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I was a teenage dark elf priestess
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This article by Laurie Penny on the pervasiveness and persuasiveness of the manic pixie dream girl trope is really good.
I’m the same age as Laurie Penny, so was plagued by the same cultural stuff as her- I don’t know if it’s just e[…]

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Friday Poll Special – The Great Britpop Sorting Hat!
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We are now firmly into the BRITPOP YEARS on Popular, oh yes, so it’s time to consider its musical legacy in the only language we truly understand, viz. a ticky-box poll.

We have selected 32 bands who someone, somewhere, might possibly have o[…]

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Pokémon X And Why
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GET UR FROAK ON
While most of my online acquaintances were geeking out today at the thought of a new David Bowie album, our house was far more excited by the announcement of new Pokémon games – Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, the first on Nintendo’s […]

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SAINT ETIENNE – “Popular”
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Saint Etienne – Popular

Huge weepy thanks to Bob, Pete and Sarah for immortalising us in song. And thanks to commenters past and present for making it worth immortalising.[…]

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The FT Top 25 Pubs of the 00s No 1: Glasshouse Stores
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So we get a winner, down on Brewer Street in Soho, the Glasshouse Stores was voted the number one pub of the noughties by those of us who voted. A nice pub sure, but so much better than the others? To find out why it scored so highly I thought I woul[…]

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Which Decade Is Tops For Pops? The Results, Decade By Decade.
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Finally, the moment of ABSOLUTE POP TRUTH is upon us! And my goodness, what a nail-biter of a contest this has been. Halfway through the voting, two decades broke decisively ahead of the pack, establishing a lead that proved impossible to catch up wi[…]

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The Friday Fun Canon Discussion And Monster Poll
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People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, v[…]

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THIS IS BIS WEEK
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Here at Freaky Trigger we have realised that January has been a bit slow with output. A new year can put new strains upon our writers and what with Tom’s Guardian column and me embarking on a year without cinema, pickings have been slim. What w[…]

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Rage vs X-Factor: Winners and Losers
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Well, that’s that: the machine has been given a good beating and we can look forward to “Bulls On Parade” on the festive Argos ad next year. I will admit I didn’t think the RATM crew could do it: I was wrong. But as the dust s[…]

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Selling In The Name Of
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One of the things that’s fascinating about the UK Top 40 is that a device designed to be a pure expression of popularity also works as a reflection of so many other things. People buy songs: if enough people buy a song it gets into the charts, […]

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