Trax: The thrills

Many of the top of country music performers - traditionally supportive of the right-wing in American politics - are abandoning President George W. Bush.

According to London's The Daily Telegraph, stars are deserting Bush as the death toll in the Iraq war mounts. Among the big names to have turned their back on Bush is Toby Keith, who sometimes plays with a guitar painted with the American flag, and now claims not to have supported the war.

Also now gunning for Bush is Darryl Worley, who has released a record called I Just Came Back from a War about an Iraq war soldier who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Thrills - Teenager

This album is far from being a bad one. If you think that only elderly people reminisce through rose-tinted spectacles about their earlier years, then just listen to the new album by The Thrills.

The members of this band might still be in their 20s or 30s, but already they are turning their gaze back and regretting the loss of their youth.

Unfortunately, this Irish band's bittersweet remembrances of times past do not seem to have struck much of a chord with the record-buying public.

Poor sales

Teenager, the sleevenotes for which feature black-and-white pictures of youngsters looking rather the worse for wear, barely scraped into the UK top 50 when it was released a few weeks ago.

The poor sales sit in stark contrast to the chart performances of the group's first two albums, both of which went top 10 in the UK.

Their debut record, So Much for the City, which came out in 2003, two years after the band was formed in Dublin, reached number one in the group's native Republic of Ireland.

The follow-up was titled Let's Bottle Bohemia, and hit number nine in the UK charts after its release in 2004.

Perhaps the band should have struck while the iron was hot and released their third album sooner, instead of waiting three years and seeing their profile dip.

Teenager

It is a shame The Thrills have lost momentum, as Teenager is far from being a bad album.

Just about every song delves into the theme of lost adolescence, including a track called Teenager on which vocalist Conor Deasy sings: "If I could go back, a teenager again, If I could go back, I'd trip over again, but where would I fall?"

On the next number, Should've Known Better, he wails: "I didn't live my youth with sufficient recklessness. I envy your youth, yes, I envy your youth."

Although the album is not always lighthearted in its subject matter, it is by no means just a series of introspective wailings, even though Deasy's voice can be a bit whiny at times.

Several of the tracks, whatever their lyrical content and vocal style, have a jaunty and upbeat sound, including No More Empty Words and Long Forgotten Song.

The young will enjoy it

If you have hit your 20s and are already looking back on your teenage years as a series of lost opportunities, then there will be plenty songs on this album for you to enjoy - or rather to make you miserable.

Dangers of loud music

A campaign has been launched to warn young people of the dangers of listening to loud music.

The National Foundation for the Deaf in New Zealand says just six per cent of youngsters take precautions to avoid damaging their hearing. "This research confirms our concerns that the MP3 generation is facing a hearing loss epidemic," said Marianne Schumacher, the organisation's executive manager. "Hearing loss through over-exposure to noise develops so slowly and insidiously that we often don't know it's happened until it's too late."

The group advises people to turn their MP3 players down, stand away from speakers in clubs and at concerts, and wear reusable ear plugs when music is loud.