A few weeks ago I was talking to my flatmate about how, when you start fancying someone, you're prepared to significantly alter your opinions on music in order to broaden your shared interests with that person. I remember when 18 years of age, deciding that “Bat Out Of Hell” was an excellent record, because a student nurse called Hannah also thought it was an excellent record. I was wrong. So was she. But that didn't matter.

Anyway, it follows that you SHOULD be able to convince yourself that any record by any band is fantastic, all it requires it some work – and perhaps some notion that should you start enjoying it, you'll be rewarded in some way. We decided to put this to the test by purchasing copies of It Bites Greatest Hits and doing our utmost to fall in love with it.

I'm battling with this task at the moment. It's not easy. If you're a bit hazy on It Bites, they were a Cumbrian prog-pop band who scored an unlikely hit in the mid-80s with “Calling All The Heroes”. It was their only hit, and thus their “Greatest Hits” package is a bit of a misnomer. It's crammed with slapping bass, skipping time signatures, and I think they managed to borrow a synth from Go West and make the most of it by layering every track with incessantly stabbing chords. It's already an unwieldy beast, I know, but things get more alarming when you add liberal use of the words “thy” and “thine”, and couplets like

A sudden lonely desperate feeling loomed around my head
As she told me of her new friend and how they planned to wed

WED??

Anyway, I'm going to carry on exploring the CD, if only to prove a point. When I start humming “Whole New World” in the morning while making a cup of tea, that's when I don't have to listen to it anymore. I hope.