And Now A Brief Look At The Headlines With Rochelle Saturdays...
Good evening, and here is the news:
Popular girl-group the Saturdays have recently announced they are releasing a new mini-album with the title 'Headlines'. It will be a collection of eight songs, three of which were available on their previous, full-length album 'Wordshaker' - albeit in a remixed form. A fourth is their current single 'Missing You'.
A spokesperson for the band - Rochelle Wiseman - told our reporter that the decision to release this music now was taken because the songs are "so current". They then went on to talk about the news in general, with particular emphasis on so-called paparazzi photographers, and groins.
Here's the interview in full...
===============================
ChartBlog: Hello Rochelle!
Rochelle: Hello!
ChartBlog: Please can you explain why 'Headlines' is a mini-album which also contains a song (or two) from your last album?
Rochelle: The reason it's a mini-album is, we'd finished recording 'Wordshaker' and we were about to record our third album, but we came across some songs we'd recorded that we'd vocalled. And we kind of wanted to put these out because they're so current.
ChartBlog: I see. So the third album is going to be something quite different then?
Rochelle: I'm not sure about something different, but it'll be bigger.
ChartBlog: OK, so I've got lots of questions about the news and headlines in general. Starting with this: What are today's headlines for you personally?
Rochelle: [confused] What...today? What am I doing today? Well I'm going for a fitting. We're going to fit some clothes, for some performances we've got coming up. So maybe fashion is on my mind today.
ChartBlog: This is something that I would imagine happens a lot in the life of a pop star...
Rochelle: Yes, yes it is. We always have a fitting for our outfits. We're five girls and I'm sure we're not the easiest bunch of people to dress. We have to have a LONG fitting before we can decide what we're wearing.
ChartBlog: Is there a lot of bickering? Do you spend your time going "THAT SUITS ME BETTER THAN MOLLIE! GIVE IT HERE!"
Rochelle: [laughing] No! It's lucky because we've all got completely different body shapes. Some stuff would only be right on one of us. For example, what Mollie would wear I would NEVER wear, cos it wouldn't suit me.
ChartBlog: Now, in keeping with the tabloidy 'Headlines' theme of the interview...
Rochelle: Oh God what are you going to ask me?
ChartBlog: No, it's alright, don't worry. I was just going to say that what you'd said there is perfect for the tabloids. I can now sell the quote "What Mollie would wear, I would never wear" to try and build up some kind of feud...
Rochelle: You could, but it wouldn't work. That does happen a lot, but you've just got to take it with a pinch of salt, to be honest.
ChartBlog: Are you into celebrity gossip yourself? Was it a shock to be thrust into that world?
Rochelle: I think every girl is. I think every girl likes to go out and buy the weekly mags to see what's going on. But I tend not to as much now.
ChartBlog: And when you see stories about other people, do you find yourself thinking "now I KNOW that's not true.."
Rochelle: Yeah, exactly!
ChartBlog: How do you deal with the paparazzi? Cos to me that would seem to be the worst thing about being female and in the public eye...
Rochelle: Yeah, yeah! I agree. There is that kind of love-hate relationship because when you've got a single out you need to be in the spotlight, so it's good, but then they definitely take advantage of the situation. It can be really intrusive, but I guess that's part and parcel of it, unfortunately.
ChartBlog: It's not nice that it has to be like that though. I mean that whole lying-on-the-floor, shooting upwards thing, that's pretty vile.
Rochelle: [after a horrified silence] OH! OH! Do you know what? You're scaring me! I thought you were trying to say there's a picture of me lying on the floor!
ChartBlog: Oh no! No I just meant...
Rochelle: You mean them trying to get a crotch shot of people.
ChartBlog: Yes, exactly that.
Rochelle: Yeah, that's never good. It's so annoying because it's part of the territory of being a girl band, they always try to get us up the skirt. So I've decided when I go out now either to wear jeans or we all put shorts underneath our skirts now.
ChartBlog: Very sensible. Especially when you just KNOW any picture will come with a vitriolic headline that says "THIS GIRL DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF A CAR PROPERLY!"
Rochelle: I know! I know! It's one of those things, in everyday life, if you're sitting in a low car, whatever you're wearing, you can hardly get out gracefully, let alone when you've got flashes to contend with. But I've kind of mastered the trick, if I'm with a friend, I'll say "will you do me a favour and stand in front of me while I get out of the car", or I put my handbag there. So we're getting round it. Every time we learn new tricks.
