Beauty and the Beast

I blame it on the Isley Brothers and their 1962 hit "Twist and Shout". Mind you matters had definitely taken a turn for the worse by then: what with Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

I have to own up to liking in my salad days quite a lot  of the controlled screaming of James Brown, along with Mike Jagger at his most noisy. I wasn’t so keen on Screamin’Lord Sutch, although Arthur Brown’s “Fire” drove me into rapturous symphonic orgasms.

Maybe over the years, I lost the appreciation of that sweet soul music. Is it simply that age has mellowed my taste? It's now more soprano  than Solomon Burke.

However, on the evidence of this Saturday's knockout round of "The Voice", overly loud monotone appears to be judged as the acme of good singing and tunefulness.

Almost all the candidates couldn't  wait to expose their tonsils to the four, increasing tone deaf, judges. Variability, tonal contrast, melody and a sense of proportion was swamped by high octane banshee wailing.

Kylie increasing is getting on my nerves. She's in her forties for God's sake yet she acts like a pant wetting tennie bopper at a David Cassidy concert. Doesn't she care that she's giving grannies a bad name?

Tom Jones, I swear, spends most of his time nodding off. Every time the camera's on him he has the look of someone having just been nudged out of a deep sleep. Thank God he's given up on constantly reminding us how old he is by recounting all the old rockers he's outlived.

I can't be bothered to say anything about the other two judges: except that the time  spent on "The Voice" means less time in the recording studio. Which must be good news for music lovers.

I can't wait for the return of "Strictly". At least then we won't have to put up with those ridiculous  chairs. And there's the treat that is Darcy.

Now with her I could do "The Mashed Potato", "Ride Your Pony" and "The Hippy, Hippy, Shake." It makes me wanna Shout.