America’s Best Rock Band: according to Greil Marcus, it’s Sleater-Kinney. Now reading this article you might be struck by how irrelevant the opening paragraph is – about S-K meeting the Backstreet Boys and them not knowing who S-K w[…]

My Indie Life: five old pieces find their way into the FT archives, to make up for my being too busy to produce a new bit of writing this week (don’t worry – Ned has a few goodies lined up for an update towards the end of the week). They […]

Am I Cool Or Not?: sorry, dude.
Now, a new pic awaits you all. But here we come to a delicate matter which I had best address directly: I need pictures of women. The submissions pile for AICON is running low – if you’re reading this and y[…]

Resonant Frequency: Pitchfork have a habit of announcing ‘regular columns’ which last one instalment. Let’s hope this, from ILM regular and P-fork savant Mark Richard-San, bucks the trend – a thoughtful ramble down some intere[…]

Am I Cool Or Not?: pitifully few responses to this once-popular feature. Are you all just sick of it? The new one will be up tomorrow evening – for now, send in your guesses![…]

I now understand exactly what all of the people who’ve been bemoaning lowest common denominator trance music have been complaining about. Despite the “hook” of being a trance reinterpretation of an operatic aria, absolutely nothing […]

Went to see my old MP at the House of Commons last night, and am pleased to report that the Mother of Parliaments uses the Mother of all Hand Dryers.
Strangers Bar (which is where the plebs are allowed) is a great bar, mainly because you aren’[…]

Everyone’s written a love song ‘ silly, serious, heart-felt, ironic, and all the various permutations throbbing and convulsing therein. Often, the best ones try to reconcile these conflicting traits ‘ for instance, Elvis Costello&#[…]

1. It’s June 8 2001 and I’ve a few hours to kill in London, so I walk. It’s a sunny day: most people look bored and in a hurry. Every now and then I stop and pick up one of the daily papers, which are all full of election talk. Arit[…]

I hereby declare June 26, 2001 Sugababes Day. Their debut record (One Touch) was released in the US. Their song “Overload” (a blissfully atypical pre-fab pop track, which means it’s damn good – never mind Tom’s grousin[…]