Ooh PJ Harvey. I remember listening to an older album of hers (Stories from the City) and quite liking it but not enough to buy it. That was a few years ago, though, and I'm thinking I'd like it more now.

If I may engage in some narcissistic self-promotion for a moment, I just wrote on my blog about rediscovering a 1990s folk-pop classic - 'Whatever' by Aimee Mann. Lovely stuff.

Nice blog there Kevin. Following Liverpool? Hopefully Daglish will bring some of the winning formula back.

My first The White Stripes album happened to be "White Blood Cells", and I really like the guitar arrangement in Offend In Every Way.

Ah, thanks Akselborg! As you might have seen, I started the blog back in mid-2010 but it's only over the last couple of months that I've got into the habit of posting regularly. Liverpool are the Premier League team that I follow but I'm really a Southampton fan, seeing as that's where I live.

Whitesnake out with a new album "Forevermore". Nice listening. Whitesnake - Forevermore

My current favourite album is "101" by Keren Ann. Stylish video for My Name Is Trouble, other excellent songs are Blood On My Hands and the title track 101.

Nice cover: KT Tunstall & Keren Ann, My Sharona

Eurovision Song Contest 2011 going on in Düsseldorf, Germany, this week. I didn't have the opportunity to watch the first semi-final due to my first trip to Svalbard, but checked out Norway performance on youtube now. No wonder we crashed out with Stella's tame and breathless singing (don't make the dance affect your singing!), with the choir sabotaged by the sound technicians.

Good luck to Austria tonight, littlefish.

One highlight from last years final in Oslo was the interval act. The idea came from a Oprah Winfrey show. It was her birthday, and suddenly a small group in the crowd started to dance. The dance spread out, ending ut with the whole audience dancing. Here we see crowds from different places in Europe dancing live simultaneously with the audience at the arena. Cool. Düsseldorf, can you top this? Madcon - Glow

To be honest, I don't care too much about how Austria does (although the singer Nadine Beiler seems nice enough in her interviews), but I was happy that Switzerland, Georgia and Finland advance from the first semifinal. The only one of my favourites to be eliminated was San Marino, possibly because they don't have enough neighbouring countries giving them votes? Unfortunate for Norway, I thought the song was one of the better ones in the contest.

The interval acts have been a highlight on several occasions, I remember some time in the 90s they had the Hothouse Flowers perform, and they were better than any of the songs in the competition.

Having first mentioned the Eurovision, it's orderly to comment on the final outcome. Winner Azerbaijan with a sweet duet. I gave three votes, one for this, and two for Bosnia & Herzegovina with Dino Merlin's warm tune. The bookmakers didn't predict the faves very well. France was a hot fave, but ended 15'th place. Italy was not among the faves, but ended second. The votes was evenly spread this time, many different songs getting the maximum 12 points.

After listening to sweet eurovision songs, an antidote is called for. How about some sharp political rap? Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said ft. Skylar Grey

Nice music from Spain: Amparo Sanchez, Turista Accidental, Corazón De La Realidad