Livid

The freak show flickers and then, having flickered, fucks off. Well, that's the idea! But mortgages and tax bills and alimony and the tragic fact that nobody ever seems to choke on their vomit any more added to the even sadder fact that nothing - that's NOTHING - compares to being a POP STAR! Well, it's just too much temptation!

So they come back. They all do eventually. Clogging up the arteries of pop. Flogging the dead horse into a bloody pulp. Hey - don't shit yourself onstage or get caught down-loading kiddie porn and you can last for ages!

Blondie were brilliant. A punk ABBA. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee Jones join the cast of Friends. Safety-pinned bubble gum. Steps on smack. Ice cream and amphetamines. Oxymoron pop.

And this is a fine live album. Brash, fast, slick. The hits sound delicious. Press the skip button for the stuff you don't recognise. And the occasional muso-desecrated middle eight. But why would you want to buy it? Unless you're the sort of heavy-breathing, Biro-sucking crypto-stalker who must have (shudder) everything and thus gets excited by such pronouncements as "the ONLY authorized (sic) live version of 'One Way Or Another'". Gosh.

Pulse racing? Heart pounding? Palms sweating? I'm happy for you. Here's a tissue.