CHER - "Believe" 24 Jul 2014 In an age of one-week wonders, “Believe” was a phenomenon – a massive global hit, bossing the charts for close to two months. It has a formidable legacy: as well…
Omargeddon #4: Weekly Mansions 4 Nov 2018 I’ve been stuck in a funk of late. Sadly, not a George Clinton-flavoured funk, but a stank, stuck funk of my own making. My compulsive need to trace the original…
Omargeddon #5: Cryptomnesia 15 Dec 2018 Most Omar Rodríguez-López albums are released under his name, but there a few variations: El Trío de Omar Rodríguez-López, the Omar Rodríguez-López Quartet, the Omar Rodríguez-López Quintet, and when touring,…
Omargeddon #12: Unicorn Skeleton Mask 11 Apr 2020 Despite knowing that attempting to construct a linear timeline for the solo work of Omar Rodríguez-López is a self-confessed fool’s errand, I’m nothing if not stubborn and continue to obsessively…
Omargeddon #3: Octopus Kool Aid 26 Aug 2018 It would be inaccurate to say Octopus Kool Aid passed me by, but by the time I learned of its existence, I was too depressed about The Mars Volta’s breakup…
2021: The Poll! 4 Jan 2022 Here are my listening notes/capsule reviews on the first day of this year’s round-up poll. If you want to take part the polls are here and there’s a link to…
Omargeddon #20 / #21: ¿Sólo Extraño? / Nom de Guerre Cabal 23 May 2021 Since the beginning of his solo career, song reworkings and rearrangements have appeared frequently across Omar Rodríguez-López’s oeuvre. Samples and sequences recur on most of his electronic music, and many…
Omargeddon #16: Cizaña de los Amores 21 Sep 2020 I joined last.fm in 2007 because I’d seen some of my friends use it to tag their LiveJournal entries with the song they were currently listening to and thought this…
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
30 Jan 2000
I. The cod-philosophical question at the centre of pop fandom is this: is pop a genre or a state? Not all records designed to be ‘great pop’ – in the sense of being good for the feet, the heart and the bank balance – make it to the Top Forty, or anywhere near. But not […]
15 Aug 2007
On my eleventh birthday I received a copy of a tape called “Rave ’92” through the post from my sister Grace, who was away at university. It was the second tape she had made for me whilst she was away, (the first being a random mix of grebo, soul, indie and ‘Love Shack’ by the […]
4 Jul 2018
An intriguing group for this third Pop World Cup match, with two of the sleeping giants of pop football – Sweden and South Korea – lined up against the always capable Germany and dark horses Mexico. Group of death? In a sense, they are all groups of death when YOU have the casting vote. Pick […]
9 Jul 2002
Andrew WK: I Get Wet: Pitchfork Review: Remarkable write-up of the Andrew WK album from Ryan Schrieber, Pitchforkmedia’s editor-in-chief. Remarkable because it gets Andrew WK’s music so descriptively right – “Nothing could penetrate a sound that dense. I was overcome. I tried to remember the last time anyone dared to push rock so poppily over […]
28 Dec 2019
REASON: Welcome one and welcome all, to the FreakyTrigger wing of a KWIZZ (quiz) sat for a hundred and blimey years by Isle of Man schoolkids. (“Please return your answers to the Principal’s Office by Monday 13th January.”) RHYME: Themed sets of 10 questions each — a new one every day (or so). COLLABORATIN’ COMMENT […]
10 Jan 2012
Hi, I’m Lauryn Hill circa my breakthrough role in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit, and it is a real pleasure to be able to present to you the top ten FreakyTrigger tracks of the year. When my mother told me I couldn’t join the choir run by a fake nun, I got really […]
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, […]
10 Jul 2000
The Pokemon Phenomenon This piece was going to be an unabashed paean to Pokemania, explaining what a cracking game it was and how the mass tweener hysteria which greets every fresh Pokegame, cardset, pillow-case, or doily was a good thing inasmuch as ten-year-olds are natural obsessives and it wasn’t like they were wasting their time […]
