There is a strange double headed hydra lurking at the centre of pop marketing. The first head is the music. The music is the product, and the music is what people are buying. If the music is good enough, surely there is no need for extraneous marketi[…]

Oh its all Abba all the time round here these days. What with Popular knee deep in the 1970’s. Well Winner Takes It All is 1980’s Abba, and a significantly more jaded, wistful Abba it is too. So rather than talk to much about the track it[…]

If you haven’t heard this song just go and listen to it. (You may recognise it — it was used in the sproutface DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet). That’s all I should say.

However, to make the your perhaps-momentous discovery more possib[…]

The edition of Top of the Pops on the 8th November 1979 featured The Specials (A Message To You, Rudy), Madness (One Step Beyond), and The Selecter (On My Radio). UK pop buyers officially loved the “2 Tone” label. The distinctive checkere[…]

Of all the records this admittedly sluggish Top 100 could have stalled on for its longest period, it is odd that it was Teenage Kicks. After all everyone loves Teenage Kicks, right? Tom was toying with writing about it as an adjunct to this Pitchfork[…]

TEN RANDOM THINGS ABOUT FRANZ FERDINAND AND TAKE ME OUT.
1: The intro sounds like the end of another song. Indeed I didn’t know there was an intro until someone (Carsmile?) played the song at Poptimism. So whilst I do think a degree of the succ[…]

Doop – Doop
It’s March 1994 and i’m helping to set up at our “end of rag week” ball. As usual there are twice as many people as are actually needed due to being able to get in for nowt if you do a bit of humping and shi[…]

GLEN CAMPBELL – Rhinestone Cowboy
I have a firm belief that this is the second song I ever heard.
Read all about my childhood association with Glen here. Instead here I want to talk about how a song can subtly infiltrate different thoughts and […]

Well our slack timing has done us a favour here. Because all things Spice are knocking around again, and we aren’t completely succumb by nostalgia to justify its position. And has history been kind to the Spice Girls, and to Who Do You Think Yo[…]

GWEN STEFANI – “What You Waiting For”
Tick tock tick tock – generally with any top 100 list there are some very recent records that slip into the rundown thanks to the immediate enthusiasm of the participants and stick out a b[…]