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CMU Review Of The Year 2010: The artists and the music

By | Published on Wednesday 22 December 2010

CMU Editor Andy Malt picks and reviews the big ten stories in the music world in 2010, from the major artist stories to the key musical trends.

1. TINIE TEMPAH
Having only officially signed to EMI’s Parlophone label in October last year, Tinie Tempah has gone on to be one of 2010’s most successful UK artists.

In December 2009, Parlophone uploaded the video for his debut single, ‘Pass Out’, to YouTube with little fanfare. But his already considerable underground following helped to slowly push that video to prominence, and as the video’s views increased, more and more of the press and radio picked up on it, ensuring that the Labrinth-produced track went straight to number one upon its release in March.

He’s now had three top five singles, a number one album with ‘Disc-Overy’, collaborated with numerous stars, including P Diddy, and played to packed out audiences around the UK. He was also named CMU’s Artist Of The Year, which I imagine was the main highlight of his career so far.

2. GUNS N ROSES
Guns N Roses are the gift that keep on giving, aren’t they? There have been so many joyous moments over the last twelve months, but I’m only allowed a paragraph or two.

Most talked about was the band’s continued inability to arrive on stage on time. The band played a few gigs in the UK this year where they mostly arrived on stage very late indeed, most notably at Reading Festival, where they had been warned that there was a strict curfew. When the power was cut (half an hour after the curfew), Axl staged a sit down protest.

However, our favourite GNR story of the year came in November, when Rose filed a lawsuit against videogame maker Activision to the tune of $20 million for “emphasising and reinforcing an association between Slash and Guns N Roses and the band’s song ‘Welcome To The Jungle'” by including him, his former bandmate and that song all in the same edition of ‘Guitar Hero’.

3. MICHAEL JACKSON
It’s now eighteen months since Michael Jackson’s death, but he’s been more active musically in 2010 than he had been for more than a decade before his untimely demise.

In June it was announced that the late king of pop had sold more than four million albums and singles in the UK alone since his death, and in October Forbes put his global earnings at $275 million, making him the highest earning dead celebrity this year. A large part of this was thanks to a $200 million deal with Sony Music to release various music and video packages over the next seven years.

The first release to come out of this was ‘Michael’, a posthumous album of previously unreleased material completed by a variety of producers and musicians. There has been much debate about whether the LP actually features Jackson’s voice at all, and whether or not releasing what were unfinished tracks when MJ died is disrespectful to his memory. There seems to be more agreement on the fact the new album’s a bit rubbish, though.

As well as all this, Conrad Murray, the doctor accused of accidentally killing Jackson with a lethal dose of anaesthetic, is still awaiting trial, but that’s not stopped the king of pop’s father Joe from suing him for damages twice.

4. JUSTIN BIEBER
According to the CMU archives, we wrote 58 Justin Bieber-related news stories in 2010. Well, I say news. Several involved him being hit in the face with things.

On the business side, Bieber signed a publishing deal with Universal in February and then went on to become one of the biggest music stars on the net, second only to Lady Gaga. It was revealed in September that 3% of Twitter’s entire capacity is taken up by Justin Bieber and his followers. In May, those fans sent death threats to Kim Kardashian via Twitter after he joked that she was his new girlfriend. Elsewhere gigs were shut down because fans were too rowdy, and in one memorable video clip he was chased down the street by said fans on a slow moving Segway. He also walked into a glass door. Twice. 

Having already published a photo biography, Bieber is now in the process of making a film, to be released in cinemas in February. So you see, there is something to look forward to in 2011.

5. TAKE THAT
In July, pop’s worst kept secret was finally made official; Robbie Williams had rejoined Take That and the band announced the release of a new album together. Williams said at the time: “I get embarrassingly excited when the five of us are in a room. It feels like coming home”.

Entitled ‘Progress’ and produced by Stuart Price, the album came out in November and has been number one in the album chart ever since. It is expected to stay top throughout the Christmas period, and will likely have sold over 1.5 million units by the end of the year.

