ATOMIC KITTEN - "The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling)" 29 Dec 2018 Sometimes when this project stalls it’s because there’s a song too tricky or terrible to write about. You might think that’s the case here: it’s not. “The Tide Is High…
BOB THE BUILDER - "Mambo No. 5" 5 Mar 2016 The last time we met Bob, I made a tantalising suggestion that his “Mambo No.5” was the superior version. This theory does not survive contact with reality. Whatever the merits…
EMINEM - "Without Me" 14 Sep 2017 Eminem produced “Without Me” himself, and the sound of this song is the best thing about it, a thick, soupy, snaky bassline and a brutally four-square beat. Ironic that this…
BILLIE PIPER - "Day And Night" 9 Mar 2015 It had been thirteen months since Billie Piper’s last single. It might as well have been a hundred and thirteen: “Day And Night” was part of a standard pop career…
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…
all the world on one short shelf — remembering roy carr 5 Jul 2018 Putting together a collective history for a project like this, of something you were at one time near the heart of, inevitably ends up being a series of missed opportunities.…
BLUR - "Beetlebum" 7 Feb 2014 The question “what happens after Britpop?” wasn’t just an urgent one for the music press and the new bands courting it. It was also fairly pressing for the Britpop bands…
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
28 Nov 2004
i. shepherd’s/cottage pie ii. cheese flan/pizza iii. scotch egg iv. boiled egg actually i am not going to bother you w.all the ins and outs of the GREBT PIE DEBATE, as i wz not in on its inception, and besides the militia are now formed and a stiff crackdown ordered on heretics and dissidents. Hunting […]
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 […]
17 Nov 2003
I notice elsewhere, in my absence, some young scamp over on NYLPM has started a concept piece, some say think piece entitled the Alphabet Of Pop. Now no-one knows more than myself the beauty of lists, as my Week Of Wank and Breakfast Of Banality proves. Its cheap easy journalism and also gives one a […]
17 Jun 2018
It’s here! The opening game of the Pop World Cup finds the four teams of Group A raising the curtain on the tournament. Pop football veterans Russia and Uruguay meet two Arab states – Egypt and Saudi Arabia – with less of a record at this level. Who will prevail? You decide. Spotify playlist and […]
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 […]
13 Aug 2008
#428, 18th November 1978 “Rat Trap” is billed – in the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles, no less – as the first punk No.1. I couldn’t recall it – my memories of the Rats themselves were vague; Geldof I knew for later good works. So I approached “Rat Trap” cold but with a frisson of definite […]
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 […]
14 Apr 2007
Plenty of words have been written about the seminal Sex Pistols’ seminal gig at the seminal Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976. There has even been a whole book about it! Everyone knows that the gig was really very important indeed and that everyone who attended became a very extremely important person. HOWEVER does everyone know exactly […]
