Hey Villan!

Is anyone allowed to critisise Ms Burke's version on artistic grounds or have we all just had our morning's fill of folkie sour grapes?

Just cause something is the most commercially popular doesn't make the detractors 'wrong' in the sense of their tastes and sensibilities, it just means that they're in the minority. History is littered with cases of the commercial (or most marketed) winning out over the better 'quality'; Betamax vs VHS for example.

I like many a pop act (I don't exclusively favour folk over pop). What I tend not to like are songs that are most obviously sung/produced by people using music as a route to fame/money, taking songs they have little feel for and simply replicating the mores of current commerical acceptability and applying blanket vocal techniques; which to my ears is what AB, and her producers, have done to a song I feel particularly strongly about. I'm not so naive to believe that this is new, but there have been numerous studies recently highlighting that increasingly young people's career aspirations centre around being famous (mainly through becoming glamour models or singers, in the case of girls, obviously!)

I do feel as if I should be entitled to not have my tastes dismissed as sour grapes because a song I have no respect for artisically has found more commercial success than one that I do.

Anyway, despite all this you will continue to enjoy AB's version and at least you won't have to run out of cafes everytime it comes on the radio!

Ho ho ho.