As explained in previous posts I am experimenting upon myself and it is starting to wear a little. I am still pretty sure it will have benefits at some point…just not yet.

I changed my charity shop choice for this one. I closed my eyes and picked this CD from a branch of Barnardos, rather than the tiny local hospice shop down the road from home. I’m not sure their greater volume of stock made much difference to my ability to blindly seek out good new music but I’m going to keep swapping shops…in hope more than anything.

For 50p I was granted the opportunity to listen to the first album of Diana Vickers – Songs from the tainted cherry tree.

I did not know who Diana Vickers is until I looked her up (using Duckduckgo…NOT google) and it turns out she was a runner up on the X-Factor (which I’ve never watched) and she has gone on to do some film, telly and stage work.

I spent the majority of this album, every song of which I managed to listen to (most) of, thinking it was simply full of those very sugary sweet pop songs that some people seem to enjoy. Then track 10 came on and the difference was immediately noticeable. Track 10 is a Bjork cover and even though I admit that part of my sitting up and taking notice was the fact that I sort of recognised it (I am not a big Bjork fan though) the main difference was in the sheer quality.

This album is pop music – plain and simple – sung with a breathlessness that quickly became irritating, but there are also moments of unconscious foot-tapping, so it was by no means the worse thing I have ever heard (damning with faint praise, I know). No songs will make it onto the iPod and the CD will be re-donated, but I have not yet added X-Factor contestants to my veto list, so I suppose that’s something.