If you are Gareth Gates - What would you do now?

I think I would want to continue being a pop singer rather than an all round perfromer, entertainer, presenter and other non-functions that make up modern celebrity. So its got to be about making records.

I think I would see this as a long term thing rather than going for short term goals. Thats what killed Hear'Say. The first Hear'say album was very patchy, the second single was rubbish, and nobody was interested in the Second album.

Thats why Unchained Melody is a terrible start, it doesn't imprint enough of Gareth the personality into the public psyche away from the Pop Idol (ie old news). Yeah, it'll be a big hit - him singing 'wheels on the bus' would be a big hit - but it won't make anyone think any different about Gareth Gates.

So I'd do Sweetest Girl for the first single, its obscure enough that the public wont think of Green Gartside when they hear it(Unlike Unchained, where they thing of Robinson + Gerome, or Ghost). I'd make it sound very modern - American - rather than the Scandanavian europop factory.

Then I'd make him write his own song (it doesn't have to be very good) for the extra track on the single. Try not to use the solo Spice Girls / Robbie (allegedgly) 'add a word get a third' style of collaboration. He gets a huge amount of royalties for the sales too.

The third track on the single would be a vocal only track of Sweetest girl called 'bootleg ready mix' with the whiff of desperation of jumping on a bandwagon shamelessly faced down.

A second CD with a version of The Cure's 'Boys don't Cry' with the backing track sounding like Get Ur Freak On backing and a cover of Killer by Van der Graaf Generator as the two extra tracks is also released at the same time, doubling sales and so outselling Will.

Then the arena tour of the UK, solo, 3 hours onstage including costumes, a 20 minute version of Suppers Ready and a backing band made up of the bands Rothko and Delicate AWOL.

The first album arrives in September, its a 32 track 2 CD set off all new brilliant material, a complex thematic piece based on the writings of Steve Erickson each track is then released as a single at monthly intervals for the next 32 months with two bizzare covers as the extra tracks on the single. They become the most popular artefact ever made by a human being in human history. Then the second album is written by the blokes that make up stuff for Westlife and it bombs.

They might think of Suggs though.

yr artist development job must be imminent.

BTW, What's that classical version of Marquee Moon that Dudley mentioned? That would be great as a backing for Gareth too.

Is no-one else psyched by that idea, Gareth doing a teen-idol (think Bobby Vee) vocal on Marquee Moon with all the music done by a Symphony Orchestra?

When I was in Rome, and despite not being able to speak Italian, I went into the only vaguely indie looking record store I could find and asked for some local music. The bloke clearly didn't know what I was saying. Eventually he played me a track from a band called Brutopop and it sounded fine, kinda Palace Brothers / Smog ish, but italian and suaver and better. Then he said he didn't have any for sale and took the sleeve he had been handing to me back, and I presume he said he was sold out or it wasn't out yet or something cause I didn't get to buy it.

Then he showed me a sleeve by a band called Croma and I thought he was playing some of that and it sounded fine too, quite a lot like Brutopop actually, and I took money out and waved it at him and bought the Croma CD.

Croma sound nothing like Brutopop, they sound like Philip Glass. However - and if you were wondering if there was a point to all this its turning up quite soon- they do a cover of Pretty Girls Make Graves, which is the only decent track on the album and then only decent until until halfway through when a female vocal, very clipped English, like a pretty good non-native speaker trying too hard comes in and sings in a sort of sub-operetta style when it would have been much better as an instrumental.

I think Gareth would have made a better job of that vocal too.

Does anyone else do that in foreign places? Buy random local product? I got this ace record in Prague by a band called Dubbyeck, kinda Raincoats-ish but from Prague.

Sorry what was this thread about again?

Oh right Gareth... What Smiths song should he cover and in what style? Would him doing 'How Soon is Now' backed by Alien Ant Farm be any good?

And completely forgotten by virtually everyone, obviously ...

i always try to buy local music when i go abroad and have discovered some real gems. perhaps in 20 years time, i'll compile a nuggetsesque comp of obscure scandanavian reggae. finnish ragga (in finnish) has to be heard to be believed while swedish reggae is righteous!

argentinian blues was somewhat lacking though.

And blokey from X factor is never gonna sell many records either.

In my rant above I obviously stated to get a bit silly, as I warmed to the concept of preposterous contrasts. but there is something of a truth there, great mainstream pop music should be slightly absurd somehow.

Yeah, that number one album must have been a real embarassment for the guys in advertising.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Michelle McManus' career arc has been mapped out to go as it is: early hit, "failed" second single so she can go away for a bit, triumphant diet/weight loss all over the weeklies, the limelight is lit back up for her again when she does the second album (which will probably be very Tash Bedders-ey).

Want proof its working? She has the Heat front cover this week (the week of the Jude and Sienna split!). The only other two reality TV acts that could still take the cover are Will Young and Girls Aloud, so she's in pretty high company.