ChartBlog: Excellent. Now, on to the broadsheets. Are you much of a hard news reader? Do you follow big political or heavyweight news stories at all?
Rochelle: I do, I really try to. But at the same time, I find when I go to sleep at night, I put on the news, but then I end up getting a bit depressed.
ChartBlog: Has there been a big story that you've been particularly interested in?
Rochelle: Well I was really interested in the election, and made sure to vote.
ChartBlog: Was this your first time voting?
Rochelle: It actually is! I've always been like, y'know...I've always known what I wanted to say, but not really known too much about it, y'know. But this year...I mean I'm not going to tell you who I voted for, but I voted. I just think you can't complain about how the country is run if you're not going to take part in it, y'know?
ChartBlog: Yep. Absolutely. What one piece of press coverage would you - or have you - frame and hang on the wall?
Rochelle: Erm, probably once when the Sun said I was dating Teddy Sheringham, and that he was taking me out for dinner. It was hilarious! I was like "what the hell?" I saw him. He walked into the same restaurant as me when I was sitting down with my girl friend having some dinner. He lives opposite my best friend, and her dad plays golf with him. So he waved to her and said "Hi!". And you know when you're with someone and they say hi to someone else, you kind of give them the nod, don't you?
ChartBlog: Yes. It's polite...
Rochelle: ...it's polite, yep. That's all he did to me and I kind of waved. And then the next day I was like "wow! We're dating!" It said in the story we were sitting in the restaurant, gazing into each other's eyes. And the best quote was..."first of all I thought it was her dad, and then I realised it was Teddy Sheringham". I was like "are you kidding me? He's two years older than my mum!"
ChartBlog: What's brilliant about that is it not only has that thing where they put any two celebs in a room into a relationship, but they also stick the knife into Teddy Sheringham by saying he's too old.
Rochelle: [laughing] Yeah! We all had a good laugh at it.
ChartBlog: Thank you, Rochelle Saturdays, for today's headlines.
Rochelle: Thank you! Bye!
THE END
===============================
Comment number 1.
At 8th Aug 2010, OddOne wrote:I'm not buying that "so current" malarky for a minute. It not what they thought about 'Headlines' at all: it was their label trying to make money after the dissapointing sales of 'Wordshaker'.
And they didn't think it was "so current", it's what their record label told them to say in media training.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 9th Aug 2010, U14560718 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 11th Aug 2010, spirit wrote:zzzzzzzz
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 11th Aug 2010, OddOne wrote:I reviewed their album and despite how bland 'Missing You' is, there's some real corkers on there. And if you can overlook the inclusion of 'Ego', 'Forever Is Over', and 'One Shot' (despite it being a remix the hardly varies from the original), it's actually quite a fresh-sounding album.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 11th Aug 2010, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Oddly enough, I've just finished a ´óÏó´«Ã½ music review of the album and agree. Higher and Died In Your Eyes are fantastic, and Puppet's not bad. Karma suffers from very un-Saturdays lyrics though.
I still think Missing You is good. It might take a LONG time to reveal its charms, but it does have them...eventually.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 11th Aug 2010, OddOne wrote:Yeah, I agree, I reviewed the album too and found that both 'Higher' and 'Died In Your Eyes' were the standouts, with 'Puppet's dark, dominant female persona rounding off the fairly consistant album.
I also agree with your views on 'Karma'; I feel it sounds unfinished, and oddly, I think it sounds like it's played-back at twice the speed it should be - it just sounds really rushed and unfinished.
And 'Missing You' IS a good song, but it's a not the greatest lead single in the world and amongst track like the two standouts, it does seem a bit on a non-entity.
A fairly good album though, I agve it 7.1/10, which is around the same as I gave 'Aphrodite' (7.8/10).
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)
Comment number 7.
At 12th Aug 2010, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Here's my take on it. I think if it was an entirely new album it would definitely be worth the 7/10 mark...
/music/reviews/mcwx
Complain about this comment (Comment number 7)
Comment number 8.
At 12th Aug 2010, OddOne wrote:Brilliant review Fraser, I did review it as an enitirely new album so each track got an unbiased response, though. That said, I really feel 'Forever Is Over' sticks out a bit. I don't quite know in what way it does, because 'Ego' and 'One Shot' seems to bond perfectly with the new tracks... there's just soemthing about it that never really worked on 'Wordshaker' either, or even as a single.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 8)