Robbie Williams, like most established pop singers and artists, has earned enough money to be set up for life. He could retire tomorrow and never have to lower his quality of life. So it’s good to hear he, along with a swathe of other British music stars, is giving up his time and money for charity.

Just yesterday I reported how Radiohead had held a special, one-off gig to raise money and awareness for victims of the Haiti earthquake. While U2 and Sting were among those taking part in the Hope For Haiti Now concert event.

British music has been widely recognized and loved around the world since the early 1950s. And sixty years on, each successive decade has proved to be a beast of its own, unique making. The British Music Experience charts these six decades of music in an interactive and entertaining way.

The British Music Experience is a permanent exhibition at the O2 in London. It has made a home in the O2 Bubble, just one small part of the huge complex formerly known as the Millennium Dome, which now has the O2 Arena at its heart.
The British Music Experience opened in March 2009, …read more

It’s now 2010, the start of a new year and a new decade. So now is a fitting time to look back at the noughties, the decade that gave us a lot of brilliant new music. But what were the biggest selling albums of the decade that ran from 2000 to 2009?

The Official Charts Company compiles the UK charts every week based on sales. And, according to NME, it recently released details of the Top 10 biggest selling albums of the noughties, which are as follows:-
The Top 10 Albums Of The Noughties
1. James Blunt – ‘Back To Bedlam’
2. Dido – …read more

We’re now entering not only a new year but a new decade, with the noughties giving way to the tens. So, as we say goodbye to 2009 and welcome in 2010, it’s time to sum up what we listened to over the last decade.

There must have literally thousands of tracks released over the last decade, but there’s only a relatively small amount that make it past the first few listens and enter or collective consciousness.
Music licensing company, PPL, has compiled the top 50 most played songs of the noughties. The full list is available to view on its Web site, …read more

They may not get played on the radio any more, and they may not have had a hit record for 20 years or so, but Status Quo have been named the hardest working band in the British music scene for 2009. Fellow oldie Cliff Richard came second. I thought stamina was meant to fade with age.

How do you judge how big and successful an artist is these days? Is it purely down to record sales, even though these can be manipulated by a number of factors (one of which has an X in front of it). Or is there more …read more

The UK music charts may mean less now than they used to but they’re still an indicator of what’s hot on the popular British music scene right now. This week’s Top 10 singles and Top 10 albums are listed below.

This week’s singles chart is a little bit boring coming off the back of the battle for Christmas number one. But Joe McElderry finally managed to overcome the might of Rage Against The Machine to take the top spot. Rage dropped to 2. Joe’s mentor on The X Factor, Cheryl Cole, climbed from 7 to 4, while Ke$ha sneaked back into …read more

The UK music charts may mean less now than they used to but they’re still an indicator of what’s hot on the popular British music scene right now. This week’s Top 10 singles and Top 10 albums are listed below.

The singles chart hasn’t changed much this week from last, with Peter Kay’s Animated All Star Band retaining the number one spot with The Official BBC Children In Need Medley. Rihanna jumped from six to two with Russian Roulette, with Lady Gaga just behind her with Bad Romance. The only two new entries are Alicia Keys at number eight with Doesn’t …read more

Speech Debelle won the Mercury Music Prize in September. Her victory over Glasvegas and Florence and The Machine was a surprise, probably even to her. The problem is that the win seems to have gone to her head a little. Thankfully, Take That fans are determined to keep her grounded.

Speech Debelle seemed to come out of nowhere to win the 2009 Mercury Music Prize. I readily admit I’d never heard of her until she was nominated. She won the award and then seemed to set about trying to flaunt her new-found success like Charlie Big Potatoes.

A charity concert for Children In Need will take place tomorrow (Thursday) night at the Royal Albert Hall. Muse, Paul McCartney, Shirley Bassey, Dizzee Rascal, and many others will be performing, and many of the artists will be teaming up for duets. However, Take That will not be joined on stage by Robbie Williams. Apparently.

We know that Robbie Williams is going to be rejoining Take That at some point in the future, whether temporarily or permanently. It’s really just a matter of when. But it doesn’t look like it’ll be happening this week as rumored.

It looks as though the Robbie Williams/Take That reunion is an unstoppable force building more momentum by the day. Robbie has now confirmed he and the group have met up and recorded together again for the first time since he left in 1995. It’s now more a question of when rather than if.

There has been rumors and talk of a reunion for months now, but the end of September saw Take That and Robbie Williams meet up in a New York recording studio. At the time, I thought it could just be newspaper talk but Robbie has now admitted it …read more