In a week which has seen Pete Doherty hire out The Daily Mirror, Rihanna relinquish her brutal occupation of the pop charts and Arctic Monkeys playing their Biggest Gig Ever*, it's kind of comforting and confusing to find that all the blogosphere cares about right now is the sodding Hard-Fi cover art.
Idolator's headline "Brit Band You Had Forgotten About Turns Digital Music Age Into Snarky Publicity Stunt" summed up the average reaction, whereas PopJustice recoiled in the horror that it's not just a one-off prank, but the art direction for the entire campaign.
Other blogs tried to pinpoint just how old the idea was - The White Album (40 years)? PiL's Album cover (21 years)? Or Mos Def's True Magic (one year)?
At least the fans are being more supportive. "Is that the single's actual cover or is it a notice saying the photo is not yet available?" asks one confused Hard-Fi-er on their MySpace comments, before deciding: "If it's the cover, it's the best record cover in years. Genius." To throw in my own totally irrelevant viewpoint, I also think the cover is genius. For one, it's got everyone talking about Hard-Fi again. For another, none of these people are talking about the new tunes.
Elsewhere, there are some great spots in the blogs this week. XRRF lavish praise on TheLondonPaper for securing an exclusive report from Pete Doherty's comeback gig, the only problem being that the gig had been cancelled (for a change). The Modern Age, on the other hand, brings a White Stripes interview to our attention. Among the boring rambles about drummers not getting enough attention for their musicianship or something, the interview is notable for two things: 1) They're riding a red horse on the cover! A red horse! 2) They really hate journos.
"Journalists are inherently the laziest people on earth," rails Jack. "They get 90% of stuff from the press release. Like in the press release for Elephant somebody inserted a joke about how none of our studio equipment was made after 1963. It gets to the point where you're answering questions based on a joke somebody made."
Stupid writers, believing something that the band have put out themselves as information! What fools! We should be more vigilant. Take this from their most recent press release:
"Beautifully recorded, and the most sonically bombastic record the white stripes have made, Icky Thump is a modern rock and roll masterpiece."
Now surely only an idiot would believe that.
Finally, a week doesn't go by these days without at least one rock star experiencing a mild nervous breakdown through the medium of MySpace. This week was Peter Hook's turn to go loopy, threatening New Order with court appearances and blaming the band's problems on drink (he had to deal with it all sober, yageddit?). Then, a couple of days later, he claimed it was all NME's fault this "New Order split" thing got out of hand, because they "stitched him up" in a recent interview. Here are the post highlights with handy MySpace translations underneath.
"Well I've been sent all this forum nonsense"
Translation: "I've been googling my own name"
"I had a feeling I'd been stitched up"
Translation: "I really wished I'd kept my mouth shut"
"But I'm very happy"
Translation: "I'm not very happy"
Paul Stokes, NME's news editor who conducted the interview, was rather shocked by Hooky's declaration of war: "I mentioned specifically that we wanted to go over the stuff he'd been saying about New Order. He didn't object and answered the questions - what did he expect us to do with his answers?"
*not counting those other big ones they've done this year
