Introduction
For a long time, hardcore was my secret shame, a big red H sewed to my side of anti-modernist thinking, an albatross from my misspent youth. Its strictures, its anti-pleasures, its ugliness are very far indeed from what makes up the bulk[…]

I don’t think much of the idea of ‘guilty pleasures’ but there’s guilt and there’s guilt, isn’t there? There’s guilt for something you might be doing wrong – breaking some invisible law of taste, maybe […]

(That Thing I Never Wrote About X-Press 2)
In the end the main reason I quit my job is because I despise working. Despise is too flowery a word even, to be honest I’d prefer ‘hate’. I hated working in a petrol station. I hated two o[…]

Last night at the VMA’s
Watching Michael Jackson receiving the ‘Artist Of The Millennium’ award felt like watching a public execution. Or maybe an ambush. “Here’s the award our intern won on open mic-night last week. Say[…]

Tot of the pops: also from the low-on-puns Guardian is this creepy article about dressing your sprogs in band t-shirts. ” “Usually, it’s someone who’s been a little bit cool in the past,” says Susan Haire of Baby Munchki[…]

Blogging the Guardian’s pop pages used to be the easiest thing in the world, back when T.Cox was in charge. Modern music was unforgiveably awful and our only hopes were the Wondermints, Cox said every week before leaving to write a book about g[…]

VMA’S PRE-SHOW
How come Christina Aguilera can make herself uglier every time?![…]

Joy Division: An Ideal for Listening: an overview of Joy Division by Chris Ott, which as is the way of these things doesn’t amount to much more than a retelling of the story and assertions of quality. That’s not meant to be critical &#821[…]

Boogie Oogie Oogie: Yes, I bought the latest issue (last month’s, that is) of Muzik Magazine because of the free CD featuring selections chosen by the vivacious and vituperative Miss Kittin (“electroclash” clearly shorthand for &#8[…]

Current best blog in the world spizzazzz is navigating the clashing list rocks with its ‘Forty Spizzest Singles Of The Nineties’: best of luck. I was going to talk about Spizzazzz favourite Daniel Bedroomeyes here but I’m going to m[…]