Music - Hecklerspray: Music, Movies, TV, Celebs, Games and Gossip

Ah, Boxing Day. Did you know that Boxing Day traditionally got its name from the time your mother - fuelled by self-loathing from all the food she ate 24 hours earlier - punched a bishop to death for looking at her funny? True story.

But anyway, today isn t just Boxing Day - it s day one of Spray Picks 06. Spray Picks 06 is a four-day-long retrospective of the year gone by, where our esteemed staff of writers choose a whole bunch of stuff that they liked from the worlds of music, cinema, television and a vague other world we sort of invented to make up the numbers. OK, we ll admit it, Spray Picks 06 was originally going to be called Let s Stick This Up Between Christmas And New Year And Hope Nobody Notices That We re Bunking Off, but thanks to headline character limits, Spray Picks 06 it is.

Anyway, we re starting off today with our CDs of the year, and you can find the enlightening list right after the jump
Posted in , on December 26th, 2006 |
Pop music has produced some tripe over the years. Some of our most loathed acts include The Venga Boys, Westlife, McFly, Busted, Five, Take That, Steps and anything from shows like X Factor, Fame Academy, Pop Off, Manufactured Toss Idol, We rsquo;ll Only Be Famous For A Minute Academy and so on.
But of course there rsquo;s always one act that rises above the rest to claim the title of planet Earth s most annoying band/ act/ thing.

It s everyone rsquo;s unfavourite pop duo The Cheeky Girls. After pissing off most of the country with some obnoxious song about not being shy and touching their arse, The Cheeky Girls thankfully faded back in to obscurity, despite desperately trying to claw back some fame by making a few appearances on rubbish TV shows. Sadly The Cheeky Girls are back in the limelight, and in the middle of a hot political scandal.

Did we say hot political scandal ? We meant the greatest love story of our generation .
Posted in , on December 22nd, 2006 |
It s Christmas; usually a time for fresh-faced youngsters to knock on your door and sing carols while you stand around either lap up the festive cheers, worry how much they rsquo;ll beg from you or - like us - tell them to piss off and bother someone else.

Music is generally crap this time of year too, with horrible Christmas singles out ndash; which of course we rsquo;ve been telling you all about - and it s time for Noddy Holder to reap in the benefits of his one decent song when it gets belted out on pretty much every TV music channel, radio station or adverts for Asda. Instead of bringing you some calm, soothing festive music with an annoying children rsquo;s choir in it, we rsquo;ve decided to rock out with this week rsquo;s band ndash; Fyreon.
Who are anything but calming, soothing and thankfully don rsquo;t feature any children.

Posted in , on December 21st, 2006 |
2006 has seen a lot of trends. If you rsquo;re a celebrity, for example, you re no-one unless you rsquo;ve got an adopted child to your name, and in the music world this year has seen the reunion of a few great big shiny pop bands.
Even though this year is nearly over, another band forgotten in time - Wham!

- were set to make their big comeback. Even though Wham! had a few decent songs that now usually only tend to get rolled out at Christmas, weddings or at dodgy mobile discos, that was plenty good enough for George Michael to try and cash-in during a rare break from hanging around in bushes, getting high off cannabis and sleeping slumped at the wheel of his car.

But anyway, Wham! aren t reforming any more.
Posted in on December 20th, 2006 |
Here it is, the last of our rollercoaster three-day delve into the Christmas number one betting odds for 2007, where we buckle ourselves in securely and prepare ourselves for one of the most hotly-contested Christmas number one races ever.

Oh, who are we kidding? Everyone knows who the Christmas number one is going to be - it s always the winner of X Factor. And since we knew who the winner of X Factor was right from the moment Leona performed her first song three months ago, we pretty much knew that Leona was going to be Christmas number one back in October.

We re certain of it - so certain that we re going to fill up the rest of this paragraph with the word Leona only; Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona Leona.
See? But - hey - what if Leona won t be the Christmas number one?

Here are the Christmas number one betting odds for Girls Aloud, Take That and, yes, Leona Lewis
Posted in , on December 20th, 2006 |
Guns N Roses fans are a patient lot aren t they? They ve been waiting for over a decade for Axl Rose to release new Guns N Roses album Chinese Democracy, and the release date has now been pushed back again - this time to March 2007.
But this time Axl Rose really means it.

On March 6 2007, Chinese Democracy will definitely, definitely be released as a proper album with absolutely no exception. Unless it doesn t happen, which - given the endless delays Guns N Roses have given Chinese Democracy - it probably won t. But let s look on the bright side here; we might only be a couple of weeks away from hearing what kind of ridiculously overblown Puddle Of Mudd rip-off disappointment Axl Rose has managed to tinker the joy out of over the last ten years or so.

Posted in on December 19th, 2006 |
We d just like to double-check that everyone got the memo regarding it being the season to be jolly tra la la la la la la la la - because Robbie Williams seems to have got the memo saying it s the season to be really really unusually miserable.
Whether you spend this week making your home look beautiful and seasonal, or basically teaching your children that if they sit on the laps of a succession of creepy old men without crying or struggling they ll be given sparkly presents instead of years of therapy and marriage-destroying intimacy issues, spare a thought for Robbie Williams - because he s deeply miserable. In an interview with The Big Issue, Robbie Williams says that he s never going to have children, because any child of his will have to endure a lifetime of pain, Pain, PAIN!