This is a post mainly aimed at my international friends to tell you a little bit about the UK through my eyes and ears. It's by no means definitive and does contain some affectionate stereotypes. Many people equate the UK with England, but it is made up of more than one country. There is Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales who each have their own self-governing political systems. There is a fair amount of piss-taking between them. For example, Scots are branded as drunks who live off deep-fried Mars bars, the Welsh as singers with a penchant for bestiality with sheep. There is also a North-South divide in England. Southerners are ponces, Merseysiders are small-time crooks, those in the West Country are country bumpkin farmers and Geordie girls are famed for dressing like slappers (easy women) in little more than skimpy underwear, even in the depths of winter. It's all part of our banter.
The majority of musical influences Adam has cited are British, so I see this visit as a return to his musical home. I hope he's taking the opportunity to delve into the music scene while he's here and find even more inspiration. I'm more of a gigger/clubber so I'm not particularly knowledgable about British pop music and rarely follow the British pop charts. I do know that the singles chart is extremely fickle with songs often entering at the top spot before dropping away rapidly. The album chart provides a much better indicator of what's popular. Both of these charts are released every Sunday afternoon and can be found here:
1.Official singles chart 2.Official album chart
We have plenty of local radio stations but the channels with most listeners are the nationwide radio channels provided by state broadcaster BBC. The music channels with the biggest audiences are
BBC Radio 2 (adult contemporary),
BBC Radio 1 (pop), and
Heart FM (adult contemporary).
Pop acts receiving a lot of media coverage at the moment include
Florence and the Machine,
JLS,
Cheryl Cole,
Ellie Goulding and
Pixie Lott. The closest we have to male artists who would be in direct competion with Adam are
Mika in terms of sound, and
Robbie Williams in terms of showmanship.
EDIT: I've had some additional thoughts since posting and discussing this with some of you so I'm jotting them down. According to my unknowledgeable opinion, the songs I think that have most potential to take off are the electropoppy ones like FYE, Fever, IIHY and DTRH. I don't think straight-up rock such as WWFM can cut it, unless he's already established or it's boosted by use in film or TV. If Adam can get DJs to play his music and remixes in clubs, it will help to earn him cred before he does his TV promo and music snobs realise he's an AI alumnus. His music doesn't get released until late April so for most people here, he's still a relative unknown. It'll be interesting to see how he's marketed as a celebrity here. So far we only really have the
NOTW article and the
SuBo misquote, which have painted him out to be an edgy and outspoken rebel. Although the references to drug use may have put many off, attitudes here are quite liberal when it comes its recreational use. Celebrities + drugs = eyeroll.
The TV slots where music acts do their usual promotional performances are on shows such X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing On Ice. It's also common to have performances on chat shows like
Jonathan Ross,
Graham Norton and
Alan Carr. There are music programmes such as
T4,
4Music and
Jools Holland that show live studio sets, concerts, or highlight specific artists. Artists also get exposure through quiz shows such as the music-oriented
Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I'd love to see the exchange of smut between Adam and Norton and Carr, an acoustic set on Jools Holland and Adam headlining a festival on T4. Another wish would be for him to do the intros round on Buzzcocks, where contestants use their voices to reacreate the instrumentals of songs but aren't allowed to sing them. One thing I'd love even more though, is for Adam to make an appearance on Doctor Who as a singing rockstar alien with a fabulously freaky costume.
The British tabloid press is vicious, intrusive and thrives on sensationalist scandal but we know to read it with a huge dose of cynicism. Here's a brief summary of our print media:
Trashiest papers: The News of the World, The People, The Daily Star.
Informative papers: The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph.
Most popular papers: The Sun, Daily Mail, The Mirror, Metro.
Popular music magazines: NME, Q, Kerrang!, Mojo, Mixmag.
Popular celebrity gossip magazines: OK, Hello!, Heat, Closer, Now.
Popular men's magazines: FHM, GQ, Maxim, Nuts, Zoo.
The country is multicultural with London being the hub. I tend to think of it as a mini world in a city because of the number of nationalities represented. I think Adam would enjoy shopping for OTT rocker accessories in Camden with all its fashion-bold goths and punks. We are a nation of binge-drinkers and drink to get drunk with bars being the venue of choice rather than pubs or clubs. I'm partial to heading to Shoreditch's bars to check out the fashion of arty and new-media types, often ending up at quirky venues for after-parties. And I think Adam might like to take a trip to Soho to check out the abundant prettiness and friendly atmosphere amongst the many gay bars. But he should smooch carefully because tabloid kiss-and-tells are quite lucrative with careers having been built around them. Homophobia is fairly uncommon though the word 'gay' is still used as a mildly derogatory insult. Brighton is our gay capital and same-sex civil partnerships were made legal in 2005. We have plenty of public figures who are openly gay, ranging from politicians to TV personalities to musicians, so Adam's orientation should be a complete non-issue.
Well I hope this is a useful introduction to get you started as you come over here to follow Adam's visit. Please feel free to ask questions and make yourselves at home while I make you a cup of tea!
Looks like Adam is seriously sick of lazy interviewers regurgitating the same questions over and over judging by his little twitter rant. The top of the list of most irritating questions for me is meeting Madonna. I mean, how many fucking times has that already been asked and why the fuck would we want to hear the same answer yet again? I thought that Queen rumour should have died the first time Adam denied it. And why the fuck is he still being asked about his brand of eyeliner? I'd also add the AMA controversy to the list too. It was good of him to tweet us a photo at the end of the day unwinding with a beer just to reassure us that he wasn't too stroppy.
