According to the news today, Kylie has launched her own social network, called Kylie Konnect. I signed up to the site to get a feel for it, but I’m not impressed! Why?

It’s not on Kylie.com

Why start up a totally different site to let your fans rave about you? The social net should be part of the artists main website. Where most musicians’ websites have forums today, in the future they should have social networks to allow fans to interact.

The design is awful

It’s got this blotchy black and white background that is completely distracting, fonts that are difficult to read and the navigation is completely un-intuitive.

Once you sign up, there’s no tutorial to show you how to use the site. In fact, as far as I can see, there’s no help section at all.

Where are my friends?

The social element of social networks is the ability to connect with other people. Kylie’s social network makes it extremely difficult to see the other people on the site and connect with them. Think about MySpace’s recent users feature.

And when you visit another user’s profile page, you can’t even see their friends! One of the greatest ways to connect with other people through social sites is by allowing them to find like minded people.

Where’s the content?

Show me the recent pictures and blog posts. When I log in, all I see is a bit of profile information and nothing else. This is frustrating – I want to see what other people are saying about Kylie, look at pictures people may have uploaded or whatever.

What about a forum? Where can I join in a discussion about what my favourite Kylie tracks are? No such functionality. It doesn’t exist on Kylie Konnect.

It’s almost as if they’ve launched before the site has been completed. By the looks of things right now, Kylie Konnect is about 25% complete. It’s nowhere near being a fully functional social networking site though.

Their music is best described as psychedelic rock – thick harmonies, reverb and tremolo guitar effects and slow, shuffling beats. The band say their aim is to beat the musical mediocrity that has taken over the industry.

Bizarrely, the members of the band were all born without surnames, so we can only know them by their first names: Tim is guitarist/vocalist, Al plays bass, sings and plays strings (which give a nice dimension to the music without ever sounding like The Corrs). Rick is the lead guitarist and Kenny is the guy who keeps the beat. C’mon guys, get some surnames!

The Minority cite their influences as being bands like Radiohead and Elbow, and songwriters like Nick Drake and David Kitt.

There are three great tracks online now: Empty City, Give Me Time and Know Your Enemies. I particularly like Empty City – quite a haunting track which makes good use of Al’s talents on violin and has a brilliant (slide?) guitar running through it.

Magic. Be sure to check them out – The Minority.

People in glass houses should never throw stones, Elton.

Yes, the man who wore some of the largest glasses in showbiz ironically claims that people sitting at home making their own records “doesn’t bode well for artistic vision”.

Bloody hell. Get a grip, Elton. The Internet has opened up a whole new avenue of content distribution, from peer to peer networks to YouTube to Pandora and Last.fm.

Advances in computing have leveled the playing field and allowed aspiring artists to lay down tracks on their home computers and distribute their tunes either via personal homepages or MySpace.

I will grant the rock dinosaur one thing: there’s an awful lot of dross out there. But dross doesn’t often float to the top. Only the best or most interesting artists will capture people’s hearts and receive those all-important word-of-mouth recommendations. Remember, pop music by its very nature is popular music. If the general public don’t like it, they don’t buy it, talk about it or sing it in the shower.

Frankly, I’m appalled that a man who publicly calls Victoria Beckham a friend can come out and criticize the Internet for propagating poor quality music. Perhaps Mr John should start wearing those oversized specs again…

The Internet was unavailable for comment when we were researching this article…

Cushh stands for Creative, Unusual, Sensual, Hot and Happening, and features a singer known as Miss Nic’ola alongside rapper E². They’re an odd-looking pairing, but their music is being touted as the UK answer to Black Eyed Peas.

That’s a claim I find credible on image alone – sexy girl fronts group while original musicians take a back seat and lap up the success. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but Cushh aren’t quite as infectious as Black Eyed Peas. Do It 2 Me simply lacks that kind of all-round appeal.

Not that it’s a bad song. Au contraire, it’s a smouldering club track. Sensual, as the group describe. It should hit all the right spots, but for me it’s a little wide of the mark. Here’s where I go all Simon Cowell….

I found the vocals by Miss Nic’ola just a little bit off. There’s something unconvincing in the delivery – technically a decent performance, but not quite raunchy enough for the subject matter. The rap by E² toward the end raises things a little bit, and he does a passable job of playing the playa.

Again, the video for Give It 2 Me is a bit copycat. Full marks though for working a female mud wrestling scene into a pop video. Better directors have tried and failed. Hell, it was the pop video moment I’ve been waiting for all my life….

All the same, Miss Nic’ola doesn’t convince as a sex symbol. As she gyrates in her skimpies, she sings “I’ll show you what you ‘re missin’…..love and affec-shu-u-un”. Now I checked, and the dictionary definition of ‘love’ doesn’t mention lapdancing or mud wrestling….

Having said all that, I wish these guys the best of luck. I know it’s early days, but if they can polish their act and raise their songwriting game, it would be interesting to see a UK version of the Black Eyed Peas.

These days, Stuart’s working on building up his own material with a view to getting a recording deal. When he’s not writing cracking tunes, he spends his time cultivating weird moustache configurations (only joking).

