If youtube statements (which sadly disappear once a video is pulled) are anything to go by, at least one person was surprised to find out that Green is white. (This comment was for the "Perfect Way" video which, as nature abhors a video vacuum, is back up, in a slightly messier version.) More than one person has commented on how cool they were at the time - only people who were 'hip' knew about them, which is interesting - better yet are the folks that talk about listening to nothing but this album for months on end. It was their LIFE! My goodness.

One reason the album became compulsive, repetitive listening (and it still is, for me) is that it is all about love, coming from angles and ideas that usually aren't talked about so plainly or dazzlingly; "Perfect Way" for instance, is like rainbow after waterfall after gorgeous sunrise - he is saying he knows how to make the girls go crazy in the song in which he is, indeed, making the girls (particularly ones given to alliteration) crazy. It is alliteration that almost, but not quite, follows the alphabet; when I realized this I wanted to high-five someone, but I wasn't with anyone, so...and the most gratifying thing of all is how he saves 'A' for the part leading into the chorus...And this is how I always think it should be written:

"Apart from everyone
(away from your love)
A part of me belongs
Apart from all the hurt above"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Pardon my enthusiasm, but I just can't get over how great he is as a lyricist, and not just because he uses big words and makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world to do. He loves language, and he loves it in the way hip-hop artists did at the time - as a way to boast (truthfully, of course), to communicate, to just revel in sounds and repetition of those sounds.

And then there's his voice; male, female, white, black, it sounds like many things and yet he sounds like no one else I can think of - and while the drums and instruments may be processed and altered, Green's voice is his voice, and anything you hear him do is him doing it. (Somewhere I read that he sings from his head, as opposed to opera singers who sing from their middle; he has to be close the microphone, as opposed to oh, say, Elvis Costello, who has a 'foghorn' voice.) Saying he has a 'sweet' voice is okay, because it is pure...just the sort of voice that works best in New Pop, as it sounds so pleasant and good-natured, but in the meantime may well be singing about love in a way that is anything but simple-minded or naive.