Pop-Eye 15/10/00

Please Lord. let this be the end of the road for that fatuous piece of human detritus that they call Robbie Williams. Please. *Please*

Tom, spot on twice over: Kylie has *never* been any good. SAW were at their best when they were at their most shamelessly excessive and rampantly Hi-NRG ("You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)", which was I think their first Number 1, remains their best by some way), or at their most unabashedly trashy (Mel and Kim, Reynolds Girls) and their productions for Kylie were always pretty restrained and middlebrow by comparison. I could, on a good day, find kind words for some of the 90/91 singles, but even that would be stretching it. Kylie's 88-91 records are basically classic pop for Q readers and writers, in other words they're actually shit pop; despite their much-vaunted "late 80s time capsule" status, they have not a fraction of the "nowness" of the above SAW moments, and could have been made in any place or time (the sure sign of a *bad* pop record).

Also, U2 remain odious. I can barely even listen to "Beautiful Day" - the way it blusters and aims about, getting absolutely nowhere, its ostentatious fullness only serving to emphasise its true emptiness. U2 "back to their roots" are indistinguishable from "ironic" U2 only in the sense that they're at least honest about the hamfisted, earnest tradrock band that they are, and therefore marginally more admirable.

(Though I will admit to feeling very old when I remember that "Achtung Baby" is nearly 10 years old, and that it's that long since "90s-ness" seemed at all new or exciting. The music was as shit as ever, but the facade was - to an 11-year-old - indescribably enticing. But then I was impressionable and I knew nothing of their superiors from whom they'd appropriated most of the ideas, badly).

Oh, and what can be done about Williams? His presence becomes all the more hideous and I can only endorse Alex's wishes ...

Oh, I just want to slap all of you for being so nasty towards both Robbie and Bono :)

Tom, potentially offensive comment, don't take it too seriously: It strikes me that you are the EXACT OPPOSITE of all the critics you hate. You know how you used to rail on rock crits because they only liked "ironic" pop music, ie. Robbie, while insisting that rock music "has to mean it", ie. U2? You tend to do the reverse, hating pop stars you find at all ironic or "acceptable" by rock crit standards and hating "earnest" rockers (British/Irish ones at least ;). What gives? Have you noticed this before?

Like I said, don't take it too seriously, it just struck me reading your Kids/Beautiful Day review.

I don't dislike Robbie because he's ironic, far from it! (Plus you don't get more ironic than Daphne And Celeste, in a sense) I think "Rock DJ", his most knock-off single ever, is great: I think "Angels" is bad, which is his most mawkishly sincere thing. But yeah, there was a reason I hated all those critics and it's probably because I disagree with them so much.

You've got me on the earnest thing. It's when it comes out in the voice that I really, really can't stand it. And boy does it come out in Bono's.

Like Tom I like "Rock DJ" because of its air of a knock-off, and despite Robbie's presence; it's probably his best single, almost by default. I also dislike "Angels" because of its earnestness; to me it's far more aspirationally Elton / Cliff than Gary Barlow's "Back For Good", yet it is widely considered immune from such accusations while Barlow's song is vilified.

Bono has never *not* sounded earnest; he actually sounded even *more* so for most of the 90s when he was trying not to ...