Quotes from Bob Stanley

Metal is starter-pack rock. It works as both a gateway to other forms of modern pop, via volume, speed, and power, and as a model of pure escapism—the roar of the fairground, the cheap thrills of the slasher movie, sex, and horror. Besides,

Meter, melody, and everything else that relates to the construction of a song are secondary. All that is necessary is to have something to say and to say it as quickly as possible. Irving Berlin

What Berlin had created was a hybrid pop song. It had a great hook and a memorable title, and it was easy to sing. It also melded a slight melancholy, which Berlin reckoned he had learned from 'Slavonic and Semitic folk tunes', with the vogueish ragtime style, which is what gave it a subtle urban edge (he later wrote an essay called 'Song and Sorrow Are Playmates').

But tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you?' It's the sound of the Shangri-Las grown up, two kids upstairs asleep, a bottle of red wine open on the kitchen table. Sung by Agnetha, alone at the microphone, to her ex-husband in the control booth, 'The Winner Takes It All' was pure musical theatre, but frightening because it was clearly real – anyone listening knew they were intruding on the private grief of an ex-couple