I was listening to Kings of the Wild Frontier recently. I really like Adam and the Ants, but as I was listening to it, I was thinking “You know, this is a pretty mental song to have got to number two in the charts”. Turns out I’m not alone in thinking along these lines. Here’s Alexis Petridis in the Guardian talking about the greatest ever number 2 singles:

“The single that launched Adam and the Ants v2.0 remains one of history’s flat-out weirdest bids for screamy teen stardom: the lyrics beckon new fans in – “a wild nobility, we are the family” – set to a cacophony of thunderous drums, shouting, whooping, feedback and Duane Eddy-style guitar. It is unbelievably exciting.”

It certainly is. It’s also unbelievably mental. In fact, I reckon it may be the maddest thing ever to reach the Top 5 of the charts, although I am willing to consider alternative suggestions. Over to you.

Let me explain why I’m asking.

I started supporting Celtic when i was about 8 or 9. I was a Celtic fan for a very simple reason – my elder brother was one, and that made it all but inevitable. This route (parent/sibling brainwashing) is surely the most noble way to become a club’s fan.

I suppose I should say that I’ve supported Celtic through thick and thin, but let’s be honest, when you’re an Old Firm fan, it’s usually thick. And for Celtic fans it’s never been thicker, as they have just won their 14th title in 15 seasons. Basically, there were army teams in the Warsaw Pact countries that had it harder than Celtic have had it of late (domestically at least).

I left the UK almost 30 years ago. My own experience of being a long distance football fan is that absence doesn’t really make the heart grow fonder. There are probably two kinds of expats: those who try to live the lifestyle of their home country wherever they’re living, and those who try to settle into the lifestyle of wherever they are. I was 12 years in Italy, and there are few better countries to follow » Continue Reading.

RIP Spaceman. My favourite member of Kiss, and the group were never the same after he left. Partly because Simmons and Stanley never seemed to grasp that a band consisting of two members and two hired hands was never going to catch the imagination the same way as a foursome would, but also because he contributed to the songwriting.

This is a decent obituary from The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/oct/17/ace-frehley-kiss-guitarist-greatness

I was listening to Supercollider by Fountains of Wayne a while back. As I was listening, I found myself thinking “Y’know this sounds a bit like Oasis”. A quick visit to Wikipedia, and yup, it turns out that’s deliberate – the band were fans and wanted to write a song in that style. This hasn’t affected my enjoyment of the song a bit – I like Oasis, plus the song is a very Midwestern take on the Gallagher brothers, if that makes sense. They add something.

That got me thinking about other examples of an artist recording something in the style of someone else, for whatever motive. Fans of the Coen brothers will remember the fictional group Autobahn in The Big Lebowski. On the soundtrack, their long time collaborator Carter Burwell provides one of their songs (“Techno Pop”), which is a pretty good pastiche of Dusseldorf’s finest.

Sometimes it can stretch to an entire album. The Cult’s “Electric” is obviously the result of producer Rick Rubin trying a thought experiment to see to what would have happened if Jim Morrison had replaced Bon Scott in AC/DC after the latter had died (I know there were some logistical issues in that » Continue Reading.

The Guardian has an article (linked) that provides an oral history of the making of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was released 50 years ago this year(the original play of course had been running for a few years, so its not 50 years of Rocky Horror).

I saw it for the first time in the mid 80s, when it was screened (I think) for the first time on British TV as part of that entertaining duel between BBC2 and Channel 4 to see who could post the most “alternative” stuff on Friday evenings. I set the video and God knows how many times I watched that damn thing over the next couple of years. I probably know every line.

It’s an odd film. Well, yes, obviously it’s meant to be odd, but I mean just as a film it’s odd. They created new scenes to pad out the stage show, so it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Who exactly is Columbia? And the floor show is for what?

And yet, who cares? The songs are good. In fact, a few, such as the title song, Sweet Transvestite and Don’t Dream It are very good. There » Continue Reading.

The article below was posted to the Guardian web site a couple of months back. It contains excerpts from a book formed by replies from some well-known names to a letter asking them their thoughts on the meaning of life. As you can imagine, the answers ranged from rushed or smart alecky to more composed and thoughtful. Looking at the latter type of replies, some themes emerge: the fleeting nature of happiness, that it is helpful to live in the moment, and the importance of love. My favourite replies come from a palliative care consultant and a survivor of Bergen-Belsen. When it comes to appreciating life, some domain expertise is useful.

