OFF: Other Bands - Guilty pleasures

[David Howard & Kim Pieters]

I'm mildly embarrassed, even irritated with myself, for liking:
Yes, because as another list-member acknowledged, Jon Anderson's lyrics are
ridiculous and so are Wakeman's endless arpeggios (to hear inventive organ
playing in popular music you have only to go to Garth Hudson of The Band)
however I forget their excesses when I hear Chris Squire's bass;
ELP, whose classical cliches are forgiven when I listen to Greg Lake's From
the Beginning (I also admire Carl Palmer's drumming);
Kate Bush, because she has that I'm-a-schoolgirl-with-bedroom-eyes appeal
that causes most grown men to look at their shoes;
Ian Hunter solo and with Mott the Hoople, because the music is as formulaic
as his hard-living posturing but it's saved by that old-football-sock voice
and the odd set of arch lyrics.

David Howard