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2018 Music Diary Week 1: The Week Of Flutes
Last year I posted the new records I listened to every day on Facebook, deliberately writing nothing about them. This year I’m still listening to a new (to me) record every day, but I’m trying to be...
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Popular Crystal Ball: 2017 – Islands In The Stream
Tom, enjoying Havana Its Sheeranmania bookends might fool you into thinking that 2017 was just as bad a year for Number Ones as 2016. It wasn’t. For a start, very little could be. But while last year...
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2018 Music Diary Week 2: The Week Of Intensity
NEW MUSIC Day 12: Camila Cabello – Camila: Short, well-put-together pop LP which puts “Havana” fourth – I don’t really get how post-physical media track ordering works, but back in the day this would...
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2018 Music Diary Week 3: The Week Of Appropriation
NEW MUSIC Day 19: FALL OUT BOY – Mania: Short, and making no secret of its modern pop inspiration (there’s a song here with a reggaeton beat!), Mania underlines Fall Out Boy’s flexibility and their...
View ArticleAnd Then I Took Some Of THESE
Mark E Smith, 1957-2018. Some things to read. My favourite ever piece or sequence of pieces on The Fall is our own Kat Stevens’ stint on One Week One Band. It’s very wide ranging, very funny, and...
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2018 Music Diary Week 4: The Week Of Peel
NEW MUSIC Day 24: FIRST AID KIT – Ruins: Slickly produced, occasionally countrified, notes on romantic disappointment by a pair of Swedish sisters who sing with a Nordics-meet-Nashville twang. There’s...
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2018 Music Diary Week 5: The Week Of Lassitude
NEW MUSIC Day 29: JOHN SURMAN – Invisible Threads: Pastoral, ruminative jazz from an English composer and saxophonist. Very much a set of mood pieces, it seems to me, whose folky calm is upended at one...
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2018 Music Diary Week 6: The Week Of Wakanda
NEW MUSIC Day 36: тпсб – Sekundenschlaf: Philip Sherburne’s Pitchfork review goes in deep on the enjoyably ridiculous backstory of this dude, how these are supposedly found tracks from the hard drive...
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2018 Music Diary Week 8: The Week Of The East
NEW MUSIC Day 52: FISCHERSPOONER – Sir: Compelling, in a glum sort of way – meandering, thoughtful synth-pop outlining the late-night territories where desire, and weariness, and resentment of desire,...
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Pop World Cup 2018 – Tournament Eve Update
This year’s POP WORLD CUP is almost here! I appreciate the Pop Football governing bodies have been quiet about the tournament since the initial announcement, but behind the scenes, we’ve been busy...
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Pop World Cup 2018: Group A Match 1
It’s here! The opening game of the Pop World Cup finds the four teams of Group A raising the curtain on the tournament. Pop football veterans Russia and Uruguay meet two Arab states – Egypt and Saudi...
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Pop World Cup 2018 Group E Match 1
No, you’ve not missed any matches. We’re putting this year’s games up as we get the entries in, and so it’s a big thankyou to the prompt Group E gaffers of Serbia, Brazil, Switzerland and Morocco....
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Pop World Cup 2018 Group F Match 1
An intriguing group for this third Pop World Cup match, with two of the sleeping giants of pop football – Sweden and South Korea – lined up against the always capable Germany and dark horses Mexico....
View ArticlePop World Cup 2018 – Group C Match 1
What if a World Cup lasted ALL YEAR? That’s the experiment we appear to be running with this year’s PWC, and a grand experiment it is too. Here we are with the fourth match, group C, which even...
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Popular Crystal Ball: 2018 – Gotta Get Down On Friday
By annual tradition, my rankings – best to worst – of the year’s UK number one hits, with initial thoughts – very initial, I’d heard only one of these before last week and it wasn’t Ariana. Again, I...
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Album A Day 2019 #1: What Big Teeth
This is a document of my album-a-day listening project. Each entry originally comes out as a tinyletter and subscribers to that get intros and miscellanea as well as the LP reviews. When a new letter...
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Album-A-Day 2019 #2: Hello Pork Pie Hat
This is a document of my album-a-day listening project. Each entry originally comes out as a tinyletter and subscribers to that get intros and miscellanea as well as the LP reviews. When a new letter...
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Album-A-Day #3: Dwellers Under The Stove
This is a document of my album-a-day listening project. Each entry originally comes out as a tinyletter and subscribers to that get intros and miscellanea as well as the LP reviews. When a new letter...
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Album-A-Day #4: A Postcard From Dead Charn
This is a document of my album-a-day listening project. Each entry originally comes out as a tinyletter and subscribers to that get framing content and non-music miscellanea as well as the LP reviews....
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Album-A-Day #5: Tarkus In Black Vinyl, Please
This is a document of my album-a-day listening project. Each entry originally comes out as a tinyletter and subscribers to that get framing content and non-music miscellanea as well as the LP reviews....
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