It May Not Be Hot – But It Sure Is Warm
This tape was made for me in April 1998 by a Dutch music journalist as a prize for coming second in an online pop lyrics quiz held on a mailing list I was on. The top three were all called Graham or Graem[…]

Haha few things bettah than having yr sincere prejudices confirmed by unmoored gossip. Spent an evening with two relatives who work in the TV documentary industry. Relative X had just seen the Nick Broomfield doc on Tupac: verdict = ‘total meh&[…]

Is Pop Cool?
I got an interesting e-mail last week. Ben Rayner, a writer for the Toronto Star, wrote to me asking for a couple of quotes for a column he was writing about pop music. Because of the World Cup, I’ve not been checking my e-mail muc[…]

THE PRODIGY – “Baby’s Got A Temper”
The best bit of this record is the cheeky “Firestarter” quote about thirty seconds in – a blipvert reminder of who the long-gone Prodigy are, and a dash of swagger in a tra[…]

TRUTH HURTS feat. RAKIM – “Addictive” I’ve tried to write this entry three times now without success. I can’t figure out why this song is so alluring to me. Part of it may be DJ Quik’s beat; yeah, it’s the[…]

Without Me is almost definately the most bootlegged song in the history of this admittedly short lived foray into remixing. So now Boom Selection has decided to run a chart of the thirty best Eminem bootlegs. Its an interesting idea and one which has[…]

PRIMAL SCREAM — ‘Miss Lucifer’
Hold on to your hats! Or sides. ‘Skinny girl / Dressed in black / Leather boots / Nazi hat / Tattooed panther / [something something]* / Sexy dancer / Immaculate grace / SHAKE IT BABY!’ &#8[…]

Supertroupers: from the same edition of the Guardian, a quiet demonstration of how it should be done, as Peter Paphides interviews two of ABBA. An experienced pop writer taking on and taking seriously a group he clearly has great affection for &#8211[…]

The Poet and the Princess: Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Shakira, a featurette that must have got the commissioning editors salivating. Actually, Colombia’s most famous novelist turns in a celebrity puff piece that would have had Hello! blushing. I[…]

dee dee ramone dead at 50.[…]