I was walking to work today, listening to a bit of Prolapse (as you all should do on a rainy Thursday morning) when it dawned on me: "This shit is amazing"

So how come, in the same time frame when this came out, we had bands like Six by Seven, Urusei Yatsura, Arab Strap, Seafood and Ikara colt selling their wares but we were all looking overseas to America for our kicks? Sure, some of this stuff is a bit hit and miss looking back on it, but fundamentally it's still wildly more interesting than most of the stuff we were all being told by the music press was the next big thing.

How come as a country that has led the way in terms of 60's, mod culture, punk, new wave, pop, britpop, early electronica and psychedelic 70's gubbins we all seem to think that all the output of bands from this isle is crap from 1994 onwards? I know that several British bands have gone huge (U2, Coldplay, Radiohead) but even then we largely sniff and sneer at them for doing well (though in U2s case thats entirely understandable).

Give me the clever wordplay of FOTL, the sound of Dizzee Rascals debut, Aidan Moffats tales of drunken nights out, The Delgados marriage of strings and fragile beauty, Mogwais desire to extend the boundaries of post rock, the sheer absurdity of Girls Alouds pop ethics and Roots Manuvas pushing onwards of hip hop over almost any of that American stuff.