Sexus - The Official End Of It All...

After hearing Nature's Hated again, I started investigating Romo more.  Again, it didn't make it to America  (though at the time Lifestyle were doing something very similar in spirit,  even called "neo-New Romantic" in the Trouser Press review for At The Risk Of Sounding Pretentious), but I'd known the term ever since I started going to Stay Beautiful in 2005.  Sexus particularly impressed me, enough to even buy their singles from iTunes and download what they've got on offer for free (Sexus aren't on it but you can download the Fiddling While Romo Burns Melody Maker tape here)

The Official End Of It All, their second single, is just great.  Evoking Grand Pop Dreams on your dreariest lonely afternoons:




You can see a short clip of the proper video for this song here, along with part of the video for their first single, Edenites.  Their third single, the lovely How Do You Kiss?, was actually never released but featured two remixes by Xenomania, as discussed on the Xenomania blog here:

Duran Duran - "Hold Back The Rain"...

My friend Sean Drinkwater of Lifestyle and Freezepop interviewed Nick Rhodes the other day.  Very exciting and excellent interview too.  That Arcadia special edition sounds amazing.  "Hold Back The Rain" has always been my favourite Duran Duran song.  Huge, driving, joyous POP.  John Taylor's bassline is, per usual, fantastic and Andy's suspended chords are just pure pop.  I always get tremendously excited when I hear this at a club, one of those songs that wasn't *a hit* but everyone is always thrilled to hear.  Stay Beautiful used to play this, Bedsitland still does.