One of the things that will be sorely missed about the White Stripes, along with their capability to make such a thunderous, exciting noise with only two members, was their innocent and often child-like mentality. When they weren’t singing about schools (‘Sister, Do you know my name?’) or building a home (‘Let’s Build a Home’), they took a joy out of pretending they were siblings or gleefully dressed up in only three colours. Around about the time ‘Icky Thump’ was released, this innocence had been nabbed by Brendan Benson and then later, Alison Mossheart. This would eventually lead to their painful, but sensible demise.
However, tonight we saw the spirit live on in Janelle Monáe. For the majority of the evening, she danced round the stage with the blissful, wide eyed expression of a Disney character, best witnessed when she lay down and sweetly sighed that everyone should have a nap, during the explosive encore of ‘Come Alive (War of the Roses)’.
However, cute infant isn’t her only persona. When she belted out that she’s ‘shaking like a schizo’ during the swift opener ‘Faster’, she meant it. Often, her tone is that of the authoritative freedom-fighter that we vied for on her album, whose threat ‘Dance or Die’ shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sometimes, we caught her in an individual, dreamy mode, as seen during her cover of Charlie Chaplain’s ‘Smile’, in which her delicate voice floated round the venue like cigarette smoke. However, it was her youthful, attention seeking card that shone brightest.
Her performance wasn’t the perfect theatrical, other-worldly show she would have no doubt wanted, as Birmingham felt obliged to add a touch of glamour. Monae’s introduction on the back screen was tarnished by the fact two of the squares where her mouth should have been weren’t working, leaving Monae’s pretty face looking like she had been gagged. There were also several, slightly too long, awkward pauses between songs, when Monáe left the stage. This often gave it the feel of a primary school nativity, except you couldn’t hear voices in the wings telling the innkeeper to be quiet or his parents would be informed.
However, when she was present on stage, she strutted like she was possessed by the ghost of James Brown. It felt a trifle unfair to the fantastic band, but you couldn’t afford to take your spellbound eyes off Monáe’s tiny-tuxedoed frame. One moment she was shimmying to the watery guitar of ‘Locked inside’, the next she was machine gunning her dancers down. I made the mistake of averting my attention towards the muppet-esque guitarist for a few seconds during ‘Mushroom & Roses’ and when I turned back, there was Monáe, with several plastic cups of paint, painting a board held up by her loyal dancers. I’d be a liar if I were to argue that the finished product was a breath-takingly beautiful masterpiece, but as a man behind me quipped, you wouldn’t see Rhianna doing that.
All of the art and dancing could have easily been an elaborate ploy to hide the fact that she had no credible material to boast of, but she proved she had the songs to live up to her extravagance. The old-school funk of ‘Tightrope’ not only effortlessly made even the most stubborn punter dance, but, more importantly, it also provoked an infectious amount of beaming wide grins, as its irresistible bass-line bounced round. Other highlights were the nursery-rhyme like ‘Wondaland’ and ‘Cold War’, where her whimsical guitarist almost stole the limelight away from Monae, with a mesmerizing guitar solo.
The cocktail of her genre-defying album and exhilarating live shows will hopefully culminate in Monae deservedly going far, but if it means dropping her loveable, exuberant persona in order to fit in with the majority of the drab female solo artists dominating the mainstream, then she should just stay in Wondaland.

A (B²- 2A) + √D
C+4

Right that’s it, I think. It’s taken many sleepless nights and more coffee breaks than one of Silvio Berlusconi’s all night Bunga Bunga dinner parties, but I’ve finally done it. Here is my equation that a band should use if they’re thinking about reuniting. All they have to do is substitute how many solo albums the lead singer has made into A, the amount of bankruptcies band members have had to file for into B, the number of times they’ve said they’ll never reunite to their desperate fans into C and the amount of their ‘classic’ albums that have been re-issued since their demise into D. If the answer comes to over 20, then it qualifies them to do a special one off show. If it comes to over 50, then they can go the whole hog and do a world tour.
The band reunion seemed to be one of the main crazes in the noughties, like those Topman T-shirts with the strange downward collars and sending chain e-mails that threaten the receiver with extreme emotional trauma if they don’t re-send it to another 10 friends in the next 16 minutes. Everyone from Led Zeppelin to The Specials to Spice Girls to The Police and even, er, Blue, who reunited just after 5 years after splitting, have had a roll of the reunion die. Sometimes it works, like in the case of Madness, who still continue to fill festival slots and The Specials, whose songs like ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Too Much, Too Young’ still feel relevant 30 years on, with the exception of ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, as the big man was very much free at the time of the magazine going to publishing.
However, it’s not always a guaranteed success. Take the serial re-uniters, the Sex Pistols for example. They were a band who’s stripped down, no-nonsense songs were in the right place at the right time. They didn’t have any artistic merit or even have that many good songs, but that wasn’t the point. Yet the Pistols didn’t seem to realise this and have played frequently since, even as recent as 2008. Of course, I’m sure ‘it just felt right’, rather than the multiple figure sums they presumably received, but surely John Lydon must have had enough integrity and dignity to not tarnish the Sex Pistols legacy for a few easy bucks? But this was the man who ‘couldn’t resist the temptation’ to sing the praise of Country Life Butter and frolicked around in the jungle with Jordan and Peter Andre, so I may be wrong. He could agree to The Sex Pistols playing Prince William’s stag night, citing ‘it was what the Sex Pistols were all about’ and I wouldn’t be that shocked.
I also have my doubts about the upcoming Pulp reunion, in which they’re playing several festival dates this summer. They sang for all the misfits that weren’t ‘avin’ it large to Oasis or having a knees-up to Blur. But those misfits have grown up and they don’t want to see Pulp. They’ve grown up, married, and have had children, who they warn to stay away from people that look like Jarvis Cocker. It’s just going to be a tad weird having the bearded Cocker doing that dirty whispering along to songs, like ‘Underwear’. It’ll just sound like some sort of Barnsley 35p a minute sex line, that no-one’s enjoying.
So what I’m getting at here is that while it’s healthy to occasionally dabble in nostalgia, can’t we just leave it in the past, where it belongs? Otherwise, it’s just going to get crazy. In forty years time, I don’t want to see a middle aged, balding man that slightly resembles Justin Bieber to be straining to reach the top notes of ‘Baby’ or a 64 year Tinie Tempah boasting that there’s a groupie everyday at his front door. We should look back on the noughties with a sense of pride, but not continue to re-live it. With the music industry already declining at worrying pace, the last thing new bands need is to compete with some ageing has-beens, belting out their irrelevant ditties.
So bands of the world! I offer you with this ultimatum. Either, stick it out like The Rolling Stones or Prince have done, and yes, make a couple of terrible albums, or you can split up, never to return, leaving us with only positive memories of you.

