SAINT ETIENNE – “How We Used To Live” (CD Single)
Do let’s be beastly to the Germans. To Rococo Rot (and Sean O’Hagan of the High Llamas) assume production duties on Saint Etienne’s comeback epic and the beat promp[…]

Memoirs of an Accellerated Musical Education: one listener’s struggle to make the long march from the nightmare of Slint to the sunny uplands of Britneydom. More seriously, I think pieces like this are A Good Thing.[…]

Especially for Guy, an Adam and the Ants link…oh, wait, perhaps not. Try the fetish for antz contest instead.[…]

Ian Dury, RIP[…]

Nice to have Cathal Coughlan back in whatever form, though the track from his new release on Uncut was worryingly unmemorable.[…]

PINBACK – “Tripoli” (MP3)
The real-life Pinback may be roisterous types, but when I hear “Tripoli” I think of saucer-eyed boys in basements making quiet sounds for themselves. With its mumbling vocals, with its humming-t[…]

PINK – “There You Go” (MP3)
In the middle-eight the voice spirals nervily upwards and pushes the song towards greatness: otherwise it’s generic, Shek’spere-produced jitter-hop with chamber strings and a flinty scrub-bash[…]

A Salon article on Luaka Bop – sensible enough, though I’m really not sure about the Cornershop link (they came out of the hypey UK version of Riot Grrrl rather than out of any worldbeat thing). It reminds me that I owe Magnus a piece on […]

“I can’t find the Minutemen on Napster! Sob!”: as a non-Napster user (down to tech limitations, not ethics, alas) this is interesting mostly for what it says about the hip-hop hegemony.[…]

BRITNEY SPEARS – “Born To Make You Happy” (MP3)
Mr. Tim Finney swears by this one. On the other hand, Mr. Tim Finney is Britney’s age: for an old geezer like myself it’s a disquieting experience, a throatier-than-ever Br[…]