Julian Gough

I have just discovered that Momus is handing out free Christmas presents, and I am very excited. (I hope you are excited too.) In the run-up to Christmas, at a rate of several songs a day, he is giving away his six Creation albums over on his splendid blog, Click Opera. He provides links to high quality MP3s of all the tracks, and is commenting on each song, giving a little description and history, before saying what he thinks of it now, looking back. I will return to this topic, but I thought I'd tip off all you Momus fans immediately (I am looking at you, Neil Farrell).

Songs from when, as he says,

"Everything was poetry and coffee bars, basically. And we all signed on."

The Poison Boyfriend is already up, and the cruel and sensual Tender Pervert went up earlier today.

I would recommend, oooh, all of Tender Pervert.

And for those of you pop children who weren't born when Momus first gently parted the cheeks of pop's dreaming form, and who desperately need a musical reference from the last five minutes to orient yourselves, let me point out that Amanda Palmer of the delicious Dresden Dolls is covering Momus's "I Want You, But I Don't Need You" on her current tour, EVEN AS I TYPE. In fact here she is...

And here's Momus himself, in a video from slightly later in his career, when Creation had money (thanks to Oasis), and he briefly had a promotional budget. Now go grab some songs, and be sure to say thankyou.