UK Top 40Sun 23 Jan 11
Bruno Mars takes Number One Single and Album and don't we love our press.. how many times have I read the death knell for Britney Spears career... hey look there she is stronger and bigger than ever - straight to No.6 in the UK and straight to the top of America's Billboard Hot 100... no mean feat... straight to Number One is not the norm in the 150 million strong fifty countries of the United States of America

Fri 28 Jan 11 - Privately educated?
Take a special course and become a pop star / celebrity... Oh and look the BBC have finally decided to mention it too, as if they've nothing to do with it... honest guv? Check the BBC story here and in the column alongside....
But the BBC article doesn't touch on government money chains for instance via the BBC into the MOBOs feeding the current trends. Annie Nightingale sounds particularly naive on the matter, though at nearly 69 years of age she can't be can she? And where was Grannie Nightingale educated... oh yeah The Lady Eleanor Holles School (often abbreviated to LEH or LEHS) is a selective, independent girls' school in Hampton, London, England, originally founded in 1711. The school has a Junior Department with some 190 students aged 7–11 and a Senior Department for ages 11–18 with some 700 pupils. Thanks wiki! And why then hasn't Annie spotted the obvious...

Here's what we said five days back...

Don't you love school reunions... Well some do and there's a big one in the top ten.... here we are UK citizens in the land of a miserable super-imposed Eastenders reality where Brit school is where we get our new generation of pop stars.. yes Pop Stardom from Reggie Yates Chart Show very nearly across the board has been nationalised & institutionalised.... it's a good way of diminishing the chances of a new Weller or Lennon breaking through...
What is the meaning of this statement?
Well, two of this week's new entries originate from the Government funded Croydon Brit School launched in 1991 by record producer and 5th Beatle George Martin. Of the school's Alumni - Adele enters at 2 with 'Rollin' In The Deep', in at 8 is Brazilian Aggro Santos who came to Britain with his parents when he was five - while at 3 with razors in her lips is Essex girl Jessie J and at 9 is 21 year old Peckam gal Katy B...
This Brit School purports to be an independent school... but it is State funded so how could that possibly be so? Alright for some who fit whatever criteria they may employ?
Can you detect any odd-balls in the list of Brit School Alumni...
Adele (singer)
Andy Ansah (Unbelievable Tekkers)
Ashley Madekwe (Actress)
Bashy
Tommy Bastow (Actor)
Blake Harrison
Dane Bowers
Emily Head
Imogen Heap
Jeremy Warmsley
Kate Nash
Katy B (Singer)
Katie Melua
Kellie Shirley
Leona Lewis
Marsha Ambrosius (Floetry)
Natalie Stewart (Floetry)
Noisettes
Rickie Haywood Williams
Amy Winehouse
Polly Scattergood
Stefan Abingdon (The Midnight Beast)
FranKo (Band)
Jessie J
Check the Brit School website here for an insight to into the Government's ongoing pop star & celebrity creation programme...

Meanwhile congratulations to... Canada - the nation now has three trax on the UK Top 40 with rapper Drake (& Rihanna) at 7, Dragonette (& Martin Solveig) at 16 and Avril Lavigne at 28.

10 new – 2 up, 25 down, 3 non-movers Top Ten… 6 UK … 3 USA … 3 Barbados … 1 Canada …

