Twenty Years Ago (1999) I decided to organise a pub crawl on the quietest pub day of the year, and thus the Freaky Trigger annual between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl (henceforth #FTABCANYPC) was born. Since then we have crawled annually on the 2[…]

(Reached #2, June 1997)
One of the repeating themes in British indie music is bands hitting the rocks because the guitarist and singer can’t work together. The Smiths, The House Of Love, The Stone Roses, Suede, The Verve – for a decade some of th[…]

Hi all –
We know some of you have had serious issues with the FT comments, both in terms of logging in on existing IDs and creating new ones.
This is because of something being imposed by our hosts to stop continued spam comment attacks. We&#82[…]

(#2 in April 1994)
Fortune is the issue here: the blind bad luck of the song’s kid subjects, the random chance of us ever hearing about them. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” is a fluke, but a fluke brought forth from a particular moment, the end of the alt-r[…]

[This post originally went up at my PATREON: subscribers get to read posts and hear podcasts early — and help offset costs and time and help me do more of this kind of thing. Please share widely and encourage participation in the comments!]
“It m[…]

Less Popular is an occasional series where I write about hits that didn’t get to #1. It’s made possible by the Patreon – thanks to all my patrons.
Popular’s actual coverage of the ’93 Summer Of Ragga suffers a bit from the Numbe[…]

(Reached #8 in May 1977)
A byword for monolithic biggitude in their homeland, The Eagles never came close to a Number One in Britain. They did a solid trade in LPs, but they’re one of those groups who kept finding a ready British audience for “Gr[…]

[This post originally went up at my PATREON: subscribers get to read posts and hear podcasts early — and help offset costs and time and help me do more of this kind of thing. Please share widely and encourage participation in the comments!]
Sometim[…]

[This post originally went up at my PATREON: subscribers get to read posts and hear podcasts early — and help offset costs and time and help me do more of this kind of thing. Please share widely and encourage participation in the comments!]
Reviewi[…]

2009 was a prolific year for Omar Rodríguez-López, with a total of six albums released. Cryptomnesia and Xenophanes are comprised of material that was originally intended for the Mars Volta but took a left turn at Albuquerque. Solar Gambling featur[…]