On two separate news reports last night I saw it mentioned that – if the Facebook campaign to get Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” to No.1 is a success (or a near-miss) – this week we might see the first instance of the same […]

21. Opus III – It’s A Fine Day
Whilst I might not have experienced the (ahem) primary effects of rave culture aged 11, I definitely succumbed to the vast swathe of hippy b0ll0cks that seemed to permeate the early nineties. Commune with na[…]

Ah, the influence brigade are back in town. But for once they have put down their videogame controllers and have turned their gaze from violent horror movie to the insidious harm done to us by ROMANTIC COMEDIES! As this study suggests (in no way conc[…]

(This entry crossposted with Blackbeardblog.)
It’s certain that Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” will be the Christmas #1. But which version? PR Media Blog reports on a Facebook campaign to put Jeff Buckley’s version at[…]

20. Praga Khan – Injected With A Poison
Like ‘The Magic Friend‘ earlier on, I found this a bit too intense on the first listen – acid squelching, whooping vocals courtesy of Jade 4U, and a scary man singing about poison. And p[…]

The Children is the second British horror movie this year using the previously untapped fear potential of the under sixteens. But whilst Eden Lake put its Kate Ashfield-a-like heroine in a ripped-from-the-fever-dream-of-the-Daily-Mail battle with del[…]

A quick recap!
This is a series of posts “liveblogging” the Pitchfork 500, reflecting the book’s dual purpose as criticism and playlist. The ground rule is that I do the writing in real time as I listen to the music: no edits after […]

19. Shut Up And Dance – I’m Ravin’ I’m Ravin’
How many times has a melody stalled on the tip of your tongue? Na-nur-na-nur NAH-ah NAAA. Dammit, what is it? Where on earth is that from? Na-nur-nah wee-woo-WEEEE-urr-wooo. […]

This post is simply a way of getting all my Pitchfork columns linked to in one place so I can put it on the sidebar.
Poptimist #1: Music Hall, the Beatles, the power of the crowd.
Poptimist #2: Spoilers in music, MP3 blogs, the delights of conversati[…]

When I found out my favourite theatre director in the world had written his first novel I was intrigued, but also somewhat trepidacious. Tim’s theatre writing (which I talked about a bit here) is so strongly of and about theatre itself, would […]