As part of Stylus magazine’s special B-sides week, the UK Singles Jukebox team (of which I was once a member) were asked to cast aside the new releases for once, and to turn their attention instead to a bunch of recent-ish B-sides. More specifically: cover version B-sides.
Having resigned from the team earlier in the year, I was delighted to be asked to re-join it as a Special Guest, for one week only. (This made me rather feel like Farrah Fawcett-Majors re-joining Jaclyn, Kate and “new girl” Cheryl Ladd for a “special episode” of Charlie’s Angels.)
Settling down to review all fifteen tracks last night, I was quickly reminded of just what a tough gig it is, producing reviews for such an intimidatingly music-savvy readership. (They’re not like you lot. I can’t just toss out semi-informed drunken bitchy rants and hope to get away with it. Oh no.) Painful memories re-surfaced, reminding me of just how much blood I used to sweat over those damned singles reviews, perched over the kitchen table for hours at time on Sunday afternoons, snapping whenever the phone rang, or if friends dropped round, or if K had the temerity to walk in on me. (“How dare you try and boil a kettle! I AM CONCENTRATING!“)
However, five hours later, and just ten minutes before the submission deadline, I was rather pleased to discover that, for the first time ever, I had managed to bash out reviews for every single track. And this morning, I was absolutely thrilled to discover that, also for the first time ever, Stylus had seen fit to use every last one of them. Ding dong, full house!
(You do need to remove the first “effortlessly” from the Sophie Ellis Bextor review, though. How slapdash.)
troubled diva 