[From December 2009] Sometimes I feel that I am the only one who likes the Chandos – a large Sam Smiths pub near Charing Cross station where the downstairs always feels kind of old and stuck in time, ...

The pattern for recent hip-hop Number 1s on Popular – Nelly’s pair being the best example – has been the chart-topper as a kind of medal for services rendered, generally coming an album cycle after th...

[From September 2008] We pick up with Pete Baran joining Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions for “Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead”, written in 1972 by Robert Sheckley...

My attitude to creative writing projects is best contextualised by misquoting Zapp Brannigan’s take on pick-up lines: write as many of them as you can, as fast as you can. I know this is probably unwi...

Omar Rodríguez-López’s most recent solo album Is It the Clouds? dropped January 2024 (aptly on the Clouds Hill label) and was the first to follow 2016-17’s epic release schedule. While it’s not quite ...

As much as this idea totally whips, sadly, Sworn Virgins isn’t a concept album centred around the priestesses of Vesta, although it did inspire me to draft a fantasy longlist of musicians I’d like to ...

Hooray for me! Also several others, but it’s hard to get excited about that. Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio, the long-awaited Mars Volta double album I totally manifested is here at last, and it is a...

In 2004 I took on the worst project of my professional life; worst in the sense that it was miserable and time-consuming and also in the sense that I did it very badly. A certain mobile phone company ...

The long twilight of Oasis is reaching its end, at least in Popular terms. The 00s took them from the kings of English rock to a drab fixture and finally a running joke, bigmouths promising a return t...

The Jeopardy! category is “Before and After”: ANSWER: They’ll use semiconductor technology to amass an army for hire, if the remuneration is right. QUESTION: Who are Solid State Mercenaries? Why yes, ...

This is going to be one of those annoying reviews which takes the billion-view signature hit of a highly successful artist and picks away at production choices which – objectively! – have been extreme...

I’m inclined to think of Omar Rodriguez as the first official ORL solo record, even though that’s not technically correct. And yet, my predilection for proving myself to be the best kind of correct is...

[From February 2000] For the past two days I have at points been totally stopped in my tracks with grief. I literally have been on the verge of losing it entirely more than once now. I just can’t acce...

Labelling music as ‘psychedelic’ is about as useful as labelling it as ‘progressive’. Both are wildly subjective terms, and both are frequently deployed when defining Omar Rodríguez-López’s extensive ...

[From August 2010] or “leela i have made a terrible mistake” … being a show-by-show TARDIS-esque (ie in effect random) exploration of Doctor Who Soup to Nuts, begun at LJ’s diggerdydum community and f...

The results are in! We have a final group of 40 songs to vote on in the WORLD CUP OF 2024, and a handy GOOGLE FORM where you can do just that. The form has details on the scoring system, and it’s open...

In case you weren’t aware, the Pop Polls are back back BACK on Bluesky, and we’ve started off with the annual year-end poll, The World Cup Of 2024 (hashtag: #peoplespop24 if you want to play along the...

Friends, this year is going to be a doozy, one which will require mental fortitude on par with the strength of Hercules combined with the flexibility of Gumby. And yet there’s only much loin-girding a...

In the ancient times, when I was old enough to know better but young enough to believe it didn’t matter, when LiveJournal was the central focus of my socialisation, at this time of year my reading fee...

[From December 2014] The intro: 00’00 – 00’39 In December 1987 the Pet Shop Boys released “Always On My Mind”, a cover of the song made famous by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. It became the Christm...

Sunday, 29th December 2024I marks the 25th anniversary of the first Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and so we are heading to Southwark to sample some pubs with fascinating architecture...

Sunday, 29th December 2024I marks the 25th anniversary of the first Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and so we are heading to Southwark to sample some pubs with fascinating architecture...

Last year I wrote up some trends in the way British people listen to Christmas music now – as expressed via the medium of the streaming-era Christmas charts, which offer a fairly accurate barometer of...

This is not my best-loved time of year: it’s cold, dark and tainted by too many unhappy holiday memories. All the decorations remind me of when I was very young, and how I dreaded the annual construct...

[From December 2014] The intro: 00’00 – 00’39 In December 1987 the Pet Shop Boys released “Always On My Mind”, a cover of the song made famous by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. It became the Christm...

If I really wanted to – and I don’t – I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the f...

Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo shares many similarities with A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume I in that both are atmospheric, mostly instrumental filmic albums. However, unlike the latter, Se Dice is...

A third instalment of tracks which didn’t make my #UncoolTwo50 list – which starts TOMORROW; there is still time to enter, all you need is a list of 50 singles from 1977-1999. In fact what you could d...

A second set of songs from the #UncoolTwo50 project, launching on Monday night/Tuesday on Bluesky – have you finalised your 50 tracks yet? This set is still in the “nearly-made-it” category, though we...

The #UncoolTwo50 is a simple exercise of daunting scope. Pick your 50 favourite singles from 1977 to 1999 (and then list them as part of the public challenge, which is happening on Bluesky from Octobe...

This is the final entry in Season 1 of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story look at 2000AD. Contains spoilers! WHICH THRILL? The surviving cast of Harlem Heroes return, forming a team to compete in the...