I have the impression that hip hop with a positive message is frowned on in this region of the blogosphere. I can’t easily point to any examples, so maybe that’s a straw man. Relentless positivity can be very dull, certainly, acting as a […]

JAMIESON – Complete
Slow on the uptake as ever, this song only really grabbed me when I heard it being played in Next. Is there something about retail outlet sound-systems that makes great pop stand out? The acoustics? The relief from the horro[…]

Archigram-Carnival
Being a house obsessive means records are constantly jostling in your memory to be the ones which remind you of great nights out. There must be about 100 I absolutely love, and 100 more I dance to and enjoy. It’s always diffi[…]

The entire pub experience remains a bit of a mystery to me so I’m allowed to ask #1: re The Lamb in Lamb’s Conduit Street (and any other pubs this applies to).
1. Snob screens: why?
2: Little two-inch-high nautical-style brass rails round[…]

The Thing about working nights is deciding which music to play, its all about keeping awake and keeping your customers interested…Some people do this by trying to play into their desire for cock rock and chart country. I do so by shocking them […]

Matt Ingram is dead right about those nasty Putumayo covers – Isabel actually owns Gypsy Caravan and the sleeve has always been a bit distressing. In other ways the label is a bit more innovative – their ‘Playground’ series of[…]

Introduction
Welcome to the Ninth Freaky Trigger pop music Focus Group.
What’s all this then? We took twenty recent hit singles (released between July and September in the UK) and got a focus group to rate them each out of ten and comment on th[…]

The Proclaimers — The BBC Sessions
No music lover needing to keep in with the latest fads can afford to miss the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. Yesterday morning, for instance, they turned their thoughts to the erudite phenomenon of British p[…]

JANET JACKSON – “Runaway”
Everyone has a “dreary day” song; something that gets played on those days when you’re feeling down or slightly under the weather and you need a pick-me-up. This is one of the few songs J[…]

I was listening to Ultravox just before I downloaded this and imagine my glee when Pink’s new single starts with a hyper-authentic back-to-’81 tak-tak-tak bass sound. ‘Glee!’ I thought, ‘This is going to be like a Girls […]