One the respondents states that “every life is a journey from innocence to wisdom”. Given the ages of the folks in this site, we should have accumulated some wisdom along the way. So, I’m taking the opportunity to put the question of the letter to you: “What do you think is the meaning of life? And how you find meaning, purpose and fulfilment in your own life?”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/22/what-is-the-meaning-of-life-15-possible-answers-from-a-palliative-care-doctor-a-holocaust-survivor-a-jail-inmate-and-more

As the reviews for Hackney Diamonds come in, it does look as though this time, The Rolling Stones really have made their best album since Some Girls. Moreover, like a Peter Gabriel fan watching the Sledgehammer video for the first time in 1986, I can sense that something is about to change. Perhaps we’re about to accept that, actually, most of their albums are pretty good. And as such, in best Rock Fan tradition, I feel that I need to stand up in front of the Afterword and make a declaration:

I liked the Post-1978 Rolling Stones Before You Did.

It hasn’t been easy. There have been times on this place when admitting that you liked Emotional Rescue or Steel Wheels was seen as unforgivable, as bad as liking Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts*, Kiss or even Queen. It’s sometimes seemed as though it was just Dai and myself, making eye contact across the continents and going “Well I really like Out of Tears, I don’t care what anyone else says”.

So I’d like this thread to be a safe space for those of us who have secretly liked these records, but perhaps haven’t always had the chance or courage to » Continue Reading.

Hello and welcome to the final post of the Q Albums of the 90s thread! If you weren’t here for 1990-97, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q. As there wasn’t a list for 1999, we’re going to end the decade (or at least this thread) in 1998, which of course is now 25 years ago.

So, let’s have a look at which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1998 (“The Year of Mud-Slinging”):

Air – Moon Safari Catatonia – International Velvet Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With the Arab Strap Gomez – Bring it On Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Madonna – Ray Of Light Massive Attack – Mezzanine Mercury Rev – Deserter’s Songs The Beta Band – The Three EPs (Album of the Year)

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1998 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-96, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s have a look at which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1997 (“The Year of Extremes”):

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Boatman’s Call The Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott – Supa Dupa Fly The Prodigy – The Fat Of The Land Spiritualized – Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space Supergrass – In It For the Money Texas – White On Blonde The Verve – Urban Hymns Radiohead – OK Computer

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1997 for you? What’s missing? Did you buy the Candle in the Wind CD single? And of course, how many have you got?

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-95, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

Today, we’re taking a trip back to the distant past when the media were blaming Gareth Southgate for England not winning a football tournament. Let’s have a look at which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1996 (“The Year of “Britpop””):

Ash – 1977 Beck – Odelay Sheryl Crow – Sheryl Crow DJ Shadow – Endtroducing Fugees (Refugee Camp) – The Score George Michael – Older Ocean Colour Scene – Moseley Shoals Orbital – In Sides 2Pac – All Eyez On Me Manic Street Preachers – Everything Must Go (Album of the Year)

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1996 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-94, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1995 (“The Year of Britpop”):

Blur – The Great Escape Leftfield – Leftism Alanis Morrissette – Jagged Little Pill Pulp – Different Class Radiohead – The Bends Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix TLC – CrazySexyCool Tricky – Maxinquaye The Verve – A Northern Soul Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1995 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-93, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1994 (“The Year of Transition”):

Beastie Boys – Ill Communication Jeff Buckley – Grace Morrissey – Vauxhall & I Oasis – Definitely Maybe Nirvana – Unplugged in New York Portishead – Dummy Soundgarden – Superunknown Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) Blur – Parklife

Quite a list. It’ll be interesting to read what we think about these albums 30 years on (what do people think of Grace these days?). Elsewhere in 1994, Radio was going through its great upheaval, as satirised by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in Smashie & Nicey: the End of an Era, and there was also the first issue of Loaded and, perhaps most notably of all, the first season of Friends.

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1994 for you? What’s missing? And of course, » Continue Reading.

