Courtesy of him and her, originally done for this, and replacing a picture of Ladytron of which I am finally bored, I give you:

My New Wallpaper.

Fabulous, innit?

"True hip-hop is just an expression of obscurity. To be able to express obscurity at any given moment."

So says the RZA and you know, he's right. But the crucial thing here is that "at any given moment" bit. For me, the spirit of hip hop, musically, has always been about taking the most unexpected, obscure, abstract sounds or ideas and turning them into the catchiest, most accessible, most obvious sure-fire smash hit imaginable. Which is why one of my most over-used words when talking about the stuff I've really liked in the past year and a half has been "effortless" (perfect lyrical definition: Pharell casually walking away unscratched from a crashed Rolls Royce during his tossed-off but brilliant lil' mini-verse on 'Hot Damn').

Still, what's really interesting is to speculate on what else RZA might mean above. Y'know, the man's mind functions in mysterious ways... Speaking of which, Birth Of A Prince = best Wu album since Supreme Clientele. More on that to follow.

So everyone is raving about the new Jay-Z and I've only heard two songs so far - 'My Name Is Hov' and 'What More Can I Say'. I will say that the first of those is definitely up there with the best Jay-Z stuff, and that I'm definitely going to be buying this: because recently he always makes one great album, and then one bad one, and back again, so we're due a goodie - plus the cover is awesome, so the music will be too (no, seriously).

But the real point I want to make is: 'Justify My Thug' - song title of the year, yes?

COSpt1: live at Islington Carling Academy, 03/11/03

Chicks On Speed’s live show is the kind of orchestrated chaos that leaves you wondering which is the illusion – the chaos, or the impression that there’s any kind of guiding plan behind it? Which is great, because to be honest if I never see a gig again that consists of mildly inferior versions of tracks I’d already heard played politely but predictably, it’ll be too soon. For this show at least, COS decide to completely leave out a whole aspect of what they do on record: ie, we get no slow or quiet songs. Which makes a certain kind of sense – this is gig as party/performance art happening, and so it’s all about grabbing the audience by the scruff of the neck and dragging them backwards throw a pile of noise, dayglo make-up, DIY fashion, ranting, madness and sex. To phrase this in terms of tracks from their new album, tonight we get the Chicks Of Speed of ‘Universal Pussy’, which kicks off proceedings, rather than ‘Coventry’.

It’s interesting how the roles/personae of the individual band members that you can vaguely deduce from 99 cents become even clearer on stage: Melissa Logan does the sincere, Kathleen Hanna-esque rabble rousing and proselytizing, Kiki Moorse is vaguely aloof, arch, deadpan (see especially ‘Fashion Rules’) – and Alex Murray-Leslie? She’s the Joycore member of the band, all about mad fun for its own sake, and so obviously also the one on whom I have a bit of a crush. The fact that they line up so directly with certain presumed ideas about national character in turn makes you wonder how deliberately mapped out these roles are… There’s some choreography going on here, obviously: during ‘Shooting From The Hip’, while Melissa sings, Kiki stands reading a newspaper with her back to the audience and Alex spray-paints logos onto t-shirts and plays the tambourine.

‘We Don’t Play Guitars’ becomes even more of a pulsating rock beast than ever. One of the band’s androgynous partners in crime throws Justin Hawkins shapes behind them, and someone in the audience throws a roll of gaffa tape to Melissa to coincide with the relevant lyrics. It all turns into a juddering mess of Kid 606 style cut-up beats, and somehow you don’t even notice the absence of Peaches. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: SINGLE OF THE YEAR.

So under better circumstances, I hope I’d have been down the front making a fool of myself and throwing myself about with the exceptionally hipster-tastic crowd: as it was, Nina and I were either recovering from or still full of cold, and had to make do with a little shuffle, a little two-step, hovering near the back, with me sucking on Hall’s Soothers between drinks and cigarettes (rock’n’roll!). But the fact that we were moving at all, and grinning like loons, is testament to how good a party the COS can rock, given how we felt when we first turned up at the venue…

For the encore, they perform ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ with the pretence of having to read the lyrics from scrappy sheets of A4 because they don’t know all the words. At least, I think they were only pretending. You never can tell with this lot.

Another random thought: I know it's a bit early to be crowning the Worst Record of The Year, and I'm usually not one on wasting time and space in doing so, but... That Ozzy/Kelly Osbourne duet.

Yeeeaaaarrrgggghhhh.

Not just bad. Shockingly bad. Whilst anyone who saw the bits of The Osbournes that involved Ozzy performing recent solo material will know just how bad he can get (dirges about pollution like, harming Mother Earth, man!), this is something else entirely. Enough to make me retract anything I ever said in Kelly's defence.

like, duh

"Research in the US has found that songs get stuck in our heads because they create a "brain itch" that can only be scratched by repeating the tune over and over."

Thank God for 'Research', eh kids?

Next week: top scientists say Eastenders "strangely compelling, even though a lot of it is shit."

Back at work after nearly two weeks off, sleep-deprived but refreshed. I have little but random thoughts to offer at this point, although long posts on Chicks On Speed, RZA and other things are forthcoming, but I needed to register my existence.

- I think I'm going to have to accept that 'Flip Flip Rock' and 'Hey Ya' really ARE the best songs on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and get over the fact that they were the first tracks I heard from each side. Oh hang on, maybe 'Unhappy' is the best thing on the former... Ignore me, I'm still half asleep.

- Scroll down to October 16 for quality Buffy blogging from the man like Dupre. I can never decide whether in retrospect it would have been better for the show to end with 'Graduation Day': on the one hand, you'd be erasing so many great moments from history, but on the other hand, what remained would be so god-damn consistent... Rather than increasingly patchy or, in the case of Season 6, just plain bad. And I'm really not keen on the other obvious end point, which would have been 'The Gift' - just because it felt too obviously "aha this could be the end, but we all know it isn't nudge-nudge wink-wink".

- Speaking of television obsessions, pity a poor addict: so traumatised am I by the prospect of no new Fisher family fix for the foreseeable future (Season 3 ends in just nine days on E4, folks), that I have asked for this for Christmas...

- The biggest Catch 22 of my life is that without a structured week, I become a useless nocturnal mope, but I can't find a 9-to-5 that doesn't make me slightly stressed and cranky for significant portions of any given week.