Elsewhere in TT news, things were less rosey. In March, Mark Owen surprised everyone by admitting to have had ten affairs, blaming it all on a long battle with alcoholism, while last month a super injunction stopping the press from reporting on the fact that an unnamed woman was attempting to sell a story about an affair with Howard Donald was lifted.

6. LADY GAGA
This year Lady Gaga was credited with making the music video an event again. In March she released the video for ‘Telephone’, a collaboration with Beyonce, and it turned out to be a nine minute epic which was heavy on product placement, inappropriately dressed female prisoners and murder. The official YouTube upload has now been viewed nearly 35 million times.

She followed it up with the video for ‘Alejandro’ in June, which arrived with a similar fanfare, but was rather disappointing. Nevertheless, in July she became the first person in the world to have more than ten million Facebook fans (she now has 25 million) and a billion YouTube plays. Meanwhile she delved into politics, lobbying the US government to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law regarding gay troops in the military.

Though she’ll probably be most remembered in 2010 for wearing a dress made of meat.

7. WYCLEF JEAN
In August, Wyclef Jean officially announced his intention to run in the then upcoming Haitian presidential election, after rumours had been circulating for several weeks.

After registering to stand as a candidate for the Viv Ansanm party at an electoral office, Jean told cheering supporters: “I would like to tell President Barack Obama that the United States has Obama and Haiti has Wyclef Jean. This is the only president who will dance when Creole hip hop is being played”.

Unfortunately for him, it turned out he wasn’t actually eligible to stand, as he hadn’t lived in the country for five years. He responded by throwing wild accusations at politicians and critics alike, both in interviews and in song, and generally showing that Haiti had had a lucky escape.

8. DUI: GEORGE MICHAEL AND AMELLE BERRABAH
Pop stars and driving just don’t mix. Well, sometimes they don’t. George Michael, well known for his habit of driving under the influence (of drugs, that is), ended up in prison for four weeks this year after crashing his Range Rover into a branch of Snappy Snaps in Hampstead. He was also fined £1250 and banned from driving for five years. In court it was revealed that when police informed him that he’d crashed, the singer replied: “No I didn’t. I haven’t crashed into anything”.

Sugababe Amelle Berrabah was similarly amusing when she appeared in court on drink driving charges in October, saying they couldn’t ban her because she was “too famous to use the bus”. The Daily Mail took much delight in photographing the zero people who had shown up to support her outside Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, contrasting it with the thousands of fans who showed up for Michael a month earlier.

9. ASSAULTS: AARON FAGAN, BEZ AND DAVE MCCABE
When celebrities aren’t driving around all hopped up on drink and drugs, they like to go around assaulting people. Well, some do.

In July, N-Dubz’s (now former) live drummer was up in court accused of sexually assaulting two girls after a gig at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University. When found guilty, he claimed his conviction was the “opposite of justice”.

Making similar claims later in the year was occasional Happy Monday Bez, who when convicted of assaulting his former partner and sentenced to community service, announced he would do no such thing. The magistrate responded by throwing him in jail instead.

When also sentenced to community service, Zutons frontman Dave McCabe wisely kept his mouth shut after being found guilty of headbutting a man who’d laughed when someone had said his girlfriend’s furry hood made it look like she had a beard.

10. URBAN AND GRIME
2010 was the year that underground urban genres like grime and dubstep made a break for the mainstream, and duly succeeded.

By mixing a bit of pop or dance in with their sounds, artists like Tinie Tempah, Magnetic Man and Katy B rushed to the top of the charts. Tinchy Stryder, who had been riding this wave for a while, perhaps with a little too much of the pop, continued to ascend to stardom, setting up a joint venture between his own Takeover Entertainment company and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, called Takeover Roc Nation.

The UK rapper released his third album, ‘Third Strike’, in November. Sadly for him, it peaked at number 48 in the UK album chart, seemingly passed over by fans more interested in the newer batch of urban artists. That said, the elder statesman of mainstream grime, Dizzee Rascal, did very will this year, releasing three top five singles.

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