Artists I really, really should like, but can't stand, no matter how hard I try to like them:

1. Diamanda Galas
I really should love Diamanda Galas. She looks amazing - GothGlam - all raven hair, brooding eyes and smouldering lips. Her subject matter is close to my heart - the politics and plague mentality surrounding AIDS. Like Marc Almond, she deals with the realities of sex and disease, often influenced by poets such as Baudelaire and Edgar Allen Poe. Her theatrical performances are visually stunning - she has performed in a huge cathedral, stripped to the waist and covered in blood....

...But there's that voice. It's often said that she has a four-octave range - like that's some kind of compliment, you know? It has been described as "between The Exorcist and Maria Callas" - mmmm... lovely! I initially read about Ms Galas back in the mid-80s, and rushed out and bought Plague Mass without listening to it first. Oh, what a treat was in store for me when I got home! Spread - excrutiatingly - over three albums, were her random piano stylings and overly-dramatic screechings and moanings. Just because you have a four-octave voice, do you have to prove it?

Will I be going to see her at the Royal Festival Hall next week? Not bloody likely!