As ever, BEWARE SPOILERS! (more…)[…]

I was lucky enough to attend a fascinating talk hosted by Mark Earls at the RSA last night on “cultural evolution” – using evolutionary theory to examine the mechanics of how stuff spreads through culture. I then came home and found[…]

People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, v[…]

With the first group games drawing to a close I’d like to highlight some of the best music we’ve discovered in the tournament so far (to draw some new listeners in, hopefully!).
So here’s a poll of all 32 of the tracks we’ve s[…]

The last of our 32 teams take the field of pop: Spain open their campaign against Switzerland. Spain’s Alberto is new to pop management at this level: his opposite number in the Swiss dugout is Greg Fanoe. Good luck to them both!
Voting for thi[…]

Shiny Shiny is an Pitchfork column by me about a fictional “CD Revival”, consisting of interviews with four of the movers and shakers in said revival and some editorial around that. Fictional because the column supposedly dates from 2022.[…]

Group H begins with an intriguing clash between the relatively unfancied Chile and the relatively even more unfancied Honduras. Points on the board important here – both sides have experienced pop managers: Chile has turned to Jel, whereas Hond[…]

Group G’s second game sees Brazil take on North Korea. Brazil are the most successful side ever in the football World Cup – in pop competition they are more of a sleeping giant, and it’s down to Chris Ambrose to revive their fortune[…]

1. We know that even before the BBC’s strategy document recommended 6Music’s closure, the BBC Trust had asked for changes to the station. The Trust felt it should be playing less new music (down from 50% to 30%) and should be attracting a[…]

With the defending Pop World Cup champions Czech Republic failing to qualify for this year’s tournament, Portugal are the most successful 2006 team represented here. Managed by Job de Wit, they open Group G with a game against the Ivory Coast, […]