Sadly I don't have the whole Mackenzie singles page, nor do I recall where it came from (the year must be around 1987).
Still, William is quite as flamboyantly caustic as his erstwhile chum Morrissey in decreeing these efforts to be really nothing.
Here in fact is Morrissey being harsher still on a David Sylvian single
In my class on The Artist As Critic / The Critic as Artist last week, assigned readings included Morrissey's singles columns of the 1980s - and I thought it would be fun to play some of the singles (with their appalling videos) in class and get the students to review them, before I read out the Mozzer verdict. Among them were Sylvian's "Pulling Punches"
And it was fun - they were a particularly bad batch of records, including Carmel's "Bad Day" and a twilight-phase Hazel O'Connor.
Although germane and acerbic points were made, none quite matched Stephen's barbs.
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I don't have many regrets - at least about the music journalism years - but one of them is never having got to interview Billy Mackenzie.
There was always a queue to interview him at Melody Maker and higher-ups would pull rank to secure their 5th or 6th sit-down with him.
Muriel could recite the phone book and I'd be enchanted.
