SIX UNRELEASED ALBUMS YOU'D SLAUGHTER YOUR OWN GRANNY TO HEAR

Nostalgic fans who are only interested in Neil Young’s boring old material will be thrilled to learn than the cantankerous Canadian will finally release one of his long-lost albums on July 14. Hitchhiker was originally recorded in 1976 but the material was binned when Young became distracted with other projects such as cocaine.

Young isn’t the only musician with an album or twelve tucked away at the back of his audio pantry. Here are six more records that have yet to see the light of day that it would literally be worth injecting your own grandmother with a lethal dose of diamorphine to hear.

Green Day - Cigarettes And Valentines And The Same Three Chords
The Californian trio abandoned this album when its master tapes were stolen by a benevolent Robin Hood figure hoping to spare the masses from yet more Green Day. Instead, Billy Bobby Thornton and co. dusted themselves off and wrote the bloated concept album American American. But what would that original album have sounded like? Pop-punk, obviously. Working titles included ‘Oi Oi’, ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’, ‘Boohoo Ballad’, ‘Spank Spank’ and ‘Mickey The Mohawk’s Tragic Tale Of Social Security Woe (Woe, Woe, Woah)’.

U2 - Trilogy
According to Bono’s water-polo partner George W. Bush, U2 have at least three albums worth of unreleased material which ranges from bombastic arena rock to acoustic arena rock. I’m not surprised because one of them once slipped down the back of Bono’s sofa only to find its way into my iTunes library and now I can’t delete it without the webcam taking my picture without permission and automatically adding my name to a secret government list of known atheists.

Donald J. Trump - The Art Of Making A Really Really Great Album Like A True Champ
Much like Jesus, little is known about Donald Trump’s teenage years other than he was almost certainly a precocious tool. One theory is that the young Donald spent much of that time working on an ambitious space-prog concept album inspired by Orson Welles, golden shiny things and several books he hasn’t read. It is thought that Trump abandoned his musical aspirations when it finally dawned on him that he could not operate any grown-up instruments with such tiny hands. He then decided to focus on his second dream of becoming America’s least qualified human.

Billy Joel - Everything Since 1993
In a reversal of the hideous portrait in Dorian Gray’s attic, the songs Billy Joel records in his secluded basement are as sprightly and vibrant as the work of his youth while, externally speaking, Joel slowly transforms into a pink fleshy egg. In concert, Joel’s piano has to be secured to the stage floor with extra reinforced bolts to prevent it from being sucked into the air by the force of an entire arena crowd gasping in unison at this upsetting reminder of mortal decline.

Gary Barlow - Eyebrow Of The Tiger
At the nadir of his portly wilderness years, Gary Barlow recorded an entire concept album dedicated to his own right eyebrow. Tracks included ‘Back For Eyebrow’, ‘Everything Eyebrows’, ‘A Million Eyebrows’, ‘How Deep Is Your Eyebrow’, ‘It Only Takes An Eyebrow’, ‘I Will Eviscerate Robbie Williams And Feed His Gunky Entrails To That Prickhole Max Beesley’ and ‘Relight My Eyebrow’. Gary Barlow’s right eyebrow was so touched by the gesture that it has remained raised in erotic stimulation ever since.

Noel Gallagher, John Zorn and Autechre - Vol. 1: Definitely Quabungzizz-X
A couple of years ago, word got out that the ex-Oasis songwriter had recorded a whole album in collaboration with the avant-garde composer John Zorn and groundbreaking electronic duo Autechre. Regrettably, Gallagher shelved the project when he suddenly remembered that it could jeopardise his long-cultivated reputation as Britain’s dullest musician.

FEARNE COTTON'S RECORD COLLECTION GOES ONLINE

The record collection of legendary disc jockey Fearne Cotton is now available online. Uploaded by ‘The Void’, an Arts Council funded pop-up site, from today music fans will be able to browse Cotton’s overwhelming collection of over seven records.

“There’ll be information about the record sleeve, all the information about the record itself, as well as whether Fearne rated the album or not,” explained Cotton’s widow Keith Lemon. Cotton famously employed a meticulous 5-star rating system for each piece of music she bought or received. Fearne awarded every item in the collection the full 5 stars, accompanied by additional superlatives such as “mega”, “massive”, “most awesomest ever”, “cool” and “really, really cool”, suggesting that her critical faculties may have been damaged in childhood.

The virtual museum includes such rare curiosities as a first pressing of Mis-Teeq’s 2004 hit ‘Scandalous’, a Foo Fighters greatest hits compilation, and some stuff by The Kooks. It’s not all obscurities though, as the trend-setting DJ also found room for plenty of U2 and Coldplay.

Many of the items have had to be professionally cleaned and restored after suffering significant physical damage from the bestial drool and other bodily products expelled by Cotton’s simian colleague Chris Moyles.

