The birds swoop down upon the crosses of old grey churches

The first weekend of a new year at work and it is good to take it fairly easy. I’m really looking forward to an evening of Beatles-related televisual programmes on the BBC tonight. I think it might be Beatles week for some reason or other. Is it because Apple is releasing all the Fab Four albums in remastered format? Or has the new Beatles Rock Band video game got anything to with it? Maybe the 40th anniversary of the part-genius (Something, Sun King, the ‘long medley’), part-stinker (Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Octopus’s Garden) Abbey Road long player is the catalyst? No matter. I can happily sit through any number of Beatles documentaries.

The new Prefab Sprout album was waiting for me when I returned home from work yesterday afternoon. I’d pre-ordered Let’s Change The World With Music ages ago and had forgotten all about its impending release. The reviews in the press have proved universally positive and it is a fine and interesting recording. The album, however, sounds precisely how I expected it to and while appreciating the generic Prefab Sprout sound - well-crafted melodies, crisply vocalised wi' clever-clever lyrics - I’m questioning how badly the world needed this collection. Perhaps further listens will improve my opinion.