I am listening to a track by THE ROOGALATOR! Another tiny ambition fulfilled, it’s called “Love And The Single Girl” and it’s a bit ‘jazzy’, like a naffer Joe Jackson maybe. It will not be being played at the next […]

A Chomp was a cheap chocolate flavoured chew. Defined as such as it had barely sniffed a cocoa bean in its life, and rather was a collection of chemicals wrapped on a wham bar which simulated chocolate. It was about 8p, and since you could buy a prop[…]

Bits of Nick Southall’s latest Stylus essay fits comfortably into a growing trend, anxiety over download culture and the hyperconsumption it allows. The cynic in me suggests that critics worry about this new world because it’s harder to f[…]

On the cover is the smiling face of Al Martino. Sorry ladies, he’s 78.
The theme is ‘underrated number ones’
1. LORD ROCKINGHAM’S XI – “Hoots Mon”: Big end-of night feelgood stomper.
2. FLOYD CRAMER – &[…]

The Nu-Guardian reaches Friday and so it’s time for the new look Review, or rather Film & Music. And something leaps out at me. They’ve replaced the old “at home with…” feature, in which musicians talked about their[…]

A few weeks ago a copy of the first ever biography of Belle And Sebastian landed on the FT doormat. The FT doormat gave it to me, and I decided that I would use my extensive contacts amongst reformed members of the feared Sinister ‘massive&#821[…]

Culture Beat – “Mr Vain”
There is an argument, one I hope to elucidate in the following, that Culture Beat are exactly that. The rhythm of our Western Culture in 1993: the thud of the backing of this song is merely the underpinning […]

Music and Writing: interesting roundtable from 2003 where Mark Sinker sets a bunch of questions that assorted ILXish and other thinkers try and answer. I think he sent me the questions too, I know I didn’t answer them. Well worth a look.[…]

Some of you may remember my Top 100 singles of the 90s, which I ran on this site six years ago. They have been off the site for a long time now, because they’re not hugely representative of my tastes now. Occasionally I wonder what I should do […]

Tim Finney, from an ILM thread about reggaeton.
I often think about a post Josh Kortbein wrote on his blog about how he couldn’t remember the moment when he got used to house beat, but somehow it had quietly gone from seeming oppressive, rhythm[…]