Criminal records

Wahey, another new feature! Please excuse the lameness of the title, and allow me to explain...

Anally retentive music lover that I am, I'm preparing a list of the ten songs which have been most influential in the direction and development of my musical tastes (ANOTHER imminent new feature!). In the meantime, in an act of humiliating semi-public self-flagellation, I thought I'd share with you those evil, evil songs which have over the years somehow found their way by stealth into my music collection, predominantly via recorded tapes, and which, if unacknowledged and accidentally chanced upon one day by some unsuspecting friend, might bring the whole carefully constructed edifice of my tastes crashing down around my ears, with all the shame and anguish that would ensue. Hopefully this will prove to be a cathartic experience. And if you find yourself tempted to laugh, mock and ridicule, then just remember - I bet you've got some horrific skeletons in your closet too.

Anyway, given I've already posted about them once today, I might as well start with...

1. 'Local Boy In The Photograph' - Stereophonics
"The new Manics", I read somewhere in 1997. At least the Manics started off as exciting, spiky, politically-charged, sloganeering, before taking a wrong turn and finding themselves flabby and prematurely middle-aged and waddling around aimlessly in an MOR muckpit. Stereophonics started off in the pit, and the muck level has just risen and risen, as correspondingly have levels of tedium among right-thinking individuals the length and breadth of the land. Let's dissect them, shall we? (Metaphorically speaking - although if anyone has access to a scalpel and knows where they live...) There's the frizzy-haired muppet with the inane grin on drums. There's the beanpole bassist who's such a dumbass that he got his name tattooed on his neck so he'd be able to remember it, and then discovered that, no matter how hard he tries, he can't actually SEE his own neck without the aid of a mirror. And lastly but not leastly, there's the poisonous little runt with the persecution complex up front. 'Local Boy In The Photograph' recounts the harrowing tale of a young lad who commits suicide by jumping under a train. Give me the three band members bound and gagged and take us to a highspeed railway line, and I'll gladly help them towards a more empathetic understanding of the situation.

(Thanks to Mike over at Troubled Diva for inspiring me to come up with some ideas, however cliched, both for waffling about music and giving a sense of structure to my ramblings)