Dr. Dre's Beats Headphones

Though he's been a little quiet of late, I've long been a fan of Dr. Dre - hell, who isn't? In fact, he's been so quiet of late, and with those rumours of his Detox album still not coming to anything, I think it's fair to say that he's now one of those names that more or less jumps out from the page at me, over and above anyone else written about - except of course if those names happen to include anything about Chinese Democracy (yes, I'm probably a fool but you've gotta have faith right?).

So I'm pretty happy to report that Dre has not one but two endorsements coming out. The first you can actually already buy here and is his Beats Headphones. To be fair to the big man (did you see him present that award with Mary J. Blige at the EMAs a couple of years back? He is MASSIVE!) he's clearly got something going on in these cans, otherwise how do you explain the £279.95 price tag? I'm a devoted user of the Bang & Olufsen A8s and they feel extravagant at the best part of £100, but Dre's price tag makes me feel a bit better about that. Here's what Dre has to say about his Beats Headphones: "With Beats, people are going to hear what the artists hear, and listen to the music the way they should: the way I do.”

And the second thing he has coming up is a little more hip hop - Aftermath Cognac and, to quote the Billboard report, "an 80-proof flavored and unflavored sparkling vodka will hit the market, also within the next 60 days". Strewth. But if that's a little too, well, tacky for you, the good news is that he's apparently doing the drinks thing as an "integrated marketing plan" around the release of the aforementioned Detox, which means it's meant to be out around November.

And I hope it is, because there's nothing worse than artists slacking off making money for themselves out of their hard earned reputation when they should be providing us with more "tapes full of dope beats to bump when we stroll through our hood" (that's from Forgot About Dre, I'm not trying to be ghetto).

This made a few other recent celebrity drinks spring to mind.

Francis Ford Coppola has a good line in wine, of which I enjoyed a few bottles of the Shiraz on holiday recently. The Pinot Noir was disappointing for the price though. Shame about the label. He also went about overboard in an advert for his Sofia (his daughter) pink fizzy line, where he treated us all to this insight in to his family's internal politics "My daughter loves this wine, and I love my daughter". So if it was up to you you wouldn't have your name on it, is that what you're saying Frankie? You only released it because she looked up at you all doe eyed and said "Daddy please release my pink fizzy champale or I will be ever so sad"? Here's the Shiraz.



Not to be outdone, rather than the obvious crunk juice tie-in, Lil Jon has released his very own Little Jonathan Winery products. That name right there is pure class, and this is how you do a wine label.



And finally, again not music but worth a mention, there's the Paris Hilton Prosecco (that's fizzy Italian wine which therefore hasn't come from the Champagne region of France so can't use the C word, all you non-wine buffs) - not strictly speaking the same as the above because she doesn't have her name on it, just appears in the adverts cavorting on a beach holding a can (yes, it comes in a can) of the stuff. Has she ever drunk sparkling wine before? It's the most dehydrating drink ever, so at the risk of being cynical, taking a can to the beach just seems a little too show-offy for my liking. Still, kudos to her for her John McCain bitchslap which if you haven't seen is here.