Murdering The Dancefloor

Who needs AI when all our best-selling pop artists are mindlessly reworking the same narrow dataset already? Ever since David Guetta bagged himself a number one last year by having Bebe Rexha sing even worse lyrics over Eiffel 65’s Blue, everyone’s been getting aboard the 90s Eurodance train.

Guetta has now turned his attention to desecrating Haddaway’s What Is Love? with Anne-Marie and Coi Leray. Robert Miles’ Children clearly inspired Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding’s Miracle, but it’s an actual sample in Switch Disco and Ella Henderson’s React.

Elsewhere, poor Alice Deejay is being picked over for parts like the last hold-out in a zombie movie – getting rehashed into two separate tracks: Alone by Kim Petras & Nicki Minaj and Crying On The Dancefloor by Sam Feldt. And now R3HAB has just released Rock My Body, a reworking of Sash!’s Ecuador.

We bow to no-one in our love for Europop but if we don’t get a handle on this soon, it’s only going to end one way. A breathy piano cover of the Vengabus for this year’s John Lewis ad.

[Listen for yourself]

Even international rocks stars can’t resist the lure of Curry Club.

Late last Thursday, Bono and The Edge were spotted walking around Shepherd’s Bush, trying to find the Central Bar. They weren’t having much luck, and the person they stopped to ask for directions didn’t recognise the name either. It wasn’t until The Edge explained that it was the local Wetherspoons they were after that the punter twigged the place and told them to head up to the first floor of the shopping centre.

There, they took a table at the window, where no-one appeared to recognise them. The Edge did the ordering.

For a while it looked like Isabel Oakeshott’s disloyalty in handing her explosive WhatsApp story over to the Telegraph had caused a certain coldness between staff at TalkTV and the Sun – but which two big name reporters from either side have been doing all they can to heat things back up again, swapping more than just scoops recently?

It’s been a hell of a few weeks for candid celebrity confessions on podcasts. First it was Christina Aguilera talking about supplementing her protein intake with spunk. Then Meghan Trainor started oversharing about the enormity of her husband’s helmet.

Now Gwyneth Paltrow has waded into the fray to tell listeners of the Call Her Daddy podcast that – of all her partners – Ben Affleck was “technically excellent in bed”.

Ben, it should be noted, speaks equally highly of Gwyneth. While in the dresser’s room for Shakespeare In Love, Ben was being strapped into a complicated pair of shoes with a skirted Miss Paltrow stood next to him. In front of the male dresser, Ben began to work his hand up her inner thigh, exclaiming upon reaching the top…

“Gwyneth, you have the finest growler!”

Joe Lycett’s late night live show on Channel 4 has been pretty well received – not least by Digbeth residents who have been delighted to see Joe’s celebrity guests popping up in their local pizza place for the last five Fridays.

There is one local businessman who’s not been so happy about it all though. Recognised in the area as a self-styled Peaky Blinder type (i.e. a massive throbber) every day during production this guy took his two dobermans out for their lunchtime walk past the building where Joe made the show to let them shit outside of it.

He’s been known to do this with various other local businesses he’s had beef with. Unluckily for him, his dirty protest against Joe was futile as Joe never actually saw the dogshit dropped outside. Some dedicated member of the production crew removed it every day for the entirety of the run.

One mystery that was never really cleared up in the Dominic Raab bullying report was what exactly those infamous “high standards” of his entailed. What on earth could have been so bad about the reports his staff submitted that caused him to blow up?

The things that would reliably boil Raab’s piss:

a/ Poor formatting

2/ Split infinitives

All this talk of the public being asked to swear allegiance to King Charles reminded us of John Davidson: the star of the ground-breaking 1989 documentary, John’s Not Mad.

A few weeks after that documentary first aired, John was given an award by Charles for his bravery about publicising his Tourette’s Syndrome. Before the ceremony some of John’s friends were childishly reciting the phrase “big eared cunt” over and over to him in the hope he would say it to the future king.

John was determined not to give his mates the satisfaction though. Instead, when he stepped up to receive his award, what he ended up shouting out was “Bad Horsey!”

Watching King Charles scrabble around to find someone to perform at his Coronation party has been a pitiful spectacle – with Adele, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Kylie, Robbie and Elton all turning down invitations.

Compare and contrast that with the extremely chummy relationship on show between pop star and royals at Monaco’s recent Rose Ball. Among those rushing to the dance floor when special guest star Mika started singing his biggest hit were Charlotte and Andrea Casiraghi and Princess Alexandre.

Who – if you’re not so hot on your Monegasque royal family – are all in line for the throne in Monaco. And the grandkids of… Grace Kelly.

We’ll have this year’s Eurovision guide ready for you in plenty of time for Tuesday’s first semi-final. If you’re the type to skip the semis to keep yourselves pure for the Saturday night, we understand, but you risk missing some of the weirder stuff if you do.

IRELAND: Word from the venue is that this has been one to watch in rehearsals. Not because of the song, but because the singer’s jumpsuit has been displaying some pretty prominent bulge. Saturday audiences are unlikely to have the pleasure.

CROATIA: They might look like a fascist Village People, and sound even worse, but we’re hoping Let3 do make it to the final. Their live shows are infamous in Croatia. One ended with the band being fined for indecent exposure as they played the gig naked. (The judge in their case was not convinced that stuffing corks into their arseholes constituted ‘wearing something’.)

FINLAND: There’s no way this isn’t getting through to the final but this grinding bit of hyperpop, complete with Human Centipede inspired choreography, is worth more than one watch.

SLOVENIA: More for the ‘real music’ crowd, Slovenia have been winning over punters on the ground in Liverpool by handing out band-branded johnnies. If you’re not near, you can buy a pack of three yourself.

On the One Show this week, Lauren Laverne claimed that her Gladiator name would have been Badger, “cos I’m rarely seen but very powerful”.

We’ve long been aware of Lauren’s awe and admiration for the badger. When we asked her the Baboon v Badger question way back when, she gave us one of the most comprehensive answers we think we’ve ever had.

“Badger. They’re little fuckers. Baboons, they’re all about cuddling and shit. Baboons think they can come up and be all like ‘Hey, look at me I’m really cute, hey!’ Badger couldn’t give a fuck. Tear your heart out. I was on the Isle of Wight, lost, driving around in a van, and there was a badger going alongside us as fast as the van. It must have been going about 20mph. That little shit was jet propelled. And apparently, they’ll then run alongside you and throw themselves into the middle of the road so that you swerve. Just for kicks.”

You all saw the dick shaped iceberg that appeared off the coast of Dildo in Canada, yes?
[Just in case]

Want the house that Robbie Williams sold to Drake, that Drake will now sell to you?
[$88m, please]

What about a homemade hairy Barbie?
[Of course you do]

A scientific study on the psychological link between fast cars and small penises
[Thanks, UCL!]

“The young Nick Cave was, in in all due respect to the young Nick Cave, young, and like many young people, mostly demented… He was cute though, I’ll give him that. Deranged, but cute”
[Nick Cave’s attending the Coronation]

Stars Wars as a Wes Anderson film
[Watch the trailer]

Wiwibloggs’ founder William Lee Adams has a memoir out ahead of Eurovision next week – Wild Dances: My Queer and Curious Journey to Eurovision
[Pre-order on Amazon]

Lost Ones: memories of music that journalists got to hear but never ended up being released
[Read on The Believer]

The Writers Guild of America is currently on strike; if you haven’t read our old story on the impact of past WGA strikes, you’ve got a long weekend to dig in…
[Read on Popbitch]