"To live in New York is to live in a place that is both heaven and hell, kept from dissolving into economic and racial chaos only by the maintenance of a minute-by-minute decency, respect, and understanding. Spike Lee spends a good amount of time, early in the film, dousing a Brooklyn neighborhood with gasoline, as we hold our breath to see who will strike a match. Making perhaps one of the twenty-five greatest dramas of the past thirty years, Lee is in Sidney Lumet territory here, by way of Paddy Chayefsky, by way of Huey P. Newton. The acting is, at times, as raw as you see in film. Danny Aiello, in the self-immolating role of the pizza shop owner who strips away decades of spiritual growth in a matter of minutes, gives one of the great performances in contemporary movie history, and both he and Lee, as screenwriter, were nominated for Oscars. Giancarlo Esposito, Ossie Davis, and John Turturro are riveting. Ernest R. Dickerson’s photography is memorable, as is Bill Lee’s music. But it’s Spike Lee, on his way to making films like Malcolm X and Clockers, who knocks you on your ass so hard you have trouble getting up at the closing credits."

"It was his first great album. All of his early albums have their own sound, and the atmosphere and some kind of other-worldly quality is what first grabbed me. Hunky Dory was where his lyrics got much better. The songs sound very simple, but in terms of the chords they are really complex. ‘Changes’ has got lots of weird things going on but it never sounds muso. It’s his first classic album. What are the standout tracks? It’s easier to say the ones that aren’t. Every day of my life I sing them. ‘Kooks’, ‘Changes’ and ‘Bewlay Brothers’ are my favourites. I like ‘Andy Warhol’ and ‘Queen Bitch’, but I think those are the two that don’t stack up as much. Charisma goes a long way – so people have told me anyway. Even now he doesn’t overdo it. I saw it in a shop in Norris Green, and I used to stare at it for ages, it wasn’t a sexual thing, but I couldn’t stop being lost in the world of his music. It was spiritual, there was nothing else I thought about. It was Bowie was who got me interested in music, then I got into the Velvets and Iggy."