Charts – 3 June 2012
As predicted, fun. only managed a single week at the top – though coming after a lengthy climb, and with the single still hanging around the top 3 in the midweeks, they’ve still had an impressive run. For a while, it looked as though the Eurovision winner was going to do it, but as is often the case, sales tailed off in the second half of the week as the contest receded into the dim and distant memory of 72 hours ago. Instead…
1. Rudimental (feat. John Newman) – “Feel The Love”
The X-Axis – 3 June 2012
It’s a podcast weekend, so check just one post down for our reviews of Grim Leaper, Ravagers and Mind MGMT. Meanwhile, after giving Astonishing X-Men a clear run last week, the X-books are back to their usual schedule this time round…
New Mutants #43 – The conclusion of the five-part “Exiled” crossover with Journey into Mystery. The New Mutants and Loki are trying to solve the problem of the Disir by marrying them (collectively) off to Sigurd in order to fulfil the conditions of Bor’s curse, but Bor’s medieval concept of wedlock turns out to be a bit much for the New Mutants. Cue plan B, which (this being a Loki story) involves seizing the opportunity to circumvent the problem in a more innovative way.
House to Astonish Episode 85
We’re back after our week away, looking at the coming out of Alan Scott, the wedding of Northstar, the crusade of One Million Moms, the Eagle Awards imbroglio, the ever-increasing character cast of Iron Man 3, the continuing success of the Avengers and where Marvel TV goes next. There are also reviews of Mind MGMT, Ravagers and Grim Leaper, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe finds that cash rules everything around it. All this plus the best double glazing salesman, U-list villains and an enormous bunny rabbit.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, available via the Stitcher.com website or through their free iPhone or Android apps, or on the embedded player below.
Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Charts – 27 May 2012
For the second week running, this was supposed to be a nice clear run at the top for the new single from a major pop group. And once again, it hasn’t quite happened.
1. fun featuring Janelle Monae – “We Are Young”
This has been out for weeks, originally entering at 7 and moving 3-3-3-5-2-1 to get to the top. It’s an unexpected result because it was 10,000 copies behind in the midweeks, but boy bands do have a tendency to flare out after their initial sales surge.
Fun probably won’t have a second week at the top – they’re already down to 3 on iTunes – but a single week is still fine as the climax of seven weeks’ climbing. The question is now is whether they go down as one-hit wonders – though the follow-up single “Some Nights” has already charted in a couple of territories, so their chances are reasonable.
Notable climbers this week: “Remedy” by Professor Green from 27 to 18, “Princess of China” by Coldplay & Rihanna from 30 to 20, and “Bangarang” by Skrillex from 32 to 24.
Eurovision 2012
Since it’s a quiet week for new comics, let’s talk about Eurovision!
I’m going to assume that even the Americans among you have a vague understanding of what the Eurovision Song Contest is, since I’ve written about it before. In short: “Eurovision” is the European Broadcasting Union, which is an organisation of European (or close enough) broadcasters. Among their many and eccentric activities is the annual Eurovision Song Contest, notionally an international songwriting contest, but actually conceived mainly as an excuse to show off the cutting edge technical possibilities of 1956. Each country puts in a song, each country votes, winner gets to host the show next year.
The Eurovision Song Contest has a proud tradition of being almost totally detached from anything that might be described as actual popular music anywhere in Europe, though every so often (as with this year’s winner) something comes along to challenge that. Sometimes even the oddities are genuinely entertaining in their own right. And sometimes entire countries either phone it in or transparently take the piss. The result is a truly unique spectacle – songs you’d never hear anywhere else, often for very good reason, locked in flamboyantly bizarre battle.
The X-Axis – 27 May 2012
This is the quietest week for X-books in ages, with just one regular X-Men title, one Avengers vs X-Men tie-ins, and one single tie-in from another crossover elsewhere in the line. Why, you’d almost think they wanted to give something a clear run at getting attention…
Oh, and I haven’t got my copy of Secret Avengers #27 yet (the AvX tie-in). So for the moment, we’ll just stick to the two I’ve read…
Astonishing X-Men #50 – As seen on The View, it’s the gay wedding storyline! Actually, it’s part three of a story that began with Marjorie Liu’s debut issue, and in theory the main plot is about the X-Men being attacked by C-list villains who are being mind-controlled by some mysterious bad guy. As flash forwards already established, this is heading towards everyone else getting mind-controlled and piling on Northstar, which duly happens in this issue.
