The second match in Group A sees Uruguay, managed by Jim D, take on France, where Alex Macpherson is in the hotseat. Uruguay are a lesser-known quantity in pop terms: France, however, reached the final of Europop 2008 and much is expected of them her[…]

Hello, and welcome to the Pop World Cup 2010! 64 matches showcasing pop – in its very broadest sense – from 32 nations. There can be only one winner, and that is YOU, the pop fan.
If you want a brief explanation as to what the PWC is go […]

As you may or may not know I have been doing ANOTHER blog project, this time an MP3 blog over on tumblr: It Took Seconds.
The idea behind ITS is very simple – it’s a countdown: every day I post a song one second shorter than the day befor[…]

The self publishing revolution was of course started by Bis in the 1990s with their Teen-C fanzines, so it’s only fair that we go back in time to 1997 and ask them their opinions on today’s rumoured launch of the Apple Tablet which seems […]

I have a new (fortnightly) column in the Guardian – the first instalment is here. I posted that link on Tumblr last night and The Lex left an interesting comment, which I’m going to excerpt:
“Illegal downloading is v much an elephan[…]

“There was a monster party and all the monsters dancing. The green monsters were nasty, them called Doctor Who ‘idiot’. At the end him not Doctor Who anymore, him a different person. I love Doctor Who, can we have it on DVD?”[…]

(This review, of my favourite song of the decade, was originally written for The Pitchfork 500, which I recommend you own a copy of. Oh, and happy 2010!) (more…)[…]

Well, that’s that: the machine has been given a good beating and we can look forward to “Bulls On Parade” on the festive Argos ad next year. I will admit I didn’t think the RATM crew could do it: I was wrong. But as the dust s[…]

What does it mean to buy 10 copies of a CD? It means you have 10 copies of a CD to deal with. What does it mean to “buy” 10 copies of an MP3? You have the same file sitting on your hard drive 10 times.
In one sense there’s no differ[…]

One of the many arguments offered as to why The X-Factor is a Bad Thing for pop is that Simon Cowell has taken the fun out of the race for Xmas No.1. It strikes me that this is a little rose-tinted – was anybody really that enthused with said &[…]