Unheard / Unread: January 2020 24 Feb 2020 Starting in 2017, I've had the aim of listening to a new (to me) album every day. This has been - for the most part - one of my best…
Refried Dough 24 Apr 2014 As you've probably noticed, the Popular archives are fairly extensive. I often think it would be nice to do something with them, so (among other slow-brewing schemes) I came up…
The People's Pop Poll: Day 1 5 May 2020 These are the groups for Day 1 of the People’s Pop Poll! Obviously it contains SPOILERS for the day’s match-ups so if you’d prefer to be surprised read no further!…
The Great Cheddar Cheese Off 2015 : Part one 19 Dec 2015 Which country makes the best cheddar? This question has plagued us for millennia (possibly). But no longer, thanks to the brave and fearless scientists who gathered on a rainy afternoon to undertake…
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…
Omargeddon #10: Despair 18 Aug 2019 2009 was a prolific year for Omar Rodríguez-López, with a total of six albums released. Cryptomnesia and Xenophanes are comprised of material that was originally intended for the Mars Volta…
Omargeddon #17: A Lovejoy 30 Oct 2020 Unlike several other Omar Rodríguez-López albums, the contents of A Lovejoy are accurately reflected by its cover. The bright colours, glitzy lights and disco font signpost a collection of infectiously…
Omargeddon #13: Infinity Drips 1 Jun 2020 Wikipedia has been a blessing and a curse for the Omargeddon project. On the one hand, it’s brilliant for stuff like release dates, personnel and links to interviews. On the…
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
23 Apr 2000
My first encounter with the exotic was on the Magic Mill at Thorpe Park, a South-East England theme park which from appearances had originally been based around a cramped zoo or city-farm set-up. At some point in the late 70s it had seemingly panicked, though, and parked itself up in order to survive. With its […]
29 Sep 2014
#817, 21st February 1999 How was I supposed to know that something wasn’t right? It was a gilded age: the commercial zenith of the music industry at the end of the 20th century. In America, its apex as a money-making force came in 1999 when – adjusted for inflation – $71 per head was spent […]
29 Oct 2010
#641, 3rd February 1990 Sinead O’Connor is one of the finest song interpreters not just because she thinks hard about the material and the feelings locked in it, but because she’s so good at placing songs into a situation. A great example of this is her version of “Chiquitita”, warm and homely where ABBA’s is […]
1 Jan 2003
101. THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS – ‘My Elastic Eye’: ‘It sounds exactly like an elastic eye!’ said Fred S. I scoffed, but you know what? – it does! Though maybe more a clockwork one – but the wobbly fuzz-bass still sounds like it’s looking, even probing the track for something. Every music-box noise here is luxurious […]
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 […]
3 Oct 2004
In search of Squirrel – Part two (warning, contains graphic images) Some of you may remember this article I wrote some time ago about my “failure” as a vegetarian and my quest for the different. Well, I’ve done it. Squirrel had become a bit of an obsession, I’d chased up all sorts of alleys (Julian […]
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, […]
