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Welcome to TOTP2, how's it feel to be back?
ÌýIt feels good you know. It's a show that is very significant for any artist to do, so it's good to be here.

Tell us about 'Fantastic Plastic People'.
Ìý I started the new album earlier this year, with Dave Stewart. We met in Jamaica and we started writing songs together. I had a few of my own too and it's just turned out fantastic, really great. The vibe between us worked really well. It's not all the time when you finish an album that you can say you're really happy with the way the whole thing has turned out. But I am really happy with the variety and with the way we worked so quickly too. We started in January and it was finished in May. We weren't working consistently either. We worked one or two days here and there, so it's more like a month's work together. Really incredible.

Is the title a reference to a somewhat beleaguered pop scene?
Well it's the pop scene as well as show business. If you go out to Hollywood you'll find a lot of 'fantastic plastic people' there in the business and a lot of people in life generally. They find it so hard to be themselves that they have to be plastic.

Many artists are arguably pure packaging these days, do you think that's a problem?
Yes. In former days when we recorded with or built on artists they were still for real. Now you can manufacture just about what you want and after just a little time the artist is forgotten and gone.

Do you think we'll move away from that again and that they'll be a renaissance of people who write their own stuff and present themselves more?
I think it will have to go back to that. It's phase we're going through. Eventually, what is real will be sought after again.