Charts – 20 May 2012
(NB: See the housekeeping announcement a post down, if you’re looking for this week’s podcast.)
This is the busiest chart in quite some while, though it’s also a week of relatively low sales and some underwhelming debuts. Still, nine new entries, and a couple of substantial climbers. There’s no move at number 1, but by a very slender margin; Rita Ora held on by less than a thousand sales.
1. Rita Ora feat Tinie Tempah – “R.I.P.”
Doesn’t look like it’s going to manage a third week, and I wrote plenty about it last week, so let’s move on. The highest climber is “Express Yourself” by Labrinth, jumping from 34 to 17; Emeli Sande’s “My Kind Of Love” predictably vaults 27 to 19; and the Fun single “We Are Young” has rebounded to number 2 after being covered on The Voice. It might yet make number 1 – it’s at 2 in the midweeks, but that’s behind the Wanted, and boy band sales tend to be heavily front loaded because the fans all buy the record as soon as it comes out.
On with the new entries…
Housekeeping
Just a quick note to say that a variety of home and work demands mean that Paul and I haven’t been able to synch up schedules for this weekend (and believe me, we’ve tried) so we’re going to have to put the podcast back a week – next weekend’s pretty packed out for both of us too, but we’re hoping to record next Friday evening, so we’ll see you then (all things being equal).
The X-Axis – 20 May 2012
Plenty of crossover material this week, so let’s get straight to it…
Avengers #26 – It’s an inherent problem with these sort of crossovers that, in order to make each series intelligible in its own right, you end up getting the same scenes repeated from various perspectives. So this is essentially the team from Secret Avengers being sent off to fight the Phoenix, only told from Noh-Varr’s standpoint, since that’s the focus of this particular book. In fairness, it does at least steer clear of just repeating the entire fight scene (unfashionably offering a footnote to suggest that you might care to read Secret Avengers if you’re interested in that bit – and I’ll come back to that shortly).
Walt Simonson’s art on this arc is about as cartoonish as he’s ever been, but in a strange sort of way that complements Bendis’s style rather well. It gives the book the sort of cosmic feel that this sort of story desperately needs, and it also stalls any risk of the book taking itself too seriously. There’s even a half-decent idea in here, with Noh-Varr having to betray the team over his greater loyalty to the Kree Empire. Ultimately, though, it runs up against the problem that’s plagued Bendis’ use of Noh-Varr from the word go; he just isn’t a very strongly defined character, and he remains a rather bland figure cast in a major role.
WWE Over The Limit 2012
Over the Limit is one of those generic pay-per-views that clogs up the annual schedule and that the company could probably quite happily do without. After the brief excitement of Brock Lesnar’s appearance last month, he’s been put on the back burner until Summerslam (in two shows time), so for the moment, we’re firmly in the annual post-Wrestlemania lull when not a great deal is happening. And it shows from the card, which is a mixture of essentially random pairings that might make for good matches, plus a storyline-driven main event that would probably have been better off on free television.
Before turning to the card, let’s quickly reflect on the latest overhaul of the company’s filming schedule. For some time now, the WWE shooting schedule has basically consisted of tapings on Monday and Tuesday, with an extra Sunday pay-per-view show every three to four weeks. The Monday taping consists of the live two-hour Raw broadcast together with some matches used for the internationally syndicated show Superstars; Tuesday generally records the two-hour Smackdown for broadcast on Friday, another Superstars match, and the dreaded NXT, featuring a mix of rookie and low-end roster members. The problem with NXT is that it’s not broadcast in the US (you can watch it online but almost nobody does), meaning that each show is taped before an utterly indifferent crowd who don’t recognise anyone.
