This is one of the great contemporary London songs for me, one of the small cross-genre epics the city throws out sometimes, like “Weekender” or “Avenue” in the early 90s – not through any particular lyric but something […]

One of the most contentious threads I can remember on ILX was over a blogpost by Ultragrrrl claiming that My Chemical Romance were “this generation’s Nirvana”. OK, the thread was contentious more because Ultragrrrl herself was a div[…]

Perhaps icons inevitably try to upstage each other. Madonna, given the chance at a 007 theme song, is provoked into her most radical 00s single. Also – to be fair – one of her most divisive: it got abuse both from Bond purists who deteste[…]

I was playing this record quite a lot while I put the final edits on my “Decade In Pop” piece for Pitchfork: now I wish I’d mentioned it. It’s producer Rich Harrison’s pet girlband project, and for once that patronising […]

One of the minor and miserable themes of my 00s has been the generally vain search for a British indie hype that I could enjoy. I’ve never consciously acknowledged this itch but the fact I once paid money for a CD by The Coral suggests it&#8217[…]

A little over ten years ago I started writing about my Top 100 Singles Of The 90s. Pretty much as soon as I’d finished I started looking forward to writing this feature on Freaky Trigger. In between, this site has – directly or indirectly[…]

Thank You For The Music: The Music of ABBA, Hyde Park
We pick our way through the sea of tartan blankets, picnic baskets, foldable chairs, sensible anoraks and fidgeting eight-year-olds who have each been given a bag of fizzy cola bottles and a glows[…]

Clearly the most significant aspect of England’s qualification for next year’s FIFA World Cup is that it allows the nation once again to dream of victory in the Pop World Cup. This tournament, to find the world’s greatest pop nation[…]

Jay-Z Meets a Big Issue Seller outside Camden Town Tube
I was informed by email this morning that our good friend Shawn Carter was to play a short notice gig (a week on thursday) at the Roundhouse. Tickets are £50 each and go on sale tomorrow if yo[…]

So, I saw a (repeated) bbc four documentary about Jake maybe six months ago and then kept on entirely failing to search for his stuff, but then a friend linked to the above and I found an treasure trove of stuff on spotify (sorry Americans), and he i[…]