Although Linda told me about Paolo Nutini eons ago, the unavailability of his album in America kind of made it hard for me to have a good listen to his music. Today I sat down and watched his live performance of Last Request on youtube about 8 times, and I'm obsessed. I have to go out and find his album soon. I hope they have it in Singapore, because its still not stocked in the US. Anyway. He's young, he's skinny, he's tall, he has dark hair, his accent is Scottish and incomprehensible (hello, echoes of Ewan Mcgregor), he croons about holding girls, so ... of course I love him. He's like a less annoying, less ugly, less stupid James Blunt, I suppose. His lyrics are definitely a little more fluent than Blunt's, too. A little meatier than my favourite emaciated shrimp Damien Rice, but not quite as dapper as Rufus Wainwright. Also he's nowhere near the wordsmith that Jeff Buckley was, and not quite as funny as Ben Folds. I'm currently in thrall of him nevertheless, and I just want to wail out his music over and over again. Its the lovelorn sort of music that makes me wrench inside despite my better (& elitist) judgement.

* Other reasons to love youtube : Tori Amos' cover of Desperado live from some tv show.