Niki N. Phaser

Lily Allen has officially released her third single from It’s Not Me, It’s You on July 13. The track is called… Fuck You, even though it has gone through many name changes before finally getting this one. The lyrics, despite the title are very positive, as they are an attack on racism and homophobia and war and the theory that it’s about George W. Bush could be backed up by the lines “You want to be like your father, It’s approval your after, Well that’s not how you find it”. Still, the lyrics can’t save this song that is ruled by some very outdated irony: the chorus “Fuck you very much” and the piano-driven music that sounds like some Broadway musical (Annie, maybe?). It’s not really that funny anymore. Would have worked as some lame viral, but that’s about it. The video, which looks like Smack My Bitch Up in the daytime, seems to be some sort of commercial for Adobe After Effects. On the other hand, the British singer-songwriter has readied the video for 22, which will be her August single. This one is far better than Fuck You, as it shows some serious maturity. It’s a song about the ageing of beautiful girls, who will wake up one morning and find that they are not the latest version anymore. The video is also a keeper, simple and yet effective, with some decent acting from Allen. This one deserves to be in the charts.

LILY ALLEN – Fuck You VIDEO

Bono and The Edge’s Broadway ambitions have gone full throttle. Their long-awaited Spider-Man musical is in the casting/rehearsal stage and the first confirmed names are Allan Cumming and Marilyn Manson ex-darling, Evan Rachel Wood. She will play Mary Jane and there is also talk of Jim Sturgess (her Across the Universe co-star) playing the superhero, but that’s not set yet. The play will debut in the fall and will run for a year, with no touring as of yet scheduled. Julie Taymor, director of Across the Universe, Frida and the Lion King musical, will be in charged of stage directions. For those of you who are worrying that U2′s members have gone all lame singing-talking Broadway style on us, don’t. Evan Rachel Wood has assured us that the songs are more like pop than your standard “Whaaaaat are youuuu doing? I’m going to the bathrooooomm” musical. She even penned a Bowie Ashes to Ashes-inspired number as her favourite. It will be her solo. Hopefully, there will some good stuff in it and this woun’t be just another proof of how versatile U2 are.