"There ought to be a law against it." That's always been one of my favourite lines uttered by character actors in "B" movies. So many different connotations can be put into that one line, from negative to positive, that a good character actor can steal a whole scene if he or she plays it right.

Camera zooms in on old-timer standing on a street corner. Old timer shakes his head and squints into the camera, chews on the ends of his moustache, clears throat and spits a wad of unidentifiable something onto the street: "There ought' a be a law 'gains 't" they mumble. Camera pulls back as they deposit their other lung in the street.

There are times when I have no trouble agreeing with that sentiment. The most recent example arrived in my mail just the other day in the form of a new CD by an up and coming female singer from Great Britain named Corinne Bailey Rae. Before I'd even heard the first track from the young lady's new disc, Corinne Bailey Rae, I'd thought of one such law already.

Stop comparing new black female singers with Billie Holiday. Not only is that an enormous burden of expectation to place on any singer starting out, I've yet to hear anyone sing Billie's style of music with anything approaching her ability, but there's a certain racist undertone to it that bothers me.

That's a little vague, I know, and I can't put my finger on why exactly it bothers me, it's just a gut reaction. The closest I can get is that it feels like whoever has made that comment is limiting the new performer to one genre of music because of her colour. Or that it was decided in advance that she could only sing that style of music because she's of African descent.

I know I'm leaving myself wide open to all sorts of ridicule and abuse for saying that, but it won't be the first time, so I'm used to it. But before you unload on me consider this, have you ever heard anybody comparing Sarah McLaughlin or Madonna to any white female singers from either fifty years ago or even the near past? Anyway, it just made me feel a little uncomfortable in her case; you may now fire at will.

Okay, now that I've got my sensitive-white-liberal-guilt out of the way, let's move along to the real issue at hand, the music. Once more, almost mantra like in its repetition, those infamous words sprang to my lips: "There ought to be a law against it."