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-92, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1993 (“The Year Was Still Grungey”):

The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps Bjork – Debut Dr. Dre – The Chronic Pj Harvey – Rid of Me Natural Born Killers – Music From and Inspired By Orbital – Orbital (“The Brown Album”) Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream Suede – Suede Paul Weller – Wild Wood Nirvana – In Utero

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1993 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990 or 91, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1992 (“The Year Was Pissed Off”):

Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes Ice Cube – The Predator Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray Manic Street Preachers – Generation Terrorists The Orb – U.F.Orb Pearl Jam – Ten Lou Reed – Magic and Loss Stereo MCs – Connected Neil Young – Harvest Moon R.E.M. – Automatic for the People

1992. Election year in the US and UK. The year of the riots provoked by the acquittals after the Rodney King beating (hence the “Year was Pissed off” title). Barcelona had quite a year, hosting the Olympic Games, Expo and the Blaugrana won the European Cup for the first time. Madonna released her Sex book. Seinfeld had its breakthrough season (The Bubble Boy, the Cheever Letters and The Contest). And finally, the European Championships produced one of international football’s » Continue Reading.

Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 editin of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1991 (“The Year ofTurbulence”):

Crowded House – Woodface Cypress Hill- Cypress Hill My Bloody Valentine – Loveless Nirvana – Nevermind Primal Scream – Screamadelica Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik R.E.M. – Out of Time Simply Red – Stars U2- Achtung Baby Massive Attack – Blue Lines (Album of the Year)

If the 1990 list felt a bit like the 80s were in injury time, then this list feels more like the 90s. And it is, I think, a stronger list, although arguably weighted too much towards Indie. Q’s disdain towards Metal may explain the exclusion of Metallica’s Black album, but not the omission of e.g. Diamonds and Pearls and The White Room. Perhaps 1991 just had a bit more quality in depth than 1990.

It also feels a consequential year. This was the year when » Continue Reading.

I was doing some spring cleaning over the weekend and one of the things I came across was Q No. 159, dated December 1999. It has Liam Gallagher on the cover, with the tag “Voice of the ’90s”, which is probably a threadstarter in itself, but I was drawn more to the fact that it claims to have “The 90 Best Albums of the 1990s” listed inside.

I thought that, almost a quarter of a century on, we might want to review what Q thought were the best 10 albums from each year from 1990-98 (there’s no list for 1999). If there’s enough interest we can do a thread for each year over the next couple of weeks or so.

We can start with 1990: “The Year of Hope”

Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual The La’s – The La’s George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 Sinead O’Connor – I Do not Want What I Have not Got Pet Shop Boys – Behaviour Pixies – Bossanova Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet Paul Simon – The Rhythm of the Saints World Party – Goodbye Jumbo Happy Mondays – Pills ‘n’ Thrills & Bellyaches (Album of » Continue Reading.

It’s time to take the flags and bunting down from the loft and open that bottle of Blue Nun you’ve been keeping for a special occasion. Sparks will release their 26th album, “The Girl is Crying in her Latte”, on May 26th.

Re-energized after the Franz Ferdinand collaboration, and with a couple of strong albums and the Edgar Wright documentary under their belt, their career has momentum. Which, as all Sparks fans know, is precisely the cue for them to change musical direction, leave the country, release a pointless covers album and generally horse things up.

Except I don’t think that will happen. All their albums this century have been good or great, and they’ve settled into a nice groove of making baroque pop albums. That this album will be good is as inevitable as Manchester City winning the league except it’ll be a lot more fun.

So let’s welcome back the band who gave us the couplet “Can I fix you breakfast? / I hope it’s just your laugh that is infectious”.

https://twitter.com/sparksofficial/status/1625540422402736128?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

I was in a taxi this morning. The driver was streaming songs from his phone: Rock You Like a Hurricane by The Scorpions followed by whatever the collective noun is for a group of Michael Bolton songs (an unkindness? a murder?).

Geez, I thought, I haven’t suffered in a taxi so much since someone requested Pour Some Sugar On Me on the radio that time.

All of which got me thinking: were the late 80s the absolute worst time for chart music? Now I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to say that there was a lot of good music in the late 80s: Prince, Def Jam, REM, The Cure, New Order. I know, I know, I like all of those too apart from New Order. I’m talking about the chart music, the songs that represent the time, that if Simon Bates were still alive (Note to self: check Wikipedia before posting) he would be playing on the Golden Hour for that year.

