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ONE MORE ‘ONE MORE’

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Regarding the Phil Collins controversy (Calendar Letters, June 16): As per usual, the anti-Hilburn letters fail to address the main ideas behind Hilburn’s review and instead blow out of proportion one issue--here, the repetition of the lyric “one more night.”

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with repeating a lyric several times. It is only when it occurs within the context of banal and essentially shallow music that it becomes a virtual instrument of torture, dragging a lifeless song onward to its acceptable radio playlist length.

This is the sad case with “One More Night”; it is not with Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” or U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” where the choruses are an integral part of powerful music and do not simply function as “hooks.”

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To more clearly delineate this difference, I suggest that Calendar’s year-end music reviews include the categories of “Best and Worst Repetitive Songs.” At this mid-year point, may I nominate: best--”Can’t Get There From Here” by R.E.M.; worst--Phil Collins with . . . um . . . what was that called again??

CARRIE FOX

Costa Mesa

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