I think John Peel was a much misunderstood DJ who through the desperation of the BBC and the ignorance of the public became recognised as some kind of musical authority. As an influential man he was able to guide the public into some of the deepest musical lavatories whilst at the same time steering people away from other styles which he hated. This is the attitude of the fool who listens to pop and rock but condemns classical, and the opposite who only listens to classical whilst sneering at rock. Personally I think that his musical appreciation was crude and lacking in any sophistication. Give me good old Bob Harris any day.
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.…
2018 Music Diary Week 4: The Week Of Peel 29 Jan 2018 NEW MUSIC Day 24: FIRST AID KIT – Ruins: Slickly produced, occasionally countrified, notes on romantic disappointment by a pair of Swedish sisters who sing with a Nordics-meet-Nashville twang. There’s…
ELTON JOHN - "Are You Ready For Love?" 11 Feb 2020 Elton John’s best moment at number one comes with a forgotten track from a barely-noticed late-70s EP, lucked onto years later by someone in Sky Sports’ ad agency, remixed (delicately…
BLUE ft ELTON JOHN - "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" 30 Sep 2019 Blue’s last Number One, and any wisps of street credibility which might have still clung to them melt away. Don’t be fooled by the off-the-peg R&B shuffle in the best:…
A PERFECTER PERFECT DAY -- by !!SCIENCE!! 6 Apr 2014 Imagine YOU have been appointed (time-travelling) decider on the 1997 multi-artist version of Perfect Day? Who would you keep? Who would you drop? Who would you draft? Assume you have…
UK chart hits year by year - Spotify playlists 1 Mar 2012 These playlists are painstakingly put together using the data from the mighty Polyhex database documenting the chart run of every song to 'chart' at 75 or higher. The equally mighty…
I Used The NME 8 Mar 2018 My NME was rubbish. I wasn’t there for the underground press invation, or for the Titanic sailing, or the Kinderbunker. I missed the post-structuralist years. I never read about Youth…
About the Author
Steve does most of the pictures, colouring in etc. which is nice.
As well as contributing to Freaky Trigger, Steve has his project portal at ghostfood.uk, showcasing graphic and web design work, video edits, audio mash-ups and music mixes. Truly the media node of node hall.
25 Jun 2018
No, you’ve not missed any matches. We’re putting this year’s games up as we get the entries in, and so it’s a big thankyou to the prompt Group E gaffers of Serbia, Brazil, Switzerland and Morocco. It’s a group of veteran pop managers in the dugout this match, but only two can progress beyond the […]
21 May 2012
Huge weepy thanks to Bob, Pete and Sarah for immortalising us in song. And thanks to commenters past and present for making it worth immortalising.
1 Sep 2002
I don’t think much of the idea of ‘guilty pleasures’ but there’s guilt and there’s guilt, isn’t there? There’s guilt for something you might be doing wrong – breaking some invisible law of taste, maybe – and that guilt you can and should kick aside. But then there’s guilt for the things you have done, […]
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 […]
24 Nov 2006
Tarmac? What kind of a brand is that, its just the pavement, right? Wrong my friends. Tarmac is a brand and an awe-inspiring dominant one at that. I love brands whose names are synonymous with their main product, it shows an awesome degree of brand dominance when the brand name becomes subsumed into language. But […]
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 […]
22 Jan 2009
This is a graph – done by anatol_merklich off the Poptimists LiveJournal community, so massive thanks to him – showing the number of new entries in the UK singles chart for each year from 1952 to the present.
28 Nov 2004
i. shepherd’s/cottage pie ii. cheese flan/pizza iii. scotch egg iv. boiled egg actually i am not going to bother you w.all the ins and outs of the GREBT PIE DEBATE, as i wz not in on its inception, and besides the militia are now formed and a stiff crackdown ordered on heretics and dissidents. Hunting […]
I think John Peel was a much misunderstood DJ who through the desperation of the BBC and the ignorance of the public became recognised as some kind of musical authority. As an influential man he was able to guide the public into some of the deepest musical lavatories whilst at the same time steering people away from other styles which he hated. This is the attitude of the fool who listens to pop and rock but condemns classical, and the opposite who only listens to classical whilst sneering at rock. Personally I think that his musical appreciation was crude and lacking in any sophistication. Give me good old Bob Harris any day.
i think you’re an idiot
I second that. Idiot.
An idiot of the category of Julie Burchill, who claimed Peel never played black music (!)
Deepest Musical Lavatories: brilliant name for a club night.