Jackson’s opening night setlist for ‘This Is It’;
“Billie Jean” (Video Introduction)
“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”
“The Way You Make Me Feel”
“You Rock My World”
“Smooth Criminal” (rumoured to be the song Timberlake wanted to appear in)
“Dirty Diana”
“Blood On The Dancefloor” (Video Interlude)
“Black Or White”
“You Are Not Alone”
“Beat It”
“Man In The Mirror”
“The Girl Is Mine”
“They Don’t Care About Us” (Video Interlude)
“Scream” (with Janet Jackson)
“Bad”
“Dangerous”
“Heal The World”
“Earth Song”
“The Story” (Video Montage)
“Rock With You”
“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”
Jackson 5 Medley (as the Jackson 5): “I Want You Back”, “I’ll Be There”, “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)”, “Can You Feel It”
“Thriller”
“Billie Jean”

Yes this is Mariah Carey. I’d say married life does that lady a fat lot of good.

When I was going to sleep last night, Michael Jackson was just taken into hospital with cardiac arrest. Some people’s reaction to that was “oh yeah? Liar! I demand a refund!” Those people will forever remain the ones who, when they heard about Michael Jackson’s death, thought first about 50 quid they spent on “This Is It” tickets.

I thought: how low have the mighty fallen. For Michael Jackson was, basically, god. Alien god from the planet of dance and music previously unknown to man. And then he was the black guy who turned himself into a white lady. And then he was a child molester. (While the court cleared him of all the charges, people never stopped referring to him that way, in fact, on the Polish news portal’s elegy to Michael Jackson page half the comments seem to contain the word “pedophile”.) And then he was a near-bankrupt in need of lung transplants. Not many people remembered he was also a very lonely human being forced to work since the age of 5.

Music-wise, I was always a fan of Janet rather than Michael, but I have, strangely, rediscovered him only recently when the This Is It tour has been announced. I put together an 80 minute playlist which I am listening to right now. Perfect from start to end. It goes: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’/Leave Me Alone/They Don’t Care About Us/The Way You Make Me Feel/Black Or White/Stranger In Moscow/In The Closet/Thriller/Remember The Time/Blood On The Dance Floor/Unbreakable/Another Part Of Me/Scream/Bad/Jam/Beat It/Liberian Girl. And those 17 songs — not allegations, bankruptcies and rubber noses falling off in unexpected moments — are why I am sitting here and typing this, shaking my head in disbelief, tears in my eyes.

1 1 5 BONKERS
Dizzee Rascal and Armand Van Helden
2 3 15 LOVE ETC.
Pet Shop Boys
3 7 2 MIKE OLDFIELD’S SINGLE (THEME FROM TUBULAR BELLS)
Mike Oldfield
4 ! 1 HEARTBREAK (MAKE ME A DANCER)
Freemasons feat. Sophie Ellis-Bextor
5 2 6 ANTHONIO
Annie
6 4 7 RHUBARB & CUSTARD
Poppy and the Jezebels
7 5 10 I’M NOT ALONE
Calvin Harris
8 6 7 SHADOWS
Au Revoir Simone

9 11 2 CAN YOU FEEL
Client
10 10 8 RETURN THE FAVOR
Keri Hilson feat. Timbaland
(more…)

Colleague 1: (via MSN) “The holes in his ears are so big!!!”

Colleague 2: “Whose?”

Colleague 1: “R”

Colleague 2: *spends the next two hours waiting for Colleague 3 whose name begins with R to pull his long hair back*

Me: *blissfully unaware continue plodding through life with my 14mm ear tunnels*

Really. Some people.

Chart follows tomorrow.

…to take fashion clues from a blog called Look At That Fucking Hipster, but seriously, those two guys are SO. CUTE. (And nicely dressed. At a wide definition of “nicely” perhaps.)

I have no clue whatsoever who Eddie Cibrian is, but he looks a bit lonely on his special day, so it is only my duty to wish him a very happy birthday!

• If you people don’t stop googling (and finding my blog) for “Vanessa Daou Joe Sent Me torrent” I will seriously spank your ass. Buy the bloody record. It’s amazing. And while I don’t mind it if Madonna or Britney lose 50% of their multimillion sales, Vanessa Daou doesn’t exactly sell 5 million copies of her albums, and I want her to make a new one.
• Very interesting article by a lady divorcing after 20 years: have men really become so awful? (I am clinging to hope it’s only so bad in America ? they probably have really bad water) Has marriage really outlived its sell-by date? And, most importantly, am I The Builder or The Negotiator?
• The new Mariah Carey single is the first song of hers I really really like since “Dreamlover” 15 years ago, but the cover… ugh… let’s just say when I look at it I don’t think it looks like she has faith in her music.
• Yes I know about the Belgian twat that pretends 56 stars on her face have found their way there accidentally. I don’t believe for a split second that she asked for three. I don’t speak French but believe that “three” and “fifty-six” sound somewhat different in French (just like in any language in the world). And trust me, you wouldn’t fall asleep during a tattoo session, and if you did, the tattoo artist would call doctors immediately. The fact that there is a witness who confirms the artist’s version doesn’t surprise me either.

1 6 4 BONKERS
Dizzee Rascal and Armand Van Helden
2 1 5 ANTHONIO
Annie
3 2 14 LOVE ETC.
Pet Shop Boys
4 7 6 RHUBARB & CUSTARD
Poppy and the Jezebels
5 3 9 I’M NOT ALONE
Calvin Harris
6 4 6 SHADOWS
Au Revoir Simone
7 ! 1 MIKE OLDFIELD’S SINGLE (THEME FROM TUBULAR BELLS)
Mike Oldfield
8 5 5 RANDAJAD
Urban Symphony
9 8 8 IF U SEEK AMY
Britney Spears
10 9 7 RETURN THE FAVOR
Keri Hilson feat. Timbaland
(more…)