Though Pete Doherty still provided some entertainment in 2007, with his admirable attempts to properly kick the drugs this year, and him being slightly more reliable at showing up to gigs (not that he showed up to the one I went to), less CMU time was dedicated to all things Mr Babyshambles. Which was just as well, because we were far to busy monitoring the exploits of Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears, both of whom went into meltdown in 2007.
The former took over from Doherty as the artist constantly pictured off her face, and prone to miss gigs or fuck them up if she did show up. Things came to a head when her slightly dodgy husband Blake Fielder Civil got locked up for allegedly perverting the course of justice in relation to an assault charge. Amy didn't respond well to the news, and to say the strain showed as she embarked on her UK tour is something of an understatement. With fans openly booing Winehouse's shoddy performances, the tour was promptly cancelled, and she is meant to be trying to sort out her life, while preparing to spend Christmas sans-Blake, who is still locked up pending trial.
But next to Britney, Winehouse had quite a normal year. Spears went loopy in the fallout from her split from husband Kevin Federline. She shaved her hair, she crashed her car, she fell over, she looked, frankly, like a woman on the edge of a hellish looking pit. Things went from bad to worse as her custody battle with the Fed over their two children started to go in his favour, and courts ruled that Britney could only have limited supervised access to them. In amongst all this she attempted a musical comeback. It got off to a bad start, with a much mocked shambolic performance at the MTV awards. But when the new album was released it got some positive responses, though Spears' continued personal woes prevented her from capitalising on that. It's easy to make fun of Britney, but she's clearly in a bad way and you can only hope she somehow gets things together in 2008.
Also filling column inches this year... Lauryn Hill, for also going a bit loopy, and being criticised by former bandmates Wyclef Jean and Pras for the loopiness. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, for their ongoing divorce disputes, and Mills for her painful to watch TV rants about why she's great and we're all evil. MeatLoaf after he announced his retirement midway through and gig in England, though he later retracted his resignation, citing illness for causing the initial comment. Kanye West and 50 Cent for releasing their albums on the same day, and proclaiming a made up battle for the top spot in the album chart, with Fiddy declaring he'd quit music if he lost the battle, which he didn't even though he did. Lily Allen and Girl Aloud Cheryl Tweedy for partaking in quite a bit of bitchy bitching. And I seem to have written about Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz a lot, though I'm not sure why.