how when I went to see a movie at the cinema recently (perhaps it was... Curse of the Golden Flower? That was the last movie I saw at Village so I guess it's correct) that they showed a trailer for Half Light. If you're not aware of this movie, don't worry. It was a (supposedly) terrible Demi Moore Scotland-set thriller about a lighthouse or something. Thing is, I saw Golden Flower in April... if you click here you will notice Half Light was released here (very limited) on July 20, 2006. It was already out on DVD! That's utterly bizarre. Sort of like that time I saw the trailer for Ocean's 12 three times in a row at the same session.

9. Speaking of release dates, neither Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (formerly of Grindhouse) or David Lynch's Inland Empire have release dates. What are we? In the freakin' stone age or something?


10. For no apparent reason the other night I went through Collateral (Michael Mann's amazing movie) and took, like, 40 screecaps. Because that movie has the best cinematography of the last... well, a long bloody time! (yes, even better than Children of Men in my eyes).

11. I served this lady at work the other night that looked exactly like Jane Lynch.

12. Does America and everywhere else that isn't the UK or Australia get Parkinson? It's this British chat program from England with this old geezer (Michael Parkinson, right?) who interviews people. They're usually a load of tosh with the guy talking about how lovely the guest is. Last week they repeated an episode from a while back where he interviewed Kate Winslet and, yeah, she is the greatest woman on this planet. "Look at me now!" I love that bit that all his guests have to do when they walk out at the top of the staircase and then pause to look at the audience. I love it more when they act shocked that there's an audience. "People?! I didn't know!"

13. I'm hungry. I think there's some Shapes in the cupboard!

Must-Have Monday

Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse - "Valerie"
Download Here
Purchase Album Here
For those who are only just now getting into Amy Winehouse... where have you been? Amy is totally brilliant and her Back to Black album is great, but this track is from the new Mark Ronson album Version, which features oddball covers of random songs (Ol Dirty Bastard voices Britney's "Toxic", Daniel Merriweather does The Smiths' "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" and Lily Allen covers Kaiser Chiefs' "Oh My God"). My favourite is this cover of The Zutons' "Valerie". Amy's voice is so good and fits the the new arrangement wonderfully. Check it out and, if you like it, get Version on import.

Björk & The Sugarcubes - "Birthday"
Download Here
Purchase Album Here
If you have only listened to Bjork's solo stuff then you are missing out on a whole brilliant chunk of her career. Her work with the Sugarcubes is all really good. My favourites are "Regina", "Cat", "Delicious Demon" and this track called "Birthday". It's all Bjork hystrionics and screams over swooshing synths and breezy Scandanavian instruments (Scandanavia always has amazing pop music in it's blood). Wait, is Iceland counted as Scandanavia? ...

YouTubing it up

I've posted this before, but damn if it's not worth watching again. I'm fairly sure everyone knows for a fact that South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was royally fucked over in the Original Score category (RIGHT?!), but the nomination for "Blame Canada" in Best Original Song was one of their better moments, and they went all out with the Oscar performance. Sure, Robin Williams forgets the words at the end and he nearly trips over about halfway through, but so what. It's a hoot. Blame Canada, indeed.


This is Penelope Cruz lipsyncing to Estrella Morente's song "Volver". It doesn't have subtitles, but it's the only one I could find. God this scene was great. And even though it doesn't have subtitles you can still feel it. This is just an ounce of why Penelope Cruz deserves that Oscar. Of course, she won't get it, but boy is she stunning.


The video to Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" - a song that I did backflips over when I first heard it recently and voted it as a my #3 Song of 2006. It still stuns when from the opening seconds. "They tried to make me go to rehab/I said 'No! No! No!'" God, this song is good. Super good.


Because it bares repeating how brilliant this movie is (I just rewatched it yesterday, hence it's on my mind)