Joe Kavanagh's Music News

Lady Gaga may currently be the biggest noise in pop and the toast of the town for her outrageous fashion sense but an Irish singer is claiming that there is nothing original about the Poker Face singer's style. Former Moloko vocalist, Roisin Murphy, accused the electro-singer of stealing her fashion ideas, a fairly reasonable accusation given Murphy's own penchant for dressing up, which has made her something of a style icon on the right side of the Atlantic. In an interview with the Daily Mail, the County Wicklow singer claimed: "She's copied my style. I met her about a year ago before she got really big and I had no clue that this was all going to happen. She wasn't wearing shoulder pads at the time, and I was. Lady Gaga is just a poor imitation of me. She has copied my style, she took my shoulder pads and all that. Mind you she doesn't wear the bottom half!" Personally speaking, I think Lady Gaga looks like a pimp above her waist and a hooker from the belt down but Murphy certainly has a valid point...

Legendary Irish singer, Phil Lynott is set to have an exhibition held in his honor, in order to mark what would have been his 60th birthday later this month. Dublin's Green Gallery will host the exhibition from August 20-29, featuring a host of art and music memorabilia associated with the legendary Thin Lizzy front man and while there is no official cover charge, attendees are asked to make a donation to the Roisin Dubh trust, a charity set up in the tragic singer's honor. Phil Lynott died at only 36-years-old, on January 4, 1986, from a combination of pneumonia and heart failure, brought about by drug abuse, robbing the country of one of its greatest ever talents...

Prodigy main man, Liam Howlett, launched a scathing attack on those responsible for compiling the list of Mercury Music Prize nominees, accusing them of ignoring dance music in their search for the best album by an Irish or British artist. Howlett raved (if you'll pardon the pun): "It's got nothing to do with the public. It's to do with a panel of people that always opt for the most obscure thing. I think we should have been nominated this year. We never mull it over in our minds. I think rock and dance should be better represented. Why not? Why shouldn't it be? Because that's the type of music that stirs up the emotion. It's what kids listen to." The band's singer, Keith Flint, was slightly more insouciant, saying: "I think what's more important to The Prodigy is that, whatever number your album goes in at, or the single, or however many plays it gets, or doesn't get, or awards you get, or don't get; our reward, as a band, is to write the best album we can and then go to Download festival and rip it to pieces." It's a good job that record sales aren't important to The Prodigy because sales have been heading south on them since about 1998 and for two people that don't care about a nomination, they don't half go on about it. One other thing, if those behind the Mercury Prize don't care about dance music, then why did they nominate the band's seminal Music For The Jilted Generation for the award way back in 1994? They were beaten to the prize, however, by M People's Elegant Slumming, which was - you guessed it - another dance album. Hey I'd like to win a Pulitzer but bitching about it is not going to get me any closer...

The Who's Roger Daltrey is set to embark on his first solo US tour in two decades and also ready to begin work on his first solo album since 1992's Rocks In The Head. Talking to the media last week, the renowned singer claimed: "I think I've got one more really good album in me. I'm working on ideas. There's whole new dimensions to come out of me, I think. It's finding the material, but the way I always feel is there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing, so please send your songs." Don't you just love celebrities? He says, "I think I've got one more really good album in me" and then, in the next breath essentially says: "somebody please help me because I'm supposed to write this album but I have nothing!" Given Daltrey's less than stellar reputation as a songwriter in his own right, choosing to attach your name to one of his albums would essentially be like a clairvoyant choosing to make that pesky Atlantic crossing on the Titanic. Still, at least making music keeps him away from acting and that can only be a good thing, because he makes Burt Ward look like Tom Hanks...

While we're on the subject of songwriting, I read an interview with Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan last week, where he questioned how the band ever got a reputation for being a bit "doom and gloom." The singer claimed: "I understand that we're dark, but there's always been humor in there. It's this cynical sarcasm about yourself. I think people sometimes miss things that are humorous in our music. People seem to spend way too much time thinking about what exactly we're trying to do and what exactly we mean." Far be it from me to tell the man what his own songs mean but in the interest of playing devil's advocate, I present to you just a few Depeche Mode song titles from down the years: Motherless Child, It's No Good, Keep Me In The Dark, Condemnation, Never Let me Down Again, A Pain That I'm Used To, Damaged People and - lest we forget - I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead. Not exactly the type of tunes that you would listen to if you needed a bit of perking up, unless you're one of those schadenfreude or masochist types...

I also read last week where Kelly Osbourne claims that she is completely over her drug phase because she now spends most of her time sitting in with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Luke Worrall. I am genuinely happy that she seems to have beaten the problem that has put her in rehab three times in her 25 years, but I hope poor Luke doesn't go off the deep-end now because if I had to spend every evening with Kelly Osbourne, I'd be hitting the crack pipe within a month. And there's not enough Viagra sitting beside the defibrillator in Hugh Hefner's bedside locker to make me, well, you get the picture...

At the time of going to press, doctors were still searching for answers in the untimely death of Andy Parke, former drummer for Liverpool act, Space. According to witnesses, on August 2, Parke had just left a local watering hole and was walking across the street when he tripped over, in a fall that left him conscious. Medics were unable to revive him and he was declared dead a short time later. Ironically, in a story that we reported on, Space singer, Tommy Scott, was the recipient of a cruel April Fool's joke earlier this year when local press and radio circulated a story saying that he had died. The prank deeply upset his family, particularly because circumstances meant that they were unable to get in touch with him at the time, in order to confirm or deny the story. His search to find the culprit - presumably in order to administer them a bloody good hiding - proved futile. Space are best known for their 90s hits, Me And You Versus The World and Avenging Angel...

Scottish singer, Paulo Nutini claims that he is at a loss to understand his status as a sex symbol in music. The New Shoes singer told an interviewer: "I don't think I'll ever get it all. It's baffling. I get a nice haircut once a year but after eight days I start looking like Frodo from 'Lord of the Rings'! People tell me I'm a heartthrob, but I don't get it at all. I don't recognize that. Groups of girls want to talk to me all the time and they'll be poking each other in the ribs saying, 'No, you talk to him, not me.'" Tall, dark, handsome 22-year-old with a Scottish accent, who is humble, self-effacing and intensely loyal to the same girlfriend that he's been with for the past six years, despite the fact that he's a bona fide rock star who has girls throwing themselves at him daily. No, I can't see the attraction either. Truthfully, I can't even bring myself to dislike the chap - and goodness knows I've tried. The shagger is even a Celtic fanatic. Heck, if I was a member of the fairer sex, I'd be out right now chasing him down Kathy Bates style. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go out and hit on a few women just to remind myself that I'm straight.