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 […]

VH1’s 100 Greatest Dance Songs: mostly disco. I like over half of these but some of the ordering is curious, the 70s slant predictable but sorrowful, and there are a few unforgiveable turkeys, i.e. “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie[…]

And a warm NYLPM welcome to Maura, our newest team member. Proof of her rockin’ musical credentials, if proof be needed, can be found with this L.A. Guns review. L.A. Guns, dude.[…]

W is for…”Where On Earth Is Kevin Shields” by PS I Love You. A long and little-spoken-of tradition is here continued: the indie novelty single. Always on 7″, always a one-day-wonder in the press, always but always about anothe[…]

Rock’n’Roll middle School is a piece on Meltzer and Marcus and rockcrit in general which starts well and then just seems to tail off halfway, its story only started and its questions unanswered. It points out, quite reasonably, that all t[…]

Indie Kids in Canada and Britain: a cross-cultural clothing comparison, of sorts.[…]

Two Musical Moments a.k.a. listening to music in the MP3 age, again.
1) Walking home by the millpond, listening to ISAN’s “Betty’s Lament” on my Rio. Slow, simple, pretty electronica with a kid naming the planets: on the left […]

Progressive rock sought to expand the language of rock music, and also to raise its artistic game until it achieved some kind of wider acceptance within the grand narrative of ‘proper’ artistic achievement. The successes and failures of t[…]