1986-1991. Stock Aitken and Waterman. Hair Metal. Hi NRG. Power Ballads. Slap bass. Stadium Rock. Clattering, compressed production. Old songs from Levi Ads. Those were dark times. Surely the darkest of all?

Or » Continue Reading.

We all know that Paul Young’s No Parlez has become officially acknowledged as the Record You Are Most Likely to Find in a Charity Shop. But what would be the CD equivalent?

As has previously been noted, CDs are cheap these days, and when I browse Carousell, Singapore’s local version of eBay, I see a lot of CDs with a few titles coming up again and again. So I’d like to propose a Chazza CD shortlist. Note we’re looking at single artist CDs here, so no Nows or Buddha Bars.

Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill Moby – Play Savage Garden – Savage Garden Madonna – Bedtime Stories

And then of course there are the various greatest hits CDs, of which the most common seem to be Bee Gees and the Carpenters. And let’s take a minute to recognize Karen and David, whose music has been filling Chazza shelves in different formats for over 40 years now. Truly they are the band who people like enough to buy their music, but not enough to keep it when they move house.

I bought Jagged Little Pill recently. I didn’t buy it back the day, although I’ve always liked You » Continue Reading.

I recently counted that have over 40 Frank Zappa albums in my collection. As Zappa fans will know, this makes me a bit of a casual fan, owning about a third of his output. To be fair though, I do have most of the albums he released in his lifetime, missing the odd You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore here and the odd Bongo Fury there (and having actually heard Bongo, it’s likely to stay over there).

One of the albums I’ve never owned is Thing-Fish. I got into Zappa buying second hand CDs as a student. Even second hand, the double CD was quite the investment, and Thing-Fish never had the best of press. It still doesn’t. The reviews on All Music have it pretty down as for Zappa completists only, which in effect is saying that there may be 100 Zappa albums you want to buy before this one.

So I ask the Zappaphiles of The Afterword – do I need this album? Is it unfairly maligned and overlooked, or it just another 80s Zappa clunker?

1. Netherlands 1978. Deep orange, black trimming, round collar and the trefoil. And that shine! No strip had reflected light like that before, and few have since. Apart from anything else, it was a major contribution to pedestrian safety. No one got run over by a car at night while wearing that kit. As worn by Ruud Krol and Johnny Rep. And how. 2. Boca Juniors. One of football’s most distinctive kits and maybe its most bullet-proof. There has never been a bad Boca shirt. 3. Inter Milan. Like Boca, the Nerazzurri never change their kit that much. And why should they? After all, those black and blue stripes are so slimming. 4. Flamengo. Black and red hoops. As worn by Zico, Junior and Dennis the Menace. 5. Torino 1949. The elegant and classic granata strip of the grande Torino team of the late 40s had the scudetto on it so often you’d think it was the club badge. 6. West Bromwich Albion 1979. We need something from the UK so let’s go with WBA 1979. Like the Dutch kit, it benefits from the halo effect caused by being worn by cool players (you almost certainly are thinking about Cyrille » Continue Reading.

I’m interested in keeping an ongoing journal or blog, and would like to keep it private (I don’t want the world to know that I like Angel Witch). I’m wondering if anyone has suggestions for what would be the best bet? Would it be to go with something online like Penzu, or download the WordPress software and host it on a external drive? Any suggestions welcome!

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“Hello Everyone! Greg Mitchell here. I’ve just had a great afternoon shopping here in Ikea, I’ve bought a daybed, 800 loganberry-scented tea lights, 3 great big canvas photos of the Brooklyn Bridge and an award-winning $200 lamp shade…. rawr rawr rawr no no no no what was I finking of? My wife’s gawna kill me!”

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That’s the title of an interesting post on David Hepworth’s blog (link below):

http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-new-music.html

One of the points that he makes is that when living in an era where everything is available, then it doesn’t make sense to give priority to music that is new. I think this makes sense, after all, we don’t do that with books do we? If you read, say, 20 books a year, and only 3 or 4 were from that year, would you be bothered?

So what do you think? Does showing a lack of interest in new releases indicate a lack of curiosity? Or should we accept that, with everything available we should just go where our nose takes us, whether it be LCS Soundsystem, Charles Mingus, Paco De Lucia or Maurice Ravel?