Former UN worker barred from charity gig because incorrectly ‘authentic’. If this is true (link from popjustice) then things are worse than we thought. The alliance of bleeding heart crypto-liberalism with the elitism of the arts open up […]

Talent In A Previous Life‘s review of the Glasgow Girls Aloud gig 2 weeks ago. The most exhaustive description of the show I’ve seen in a pop-blog, and though the actual performance I saw differed in only minor details (the ‘g-g-g-g[…]

Alan Jackson
Talking Repair Man Blues.
Alan Jackson is the best example of countryist, a historically minded obsession with purity mars the rest of his music and this is the latest example, after examples like Gone Country (which, even with the huge[…]

I think Tom is probably right when he says on ILX that if it starts a trend of ringtone-themed hits it won’t be a great thing. However, isn’t this the wrong way round to look at things? I’m sure I went on ages ago (probably in a com[…]

…huh. I admit to the same disappointment Jess feels here — surely the whole point of a frog doing a cover of “Axel F,” aka the world’s greatest example of form following function (we have a synth, we shall play on the s[…]

Paul Bearer And The Hearsemen – I’ve Been Thinking
After last week’s festival of Europop something a little more atavistic. I don’t listen to a lot of garage rock, but this jumped out at me when I first heard it a few years ag[…]

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First vital step in the rehabilitation of Carter USM – a tribute album! Nay, two tribute albums. And what’s this down at the bottom….”Art Brut – Falling On A Bruise”!??!! Whoa.[…]

This week’s Stylus singles jukebox, with a mixed bag of comments from me. In not-commented-on news I gave high marks to Gwen S and Arcade Fire and a pretty good mark to Teedra Moses. In comments-not-printed because Stylus cannot take THE TRUTH,[…]

That odd time-lag between downloading a track way ahead of its US release and then its second coming as a real actual single over here. Witness “Milkshake”, “Get Low” and now “1 Thing”, it’s worked in Amerie&[…]