This Week ... Last Wk ... Wks In ... Artist ... Title ... Origin

1 1 2 BRUNO MARS Grenade USA

2 new 1 ADELE Rollin' In The Deep UK

3 2 9 JESSIE J Do It Like A Dude UK

4 new 1 DIDDY Dirty Money USA

5 new 1 WRETCH 32 Tracktor UK

6 new 1 BRITNEY SPEARS Hold It Against Me USA

7 3 10 RIHANNA & DRAKE What's My Name Barbados & Canada

8 new 1 AGGRO SANTOS Like U Like UK

9 4 5 KATY B & Ms DYNAMITE Lights On UK

10 10 2 JLS & TINIE TEMPAH Eyes Wide Shut UK

11 6 8 DAVID GUETTA & RIHANNA Who's That Chick France & Barbados

12 11 6 TINIE TEMPAH & KELLY ROWLAND Invincible UK & USA

13 13 11 ELLIE GOULDING Your Song UK

14 new 1 JODIE O'CONNOR & WILEY Now Or Never UK

15 8 11 BLACK EYED PEAS The Time (Dirty Bit) USA

16 18 3 MARTIN SOLVEIG & DRAGONETTE It's OK France & Canada

17 9 10 FAR EAST MOVEMENT Like A G6 USA

18 17 18 BRUNO MARS Just The Way You Are (Amazing) USA

19 7 18 ADELE Make You Feel My Love UK

20 5 6 MATT CARDLE When We Collide UK

21 12 13 RIHANNA Only Girl In The World Barbados

22 15 3 NERO Me & You UK

23 14 14 KATY PERRY Firework USA

24 16 16 CEE LO GREEN Forget You USA

25 38 2 TINCHY STRYDER & MELANIE FIONA Let It Rain UK

26 22 11 P!NK Raise Your Glass USA

27 24 12 ALEXIS JORDAN Happiness USA

28 19 6 WILLOW Whip My Hair USA

29 new 1 AVRIL LAVIGNE What The Hell Canada

30 21 5 CHERYL COLE The Flood UK

31 23 9 USHER More USA

32 29 16 MIKE POSNER Cooler Than Me USA

33 20 3 CEE LO GREEN It's OK USA

34 28 9 OLLY MURS Thinking Of Me UK

35 27 11 McFLY & TAIO CRUZ Shine A Light UK

36 26 11 TAKE THAT The Flood UK

37 new 1 TAIO CRUZ, KYLIE & TRAVIE McCOY Higher UK, Australia & USA

38 new 1 PITBULL & T.PAIN Hey Baby USA

39 31 3 PROFESSOR GREEN & MAVERICK Jungle UK

America's Hot 100
This Week ... Last Week ... Weeks In ... Artist ... Title
1 new 1 BRITNEY SPEARS Hold It Against Me
2 1 16 BRUNO MARS Grenade
3 2 13 KATY PERRY Firework
4 3 13 RIHANNA & DRAKE What's My Name
5 7 15 WIZ KHALIFA Black & Yellow
6 6 8 ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, LUDACRIS & DJ FRANK E Tonight (I'm Loving You)
7 4 12 KE$HA We R Who We R
8 5 15 PINK Raise Your Glass
9 8 10 BLACK EYED PEAS The Time (Dirty Bit)
10 9 26 BRUNO MARS Just The Way You Are

BBC diversity diversion
Posted 29th January 2011 - Source bbc.co.uk
Here's the BBC analysis with a laughable headline using the ever helpful Pete Waterman as a stooge...
Has pop gone posh?
The majority of pop musicians are now privately educated, or went to stage school, according to Word magazine. Does the rise of Lily Allen, Florence Welch, Chris Martin and the like spell the end of working class pop?
It's 4pm at the central London studios of BBC Radio 1, now into its fifth decade of broadcasting new music to millions of young people across the UK.
Florence Welch is part of a new wave of privately educated pop stars
In the basement on-air studio, a red "mic live" light illuminates and a computer screen lists the tracks due to play - from artists including Noah and the Whale, Tinie Tempah, Mumford & Sons and Katy B.
Four floors above, Radio 1's first-ever female DJ, Annie Nightingale, is in to prepare for her weekly show.
After 40 years with the station, she's well placed to remember the days that bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who were regulars on the playlist.
"When that whole kind of great big wave happened in the sixties you just sort of felt 'this is world changing, they're changing the world,'" she recalls.
"It was about working class people being able to do very well".
My son James Blunt... receives harsh criticism here and we have, rather sadly, been aware that it is because of his background.
Jane Blount
It is a well rehearsed narrative of the 1960s: The explosion into popular culture of apparent working class heroes - bands whose protagonists broke free from life at the bottom of the pile to challenge the established order.
In reality it was always more nuanced than that, as Nightingale says, "even then they had to pretend to be more working class than they actually were."
"A lot of them had fairly comfortable middle class backgrounds. John Lennon did and Pete Townsend. But not Roger Daltrey and not Keith Moon."
But while the reality may have differed from the image of 'authentic' working class boys made good, a new argument has been raging in the music world over the changing social dynamics of popular music.
An article in the December issue of music magazine The Word claimed the majority of UK chart acts were now either privately educated or from prestigious stage schools. The magazine compared a Top 40 from a week in October 2010 to the same week in 1990, when it found nearly 80 per cent of artists were state school educated.
The 1980s pop producer Pete Waterman thinks the findings reveal an insidious truth about the way the strings are being pulled in the modern music industry.
Sitting beside his wall of Ivor Novello songwriting awards at his studios in the former London County Hall building, Waterman is vociferous.
"This has been a gripe I've had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It's never been worse," he says. "The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven't got 96 O levels you ain't getting a job."
"In the old days you got a job in the music industry because you knew something about music. Now when they see your CV they don't take you unless you've been to university, full stop." But does the same requirement for academic credentials dominate when it comes to bands trying to break through?
"I think that when all the A&R people wear Jack Wills clothes it tells you where they're going."
"It's become snobbish. It's become a snobbish culture."
Those who promote the argument that rock has gone 'posh' point to the emergence of a swathe of privately educated artists: Singer songwriter Laura Marling, and Lily Allen - daughter of actor Keith, who attended the prestigious boarding school Bedales.
The list continues with other popular acts; Florence Welch, Jack Penate, Jamie T, and Chris Martin, the Coldplay frontman who attended the independent boys school Sherborne. Leading members of so-called 'Nu-folk' bands Noah & the Whale and Mumford & Sons went to St Paul's School in Barnes and King's College School, Wimbledon.
Noah and the Whale frontman Charlie Fink rejects the idea that a private school education means the art form suffers, saying bands should be able to have a voice "wherever you come from".
"I don't think with our songs where we come from really comes into it, because it's rare that we write about it," he says.
But the private-versus-state school debate may be the wrong prism through which to study the dynamics of the contemporary music industry.
In reality, many new acts are alumni of either the BRIT School in Croydon (importantly, a state-funded performing arts school) or of the X Factor.
And the "real" class heritage of big acts has been the subject of controversy for decades.
Joe Strummer, frontman of The Clash and an icon of the 1970s punk scene, was famously "outed" the product of a prestigious Surrey boarding school.
John Lennon, despite writing Working Class Hero, but was the product of a middle class upbringing and went to art school.
Others suggest the more fundamental truth is that guitar based rock is simply no longer commercially viable, allowing other genres to fill the gap.
Nightingale points to what she calls "one of the biggest musical explosions" of recent times: A development in urban music known as grime and dubstep.
Artists like Tinie Tempah, Tinchy Stryder, Professor Green are scoring regular chart hits with tracks that as Nightingale says relate to "nasty things happening on dark streets".
"I don't think they all came from privileged backgrounds and they are doing brilliantly well."