La Roux's been getting too much press. It's really just a synth band duo that's been thrown from a wormhole in a back to the future sort of nostalgia trip, giving us the sort of Speak and Spell sounds that I love, but probably make most people reach for their phasers. However, if you liked Vince Clark era Depeche, then this is your moment. For my money, the two best tracks are the infinitely catchy "Colourless Colour" and "I'm Not Your Toy" (which sounds as if it was written by Prince for Ms. Easton). Eighties pastiche and homage is well and good, but how long can it be mined, like Whitby Jet, before the cliffs are bare?
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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