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Picks of the Week: 9th October 2000

We've had our headphones glued to our ears this week here at Picks Central, finding many and varied aural delights for your listening pleasure.
The pop pickers amongst you will no doubt be delighted to hear that Stephen Gately, the lovely cute fresh-faced one from Boyzone, has a nicely designed site based on the slightly worrying notion that the user is wandering around his house, with each level affording the opportunity to get to know the singer in a new and deeper way. The top storey, the penthouse, looks very much as if it houses his bedroom. Sadly the decorators are putting the finishing touches in there, but there are pictures, competitions, videos, and fun aplenty to distract you in the meantime. We can't comment on Q Online's advice to "Approach [Steve's debut album] with caution", but we can say that Q offers a generally excellent site, with thousands of album reviews and plenty of unique interviews and features to compensate for their meanness to poor little Stephen.
Dubstar ("an earthy blonde singing a less photogenic man's songs", according to Q Online), fellow purveyors of perfectly pruned pop pieces, have another beautifully designed site. There are plenty of goodies, like explanations of songs and reports on the band's dreams, to go with the usual photos, lyrics, and biography. Our favourite feature, however, was the fabulous Dubstar mixing tool, which allows you to mess around with various chocolate-powered noises and generally annoy your workmates.
On a slightly more classically inspired tip (as they're all saying in the hood these days), Bond plan to shake the world of music (and perhaps stir their male audience) with their blend of string virtuosity and string bikinis, and their site is equally well put together, with a long video of the girls on their holidays and plenty of biographical information (fun fact: both Viola Bond and 1st Violin Bond have First Class music degrees!). All great fun, but they won't be on The MOBO Award's shortlists for next year.
If this all seems a bit too passive for you, and you'd like to make some music yourself, perhaps Fret King can provide you with the guitar of your dreams. They can certainly provide you with an example of a fine website, with details of instruments and star testimonies alike presented in an eye-catching manner. Need someone to teach you how to use your shiny new axe? Look no further than MusicTeachers.co.uk, where you can find out how many flageolet instructors there are in East Sussex, while music teachers can check out the online journal based on the site.
If your interest in music stretches to treading the boards in musical extravaganza, The Guide to Musical Theatre can help find the show for you, and whether the rights to produce it are available, as well as offering information on copyright and biographies of the lives of great lyricists, librettists, and songwriters.

Sites Featured in Picks of the Week:

Stephen Gately - hello boys.
Q Online - hello magazine.
Bond - hello Moneypenny.
Dubstar - hello kitty.
Fret King - hello mojo.
MusicTeachers.co.uk - hello cello.
The Guide to Musical Theatre - hello soprano.

Seen some bangin' sites? bo! selecta.

Previous Weeks' Picks:

[ 2nd October 00 | 25th September 00 | 18th September 00 | 11th September 00 ]