Black Grape

Black Grape are a rock band from England, featuring former members of Happy Mondays and Ruthless Rap Assassins. The group's music was funky and eclectic, using varied instrumentation and samples.

History

The band was formed in 1993 by former Happy Mondays members Shaun Ryder and Bez. It was Ryder's first musical project after the disintegration of Happy Mondays due both to his multiple drug addictions and to disagreements about revenues with other bandmembers. The formation of the new band was intended to draw a line between his past life and his new one. Ryder and Bez recruited rappers Paul "Kermit" Leveridge and Carl "Psycho" McCarthy, drummer Ged Lynch (like Leveridge, a former member of Ruthless Rap Assassins), and guitarist Wags (formerly of the Manchester-based group the Paris Angels). Recording of new material started that year, although the group was not under contract.

In 1995 Black Grape was signed by Radioactive Records (an imprint of major label BMG) and released its debut album It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah. It immediately charted at number one in the UK Albums Chart, and spawned three Top Twenty singles.

Black

Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence of or complete absorption of light. It is the opposite of white (the combined spectrum of color or light). It is an achromatic color, literally a color without color or hue. It is one of the four primary colors in the CMYK color model, along with cyan, yellow, and magenta, used in color printing to produce all the other colors.

Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings. In the 14th century, it began to be worn by royalty, the clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.

In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie ins and merchandising could be used in toys are marketing campaigns for food and other products. Although the origins of music videos date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they came into prominence in the 1980s when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip". Since the creation and increased popularity of YouTube, mainstream artists now promote new music videos by releasing trailers of short promos on the site for their upcoming song and music video. Consequentially, YouTube has been converted into a social media platform for celebrities and artists to market themselves to their fans and audiences.

Kelly's Heroes

Kelly's Heroes is a 1970 war comedy film directed by Brian G. Hutton about a group of World War II American soldiers who go AWOL to rob a bank behind enemy lines. The film stars Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, and Donald Sutherland, with secondary roles played by Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod, and Stuart Margolin. The screenplay was written by British film and television writer Troy Kennedy Martin. The film was a US-Yugoslav co-production, filmed mainly in the Croat village of Vižinada on the Istria peninsula.

Plot

During a thunderstorm in early September 1944, units of the 35th Infantry Division are nearing the town of Nancy, France. One of the division's mechanized reconnaissance platoons is ordered to hold their position when the Germans counterattack. The outnumbered platoon also receives friendly fire from their own mortars.

Private Kelly, a former lieutenant scapegoated for a failed infantry assault, captures Colonel Dankhopf of Wehrmacht Intelligence. Interrogating his prisoner, Kelly notices the officer's briefcase has several gold bars disguised under lead plating. Curious, he gets the colonel drunk and learns that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars, worth $16,000,000 ($215,077,500 today), stored in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines in the town of Clermont. When their position is overrun and the Americans pull back, a Tiger tank kills Dankhopf.

Stupid Stupid

"Stupid Stupid" is a single recorded by English musician Alex Day. It was released on 16 December 2012 in an effort to take the Christmas Number 1 spot in the UK Singles Chart. The song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 25, number 4 on the UK Indie Chart and number 27 in Scotland.

Campaign for Christmas Number 1

"Stupid Stupid" is Day's third attempt to get into the charts by utilising the internet. In 2009, Day was part of the Chartjackers project, which charted at number 36 in the UK. In 2010, Day was part of the collective "Sons of Admirals" along with three other YouTubers. The group's cover of Cat Stevens' song "Here Comes My Baby" peaked at No. 61 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2011 he released Forever Yours which was his best attempt so far, peaking at No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart.

Music video

A music video to accompany the release of "Stupid Stupid" was first released onto YouTube on 5 December 2012 at a total length of two minutes and fifty-six seconds. The music video was directed by Ciaran O'Brien and stars Day's family.