THE MELODY MAKER

The Melody Maker have done it again! Every time they bother to mention Suzanne it's to criticise her. As one of the most influencial music papers they are not helping Suzanne's career. The reason why I am so irate ia an article in the May 8th issue. It reeds as follows:

He's sauve, he's slick, he cuts pop stars to the quick, he's...

MR AGREEABLE

He's paid by the asterisk

'PERUSING my Saturday Guardian, as is my wont, I was intrigued to come across a feature entitled "My Favourite Places", which this week was given over to Suzanne Vega. She listed as her favourite places East Harlem and Liverpool which, with their grey, bleak, post-industrial environments, "are not beautiful in the conventional sense but have a certain rough charm about them".

'Shove a clarinet up my anus, "a certain rough charm"? It makes you wonder why every f***er from East Harlem or Liverpool has f***ed off from the place the moment they had enough cash for a one-way ticket! And where does Suzanne live? California! Poor little f***er, stranded in Beverly Hills, staring down along Sunset Boulevard, wishing she was in f***ing Liverpool! You like Liverpool? Go f***ing live there, you mousey, patronising, whimsical, airheaded, overpaid, undertalented, perversely sadistic tourist in other people's f***ing misery! Count the number of seconds till the "rough charm" of f***ing Toxteth wears off, you silly cow!'

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They shouldn't be allowed to get away with this! I've written them an acidic letter. The fact that they have to use obscene language repeatedly just shows how stupid they are. If any of the readers of LANGUAGE want to tell the Melody Maker what you think of them you can write to: Backlash, Melody Maker, 26th Floor, King's Reach Tower, Stanford Street, London SE1 9LS, England. Even if they don't like Suzanne's music or share her views they don't have to be this obnoxious. They shouldn't be allowed to do this to anyone, not just Suzanne.

It would be great if the readers of LANGUAGE flooded their mail box in reply to this article. Maybe it would make them realise that there are many people who definityely don't share their viewpoint.

Sharon Jennings