to move up and down
Adele performs the theme to Skyfall onstage during the Oscars Sunday. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Gary Clement’s week in review for Feb 19 – 25, 2012
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The Lindex: Jeremy Lin, by the numbers
Strauss-Kahn freed following two days of questioning in prostitution inquiry
Two U.S. officers killed on fifth day of Afghanistan Koran-burning protests
Adele ’s Brit Awards middle finger and five other notable bird-flippings on TV
Graeme Hamilton: Promise of political revolution stalls in Quebec
Iran seeks further nuclear talks with UN watchdog after ‘long and fruitless’ negotiations
Adele’s Brit Awards middle finger and five other notable bird-flippings on TV
Crass though Adele’s gesture may be, it’s not the first time this year a singer has raised a one-finger salute on live television — in February, singer M.I.A. gave a middle finger during the Super Bowl, much to the consternation of CBS and Madonna alike. Before another pop starlet makes giving the middle finger a trend by raising it at this Sunday’s Oscars (erm, fingers crossed!), we take a look at five notable single-fingered incidents from live television. (Photos: Getty Images;Reuters)
Adele’s middle finger gesture sours Brit Awards success after singer is cutoff
It was supposed to be a coronation of sorts for Adele at the Brit Awards but it didn’t turn out that way.
The British singer had just picked up six Grammys earlier this month and the Brits represented somewhat of a homecoming after an incredibly successful year fuelled by her album 21 and songs like the inescapable “Rolling in the Deep.”
She won six Grammys in L.A. last week — a haul matched only by Beyonce.
But when she stepped on stage Tuesday night to receive the Brit Award for the best album award (she’d already won best British female) and was in the middle of an obviously heartfelt speech, she was interrupted by show host James Corden.
”Are you about to cut me off?” said a clearly unimpressed Adele to Corden. “Can I just say then, goodbye and I’ll see you next time around.” (Photo: Dylan Martinez/Reuters)
Gary Clement’s Week in Review for Feb. 5 to 11, 2012
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Terror groups al-Qaeda , Al-Shabab officially merge: Zawahiri
Karl Lagerfeld sort of apologizes to Adele for fat remarks
Greece approves austerity bill as violence spreads throughout country
Arab League wants joint peacekeeping force with UN in Syria
Lorne Gunter: Props to the Queen from a committed anti-monarchist
Photo Gallery: Grammy Awards red carpet
The music industry’s biggest and brightest were in Los Angeles on Sunday night for the 54th annual Grammy Awards. Here are some images of the evening’s style hits and misses. More photos here. (Reuters)
Pirate Party finds downloading of copyrighted material in House of Commons
Shawn Vulliez is the vice-president of the Pirate Party of Canada, a ragtag bunch of politically engaged computer geeks who believe that Internet copyright laws should be minimal and information sharing encouraged on the Web. The Pirates recently tracked downloads in the House of Commons and discovered that pirating copyrighted material — including Adele, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and, especially popular, Maroon 5 — is common practice among our politicos.
Here are the Top 10 Albums of 2011, as chosen by you
A couple of weeks ago, National Post arts writers, critics, reviewers and general music-lovers got together to name their favourite albums of the year, resulting in a highly unofficial list of 42 great records, presented in no particular order. And while it was lots of fun to present our picks and extol their virtues, we though there must be some way for us to rank our faves – and that’s when we turned to you, the reader, and asked you to pick your Top 10 Albums of the Year from our list of 42. And you did!
1. Adele, 21
2. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
3. The Black Keys, El Camino
4. Radiohead, The King of Limbs
5. Feist, Metals
6. Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
7. Lady Gaga, Born This Way
8. Drake, Take Care
9. Austra, Feel it Break
10. The Decemberists, The King is Dead
The decline and fall of rock bands: How going solo has replaced the group dynamic
When Arcade Fire won the Grammy Award for album of the year in February, nearly everyone called it a shock: they were non-superstars who played non-radio-friendly rock music. But just as significantly, they were, and remain, a band in the traditional sense. Not an airbrushed vocal trio with backing musicians like Lady Antebellum, nor a cobbled-together assemblage of solo superstars like most of the other acts at the Grammys, but a self-contained group with a stable lineup who play their own instruments.
There haven’t been many of these on the charts of late. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of songs — and albums — on the charts are by solo artists or acts that can’t be classified as bands (e.g., the cast of Glee). Upstart bands are now driven to utter ambitious pronouncements. “It’d be great if we could kick Lady Gaga off the charts,” said Thom Powers, of sleek New Zealand rock band The Naked and Famous, to aux.tv this month. The Vaccines, a quartet from London, England, release their debut album this week in North America; the NME has called them, “The Return of the Great British Guitar Band” and quoted them as saying, “We want indie back on the charts!” The album What Did You Expect from The Vaccines hit No. 4 in the U.K. — a strong showing, but the hegemony of solo stars remains in place. Why is it that the idea of the band has lost so much cultural currency?
