Mark Savage

We loved it too. Big and silly and funny and bursting with character.

Sadly, we were the only people in the cinema. Feel like the marketing hasn’t been brilliant?

What screen time really does to children's brains Screen time has become synonymous with bad news - but the science may not be as straightforward as it seems

I’ve been blown away by the responses to my story yesterday about screentime. It took a while to research and was one of those journalism projects that got more interesting the more we dug in.Thanks so much if you got in touch - I couldn’t keep up!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Amazing!

Says you, Mr “I have a wardrobe so big I lost a pair of jeans for a decade”

“How old is your oldest mug?”

(It made it into the radio version!)

This didn't make it into the article, but the interviewer asked me why longer songs like "Pink Pony Club" are catching on again and my answer was "because they're good. Quality still matters!"

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Three-minute heroes: TikTok made songs shorter but artists are pushing back with longer tracks with more emotional resonance - BBC News Pop songs got drastically shorter in the streaming era. But new BBC research shows that trend is over

I was interviewed quite extensively for this!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Hard agree! A lot of 4 minute songs would be improved by a judicious 30” edit. And some of my favourite dance and funk tracks stretch over 10 minutes, exploring tiny little pockets of melody or bass grooves.

Top of the Pops would be so expensive now. In the 90s you could only get 6 or 7 acts on the show. Now you’d need at least 10 to fill the half hour!

(But yes, I’d love to see it come back)

Three-minute heroes - BBC News TikTok made songs shorter but now artists are pushing back with longer tracks with more emotional resonance.

After years of being squeezed by streaming services and TikTok, pop stars are making longer songs again.

A little exclusive on the Beeb today from me and the visual data team.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

A sobering but uplifting day reporting on Ozzy Osbourne's funeral cortège.

The fans really showed up for him - complete with black roses, bottles of Jack Daniels and inflatable bats.

The family were clearly grief-stricken but heartened by the outpouring of love. Rock in peace, Ozzy.

It's insane that anyone still makes cups. Every home must have between ten and a hundred and fifty or so, and still people go out and use takeaway cups. The world must be 90% cup.

Renée Rapp: Media training is boring, I can't give fluffy answers Rapp made headlines by going off script on a press tour for the Mean Girls movie. She has no regrets.

Renée Rapp on her mum being her business manager.

"Of course there are difficult moments [but] no one's ever going to protect me like my mother. Other people will throw me under the bus faster than you can blink a fucking eye."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath found their sound - and invented heavy metal By slowing down the blues and playing with occult imagery, the Birmingham band pioneered a genre.

A short story about how The Polka Tulk Blues Band noticed a gap in the market, ditched their saxophone player, and invented heavy metal.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yeah, just devastatig

Between 7:50 and 8:00am

Ozzy Osbourne: Bandmates and fans pay tribute to Black Sabbath singer The frontman of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath has died in the UK at the age of 76.

Incredible to see the outpouring of love for Ozzy Osbourne.

Musicians who’d usually post a simple online statement have lined up to eulogise him on air: Gene Simmons, Billy Corgan, Henry Rollins, Rick Wakeman...

Tony Iommi’s tribute on the Today Programme was 💔

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Record labels sign deal to boost musicians' pay The deal includes songwriters being paid for attending recording sessions for the first time.

Breaking: For the first time, songwriters in the UK will get paid for taking part in writing sessions and camps.

Part of a raft of new measures announced by the government and the music industry today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hackney birdsong? Stolen Lime bikes the new sound of summer in the city Some in an east London park say they like the incessant beeping, but others that it’s an indication of low-level crime

Hackney birdsong? Stolen Lime bikes the new sound of summer in the city

It’s pretty wild how much recent Zeldas & new Donkey Kong are running on the lowest horsepower systems and are staggering physics based immersive sims offering simply great absorbing gameplay that feels new.

Haha! Precisely.

Thoughts with Andy Byron’s wife, imagine finding out this way your husband likes Coldplay.

Anyone who’s ever been to one of those gigs will know there are signs plastered all over the stadium stating you may be filmed.

I’m not 100% sold on the new one either, but the chorus is a definite earworm. Some of the new tracks they played on the last tour are insanely good, though. Fingers crossed for the album.

Just so many numbers. Her 20 All Time Greats album was Number 1 in 1977 and felt like it was everywhere back then

YouTube video by TLDPVEVO The Last Dinner Party - This is the Killer Speaking (Official Video)

New song from The Last Dinner Party (with an album to follow in October).

They’re still fans of a tempo shift and a ridiculous singalong chorus, I see.

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Connie Francis dies, months after her 60s song goes viral on TikTok. The singer had recently enjoyed a career resurgence after her 1960s song Pretty Baby went viral.

Sad news about Connie Francis - who basically established the template for female pop stars in the 1950s and 60s.

A roller coaster life and career with a beautiful coda, when her long-forgotten hit Pretty Little Baby had a TikTok moment.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Evening Standard headline reading “Emma Watson banned from driving alongside Harry Potter co-star”

The Evening Standard reveals that Emma Watson is “banned from driving alongside” Zoe Wanamaker. So she’s still allowed to drive if it’s on her own or alongside other friends? If only there were some kind of punctuation mark that could get rid of these sorts of ambiguities.