With the slick and sickly Democratic convention underway in Denver, all sorts of musicians are weighing in behind Barack Obama. Indeed, they're taking their message far and wide - last week The Quietus noted an Obama sticker on Yeasayer's electronic gizmo flight case.

Anyway, in Liberal Indie Star Backs Democrat Shocker news, REM man Michael Stipe has told the BBC that he's willing the Illinois Senator all the way to the White House.

"You want an exceptional American, yeah, and I think he's probably an exceptional person," Stipe said in the BBC 6music interview. "You look at the way he's put his campaign together and the way he responds to many of the criticisms that are already being lobbed at him, either from the Clinton family or from the McCains."

He also took the opportunity to slam current US president George Bush: "I just can't stand the guy or his administration and it was about him going to the graveside of Martin Luther King, one of my heroes, and I think desecrating the memory of that great man and his work by being there during the Iraq war," Stipe thundered.