THEY MAY have been in the business for more than a decade, but the Afghan Whigs (right) still have the capacity to evade easy pigeonholing. Despite their suave suits, they are boisterous live, and the band collects ecstatic reviews of their albums while commercial success evades them. They haven't played Britain for more than two years, and although they are a band of epic proportions, you can see them at a couple of smallish venues this week before they release their sixth album, 1965, in October.

ONCE UPON A HOUSE ON FIRE by Andrea Ashworth, Picador pounds 14.99

For some reason I found myself becoming reconciled to BBC1's Tom Jones during the third episode, in which Lady Bellaston revealed the full extent of her charms to the hero (my wife, meanwhile, found herself coming round to the casting of the relatively unknown Max Beesley - firm evidence that the series was an equal opportunity titillator). This was more like it, I thought, particularly after the early episodes' dependence on slap and tickle (a peculiarly unarousing form of eroticism). Sadly that was the last we saw of Lindsay Duncan's body-double, but my change of mood about the production somehow survived the disappointment.

If you think "Walk On By" is just a pop song then you should hear it get the full Isaac Hayes treatment. OK, so Dionne Warwick's 1964 recording was, without doubt, a benchmark performance, and the Stranglers turned it round pretty well with their version 14 years later. What Hayes does, though, is make you forget that a song has a beginning, a middle and an end. Instead, he allows the composition to kind of slowly infuse. After all, there's plenty of tune, so why hurry? As the man himself might say with a shrug "It's all right, we've got all night." At his Forum appearance, the process took around 16 minutes. Isaac Hayes sat relaxed at the piano while the guy with the electric guitar took centre stage and produced some sexual, languid sounds to set the tone. A full orchestral backing band hovered behind, waiting, as the guitar gently thrusted and surged, until finally becoming a spent force. Only then did the deep soul voice at last feel ready to sing.

Warner Bros 9362-46348-2

Choice: One to see in the next seven days;

The castrato may be dead, if temporarily exhumed in the film Farinelli, but men singing like women remains a pop phenomenon. Barney Hoskyns reaches for the high notes, while (below) two of our finest falsettos talk (like a man)

Welcome to the Dawn, Playground for the New Power Generation," coos the sultry interactive voice-bite that links the tracks on The Artist Formerly Known As Prince's new album, assuring us that "there are over 500 experiences to choose from". But of course there's really only one experience available on this particular infonet, and it's the oldest of them all. As the little symbol himself admits at the end of the horrendous power-ballad "Shhh", "Sex is not all I think about - it's just all I think about you." Well, thanks, but no thanks.

IAN MacKINNON

I'm a big fan of Luther's, but this song in particular is very special to me. Being a bachelor - I've been a bachelor now for 15 years - you find yourself alone quite a bit and you have, well, I guess you'd call it a lonely attack.

THEY call him the Love God. The Sultan of Bedroom Soul. The Doctor of Love. The Sex Guru. The Walrus of Love. The Mountain of Mounting. The Pachyderm of Passion. The great big wobbly jelly of . . . well, you can make up your own nickname; everyone else does. Barry White - like that other middle-aged, middle-of-the-road Barry, Mr Manilow - is an international superstar who is not taken entirely seriously. The talents of the child gangster who grew up to record "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe"

James Brown may be to blame for refusing to let his band wear frilly shirts on stage, but in their dark lounge suits Maceo, Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley - the Holy Trinity of ex-JBs horn-men - now look like seriously middle-aged representatives of the party machine. Maceo, his slightly excessive sideburns signalling his role as leader, takes the stage first and carefully manages the opening number so that it not only showcases his alto sax but also allows him to test the mikes and the lights for the rest of the front-line. When tenor-player Pee Wee and trombonist Fred join him, they gather at the front for a vocal caucus, whispering funky imprecations to the house before taking up their instruments and beginning the sound that launched a thousand samples, tight horn- punches provoking spasms of movement in every listener.

THE biggest cheer of the day, if not the season, was Remittance Man's due when he won the Emblem Chase here yesterday. The 10-year-old returned to competition after injury in sparkling fashion with a three-and- a-half-length defeat of Deep Sensation.

NICKY HENDERSON confirmed yesterday that Remittance Man will run in the Emblem Chase at Kempton on Saturday. The champion two- mile chaser of 1991-92 has not been on a racecourse since injuring his off-fore tendon in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon at the beginning of last season.