big brother

Lightyears soundtrack new Body Gossip film

The Lightyears have provided the soundtrack for a new short film by Cosmo award-winning body image campaign Body Gossip.

The film, entitled ‘Ageing Gracefully‘, features a cast of celebrities that includes Natalie Cassidy, Mikyla Dodd and Nikki Grahame and is the latest in a series of films by BG seeking to promote healthier body image in society.

We’re proud to have been associated with Body Gossip from the very beginning of their campaign. Take a sneaky peek at the new video below:

LYs soundtrack award-winning campaign

As many of you may know, The Lightyears have previously soundtracked a number of short films for the positive body image campaign Body Gossip.

A new video has been released today featuring bespoke music from the LYs, and it’s called Poem For Women – a satirical take on weight loss, written by Lola Frears and performed by a cast of celebrities including Natalie Cassidy and Big Brother’s Nikki Grahame.

Body Gossip released the video today in celebration of the fact that, last night, co-founders Ruth & Natasha won ‘Ultimate Campaigners’ at the 2012 Cosmopolitan Women Of The Year Awards. This is incredible news – campaigns like this may appear to spring up out of nowhere, but here in The Lightyears we’ve watched The Dynamic Duo build Body Gossip up literally from nothing, and it’s been truly inspiring to watch.

Find out more on the Body Gossip website, and click below to watch ‘Poem For Women’:

LYs provide soundtrack for celebrity-backed campaign

We’ve just written two original pieces of music to soundtrack the latest short film releases from the Body Gossip campaign.

Body Gossip, run by the fantastic Ruth Rogers, aims to challenge society’s unrealistic and narrow beauty ideals and has been gaining huge traction over the last few years.

The videos, entitled “What Are We Protecting Our Children From?” and “This One Is For You“, feature performances from Big Brother’s Nikki Grahame, Anne Diamond and Caryn Franklin (The Clothes Show), all of whom are actively backing the campaign.

Follow the links below to view the films:

– “What Are We Protecting Our Children From?”
– “This One Is For You”

“The films… are edited together alongside a gorgeously subtle score composed specially by London-based band The Lightyears…” (read more)
FLAVOUR MAGAZINE

Fame for fame’s sake…?

The internet is awash with articles about the death of Jade Goody, notorious entrepreneur and former Big Brother phenomenon. Never before has somebody experienced a gradual death quite so publicly – and inspired such a storm of media attention and public debate in the process.

Whilst Jade wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, her death was undeniably tragic. However, I can’t help but feel that there’s something terribly crass about the whole affair. The press are patting themselves on the back for “creating” her and, for the most part, transparently ignoring the fact that they spent most of their column inches slagging her off. Huge swathes of the general public are paralysed by an apoplexy of hysteria over somebody they have never met. Goody’s wedding was televised a couple of weeks ago and a million people tuned in. What does this all mean? What does it say about our relationship with the media and with the people it portrays?

You can’t help but admire Goody for her skillful manipulation of the press; however, if she can be considered the puppet-master controlling the papers, the papers can in turn be considered the puppet-masters wielding our strings. Ultimately, we’re the schmucks getting screwed at the bottom of the food chain. We are absolutely lapping it up and, as long as we continue to do this, the tabloids will continue to churn it out. 

Whereas back in the good old days celebrities were recognised and celebrated for a specific talent, nowadays they have morphed into unimaginative circus freakshows, kept afloat by a paparazzi interested almost exclusively in getting pictures of people flashing their pants. Paris Hilton, Jordan, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson – for me, these people are “Notorieties”, not “Celebrities”. The old maxim that “all publicity is good publicity” is truer now than ever. For instance, there was a time when being photographed staggering drunk out of a taxi into a strip-club would have ruined a celebrity’s career. Now it creates that career. Fame breeds fame for fame’s sake.

This, to me, suggests that the whole notion of celebrity is on the verge of eating itself. And how long can a species which cannibalises its own young survive?

Chris Lightyear

ps. this Sunday 29 March I become a “celebrity” myself when I return to my theatre roots to perform alongside a cast including supermodel Anne Diamond, Big Brother’s Nikki Grahame and supermodel Jen Hunter at the launch of Body Gossip. Click here to read more!