Today it was reported by a number of British news sources that actress Angelina Jolie has a great, pressing desire to join up in collaboration with Scottish art-popsters Belle and Sebastian. I have yet to see fainting figures for fans of the band but I expect they are substantial.

Jolie's father is well known actor Jon Voight. This is well known. But apparently Voight's brother is songwriter Chip Taylor, who wrote Wild Thing and Angel of the Morning. According to the NME, Taylor "will be playing match-maker when he is back in Scotland this month for a few gigs."

He is further quoted as saying "A version of 'Wild Thing' would be mind-blowing and I'd help her all I could. It would sum up Angelina perfectly and Belle And Sebastian would be the band to carry it off. I'm back in Scotland this month for a few gigs and I'll be seeing about trying to make it work."

Predictably, Belle and Sebastian have been thus far unavailable for comment. The band tends to shun the press.

This incident is nicely illustrative of the workings of the British press -- especially the music press. While American society views the role of the press as a dispassionate observer, British society -- with the British media holding this view perhaps more strongly than anyone else -- views the media as an active tool in the creation of news. Any bit of gossip involving a celebrity is to be hyped as much as possible in hopes that it may thus develop into a reality. Despite the fact that we have not the slightest reason to believe that such a collaboration would ever come to fruition (except that it involves a weird posse of celebrities, and that Jolie is quoted by the Scottish Sun as saying that she is "desperate" to work with the band), this is still considered a newsworthy event.

It certainly makes for entertaining reading, I must admit.

It is my feeling that an integral part of the nodeworthiness of this story is based on the parties involved -- those readers unfamiliar with Belle and Sebastian are referred to that node to make themselves familiar with the workings and stylings of the band. It's quite a contrast from the actress.

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