'THIS SEX IS ON FIRE'?! BEGPARDON?!?

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By god, the new Kings of Leon stuff is just embarassingly shit isn't it?

People have been banging on for a while now about a certain strand of 'indie' guitar rock having become interchangeable with '80s MOR - the much-vaunted Razorlight/Dire Straits comparison being an example that springs readily to mind.

But 'Use Somebody' is to my ears actually worse, by some distance, than anything Dire Straits ever did.

In years to come we will look back on this kind of thing as a joke that got spectacularly out of hand.

DJ DAN ENGLISH TACKLES BADLY DRAWN BOY (NO TWEAKING NEEDED HERE)

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DEEJ: Badly Drawn Boy! Me and my mates used to listen to your first album all the time when we were about 16!
BDB: Oh OK.
DEEJ: Yeah it was sweet! Haven't listened to any of the stuff you've done since then though.
BDB: Well, actually, my subsequent work has been as good, if not better, than the first record.
DEEJ: Really?
BDB: Yes.

'I HOPE YOU DEFEAT THIS UK INFLUENZA'

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... says Zane to TV on the Radio.

You can say that a-fucking-gain.

(Every time I hear 'Family Tree' it reminds me how much more hopeful I am about where things in general are headed than this time last year - melancholy and elegiac bleakness redirected by the unmistakeable, unstoppable sound of pure-driven, old-fashioned American optimism.

Moving stuff from the TV/Radio lads.)

TODAY'S IMPULSE: TO STATE THE OBVIOUS

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Alex James: what a dick.

AT THE HMV SALES COUNTER, STRANGE THINGS CAN HAPPEN

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WOMAN: Do you do older-type music?
HMV SALES GUY: ...
WOMAN: Do you do older-type music: The Nivens?
HMV: What?!
WOMAN: The Nivens. It's an older-type music.
HMV: The Livings?!
WOMAN: The Nivens: N-I-V-E-N-S.
ME: ...