POP-EYE 5/5/02
Well, in retrospect the earth didn’t quake, civilization did not fall and the Sugababes were only number one for a week. Now I know this all seems terribly unfair when G-G-Gareth Gates and Will Young can sew the charts up for aro[…]

What I’ve been doing today: downloading tracks for the sixth Freaky Trigger Focus Group. A slimmed-down affair this time, with only 29 songs, but still the usual struggles to find half the tracks – and then to find the correct mixes of ha[…]

Queen classic named all-time favourite single – yeah yeah whatever, but look what’s at No.8! What curious persistence![…]

This article might be an unusual one for Freaky Trigger. It won’t offer much in the way of analysis; it won’t put forward any grand or foolish theories; personal reminiscence will be kept to a minimum; I have no expert knowledge to drop a[…]

The Meaning of Country Music
If the top twenty on Country Music Video is any indication, concern about a pop invasion is a fuss about very little. These songs, and the images that accompany them, are comforting in their nostalgia for a world of conse[…]

Pop-Eye, 28th April 2002
Truly dreadful No.1 hits are rarer than you’d think – leaving out charity singles and Westlife’s perennially useless stool-pop, I can’t think of a really ghastly, what-has-gone-wrong-with-our-species t[…]

City Rockers Presents Futurism
I first heard “Sunglasses at Night” by Tiga and Zyntherius in a ridiculously packed club. (more…)[…]

We Will Never Give It Up
I have never really made mix tapes or discs or things like that for myself. For others, yes, sometimes due to love, other times due to, well, education (starting in 1994 or so, after a complaint from my mom that all my genera[…]

Tweet – Southern Hummingbird
I like to talk about album covers, because they’re usually the most succinct statement of artistic or commercial intent in the course of a work. The cover of Tweet’s Southern Hummingbird is no exception.[…]

I’ve just returned home after spending six weeks in Egypt. I can’t pretend I developed much of a liking for Egyptian pop – it featured voices flying all over the place at complete random with an annoying nasal tone, and songs that w[…]