Ladies and gentlemen...

This is possibly one of the most heartwrenching songs I've ever heard.

I've heard it so many times in my life that I could sing along if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but never realised what it's about. Now that I know it's about child abuse it breaks my heart listening to it. But listen to it I will. And so can you...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Suzanne Vega - Luka (Recorded live at Abbey Road studios).

Music review. The Ting Tings - We started nothing.

If upbeat and catchy pop is your bag you should check out The Ting Tings album "We started Nothing" as it's as upbeat and catchy as you can get without stepping over the, very fine, line between good music and aural torture.

If you're anything like me the first song on an album can make or break it and in this respect The Ting Tings do not fall short. The first song, Great DJ, is possibly the catchiest song I've heard since The Farm released Groovy Train. Great DJ is followed by That's not my name, a tune that defies even my jaded old pop pallate and manages to make me join in on the chorus.

From then on in The Ting Tings manage to produce a finely honed album that does what all good pop music should do, make you tap your feet, and does so with a touch rarely seen these days when music is churned out through a giant music mincer in a factory where Simon Cowell is the head slaughterman.

More often than not the second and third album are what a band ends up being judged by and if We Started Nothing is anything to go by then we're going to be hearing a lot more of the Ting Tings. Watch this space.

Music reviews...

Takk - Sigur Ros.

Let Sigur Ros take your hand and guide you to where the mock turtles live, where The Mad Hatter has tea with the sleepy dormouse and where Alice found that sometimes all is not as it seems. This album conjures up images in your mind of flight across barren Icelandic wastelands where deep fissures scar the earth, sulphurous pools form and molten rock bubbles to the surface. An ambient dreamscape made real, this album is a joy to listen to and should be in everyone's collection.

Grace. Jeff Buckley.

Possibly one of the best albums ever made. Containing lapel grabbing hard rock and mind blowing moments of melodic musemanship, Grace encapsulates the dichotomy of being human and makes it into music for the soul. Anger, joy, peace, hatred and love all play their part in this album. Leaves you feeling like you have been through the whole of human expression in a second spanning a lifetime. Gone too soon, like so many who deserved to live, Jeff Buckley lives on in this album.

Smile. Brian Wilson.

Supposedly thirty years ahead of his time, Brian Wilson seems to encapsulate the sixties when surfing went global, peace and love threatened the establishment and youth threatened to take charge from the order of old an oppressive. Full of melodies similar to the beach boys, this album is better than it should ever have been. Pull on a Hawaiian shirt, buy a VW Beetle, grow your hair long and take up surfing. Brian Wilson has finally arrived in the here and now. Welcome back Brian.

The Amazing Charlatans. The Charlatans. (USA)

Acid was certainly an influence in the making of this album. And it's great that it was. Without the influence of Lysergic acid diethylamide it's easy to imagine this group singing about moonshine, chewin' tobacco, dungarees, and inter-family marriages. Thanks to Albert Hoffmann however, this album isn't a tribute to troglodytes and instead is an album that has a similar sound to early Neil Young albums tinged with a little Jefferson Airplane. Well worth listening to.