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Music

Kylie Has Signed To Roc Nation...LOL?

And other WTF label signings.

Kylie Minogue has signed to Jay-Z's Roc Nation label. Re-read that. Kylie "cute, 44-year-old Australian pop princess and fairy godmother to gay men the world over" Minogue has jumped in the deep end with Jigga. Like, on first read it seems ROFL but then you remember that Roc Nation pretty much own about two thirds (they manage Rihanna, who must count for like a third, right?) of the pop industry now and Kylie's never really been able to break the US. Roc announced the signing, saying:

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"In a career now spanning 25 years, Kylie has released 11 studio albums, two live CDs, eight live concert DVDs, a greatest hits double album, and multiple video packages…She has released over 50 hit singles worldwide, including the Grammy-winning Come Into My World, and has sold more than 68 million albums worldwide…Needless to say, we’re excited to have Kylie join the Roc fam.”

I'm going to hold my breath for a second wind of "Spinning Around" fame, cos, after all, Jay has inexplicably molded west-Londoner, Rita SNORE-a (zing!), into a certified platinum artist. Anything is possible.

Anyway, in the spirit of WTF, here are some other weird label and artist pairings.

Vanessa Carlton and Murder Inc

You must have a blackened heart to not be warmed by the thought of Murder Inc's glory days, that little "MURDAAH EYE-EN-SEE" ident at beginning of tracks, before Ashanti would start warbling alongside Ja Rule's relevance. Still, though the label's WHOLE shtick was, like, Fat Joe talking about asses and Ashanti pretending she was banging mafia bosses, head honcho Irv Gotti thought it was a totally wise idea to splash the cash on…pianist and princess of non descript teen soap opera tracks, Vanessa Carlton. Apparently Gotti said: "She played "A Thousand Miles", and once I heard the piano riff, I spazzed out again." You "spazzed out" indeed bruh.

Paris Hilton and Columbia

This signing was unusual because Columbia, for the most part, are pretty respectable and yet Paris Hilton is a towering prick. AMIRITE?

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Limp Bizkit and Young Money

Nah, I'm not even going to ridicule this one. Lil Wayne knew exactly what he was doing, pulling on rap metal heart strings of yore, us laughing patronisingly, when deep down inside there's still a tiny part of us weeping as we do the "Rollin'" dance. TBF, rap metal is not that dissimilar to the auto-tuned guff YMCMB has become synonymous with putting out. As in, it's corny as fuck, but sink a couple of body-shots and you magically know all the words. Still, there hasn't reeeeally been any progress on this partnership but, y'know, I got you Durst, I believe in you baby.

Victoria Beckham and Roc-A-Fella

I learnt a lot of things from Posh Spice; how to point seductively, how to pout correctly, ummm, yeah, etc. What I did not learn was how to sing or have any on-stage presence. So it was kind of an eye roll move when Posh got scooped up by Roc-A-Fella simply for being Posh, during the days when it wasn't widely acknowledged that Damon Dash was just a cutthroat, irresponsible dickbag and was instead "a great businessman". But anyway, the thought alone of Victoria getting cosy in the stoo-dee-yo with the likes of Cam'ron…CAM'RON…is too bizarro for my tiny brain to compute. Super surprisingly, nothing came out of the deal and Victoria slinked off to become massive in the fashion industry, as you do.

Pauly D and G-Unit

I was going to start writing this like, "WHAT A FUCKING ODD COUPLE, LET'S POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS DIFFERENCES IN THEIR CELEBRITY LIVES". But when you think about it, they both like being topless, they both like spending their money on tacky shit and they both have a latent disregard for women. So, it makes sense that the two apparently had "instant chemistry" when they met and Fiddy snapped him up for a single release. While Pauly D might not be the sharpest guido in the gene pool, 50's weathered enough financial crises and deaded some careers in the process to make me think, maybe this isn't so weird, right?