I won't go on about this too much, as I do so in every other thread, but I've been taking a long hard look at myself for liking inevitably preposterous, deliciously overcooked (and in terms of the pop hooks, quite brilliant) Eurodance music from circa 1994. You know the drill, things beginning with C - Corona, Cappella, Culture Beat - Anything and Snap. The reason being not because I didn't love it as a kid or in the context of its time but because sometimes I feel it's the direct ancestor of today's David Guetta production-line, soulless EDM bollocks I hate more than Hitler. Especially the part of "Anything" where all the other instruments/housey diva vocals/inane rap ground to a halt and they leave it to some silly proto-Black Eyed Peas drum and bass section..

I'm also a sucker for eighties power ballads that made the world run out of dry ice, like China in your Hand, I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight and Toy Soldiers*. (Strangely, the Cribs have been listening to this obsessively whilst recording their new album. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.) Again, wouldn't have had a problem if I'd been old enough to remember them, but two decades down the line, I fear this became a cookie-cutter formula for all the sludgy X Factor lot to bore us to tears with.

In a slight reverse of this, I used to be terribly condescending to Nirvana in my teens - unfortunately I was born 5-10 years too late for "getting" them first time around, and I associated anything remotely grunge or "heavy" US alt rock with the worst of nu-metal or all the Creed** type bands, so I'd listen to Aneurysm or Breed and think "Oh, this is just Staind 10 years earlier."

I also thought Cobain was some kind of middle-class faker from a 65-bedroom house in LA who was just pretending to be depressed, intelligent or creative and didn't realise how wrong, idiotic and bigoted my interpretation was until I discovered bands like the Pixies, Fugazi and Sonic Youth, which was after I'd finished sixth form. Thankfully my stance changed through my twenties and I can fully appreciate that he fully deserves his place in history and as a genuine hero of music or whatever you call it... it's late. You get my drift though.

* This is about 75% because there's a girl I fancy at the moment who's just started dressing and looking like Martika in 1989.