I love good female singer-songwriters. Most of my friends tend to like edgier music or go for triphop, ambient, Jazz etc. I like that stuff too. But what moves me is strong vocalists, powerful lyrics and rock. I think I jive to the conviction in the voice, the sound of words rolling off rather than to the meaning per se. For the longest time, I was totally into Thick As A Brick before I checked out the lyrics. Felt a little foolish later.

Unfortunately, as singers get famous the edge seems to go off. For me, nothing that Tori Amos ever did afterwards beats the impact of 'The Little Earthquakes'. I went to this Ani DiFranco concert in Veil last year and felt sad when she asked rather forlornly, 'I haven't been producing great stuff lately, have I'?

One musician whose voice, lyrics, quality of music actually got better with time is Marianne Faithful. Listening to 'Vagabond Ways' for the first time, I got goose pimples. You have to really really live and die and live again to be able to do a song like that.

The singer-songwriter that I have the most respect for is Sinead O'Connor (I am not talking about her politics). If she had done only 'The Lion and the cobra' and nothing else, I would still be in awe of her. Its a little uneven at places. But its a great album to drive to. I was browsing through the recently published 'Q's 100 best rock photographs' (a small gallery from the collection is available here) and ran into Sinead O'Connor's photograph there. It really captures her spirit. (I wish I could point to it somewhere on the net. But it doesnt appear to be available online). This was shot thankfully before the shaved head, but after she has caused such a huge uproar after tearing the pope's photograph onstage. So, by then she knew all about the mortality of public adoration. It is a good photograph. Its a good book to browse through too - if you like rock photographs.

(By the way, I listen to Live365 for discovering new music. If you haven't tried it before, you should check it out. The advertisements are annoying, but I don?t grudge them whatever little money they make through that)