RONAN KEATING - "If Tomorrow Never Comes" 25 Jul 2017 I have been playing a lot more country music than usual lately, thanks to recommendations by wise friends of foundational albums. It seems to me that listening to country is,…
Popular '02 9 Oct 2019 Last time we did one of these Obama was president, so a quick reminder is probably due - I give every Number One a mark out of 10. This is…
BOYZONE - "You Needed Me" 20 Oct 2014 There’s no “Goodbye” or “Never Forget” for Boyzone, no bravura statement of a legacy: that legacy, after all, was happily preparing its second single. Ronan and the lads’ final release…
WESTLIFE - "If I Let You Go" 13 Nov 2014 “If I Let You Go” and “When You Say Nothing At All”, back-to-back number ones from the Louis Walsh stable, each have a job to do. Westlife’s song needs to…
Popular '99 1 Jan 2015 I give a mark out of 10 to every Popular entry. In these year end polls, you get to tick any of the singles that you would have given 6…
RONAN KEATING - "Life Is A Rollercoaster" 7 Apr 2015 Fishing for critical angles in songwriting credits is a mostly futile endeavour. You soon learn the sad truth: the distribution of talent and memorable style is as skewed among writers…
Hour Of The Polls 30 Dec 2014 Just a last reminder - we are running two exciting POLLS this year, for the best tracks and best comics of 2014. You can still vote in them both! And,…
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
27 Mar 2014
#774, 20th September 1997 Every Popular entry starts with the same question: why this record? This time it’s especially loud. “Candle In The Wind ‘97” is the highest-selling single of all time in the UK, almost 2 million clear of its nearest competitor. This is as big as pop gets. But “why?” might strike you […]
30 Dec 2005
#222, 20th August 1966 DIGRESSION: For Christmas I got Never Had It So Good, the first part of Dominic Sandbrook’s huge new history of Britain in the sixties. Here’s what he says about the project: “This book seeks to rescue ‘from the enormous condescencion of prosperity’…the lives of the kind of people who spent the […]
17 Jun 2010
Finally, the moment of ABSOLUTE POP TRUTH is upon us! And my goodness, what a nail-biter of a contest this has been. Halfway through the voting, two decades broke decisively ahead of the pack, establishing a lead that proved impossible to catch up with. Although one of them looked to have the edge, its rival […]
8 May 2018
Eight episodes are now up: Hazel Southwell and Mark Sinker talking through the story of the UK music press from two very different angles (bcz I am old and she is not), to help start the conversation around my upcoming book. pod 1: the pilot! pod 2: uh merry memories of the nme! pod 3: […]
1 Jan 2019
Hello and happy new year! It is I, Cameron Mackintosh, the world’s most powerful and most 80s theatre producer. Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, CATS – I’m kind of a big deal guys!!!!! Thanks Cam! On the principle that every drunk idea at Pete’s flat is a good idea, today now presenting the […]
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 […]
2 Jan 2001
On Skykicking last week, Tim touched, popwise, on the continuing cultural battle over what the eighties were or are or mean or meant. The story of mainstream rock and politics in the 1990s was among other things the story of a similar battle, that time over the sixties. On the one hand you had the […]
12 Feb 2002
There’s too much love to go around these days How much do you think I like music? Sometimes I get e-mails, angry about this or that, telling me I don’t like it at all. Sometimes I’m inclined to agree. Every now and then a poster pops up on our discussion board, I Love Music, and […]
