I've been back to the record store today

I seem to spend most of my lunch breaks in the record store lately. Single-handedly saving the ailing record industry! Today's purchases are an interesting mix, but so is my whole record collection:

Leela James - A change is gonna come

I heard her on the radio a couple of times. Amazing voice. She calls her music "backyard soul". Will find out what that is suppossed to be...

Franz Ferdinand - You could have it so much better

The second album of the English band with the German name. Voted record of the month in the October edition of the Musikexpress. When I woke up this morning, "do you want to" was playing on the radio. I have been humming it since then. Therefore I have bought the record to exorcise the tune by heavy rotation on my stereo.

Stephen Duffy - I love my friends

The Süddeutsche Zeitung made "Keep going" by The Lilac Time (see links section) its record of the year 2003. They published an article in which they called Stephen Duffy one of the greatest songwriters ever. My reaction was "oh, he is still alive?". I remembered him as the Pete Best of Duran Duran and Stephen "Tintin" Duffy of short-lived 80's fame. But they were right, his music is beautiful. I have since then been working my way backwards through his releases. I hope more people start doing that, now he is getting more popular writing even more beautiful songs with Robbie Williams (another one of my favourites and it is no longer embarrassing to say that; the boy-band days are far behind him; no link to his website though, because it's crap). I have postponed buying this particular album for so long because it is usually described as "Brit pop". We'll see...