2018 Music Diary Week 2: The Week Of Intensity 15 Jan 2018 NEW MUSIC Day 12: Camila Cabello – Camila: Short, well-put-together pop LP which puts “Havana” fourth – I don’t really get how post-physical media track ordering works, but back in…
A1 - "Take On Me" 29 Apr 2015 A single that’s good for one thing, at least: “Which group got to No.1 with Take On Me?” is a reliably sneaky pop quiz question. Beyond that, it’s tempting to…
The Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll 2014 5 Dec 2014 'Hi everyone! I'm long-haired Canadian warbler Alanis Morisette, and I'm here to remind you that you "oughta know" that submissions for the Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll 2014 are now OPEN!…
My Pop Year: SYD - "Know" 28 Nov 2017 On first listen I liked Syd’s Fin mainly for its Spartan vibe: low-key, late-night R&B synths. Moody and pleasant. My second listen was like my eyes were adjusting to a…
SPICE GIRLS - "Holler"/"Let Love Lead The Way" 2 Jun 2015 The original concept for the third Spice Girls album - according to Stannard and Rowe, the writers and producers the group jilted for Forever - was that it would concern…
S CLUB 7 - "Have You Ever" 28 May 2016 Kylie’s brief glimpse into pop’s realm of platonic forms only made the central issue starker: British pop was in the doldrums. The Spice Years seemed more than ever like a…
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
12 Nov 2014
The Secret History Of Band Aid Everybody remembers Band Aid. And – despite everything – most people remember Band Aid 2. And now we have Band Aid 20 30. Which rather begs the question – why does nobody ever talk about Band Aids 3 to 29? Take a trip down memory lane as we remind […]
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.
3 Mar 2005
stick with the beasts we got plz #1: the CENTAUR centaurs are classically portrayed as noble and amazing (if occasionally super-horny): but i have always found em ANNOYING!! i. look at them they are top-heavy at the front = when they gallop they will fall on their faces ii. they have TOO MANY LIMBS = […]
1 Jan 2003
This article was the author’s working notes for his since published book “Adorno: A guide for the perplexed”, available from Waterstones, reputable booksellers, and Amazon Introduction, by Alex Thomson In many ways Adorno exemplifies the image problem faced by critical theory today. Adorno is not a sexy figure. He comes over in his writing as […]
23 Mar 2014
#773, 13th September 1997 “Whenever we played that live there would be rows of grown men crying. It was almost like these guys couldn’t cry when they needed to cry, but that song operated like a pressure valve for them and it was okay for them to cry at a big rock concert.” – Richard […]
5 Jul 2013
#725, 26th August 1995 BOXING? A “heavyweight battle”, the NME cover-billed it. And if “Country House” vs Oasis’ “Roll With It” was a title bout, the music press were desperate to play Frank Warren. Perhaps they had most at stake. It was, in a way, their last great fight. Many other moments define Oasis. Blur […]
11 Jan 2016
I wrote a thing for here about David Bowie and how I felt about him and what he meant to me, but then Pitchfork kindly decided they wanted to run it, so it’s below. (Original title: He Could Be Dead, He Could Be Not, He Could Be You). And to any other good pieces I […]
17 Oct 2019
Hi all – We know some of you have had serious issues with the FT comments, both in terms of logging in on existing IDs and creating new ones. This is because of something being imposed by our hosts to stop continued spam comment attacks. We’ve taken the actions requested (updating wordpress etc) but there’s […]
