Elin Lanto - too sexy to convince?

They say you can't be too rich or too thin. What about too sexy? No one has ever accused me of being off-puttingly gorgeous and distractingly good-looking but I understand it can be a problem for the women and men who win the genetic lottery. The main complaint is they are not taken seriously.

Now I wonder if there is a similar phenomenon for pop singers. The whole point of a singer is that they can convey an emotion with their voice and convincingly tell the story of a song. The problem for the too-beautiful is that they are not terribly convincing when singing about their woes and how tough they have it, because you look at them and doubt whether they do anything but glide through life.

Take Swedish uber-babe Elin Lanto (pictured). Her latest song (Best Pop Song of the Week) is Funeral which is a case in point. This is a big, dramatic (and brilliant) number about a girl so hurt by a guy that she will dance all over his funeral. Standard bunny boiler behaviour if a little morbid, but take a look at the singer. Does she really convince as someone who's going to get mucked about by some guy so badly that she plans to ruin his wake?

Perhaps I'm being a bit naive about the lives of the outrageously sexy - maybe they are just as liable to be emotionally shredded as the rest of us and therefore have just as much right to warble about it. Whatever the truth I don't expect Elin's going to start singing about why she never has to pay for drinks or always seems to get out of traffic tickets, and I do like her music, so I had better learn to pretend her heartache is genuine.

Is this the cheesiest pop song in history?

VS.

As regular readers will know I like my pop music commercial and, well, poppie. But you can take a good thing too far and I think the latest song "Manboy" from Swedish Gareth Gates knock-off Eric Saade is a case on point. You have to listen to really appreciate just how cheesy this song is.

Whoever wrote and produced this song was really looking for the lowest common denominator, found it and then kept on digging. If I have ever heard a more basic track so lacking in even an inkling of sophistication, then I can't remember it. Even the lyric, such as it is, homes in on its pre-teen girl market with all the subtletly of a Cruise missile.

But who am I to diss the guy (who is apparently angling to represent Sweden at the Eurovisions - should fit in well). I listened to one other song by him called "Sleepless" and it is actually very enjoyable (if quite an obvious N Synch copy). It's similarly lacking in pretension but has just enough novelty (I love the intro) to make it listenable. There is a fine line between passably commercial pop and having more cheese than Dominos.

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