One of the many things I love about email is the way that instant thoughts flow in from mates in all parts of the world. I got this in the mail today from my old mate Andy Perryman in the UK. Unlike most of us, whose musical appreciation peaked somewhere around 1980, Andy has kept a critical eye on the music of today. I'm glad he does, it means I don't have to.

Here's an excerpt;


The Arctic Monkeys are the next big thing en Angleterre at the moment - they are from the North West and they have Oasis haircuts. They have trousers, the crotches of which drag unerringly on the filth ridden streets of Lancs. I bet they burp sometimes. They don't so much sing about the kitchen sink as the U-bend beneath the granite work surface. In all their pathetic mediocrity they are however the Beatles compared to Hard-Fi. Hard-Fi have sold 200,000 albums on the strength of their pathetically contrived band name. If they were forced at gunpoint to write a melody they would fail, be shot, and not be remembered. They however, are Led Zeppelin compared to some of the Sarf Landon (to be said in a cockney twang) hip-hop R & B co-operatives currently corrupting the youth of the nation.

In my day R & B meant sweat and passion and the stench of your best mates armpits in the writhing pit of the General Wolfe in Foleshill. Now it means perfectly sculptured black women "doing a Maria Carey" (singing around thirty two notes to the bar in an effort to convince the listening public that they are talented and have passion) and shakin' it about a bit. It just ain't Rock and Roll and it certainly aint R & B. Dr Feelgood would choke on their Heineken.

And if another boy band announces another vomit-inducing ten year reunion tour I'll melt down my own diaphragm and offer little sips of it to the homeless...............................