Why can't I touch it?

As I was in the midst of another pointless, hellish commute and as a very, very insane man paced up and down the carriage, performing a remarkable paranoid monologue, I noticed a headline in the bubblegummy Metro spread on the 'BRITS':

Joss Stone – The new queen of the streets

Its absurdity and obscenity struck me dumb. Well, not really as nothing surprises me that is spewed out of a mass culture so ignorant and worthless as to be beyond irony. Nonetheless, the notion of some shagtastic pixie from Devon being the new hope of soul is less believable than the Care in the Community entertainer on the tube being the next Serge Gainsbourg. This meat puppet is being compared to Aretha Franklin, yet you could find far better vocalisations than her attempts on the b-sides of the most hopeless looking, forgotten cash in disco records of the early 80s.

At least the awful Brummie bra model Jamelia, who is imitating an utterly worthless tradition, namely the overproduced, nasal ‘R and B’ that has wrecked African American music in a way even the worst disco could not, came away gongless. Not that it matters as I am sure MasterCard or whomever sews it up beforehand on the basis of a focus group.

Affable Scotsmen ripping off Gang of Four, Robbie Williams being lauded as the best songwriter of the last 25 years, lithe American popsters with obvious little designer implants to accentuate their genius in way years of spouting a plasticated shadow of ska could not, disguised Christian rockers singing a duet…

I longed in vain for a horrible accident involving defective pyrotechnics and a burst sewage pipe. And that’s just from being subjected to the media miasma on it all – much of which mentioned that ‘real’ music was back as the industry grinned and sued a few more downloaders. Hopefully Charles and Camilla will block the front pages tomorrow….