in a nice synchronicity, I picked up a second hand copy of this album not two days ago, based on it getting good notices forever, but never knowingly having heard it – and now it’s all this. I was surprised the […]

What I’m finding interesting (after looking into Linehan’s form, only having known – and loved – IT Crowd) is that many of us seem unusually well-adjusted in terms of the storm/teacup aspect of social media. This […]

Love the band, love the album. But I agree that a 10th anniversary reissue feels like a slight occasion. Admittedly, The National have released quite a few since then but most bands these days would have only put […]

Radiohead’s Planet Telex on The Bends. Not a disaster, but a high bar set from thereon in.

Agreed. Sets up the album and the (relatively tangential) change in their sound to something more atmospheric. Love that song.

I hadn’t heard it since I was kid when, when night in my mid 30s I arrived home drunk late one nght, turned on Rage and it was playing. I dissolved into tears at the sheer pull of nostalgia.
I’m pretty sure […]

“They were in a room with no windows in! And there were four guys of them!”
That’s how many times I’ve seen Compleat Beatles.

I was slightly too young to have seen much of it contemporaneously, and Sydney was […]

Apparently the story has been walked through and debunked, but it’s still fact for me. Love it.

Morrissey’s intro tape when I saw him in 2006 was all covers of his own songs, some artists more obscure than others. A good scene setter. (He often wears his own merch onstage too come to think of it)

Maiden.

Fair dos. Probably more a comment about 21st C trial by media than anything else. I don’t really know much of his work outside X-pensive Winos, but he produced The Church’s Starfish album so that’s contribution enough for me.

I wonder if Waddy wasn’t busy in court on a few of these occasions.

I’m guessing he’s too old to have been ‘cancelled’

Got into them around the time of the Union album, which is great. but The Cold Still is wonderful. Atmospheric, kinda downbeat but compelling. Since then they’ve gone brighter and widescreen. Still hearing lots of […]

If memory serves, Joe Jackson recorded an album live in front of an audience but didn’t want a ‘live album’ so asked them not to applaud or make any noise.

“I don’t believe in an God”?
I do agree though. Almost as if someone challenged him to write the most Nick Cave lyric he could think of.

Oh, I love that line. In light of the lyrics of their earlier work, it sets an intriguing and ironic tone. I like the self-awareness, the idea that their lyrical thrust* is moving into new areas, the subversion of […]

The Cure did Disintegration well: six or so b-sides and unreleased from that era, a short break, then back on for the album, one or two ‘hits’ as an encore to close. Helped by the fact that it’s a long and […]

If anyone has *anything* to say about Jodie Whittaker, they can say it to me first.

“Trying not to be insensitive and avoiding deeper debate when not up to speed”?!?! Sir, please leave the internet!

Oh, I dunno. I imagine it’s pretty grim under all that.
Besides, Simon Gallup aside, they’re hardly the most active performers; all the hair and makeup helps them play to the back of the hall.