Like the claim that there are only so many subjects you can build a joke around, similar limitations it’s reckoned apply to songs.
A recent online post identified twelve, although the topics over and underlapped as you might expect; on the …
The Eden Project, Cornwall, 2004. As part of the scientific park’s summer gig series, L4E (before they were L4E) is in attendance to see Gallic dream poppers Air, but via a mischievous piece of scheduling, supporting them are the Super Furry Animals.
Preparing …
It’s so trite these days it’s almost not worth writing it down, but punk rock was never supposed to be a durable vessel.
It was meant to be angry, dirty, confrontational and raw; men still playing punk rock into their late 60s …
In his recently published book The Art Of Darkness, veteran musician and writer John Robb traces the origins of the goth movement, citing the formula: “If you did a chemical equation of goth, it’s kind of Jim Morrison plus David …
In the past, musicians treated the idea of a concept album as if they were a pill being offered to them by a stranger; approach with caution, do once, then never get involved again.
The Coral, as we know …
Over the years, the Super Furry Animals have become known for a lot of things – rave tanks, giant inflatable bears, hanging out with Colombian guerillas – but prescience was not one of them.
And then along came The Piccolo Snare, a track …
Look, we shouldn’t still be talking about that song because at this point it was in the future, and The Boo Radleys up to Giant Steps were a promising but hardly household name kind of a band.
Also, Britpop wasn’t …
The problem with pop is that as an industry, it often eats its young.
From a small town in sleepy Oxfordshire, Willie J Healey was in his teens when he signed to a major label, a deal that led to the release …
This is 2023, sometimes you just have to go with the weird.
You may not have come across Drab Majesty before, but their 2019 album Modern Mirror had a kind of retro-cyber charm, landing in form at the intersection of synth pop, …
Basically, you should start every Osees album as if you’ve never heard any of the previous ones.
This can save a lot of time: Intercepted Message is the twenty-sixth John Dwyer’s band have made in its multiple different names and formats since 1997, …
Ah progress.
In 2023, does the idea of a Greatest Hits album still exist? And when playlisting, single channel releases, multi-platform distribution and social media eyeballs are more lucrative, what exactly is a ‘hit’ anyway?
We only have 600 words so much of that …
Live4ever first met Swedish noisemakers The Hives during a festival performance at the turn of the century; with typical hubris frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist introduced Die, Alright! as, ‘Our next single, so buy it – or don’t, it doesn’t …
The effects of the pandemic are in many cases well documented, but in most not well understood.
One of the recurring ideas to emerge for musicians has been the return to old ground, of going home, being in isolation …
From a near standing start, the number of women fronting rock bands has now almost reached the stage where it no longer matters – or at least that it matters less to the people who actually matter.
Now reduced to …
Karl Whitney’s book Hit Factories, which at a very high-level deals with the links between music, geography and culture in a selection of British cities, has a chapter on Leeds. It begins: “When my Megabus pulled into Leeds bus station, I was sitting …
There are a number of ways it can play out, but the generally understood truth is that where most artists are concerned, you never go full pop.
This doesn’t mean that the rules aren’t still sort of open to interpretation and that you can …