I will say this (now that it has been disclosed that I haven’t yet finished the post) –yes, Britt Daniels is brilliant at the short song. As far as pop goes I think (duh right?) that short rules and long generally sucks royally. I learned that when I bought Don Mclean’s American Pie as a single. The song took up both sides of the record. I never bothered to listen to the B-side.

I’ve been struggling with the term Art Music since you introduced it. I think there’s a reactionary post in me on that. Argument is: what is defined as “Art Music” is actually a FULL study of pure music and using art as an adjective implies too much conceptual-ization when it should be thought of as approaching music as music, purely –not an extension of what sounds like an interdisciplinary fine arts program. Does that make sense?