Since privileged, white college-educated males need to have their angst articulated just like everybody else, can I just tell you all how much I love, love, love (and some would say rip off, rip off, rip off) the work of Scott Miller? While I admit that his more ambitious experiments sometimes baffle me, he writes the three-minute popsong with a virtually unmatched combination of catchiness and sophistication. Lyrically he is intelligent and empathetic; many times in my late adolescence (which ended last week) I turned to Scott Miller to comment on my minor annoyances and catastrophic heartbreaks with a wit and grace I could never muster myself. It is impossible to pick a favorite from the seemingly bottomless well of Miller tunes that have graced my mix tapes over the years, but here are two I like very much. One from Game Theory, and one from his 90s project The Loud Family.

Before there was Britpop, there was Britpop. Now don't worry, I'm not going to start going on about Diesel Park West, Five-Thirty and the Candy Skins, but in the late 80s/early 90s there were plenty of bands working with sources that the Blur/Oasis/Pulp axis brought to worldwide prominence. And similarly, there were some blips and footnotes, one of which was a ridiculously blonde-dyed quartet of paleskinnies called Birdland. The only defense I can muster in support of this band is that their first two 12" EPs on Lazy are wonderful. Ridiculous, over-the-top buzzsaw bubblegum with giddily simple guitar solos and comical vocal posturings that blow up the sugar rush of their brief compositions. Great in the kind of way that the inevitable major-label debut LP that follows the cool indie releases never is. And, as could have been expected, that major-label debut was a huge disappointment; smoothed out and colorless production, and the best songs were mediocre re-writes of the ones we'd already heard. The overheated, laughable hype that accompanied said LP is amusing today when you consider it was written about a band who were about as dangerous as their labelmates, the Primitives.

Kit and I were nestled in with the Guys re-watching Teenage Kicks: The Story Of the Undertones and a number of things occurred to us.

-The singles from the "Soul Period," near the end of their career are almost as artistically successful as the Jam's, an impressive accomplishment when you consider the latter were doing stuff like "The Bitterest Pill," "Town Called Malice" and "Beat Surrender," which gets our vote as the all-time best final single by any band. But look at the Undertones 45s: "Chain Of Love," "Love Parade," "Got to Have You Back;" these are all really great records.

-I know the first LP is wonderful, I'd never argue that. But really, Positive Touch is the masterpiece, with amazing depth and variety and few, if any, weak songs. Perhaps not quite Revolver-esque in it's sophistication, but getting there, and an amazing display of growth.

-Teenage Kicks: The Story of the Undertones will never be on VH-1. The band members never had any grotesque excesses, and none of them come across as raging assholes. They are all modest, humble, and well-spoken. In fact if this lovely film has any flaw, it's that there really isn't any story here that some of your friends haven't been through: Band forms as school chums, has brief giddy period of success, cannot maintain that success, gets tired or bored, breaks up because "It's not any fun any more."

-The world lost John Peel way too early.

-I found the O'Neils' comments near the end of the film to the effect of "We didn't realize it at the time, but we were great band," to be very moving; I wish that realization for every band I've ever loved.

"When Saturday Comes," from The Positive Touch was released as a single in Holland; there may have been a couple of other oddball 45 releases from Europe besides the ones you are all familiar with from the All Wrapped Up comp (one of the worst, most inappropriate LP covers...EVER).

This moody pop gem was included on the first volume of Diggin' For Gold, one of our favorite compilation LPs. It also appears on the Searchin For Shakes compilation and the Stora Popboken 3 disc set of Swedish pop music, but we've never seen a copy of the latter. Anyhoo, enjoy this extremely moody bit of beat music. The lyrics are curious; oddly phrased but effective in the manner of some of the Dutch bands who used English as a second language.