Hey! James Errington came over on Tuesday night and shared the wonderful sounds of Nick Drake avec moi. I know what you all mean now: it was difficult to decide whether he had just put on a B&S tape by mistake (although I didn't recognise any of the songs). Is it just me or are musicians nowadays concentrating on the style of their songs and ignoring the sheer achievement of writing a catchy song... Divine Comedy's new one is brilliant, but it lacks the clarity of "Casanova" and the sheer audacity of "Something for the Weekend" and "In and Out of Paris and London". Ditto Pulp, who have never managed to surpass "Babies" or "Common People". What would any of you think was the 90s "Hey Jude" or "Back in the USSR". OK there have been songs like "Parklife" and the above, but generally bands are going more for the elegaic 50 minute album rather than the catchy ditty. Or maybe I've just been listening to too much folk music - "All Around My Hat" and so on and so forth. In response to "The Duke" (any relation to Doonesbury?), I remember being sat at a desk in a French lesson someplace or other and looking at it, to be honest I could tell that the school hadn't replaced the desks at least since the sixties because there were "Beatles" and "Elvis" and "Stones" scrawled on it. I was in love with Pulp back then and I was heartened to see "J....s Coc.er" written, although they'd done it in ink so it had rubbed off. Being the epitome of Adam Ant's "Goody Two-Shoes" I didn't replace it with anything, but given my reckless behaviour in the last two weeks or so I'd have done it right now. However, me scrawling the name of the guy I am in love with on the desk might give political students and fellow members of the Labour Party palpitations so I won't bother. Ciao for now Louise l.stanley@lse.ac.uk +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+