Observations on listening to Mark Radcliffe's show tonight on BBC2:
- Gogol Bordello sound like Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen crossed with a NME new-wave revival band.
- The new Belle & Sebastian single, Funny Little Frog, sounds nothing like Belle & Sebastian. There is nothing particularly fey about it (other than the title, of course); the vocals are strong and confident and it bounces along energetically. It could easily be, say, The Thrills or The Magic Numbers, or anything in the top 40 in the two decades before Stock/Aitken/Waterman and Dr. Dre. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you; it's a pretty classy piece of pop craftsmanship, though don't expect Lord Anthony or The State I Am In.