New Popular Entries: Where And When? 28 Jun 2015 Hello - just a quick note to reassure people that we haven't gone back to the bad old days of no updates. My situation is as follows - I've been…
Beamslingers 5 Apr 2014 I have finally compiled Hazel and my posts about Young Avengers (and matters related) into a series - you should be able to see it there at the side when…
...Down Paradise Row 18 Apr 2014 We went to Mother Kelly's in Bethnal Green for the first time last night (it's only been open a couple of weeks) and it's LOVELY! Twenty-odd taps of well-kept keg…
And Then I Took Some Of THESE 25 Jan 2018 Mark E Smith, 1957-2018. Some things to read. My favourite ever piece or sequence of pieces on The Fall is our own Kat Stevens' stint on One Week One Band.…
The Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll 2014: #40-#31 5 Jan 2015 "Greetings from the future, pop lovers! We are robot pop duo Daft Punk and we're happy to be kicking off the 2014 Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll! We're definitely not bitter…
Great News For All Our Readers! 8 Aug 2019 Hello Popular readers! After sixteen years, and suffering from (as you'll have noticed) a much slower posting rate, I've come to a decision. I'm going to crowdfund this project, using…
My Pop Year: JANA RUSH - "??? ??" 6 Dec 2017 The titles of Jana Rush’s tracks on her Pariah LP have an enjoyable bluntness. “Beat Maze.” “Chill Mode”. “Frenetic Snare.” She’s been DJing and making records for over 20 years,…
PWC14 Second Round: Ghana v Algeria 7 May 2014 It's an all-African second-round tie as Jonathan Bogart's Ghana side take on Katherine St Asaph's Algeria. Ghana qualified at the top of Group G with 7 points, while Algeria fought…
About the Author
Tom invented Freaky Trigger on a bus journey in the mid-90s. A page about what he's up to can be found here
2 May 2008
#389, 2nd June 1976 I was aware of this song long before I heard it – as a young boy it was quoted at me by my Dad should I ever object to tidying my room. Since my room was rarely tidy, I became very familiar with the central notion of “No Charge”. Like my Dad, I […]
8 Aug 2019
Hello Popular readers! After sixteen years, and suffering from (as you’ll have noticed) a much slower posting rate, I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to crowdfund this project, using Patreon. HERE’S THE LINK. This coincides with me leaving my day job and going solo, which opens up a lot of spare time. But billable […]
2 Jan 2001
On Skykicking last week, Tim touched, popwise, on the continuing cultural battle over what the eighties were or are or mean or meant. The story of mainstream rock and politics in the 1990s was among other things the story of a similar battle, that time over the sixties. On the one hand you had the […]
1 Oct 2002
Introduction It was about 2 in the morning and I was trying to get a handle on Alexander the Great. I had a final exam coming up and I’d missed half the syllabus – and something else was missing; a way into the man’s head. Alexander had single-handedly destroyed the world’s largest Empire and put […]
4 Sep 2009
#543, 15th December 1984, video “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is significant in one way, and insignificant in another. First, it raised a lot of awareness and money and established the pop single as an excellent mechanism for doing those things. This was significant. Gargantuan “supergroups” like this fell out of favour but charity records […]
17 Jun 2010
Finally, the moment of ABSOLUTE POP TRUTH is upon us! And my goodness, what a nail-biter of a contest this has been. Halfway through the voting, two decades broke decisively ahead of the pack, establishing a lead that proved impossible to catch up with. Although one of them looked to have the edge, its rival […]
12 Feb 2002
There’s too much love to go around these days How much do you think I like music? Sometimes I get e-mails, angry about this or that, telling me I don’t like it at all. Sometimes I’m inclined to agree. Every now and then a poster pops up on our discussion board, I Love Music, and […]
8 Aug 2008
#426, 23rd September 1978 On one level the ‘plot’ of “Dreadlock Holiday” is hugely important to any judgement of it. On another, not at all, but let’s recap anyway. The narrator is a tourist in Jamaica – he gets mugged for his silver chain and returns to the comfort of his hotel where a woman […]