SMOOTH

Santana

Carlos Santana - every American's favourite musician right now, at least that's if the nice new Grammy Awards he has on top of his telly are anything to go by. Apparently he's been The World's Greatest Plank Spanker Ever (that's a real guitarist phrase too) for some years now. Oh yes, he can help a guitar make noises like no other axe maestro can, but unfortunately for him while he can make it sing I can make it stop with but one press of the button marked Stop (subtitled I'm Begging You Please Stop in this case) and all the self-indulgent wailing riffs and licks vanish into oblivion. I'm obviously bucking the trend here, as it seems the whole world loves his songs, but I really have no time for this sort of music. Guitar solos are fine as long as the guitarist knows when he's about to go too far and then pulls back, but Mr Santana knows no limits. Eric Clapton's guitar gently weeps, Santana's screams blue murder, forgetting that the song's supposed to be playing in the foreground. To be fair, this is one of the more restrained songs off his album, but the scary thing is that most of his songs fade out with him utterly unstoppable. Right now, I desperately need to listen to something innovative to restore my faith in music. This is absolutely not it.

NB. In the paper, the sentence regarding the Plank Spanker began "Apparently he's been on The World's Greatest Planker Spanker Ever…" which, although not what I originally intended, I'm not bothered at all because it amused me hugely and put an entirely new spin on things. Imagine a fairground ride called the Planker Spanker...

KILL ALL HIPPIES

Primal Scream

This is absolutely it. Fantastic title (even if it does offer a legally frightening alternative to fox-hunting), but after that most bands would have given up. See If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next for details - one of the greatest song titles ever, but one of the most boring songs ever. This is better in every way. It starts off with a very odd menagerie of sounds that somehow fit together beautifully, then the beats come in and the song proper starts. The lyrics are pretty repetitive, but that's not the point at all. They're just there as embellishment. The best bit of all, however, is the fact that when the song stops rather suddenly you're left a) wanting much more and b) wondering how five minutes have just flown by. Thank you very much Primal Scream, this is easily the best thing I've heard in ages. I'm looking forward to next week now.