Anyway, I visited Stuart’s MySpace page and checked out some of his songs. What I discovered was a sample of some very chart-worthy pop-rock songs of an exceptionally high standard. Listen to Chain Reaction (one of my favourites) – a simple but effective love song with a crystal clear guitar sound and distinctive, memorable chorus.

Chasing Miracles is another outstanding tune – there’s a slight American tinge to the instrumentation, but that’s not a bad thing. Revnell’s vocals are gritty, but without being annoying or over the top. It’s amazing that he writes and produces this stuff himself.

I won’t comment on Stuart’s pin-up qualities. Ladies, check out the photos and share your thoughts in the comments. My interview with Stuart begins after the picture…

Who do you count as songwriting influences?

That’s a tricky one to answer – it’s probably not so much “who” as “what” I count as my influences. I’ve been inspired by a lot of music over the years, and can generally find something that inspires me in most songs, be it a hook, melody, chorus, production or whatever, but I don’t really have any one artist or songwriter that is a main influence. To me, if it’s a good song, then I would count it as an influence – that can range from the Spice Girls to Santana!

The first bands that I got into in a big way were The Police and Dire Straits, when I was about 17. I then got heavily into guitarists like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and was listening to a lot bands like Van Halen and Extreme, and practising in my bedroom – I was never what you would call “cool” or part of any scene – if it was radio-friendly and big-sounding, it would tend to get my vote!

After that, I started my first band when I was 22, and got turned on a lot of new music that I’d never heard much of before, ranging from Led Zeppelin to Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and our bass player’s punk collection! This was at the time of Britpop, so I was pretty into Oasis, the Verve, Radiohead, etc. too.

I suppose the band I admire the most, though, whether they’re an influence or not (you can judge that when you hear the record!) is U2. When I put on ‘ The Joshua Tree‘, I’m still hugely inspired by the album – tracks like ‘With Or Without You‘ transcend any genre or scene, and sound as fresh today as they did 20 years ago when the album came out. When you consider that this is a band that’s still at the top of their game, and still creates music that’s relevant to so many people throughout the world – that’s the bar to aspire to, in my eyes.

Do you get compared to other artists? If so, who?

To be honest, people find it quite hard to compare my sound to anyone else, and so do I – it’s a question I’ve been asked a lot. I do often get told by people that my songs have a certain familiarity to them, almost like they should have heard it before, but actually never have – I guess that’s good! I get told I have a very unique vocal style too – that’s probably down to the fact that I’m not the world’s best singer by any means, so have had to develop an individual way of writing and singing to allow me to make the most of what I have!

Your songs are all currently self-produced. Do you play all the instruments or do you have other musicians help out?

The way I work is that I play all the instruments up to a point when I’m getting the rough demos together – I use Logic Pro as a toolkit to rapidly assemble ideas as and when inspiration hits me, and over a period of several weeks, build up a composite demo from lots of little bits that have been added on as I refine and rewrite original ideas. So at the end of the demo phase, I have a track where I’ve played everything to get the vibe and structure sufficiently there – I’ve programmed drums, done bass, keyboards, all guitars, vocals and synths.

Then I get the real professionals in – my fantastic band! My drummer, Elliot Henshaw will listen to the MP3 demo online, then come over to the studio to lay down the drums using the Roland V-Drum kit I have set up there – once this is done, Dave Williamson comes over to put the bass down, and at this point, I’ll usually scrap all other tracks and build up from the drums and bass. I’ll then put down the acoustic guitars and some rhythm electrics, and then Adryan Cresswell, my keyboard player, comes over to put down any piano and organ parts.

After that, I’ll finalise all guitars, then do the lead vocal, backing vocals and synths, mixing as much as possible as I go so that by the time the final parts are down, the mix is actually more of a case of adjusting levels then a ground up mix. Once this is done, I’ll master the tracks myself, although the next one I produce will probably go to a mastering house to see what they can do with it.

How are you getting on finding a recording deal?

I’m concentrating on publishing at the moment, and on getting a live set together so there’s a full product there for a label to take on. I’ve got interest from a publishing company in Nashville, and have been in talks with a major publishing company in the UK for a couple of years now, where I have an unofficial mentor there in a very respected songwriter and industry figure who’s given me a lot of guidance and feedback. We’ve been building a relationship over the last couple of years, he’s been watching to see how my songwriting develops, and is now beginning to promote me to a number of senior label staff – watch this space!

I’m also subscribed to a leading industry publication called Songlink – it’s a targeted song placement service for songwriters to get their material to publishers and label who are looking, and I have a few irons in the fire there.

Finally, where do you see your musical career going?

You know, the one thing that I’ve learnt over the last few years is that I can never predict anything – the biggest changes that have happened in my life have been unplanned and largely unexpected. What I’m working on is becoming the best songwriter and producer that I can, with enough material for a killer album, backed up by a great live set with the guys. The dreams of music stardom are still there, but aren’t the the same as they were 10 years ago – I just wanted to be a rock star back then…now I want to be a great songwriter, and to leave behind a legacy of songs that I’m proud of, and sold a hell of a lot!