For stamplet: "You wrote this in "Heart of Stone, Eyes of Tree": "bickering over music, he maintained for years, was Justin and JC's form of straight-boy foreplay." I'd like to see the bickering consummated."

"It sounds," JC said tightly, "like four cats in heat all thrown into a sack together and dropped off the edge of a bridge. While being beaten. Severely."

"Like your version was any better," Justin snapped back. "You really have to get over this glam-rock obsession, because, you know, you might be trying to dress like David Bowie but that doesn't mean that we have to try and sound like David Bowie, because that really only works if you're, you know, David Bowie which you're not."

"It's rock and roll," JC said. He tightened his hands into fists and deliberately avoided touching any of the levers on the production board, including the one -- especially the one -- that would take Justin's vocal track and make it sound like he'd been inhaling helium. "I'm just saying that we should be trying to move away from the pre-packaged bubblegum pop sound, and not towards the R&B monstrosity that you seem to want to come up with --"

"--it's not R&B, it's soul, you of all people should know the difference--"

"--because that's what everyone else is sounding like this year, and if we sound like everyone else we'll be slammed in the press for being derivative--"

"--and I'm not saying we should go for a real soul sound, because for one thing I don't think we could ever get, oh, say, Chris to stop being so terminally white, but a little bit more of it couldn't hurt--"

"--and if we're going to get anywhere with this record we need to come up with something new. Is all I'm saying."

"--but most of all I just like it, okay, is it such a crime to make the music that you like?"

They finished at the same time, panting with the effort of voices having steadily spiraled upwards until the last few overlapping bits had been more than three-quarters shouted, and just stared at each other.

Justin was the one to speak first. "You getting as tired of this unresolved sexual tension as I am?"

JC threw his headphones down. "Thought you'd never ask."

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