Here's the situation. You are on a Desert Island. Not the 'Desert Island Disc' island or even the Lord of The Flies island, but one somewhere near Iceland. Conditions are unpleasant: it rains often; it's bitterly cold; the locals are still living in the 17th century; and their language sounds like a bad Radiohead B-side.

So to keep you company, I give you two choices. Either a Blu-ray DVD player, with a television and a servant who will run to the nearest Blockbusters and get whichever DVD you want.

Seems tempting.

Or an iPod , your CD collection and all the new releases sent to you weekly. Also, some headphones that aren't those ones that come with the iPod that look like Barbie's shower head.

What you thinking then? Film or music? Both have their merits, but for me it has to be music.

Don't get me wrong. Films are alright. Some have the power to make me laugh, some have the power to make me cry, but most of them have the power to make me fidget and get bored. I know I'm a cretin for saying this, but most films go on too long, and eventually I just want to listen to some music.

Here's some reasons why music is better than films.

1. How many people after watching Forrest Gump wanted to recreate the ' Run Forrest Run!' scene? Nobody, exactly. But how many people listen to 'Sticky Fingers' and want to recreate 'Brown Sugar' on guitar and swagger around pretending they're Mick Jagger? I rest my case.

2. Most films have some good scenes in, but nobody skips straight to them. That would be silly and not worth the effort. You have to watch the whole film to eventually get to the scene in question. However, you can skip past 'Don't Stop' to get to 'This is the one' on 'Stone roses. So, music is a better quick fix than films.

3. You can walk round the house doing whatever shitty thing you have to do and hum/whistle/ faux sing anything. Walk round the house reciting the script to Shawshank Redemption and it doesn't have the same effect.

4. The CD is the most beautiful thing ever invented. Name one good DVD cover and I'll give you 10 brilliant album covers. ('Is this it', 'Raw Power', 'Abbey Road', 'Whatever people say I am...')
Then you've got the sleeve notes, which have occupied many bus journeys home. Then the actual content - no film has ever matched the sheer delight of listening to a classic album. No film has ever left me with that fuzzy feeling within me or had me dwelling on it for days afterwards. I have never watched the same film again straight after watching it for the first time, but I've listened to one album at least 3 times in one day.

Maybe I just haven't watched enough amazing and life changing films and you're more than welcome to suggest some for me. But I won't take them with me on the island with me. Unless I had an iPad which had both movies and music on, but we'll save that for another day.

Admittedly, Mark Ronson was born into a wealthy family with musical background, but how has he managed to become such an inspiring musician, seemingly just by adding trumpets? Mark Ronson has worked with so many big names in the music industry. Robbie Williams, Lily Allen and Kasabian, just to name a few, are chart topping artists, and yet they agree to work with this Brasstard (see what I did there? 'Cause he uses lots of trumpets...).

Now, I may have given the wrong impression - I love what Mark Ronson does, but I’m just a little jealous of his success. I want to work with Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon like he does. I want to appear on musical comedy panel shows like Nevermind the Buzzcocks. I want to have Mick Jones (guitarist for Foreigner) as a stepfather.

Well, maybe not that last one…

This blog is mostly so I can be the first to upload a blog in the ‘Music’ section of the blog, so I’ll fill up some space by telling you a few facts about Mark Ronson.

Did you know he is best friends with Sean Lennon, son of John Lennon? No wonder he was inspired to have a job in the music industry. Did you know that Ronson has dated Rashida Jones, Daughter of Quincy Jones; drummer for The Like, Tennesse Thomas; and English model Daisy Lowe...?

Not bad.

Did you know he's got a Grammy for being Producer of the Year in 2008, and also was credited for the 2 Grammy's Amy Winehouse won in the same year. He also has a BRIT award for best male solo artist.

I'd say he's achieved a lot, and all this information has led up to my final point...

I Hate Twitter.