Apologies to anyone who wanted to, you know WRITE, about this subject. We couldn’t find anyone on the internet who was interested. In fact, for the life of us we’re not even sure how this entry managed to get this high in the list. We suspect an orchestrated internets campaign on USENET.
What’s the deal with Belle and Sebastian? Loads of people idolise them, perhaps as many despise them. I’ve always just heard pleasant but inessential indie-pop with catchy-ish tunes and fairly lame vocals (though I get that it’s kind of the point), sometimes merry, sometimes wistful but never, to these ears, exciting. “Like The Beatles if they’d all been Paul” is how I once, snidely, dismissed them. This isn’t a ‘why bother with wimpy indie-pop’, I get why people dig that, but why their wimpy indie-pop over anyone else’s?
A Small Reminder 1 Jan 2011 Still plenty of time - well, until Sunday evening - to send your Top 20 Tracks of 2010 (in order if possible!) to poppoll2010@gmail.com - DO SO! If you read…
The Mincer: An Experiment In Gamification 27 Feb 2013 1. Take a large number of individual tracks. 2. Put the first 64 into a playlist. 3. Shuffle. 4. Play (no skipping allowed). 5. After two tracks, decide - as…
STEPS – “Heartbeat” / “Tragedy” 30 Aug 2014 This is the first Popular entry I’ve written in the Southern hemisphere. And while it wasn’t a big hit down under – or, I think, anywhere except the UK –…
Pop World Cup – Radio Roundup 8 12 Mar 2010 Special DPRK adjutant liaison Mark Sinker again joins Peter Baran and Roger Bozack in PWC2010's luxurious control suite, this time for some surprising results from the Group H matches between…
Pop World Cup 2010: The Story So Far 6 Mar 2010 With the first group games drawing to a close I'd like to highlight some of the best music we've discovered in the tournament so far (to draw some new listeners…
ROBBIE WILLIAMS – “Eternity” / “The Road To Mandalay” 24 Jan 2016 The album cycle that began with “Rock DJ” a year before staggers to its end four singles later with “The Road To Mandalay”, a bitter squib of a song, pulled…
9 Jan 2004
Independence Day. Isn’t it marvellous? Hurrah hurrah let’s kill the stripper and those hippies! That’s the kind of morals I WANT from my films! Until the aliens bugger up by deciding just to kill EVERYBODY. Where’s the subtlety, the art, the je ne sais quoi indeed about that? Who cares when we have plucky heroes […]
20 Jun 2005
Last week saw the release of not one, but two films about previous films. And I don’t mean Batman Begins (which should be retitled Batman Starts for Essex). Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the making of and the effect of notorious porn film Deep Throat. And Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles film about the making […]
15 Dec 2009
One of the things that’s fascinating about the UK Top 40 is that a device designed to be a pure expression of popularity also works as a reflection of so many other things. People buy songs: if enough people buy a song it gets into the charts, or to #1. Simple! But so simple that […]
23 Aug 2005
One of the happy upshots of the Bosman Ruling which we have been living with for almost ten years, is the effect it has on players prices near the end of their contract. Take Clinton Morrison (Birmingham wish someone would) the Republic of Ireland striker. Bought for a club record of £4.25 million three years […]
9 Jul 2010
So we get a winner, down on Brewer Street in Soho, the Glasshouse Stores was voted the number one pub of the noughties by those of us who voted. A nice pub sure, but so much better than the others? To find out why it scored so highly I thought I would canvas a number […]
20 Jul 2007
I semi-remember just two lines from the NME’s (Charlie Shaar Murray’s?) review of “Armed Forces” (secret unused title “Emotional Fascism”). One was that one of the other songs resembled ELP “jamming in the bottom of an oil drum”! The other — more germane to this post, as well as being true — is that “with […]
21 May 2008
I give marks out of 10 to every song – based on whatever criteria you like, here’s your opportunity to say what you’d have given more than 6 to from 1976. Tick as many as you like. And use the comments to discuss the year as a whole, if you like.
10 Nov 2009
Lists, lists, lists. Its what we do around here, and the end of a decade gives us ample opportunity to look back with fondness over a decade. Music, films, television were all thrown in the mix, and may pop up. But most important to us is the social. From a site that is run by […]
Best post ever.
Apologies to anyone who wanted to, you know WRITE, about this subject. We couldn’t find anyone on the internet who was interested. In fact, for the life of us we’re not even sure how this entry managed to get this high in the list. We suspect an orchestrated internets campaign on USENET.
This song is great, I’m sure I voted for it. I last heard it playing in Starbucks and they cut the song just before the word “wanks”.
Presumably they don’t know what an arab strap is otherwise they’d forego the whole song. FWIW this is my favourite Belle & Sebastian song.
No, Punka was robbed.
What’s the deal with Belle and Sebastian? Loads of people idolise them, perhaps as many despise them. I’ve always just heard pleasant but inessential indie-pop with catchy-ish tunes and fairly lame vocals (though I get that it’s kind of the point), sometimes merry, sometimes wistful but never, to these ears, exciting. “Like The Beatles if they’d all been Paul” is how I once, snidely, dismissed them. This isn’t a ‘why bother with wimpy indie-pop’, I get why people dig that, but why their wimpy indie-pop over anyone else’s?
Which Steps song was in contention?
It was the Best Newcomer award wasn’t it? Rather than an award based on an individual song? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?