The day the music died: Stuart Jeffries puts the case against Pop Idol and the colonisation of the charts by TV. A lot of blood and thunder and what seems to be a strong central point (ignoring the use of the lazy m-word) – “Manufactured […]

Sinker vs Frith (well not versus, exactly…) – rewarding rockcritics.com online exchange with Simon Frith: readers emailed in their questions and Frith answers some more comprehensively than others. My question was “Can I be a Mercur[…]

TOM’S TOP TEN!
MALCOLM MCLAREN – “Double Dutch”
ANDREW WK – “We Want Fun”
HOLLY VALANCE – “Down Boy”
THE BEATLES – “Magical Mystery Tour”
BLACK SABBATH – “Into […]

Digital Download Day: I just got phoned up for a comment on this by M*tro – it was the first I’d heard of it (good work PR people). This is “the future of music” according to the site, i.e. “the present of music” &[…]

ANDREW WK – “We Want Fun”
How could anyone hate music as happy as this? The opening minute – with no WK in sight – is outrageously, beautifully, gleeful. Glitterbeat drums introduce the riff from “I Wish It Could B[…]

Alex came down last weekend and after the pub we went back home and listened to some records with Sarah. I had the remote for the stereo. I wanted to play them all the freshest, funniest tunes I’d found lately but it’s not a great idea to[…]

IntroductionIt was about 2 in the morning and I was trying to get a handle on Alexander the Great. I had a final exam coming up and I’d missed half the syllabus – and something else was missing; a way into the man’s head. Alexander […]

‘You can do anything you set your mind to, man’: positivity, from the man who brought you ‘Kim’? As curious a concept as emotional maturity from the man who bought you ‘Drips’, but this is Eminem in filmland and no[…]

The Dedbeat Festival – more backpacker and IDM names than you can possibly imagine playing live and sets over 5 days but from our perspective this is mostly interesting for hosting the debut live performance of MC PITMAN![…]

josh blog is back, hurrah. It seems to have been back for ages, hurrah. My ISP wasn’t picking it up though, boo. As casually insightful as ever. He quotes me about Dexy’s and yes Josh I remember saying that and no I don’t know where[…]