Free from the grind of having to write about music on the regular, and at the time I’d have said “not a moment too soon”. Pop in 2012 felt directionless, the weakest year I could remember. Naturally now it’s contributed more t[…]

I felt out of touch with music in 2010: a tricky proposition, as I was filing columns on it three times a month. But the shape of it felt, and still feels, indistinct. I could hear interesting things but no longer felt confident in attaching them to […]

A post went round Twitter a while ago where people were getting all RETVRN-style “look at what we have lost” about the high tide of US indie rock in 2009, a period of pretty stupefying consensus as I remember it, which as we’ve alre[…]

2008 was a rough year, for the world, for me: I ended it with what I realised later was a breakdown, several weeks into a new job. I was fortunate: medication worked, though shredded my memory – that, and the loss of two hard drives from these […]

In 2007 I fulfilled my teenage dream and became a Music Journalist, jumping straight into the position of being a paid columnist with free rein to write about anything I liked at two different, highly respected publications. It’s hard to overst[…]

By 2005 I’d been a music blogger for 5 years: it seemed like long enough, so I shut down New York London Paris Munich – Freaky Trigger continued as a generalist site with some pop music elements. Maybe at the back of my mind was a sense t[…]

Alongside 2000, this is the year with the most longlist picks – a real bruiser. In the wider world of music discourse, 2004 is the year Kelefa Sanneh publishes “The Rap Against Rockism”, corralling some of the sprawled-out conversat[…]

2003 was a big year personally – I got married! – and in terms of writing – I started Popular! – and at least at this point the new focus on pop’s past didn’t push me too far off the present. As ever, I’m wor[…]

My #FearOfMu21c challenge selection posts continue with 2002! This was a feverish high point of my engagement with current music, the first year in which I had internet speeds fast enough to make large-scale MP3 acquisition a reality AND had an offic[…]

Every review I write is a quivering pile of jelly, andwith every ill-informed take, I sling another batch on an ooze mountainwhich is certain to eventually collapse, trapping me in its slimy prison,deafening in a crashing cacophony of colour.I can&#8[…]