Britpop Is Back! That’s the premise of this Sunday’s Observer Music Monthly cover story – but here’s the twist: Britpop now means Busted and Sugababes, who are posed like synchronised swimmers on a monster Union Jack. The stor[…]

This is a highly personal story. I’m writing it because I wanted to write something. Because it gives me a way to give myself a purpose outside from merely working again. Because it makes me understand myself better. Because I love music, and proba[…]

The Curse of Invulnerability, by Pete ‘Unbreakable’ Baran
It is the end of the film. Action and adventure have been laid before us as our hero has battled insurmountable odds to finally face the arch villain. Sneaking up on him our hero […]

MICHAEL JACKSON – “One More Chance”
clearly irony is lost on michael jackson. we know it’s wasted on r. kelly, the song’s writer, who, on “step in the name of love,” declared himself the “pied piper of […]

Louis Armstrong – Hot Fives And Sevens
Tom has talked about the difficulty of switching from modern pop to ’50s #1s for his magnificent Popular project, but I just went from Disco Inferno (the interesting and sometimes impressive indie ba[…]

Some talk on the “blogosphere” about “Regressive Rock”, (80s schmindie-indie to you and I) particularly from K-punk and the resurgent Marcello. Broadly speaking Mark Kpunk is against it, and Marcello is if not wholeheartedly f[…]

My new blog[…]

Eloquent and angry response to Jim Robinson’s Irony And Its Malcontents piece. I think Jim R’s been slightly misread, though: he’s arguing for irony as a mode of listening, not the mode. In the case of Johnny Cash, eulogists have qu[…]

So What?
At some point a girl I used to know told Gordon from Ballboy she thought his band wasn’t ‘avant-garde enough’ for her taste. Fair enough: churning out sub-Gedge indie platitudes over jangling guitars is hardly Gertrude Stei[…]

One of the most annoying things about Radio 1 (leaving almost ALL the presenters out of the equation for the moment) is their insistence on telling you things OFFICIALLY. If it’s not the Official start to your weekend, it’s the Official s[…]