Music is a very subjective artform.One man's Metallica is another man's Poison, or so the phrase might've been written. I've long held a theory for example that a "standard" middle-aged person's record collection, who is anxious to appear cool (but achieves the opposite)will look something like this;
Abbas Greatest Hits
Meat Loaf-Bat out of Hell (maybe the other ones, but only if they have Bat out of hell in the title, they dont realise he made any others)
Absolutely loads of ELO, (all featuring Bev Bevans only drum fill)
Saturday Night Fever
Dire Straits, anything really, but must have Sultans and the Brothers in Arms album
and of course, the people's friend Phil Collins. What is it about Mr. Collins? A perfectly inventive and interesting drummer and vocalist with Genesis, but out on his own, vapid wallpaper music from someone who almost seemed to be entwined with the Royal family in the eighties!
Allow me to take the moral high ground for a moment. In my humble opinion, ELO were doomed artistically from the moment Roy Wood (genius) left the band. If you want to hear ELO at their best listen to the singles from 10538 overture (ripped off by Paul Weller in Changing Man) through to Ma Ma Ma Belle. In fact, just listen to The Move, a wonderful band that contained Wood, Lynne and Bevan, and pre-dated the unfathomably far more successful and inspirationally bereft ELO.After Ma Ma Ma Belle, Jeff Lynne and co. lost it. He only climbed the tree of credilbility again with The Travelling Wilburys, becuase, lets face it, if you dont learn anything working with Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison, you might as well give up!
That said, look at the millions upon millions they sold.So is it just me? I cant listen to their later stuff on the radio without being forced to turn it off! But ELO pale into insignificance when I am confronted by the two mighty pillars of purveyors of annoying music....
THE PET SHOP BOYS AND ENYA
God forbid some suicidal record executive comes up with an idea for them to record together, for I shall be forced to drive up to Millau in France and throw myself off the worlds highest viaduct.(below)
What I don't understand is, Enya's music is supposed to be calming, people use it in these pseudo-new-age health retreats, where the word retreat is just a euphemism for "old decaying manor house we got cheap cos its in the middle of bloody nowhere and we stuck a few sunbeds and a plunge pool in it."
But Enya's music has the opposite effect on me! It makes me want to kill people! Never mind putting Judas Priest in court for alleged subliminal messages, THIS is the real devil's music! Its just so annoying! And yet, her sister Maire, with Clannad, makes perfectly lovely albums. Do you see how fine the line is? Orinoco flow. jesus. "Sail away, sail away sail away." yes indeed. please.
And so, to The Pet Shop Boys. I have just one word, its something like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgh!!! Neil Tennants effected vocal, achieves something extraordinary in me, it gets under my skin like a mutating virus and I want to die. Couple this with his smug self satisfied "I used to be a crappy music journalist for smash hits and now Im a star so meh" half-smile just puts the bloody lid on it. Id rather have my heart scooped out with a spoon as Alan Rickman's Sherrif of Nottingham once remarked.
If you can bear it, just listen to the way he delivers the line "Picasso and Debussy with a disco beat" and I think that will allow the case for the prosecution to rest, your honour. And befor you ask, I've done my time, I had to play "Its a Sin" by the Pet shop boys nearly every night for two years in a covers band. I'm still on medication.
You can imagine my horror, therefore, when putting a new CD cabinet on the wall the other day, I found in Miki's collection a cassette of the Pet shop boys greatest hits. She denied it was hers, and thereby gave me an opportunity to exorcise my ghosts. I smashed it into little pieces.....
p.s.don't forget to check out my Rant Number Three in The Mighty Pen!
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