Pop music’s new F-word
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So, Jack White and Alicia Keys will be writing the theme tune and singing the theme tune for the new James Bond movie, the franchise’s headline-grabbing first ever duet. Speculation is already rife as to how they’ll be billed on Another Way To Die: Jack White Ft Alicia Keys? Alicia Keys Ft Jack White? Perhaps even the more cavalier Jack White v Alicia Keys! They can’t just be Jack White and Alicia Keys, that would be, like, so lame.
The pop charts have never been so full of collaborations. A quarter of last week’s UK Top 40 singles were duets, team-ups or guest appearances, but you will search in vain for the conjunction "and" – it has been entirely superseded by the word "featuring". Usually abbreviated to "Ft", it is the default semantic synapse over which hierarchical issues and the politics of marketing now crackle. [read more @ Guardian]
