DESPITE the ease of drawing comparisons between young East London producer and rapper Wiley and his one-time collaborator, Mercury Music Prize winner Dizzee Rascal, you suspect he wouldn't welcome them.

For one, there's the irate Wot Do U Call It? in which Wiley mocks people who pigeonhole his music as "garage" and "urban", and then there's Reason, which sounds like he's trying to draw the line under a nasty spat with his musical rival.

But wot-ever he calls it, like Rascal, like The Streets' Mike Skinner, like London hip-hop kingpin Roots Manuva, Wiley belongs to that British DIY tradition of twisting hip-hop, garage, soul, electronic noise and anything else that comes to hand into his own homegrown sound.

Less abrasive and angry than Rascal, his self-deprecating humour and positive outlook win you over. How can you not like an MC who bases a track around the song Who Ate All The Pies?

No such qualms for American singer Eamon who has already enjoyed a number one, seemingly based entirely on the gimmick of singing like a gospel choirboy while swearing like a docker.

His album stretches said gimmick to ludicrous lengths - maybe he gets paid by the expletive.

Hit single F**k It (I Don't Want You Back), does at least solve the mystery of what Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares To U would have sounded like as if she got Gordon Ramsay to write it.

The swearing's not the problem, it's the fact that if you got rid of it, there'd be absolutely nothing left.

This is just an unlovable, bratty novelty record.

Updated: 09:13 Thursday, May 06, 2004