Villains

"The whole implication [of Band Aid] was to save these people in Ethiopia, but who were they asking to save them? Some 13-year -old girl in Wigan. People like Thatcher and the royals could solve the Ethiopian problem in 10 seconds. But Band Aid shied away from saying that - for heaven's sake, it was almost directly aimed at unemployed people."
--March 1985

"Band Aid is the undiscussable, I'm afraid."
--Jan. 1985

"Nobody younger than Bob Geldof was allowed near the stage [at Live Aid] because otherwise The Boomtown Rats would have seemed like a collection of brontosauri."
--June 1986

"I heard George Michael's 'I Want Your Sex' quite recently in the car. I wasn't deeply impressed. I thought it sounded like Ponce, I mean Prince."
--1985

"Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive. Desperate womanhood. Madonna is closer to organised prostitution than anything else."
--June 1986

"For me Prince conveys nothing. The fact that he's successful in America is interesting simply because he's mildly fey and that hasn't happened before there. Boy George, again I think he really doesn't say anything either."
--June 1986

"If Prince came from Wigan he would have been slaughtered by now."
--Oct. 1986

"I detest Stevie Wonder."
--Sept. 1986

"I think Diana Ross is awful."
--Sept. 1986

"I hate all those records in the Top 40 - Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they're vile in the extreme."
--Sept. 1986

When asked about his favourite Thompson Twins record: "Is it possible to have one? Well, if I'm horribly tortured and flogged to admit it . . . I think I'd rather face further flogging."
--1984