2018 Music Diary Week 3: The Week Of Appropriation 22 Jan 2018 NEW MUSIC Day 19: FALL OUT BOY – Mania: Short, and making no secret of its modern pop inspiration (there’s a song here with a reggaeton beat!), Mania underlines Fall…
RICKY MARTIN - "Livin' La Vida Loca" 11 Nov 2014 It’s a curious rule of the British public and charts that we don’t care much about Latin music – its rhythms and stars remain strange to us when we’ll embrace…
LEANN RIMES - "Can't Fight The Moonlight" 20 Jun 2015 “Same Old Brand New You” showed that the Max Martin style could be achieved on the cheap - but what happened if you went in the other direction? Plasticky British…
Unheard Album Project: April 2017 8 May 2017 The fourth instalment of my project to listen to a new (to me) album every day for a year: one track from each of the LPs I listened to in…
THE BACKSTREET BOYS - "I Want It That Way" 19 Oct 2014 With Westlife, Simon Cowell was finding a way to broaden the appeal of male vocal groups, and create something more stable than the firework appeal of the traditional boyband. But…
BRITNEY SPEARS - "Oops!... I Did It Again" 4 Mar 2015 How do you follow “…Baby One More Time”? Perhaps you can’t. Britney Spears’ second album splits the job, starting with two songs that plainly exist in “Baby”’s shadow. One is…
...Down Paradise Row 18 Apr 2014 We went to Mother Kelly's in Bethnal Green for the first time last night (it's only been open a couple of weeks) and it's LOVELY! Twenty-odd taps of well-kept keg…
SPILLER - "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" 22 Apr 2015 The revival of disco within pop put a spotlight on something that had gone missing over the 90s: a sense of music not just for dancing, but for dancing with…
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
8 Aug 2019
Hello Popular readers! After sixteen years, and suffering from (as you’ll have noticed) a much slower posting rate, I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to crowdfund this project, using Patreon. HERE’S THE LINK. This coincides with me leaving my day job and going solo, which opens up a lot of spare time. But billable […]
1 Apr 2001
freaky trigger : all cure, all the time everyday – beach kyoto paris siam : : i love the cure : : cure artefacts How To Join In Cure Discussions Cure Reviews Cure Articles Other Cure Articles Cure Albums of the 90s Cure Singles of the 90s Cure Links E-Mail every week Am I Bob […]
20 Apr 2020
Update: See list of all previous Peoples Pop Polls, their winners and more here As you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve been using the quarantine to run pop polls – there’s a UK Number 2s one about to enter its third round right now. This has been a delightful distraction for me, […]
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 […]
14 Nov 2006
In The Beginning There Was Nothingness. IF ONLY. In The Beginning There Was The Word. NOT THE BIRD FROM L7 PULLING DOWN HER KECKS AGAIN. But neither of these are strictly true. Because the first book of the Bible Of Badness is Genesis. And if you were ever to question how bad this Bible could […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
