Music Taste Turn-Offs: one of the most common questions we music lovers ask ourselves is what our ‘guilty pleasures’ are, and one of the most common answers we give is that oh no, we don’t have any, we’re not guilty about what[…]

Stop this madness now! I have nothing against stuffed animals. In fact I’m in favour of them. I have my favourites, of course. I prefer the weatherbeaten knitted variety, or the shapeless bean ones, to the articulated ‘realistic’ cr[…]

What’s up with Madonna?: two Salon writers dissect Madonna’s mediocre new album, and by extension her current status. Interesting points are made: for British readers, none more interesting than the parts dealing with Guy Ritchie. “[…]

Channel 4 is preparing a Top 100 No.1s Of All Time show, which has been fairly obviously rigged, in that on the website at least you only get to vote from a shortlist of 105. I have a strong and sentimental belief in the magic of the No.1 spot, but h[…]

I’ve updated the archives and links list on the right: if you think you should be on there and you’re not, by all means let me know.[…]

I like bombast-xxx. It’s smartly written and covers bands I’ve heard about, even if it then goes and says something dim like – on a Britney gig – “As costume after costume went on and came off and song after song switche[…]

One of the crucial questions for mankind over the coming century will be the ethics and dangers of Artificial Intelligence. Are we about to become extinct, crushed under the metal heel of a race of super-robots like in the films? Well, I can’t […]

X is for….”Xylophone Track” by the Magnetic Fields. When people write about this band, the emphasis tends to fall on Stephin Merritt’s songwriting, but one of the reasons 69 Love Songs is such a favourite – and one of th[…]

POP-EYE 8/10/00
One of the good things about the BBC’s pop footage archive fest, Top Of The Pops 2, is that it reminds us of an era when pop stars weren’t afraid to dick about in front of the cameras. Virtually any performance from the la[…]

Talk Amongst Yourselves: I’m off over the next couple of days. I’d hoped to finish the alphabetical stuff, but the pub got in the way, as it often does. Will the NYLPM team fill the void of my absence with top-quality musical content? We […]