Besides the details of her records, the electronic archive also includes Cotton’s hand-written preparation notes for her ITV2 television vehicle ‘Fearne And…’ Intended for celebrities such as Peaches Geldof, Paris Hilton, and Craig David, a list of hard-hitting, penetrative questions such as “How many shoes do you own?”, “What’s it like being so famous?” and “Can I touch your hair?” can be viewed in their original form, written in blue crayon on the back of some SpongeBob toilet roll.

Cotton died in 2011 after almost ten years at the BBC. She was 65 years old.

PROTESTERS AT GLASTONBURY TO DEMONSTRATE AGAINST U2'S FAILURE TO PAY LARRY

Campaigners at this year’s Glastonbury Festival are planning to stage a demonstration during U2’s headlining set, voicing their opposition to the multimillionaire group’s avoidance of paying Larry Mullen, Jr.

It has recently come to light that since U2’s formation Larry has technically been under contract as an unpaid intern, with limited access to tour catering and a minimal rider allowance. When not on tour, Larry earns a living by giving drum lessons to schoolchildren in Dublin and gigging with U2 tribute band “U2(ii)”.

Campaigners have highlighted U2’s hypocrisy in pretending to care for the developing world, playing numerous high profile benefit gigs such as Live Aid, Live 8 and various other Boomtown Rats shows, and imploring their fans to donate their hard earned cash to good causes, whilst at the same time being so greedy themselves as to not even pay their own drummer. The protesters have promised to stop short of actually disrupting U2’s set, but are determined to make their demonstration highly visible by waving giant banners displaying slogans such as “Bono Pay Larry” and “Make Larry’s Poverty History” and by wearing giant cardboard cut-out masks of a sad-faced Larry with the words “Poor Larry” written across the forehead.

Chastity Goodall, an evangelical Christian, lifelong U2 enthusiast, and member of the Delirious? fan club, said “I love U2 almost as much as I love Our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is appalling that they continue to neglect Larry in this way. Larry is an integral part of the U2 dynamic and he is every bit as important as Bono, The Edge or the other one.” Then she started banging on about the eye of a needle or something.

GLASTONBURY GOERS WELCOME LINE-UP UNLIKELY TO DISTRACT FROM THEIR PRINCIPAL INTENTION OF GETTING SHIT-FACED

photo © 2009 Unofficial Glastonbury Festival more info (via: Wylio)

The full line-up for this year’s Glastonbury Festival was revealed this week, and has so far been enthusiastically praised by the majority of ticket-holders as there remains little danger of the music distracting from their primary concerns of watching jugglers, purchasing amusing headwear, lying facedown in the sun/mud, aimlessly wandering around talking drivel, and getting totally dribble-headed on all manner of legal and illegal herbal and chemical intoxicants.

Cassandra Palmer-Smythe, a student from Tunbridge Wells, tweeted: “Fought there wuz gonna be some propa legends on the bill. Luckily, U2 and Coldplay, innit. More time for ket wiv da boyz. Lol!”

With a line-up which also includes Elbow, Morrissey, Biffy Clyro, Mumford & Sons, Glasvegas, and Kaiser Chiefs, festival-goers have been relieved to know that there is very little reason to visit the major stages at all, and that they can simply relax and enjoy themselves safe in the knowledge that they will not be missing anything of any consequence or substance whatsoever.

Jasper Carter-Floyd, a marketing executive from Oxford who has been attending the festival since his teens, blogged: “Man, I remember when they used to have half-decent acts on. It was really rather dreadful. One year I spent two hours completely sober because I’d left some stuff back at Daddy’s camper van and couldn’t drag myself away from The Cure. Won’t have that trouble this year. Going to get really, really blathered.”

Organiser Emily Eavis emphasized that polls had proven that attendees had more fun when the acts booked were little more than background noise, even if this meant, paradoxically, spending more money on the headliners. Not all the bands which will be performing this year are completely mind-numbingly boring, but those which might excite have been kept to a bare minimum, whilst two of those acts, the Wu-Tang Clan and Beyoncé, are of African-American descent. They are thus unlikely to attract the attention of a large number of the festival goers, many of whom are, as proven by the controversy of Jay-Z’s headlining slot in 2008, massively intolerant hip-hop-hating racists.

Timothy “Peace Dragon” Dewhurst, a hippy who has been attending the festival religiously since its inception in the ‘70s, did not choose to announce his thoughts on the line-up via the medium of Twitter, instead choosing to stroll into Bristol city centre wearing a wizard’s hat and a glittery cape and announcing through a handmade cardboard loudhailer: “It used to be about the music maaan. Music and love. Love and music. You, me, the pagan brethren. I mean… for a start, where the hell are Hawkwind?”

When asked if he would be boycotting the festival, Mr. Dewhurst confirmed that he was still looking forward to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown on the Friday.