Pop Metaphors Vol. n: my favoured image for the interaction of underground creative scenes and the pop overground is the cocktail (or any mixer drink really): the booze is what gives the mixture its kick – but drinking spirits neat is an occasi[…]

All those people, all those lives: I read once that the average lifespan of a weblog is around two months. Music blogs tend to last a bit longer – we are a tenacious, obsessive lot, and blogs with one or two year lifespans are not uncommon (may[…]

Links
A-Z of Europop: very useful.
Looking Askance From ’63: well-written and diverse MP3 blog.
Lots could be said about Simon R’s latest post – clearly we’re meant to hold our leftist hands up in horror and defeat at the ment[…]

THE SQUARE TABLE 7/ Lou Reed – “Satellite Of Love ’04”
POP FACTOR: 460 CONTROVERSY SCORE: 255
Lou Reed must surely have one of the most horrible voices in rock: a weak, blank, tissue-thin method-acting smug smirk. I’m f[…]

Do they take us for fools?: few forms of media are worse than the Radio Ad* but the new Toyota one takes some kind of cake (possibly Battenburg). Vaguely geezerish regional bloke talking about the joys of youth – “going on dates”, y[…]

Picoletta: food blog! Only just got going. What amazes me is the VAST list of food blogs on its sidebar – we have been lagging in our linkage, there’s a veritable gobblesphere out there…[…]

Surf entrepreneurs take note: I can’t get too worked up over a degree in surfing being available – hey, if you want one it’s your student loan repayments – but the reasons for offering one seem disingenuous. Surf graduates wil[…]

It’s A Kid’s World
I can’t say that Pete is being harsh on Police Academy (below) but I think it tells us something interesting about our childhood tastes and our relationship to them. My guess is that – like The Incredible Jo[…]

Into The Valley Of Tat
Continuing NYLPM’s warts-and-all look at the sordid easy-come easy-go life of that modern pariah, The Downloader.
ALCAZAR – “Dancefloor Docusoap”: In Europe Alcazar are treated as living gods and no wond[…]

“These people need to get out more for the sake of their health and sanity”
(No, this isn’t D&D-related.)[…]