ROBBIE WILLIAMS – “Feel”
This, on the other hand, is dreck. Great opening line, but after that it’s all moody teasing and shuffly drum loops and superstar ennui and no resolutions, just a vague itch in the back of your brain w[…]

(Bedingfield-as-pop-geek-postscript: The sleevenotes for his album kick off with a pastiche of Bilbo’s leavetaking speech from Lord Of The Rings!)[…]

A few years ago a friend of mine had an idea. He had a studio in his bedroom and wanted to make pop music with it, music that would sound as much as possible like the stuff topping the charts but with more personal and idiosyncratic lyrics. I was dou[…]

Bow Wow Wow-See Jungle! See Jungle!, Go Join Your Gang Yeah ! City All Over, Go Ape Crazy !
I was in one of those warehouse garage sale places, with musty clothes, old office furinture, boxes of records and casettes and, of course a life size bl[…]

Tom’s Top Ten
GUNS N ROSES – “November Rain”
SUPERTRAMP – “Give A Little Bit”
VAN HALEN – “Jump”
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE – “Let’s Take A Ride”
JUDAS PRIEST – “B[…]

Surely Travis Morrison Isn’t Really Saying That Nobody He Knows Likes Metal Machine Music? – but anyway, good list. One good joke (I won’t quote it), one good idea (the “haunted house” thing), bouncily informal writing. […]

The Real Music Martyrs: our continued look at the records Pop Idol and related projects are keeping out of the Top 40. This week there’s three Pop Idol singles in the charts so three unfortunate records are denied another week’s exposure […]

GUNS AND ROSES – “November Rain”
We had a “rock party” last night. I was going to go as Fred Durst but I couldn’t find a baseball cap, so instead I sat around downloading hard rock hits, almost all of which sounded[…]

Note to self: remember this the next time you feel like the “untold stories of 90s pop” have been told by now, over and over, until everyone is long sick of them. Then tell them again. Louder.[…]

SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL
Many people misunderstand this very simple phrase. They look at the logistics – fish, barrel, gun – and come up with the wrong conclusion that while the barrel does constraint the fish its still going to be a sl[…]