That was the title of Roxette’s greatest hits compilation. Not a fan, but I admired the ESL-ness of that title and indeed any act that avoids the title “Best of…” or “Greatest Hits”.

“Hits out of Hell!” – Meatloaf. The brilliant pretencieux-ness of Japan’s “Assemblage”.

Any more for any more?

When Trump lost the Election in 2020, he loudly blamed the voting machine technology, saying it had been compromised by his political enemies. This was repeated verbatim by Fox News and reported as fact. The main culprit being one Tucker Carlson – a TV presenter

Fast forward 3 and a bit years and Trump’s lies have now cost Fox News $787m because they had to admit the whole story was bollocks and pay that money to the makers of the voting machines to compensate them. Tucker Carlson has now left Fox News, probably fired.

The settlement for defamation was the largest paid to anyone, ever. The high price reflects the seriousness of the allegations and allows Rupert Murdoch and Fox News the ability to draw a line under the whole sorry affair and hopefully avoid being tried for treason.

Now, Sir Rupe is not known for chuckling away his sorrows and letting bygones be bygones. He’s a vindictive character and seems to be in turmoil in his personal life. In his mind, Trump’s lies – harmless and lucrative fun for many years – have now cost him a hell of a lot of money. He won’t starve » Continue Reading.

With recent reissues of DSOTM and Tubular Bells hogging the headlines, today’s reissue of Clog Dance by Violinski might get lost in your news feed. But not here!

The song has of course been covered and reissued many times – not least in the form of 1991’s Mik Kaminksi-penned musical “CLOGS!” that featured a very young James Corden in his first starring role as Little Clog. Little Clog was the youngest child of the Clog family who, against all odds, take the footwear world by storm with their homemade clogs.

Mik said – “My vision for the show concerned the phenomenon of nominative determination. After all, I’m called Mik Kaminsky and I’m a violin player, so my band HAD to be called Violinski, right? So lo and behold…we’re a great success! Me and my pal from Wimbledon, Mike de Alberqueque, thought that there was something in this – and the rest is, as they say, history.”

The show enjoyed a solid pre-West End provincial run spanning nearly two weeks in the west country. With the country in turmoil following the toppling of Margaret Thatcher a year earlier, financial support for the project fell away. This was a » Continue Reading.

A recent post on selling records (and my own experience 25 years ago) leads me to conclude that keeping records as an investment is not sound financial advice. Even if you’ve taken really good care of them. My pristine copy of Heaven 17’s Luxury Gap, with signatures on the cover, turned out not to be the pension fund I thought it would be.

Could there be a genuinely priceless record in existence somewhere? If so, what would it be?

My thought is a unplayed pressing of “That’s All Right” in an original paper sleeve owned by the estate of Elvis Presley’s mother. On it would be a written “This is for you, Mama!”, signed and dated by Elvis.

Or…found under a floorboard at Menlove Ave…a high street recording booth disc dating from 1960 featuring a very young John & Paul larking about with a very rudimentary version of Love Me Do?

I think that even these items would probably change hands if the purchaser was a Musk or a Bezos or the Sheik of Araby. Ten million quid would do it. But I’m happy to be wrong.

The former PM has written a long essay on what happened in 2022 when she was PM for 44 days. She introduced the fiscal policy that she always said she was going to do. Conservative MPs said “yeah! That’s more like it!” and the Daily Mail’s headline said “AT LAST! A TRUE Tory Budget!”

The trouble is that the knock-on effect on gilt markets sent pension funds hurtling towards insolvency and then the spooked equities markets ran for their lives. This meant the Treasury had to find 65 billion pounds to stabilise everything. Seemingly, Rishi Sunak knew that this would happen and every single other economic commentator alive. And the Daily Mail. And those Tories who voted for her 6 weeks earlier.

So why did nobody tell Liz or Kwasi Karteng? That’s the main beef Truss has with all of this, according to the article. She learned of the consequences after-the-fact and was blindsided by political opponents in her own party who knew this would happen – and then once it did, they cane in and took power themselves.

Truss talks about a left-leaning sentiment in the country but it’s mainly an economic system calibrated to maintain the status quo, » Continue Reading.

I can fully understand her decision to step down. Like everywhere it seems, there’s around 2-5% of the population who are fully immersed in conspiracy theories and hidden agendas where Ardern is being paid by big pharma to promote and help spread COVID in order to make billions for her and her lizard mates, who are also, er, trafficking children for a giant organisation that’s top secret and no one knows about. We have our own media personalities here who go by the Hopkins/Farage playbook and get a stupid amount of airtime.

These people aren’t harmless though, the words they use – particularly when directed at Ardern – are disgusting highly personal attacks and misogyny is very much the order of the day, love.

Conservatively, Ardern’s handling of COVID saved over 10,000 lives in NZ. Her approach was health-based, not driven by the economy. Her calm, decisive and reassuring way of handling of the crisis gave her the biggest populat mandate at a general election for decades. That was in 2020, which seem like the sepia-tinted good old days now. The occupation of the parliament grounds about a year ago was scary. As we saw with the Christchurch mosque » Continue Reading.

Went into a Pool shop last week and by the door they had a selection of very smart and expensive pool tables for sale. I thought I was in the wrong place but further into the shop they had domestic swimming pool equipment, pumps, chemicals and cleaners. Covering both bases. Genius!

Commentators say that Trump was a liability for the Republicans but I think the momentum he brings got them closer. The real damage was the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs Wade – very much a step too far.

I find that sensible people will tolerate a certain amount of right-wingness if they have to, but this kind of oppressive legislation is the opposite of free market principles and letting people operate how they want with minimal govt interference. I’m not sure if US media realise that abortion and gun control are not election-deciding issues in any other country.

Anyway – I think the thickos of the far right have shot themselves in the foot on this issue. Will Trump run in 2024 and will this help the Republicans? I think they need to cut him off and let an election cycle wash through before coming back with someone who isn’t mad.

Rees-Mogg, Fabricant, Dorres and Zahawi not only publicly backed a leadership bid, but put together this really quite slammin’ campaign video.

We Are the Jonzun Crew! is aimed squarely at attracting the CA youth vote using the latest electronic sounds and totally on point distorted futuristic vocals “y’know, like Daft Punk’s shit” says a chewing Rees-Mogg before adding “Yeah, it’s fire – not gonna lie” .

CGI and deepfake AI boffins have totally transformed the 4 pals so that they are almost totally unrecognisable. Fabricant confesses he was amazed at what this kind of technology can do to his appearance. I mean, I look ridiculous! Look at my hair! But it’s worth it so that we can get Boris back into No 10!”.

The video’s half-million pound cost was met by the crew themselves using “Wilf Artz” a video arts company suggested by Boris himself. “With that kind of endorsement and this amazing technology we can’t go wrong!” declares Zahawi, offering a relaxed high five gesture to Rees-Mogg, who responds with a very high formal handshake.

So while the hit parade beckons for this song – is this just a one-off, a flash in the pan?

“NO !” shouts » Continue Reading.

No! It’s NOT “time for a reappraisal” that’s not the energy of this thread, man. And you can relax – I’m not going to get all “surprisingly eclectic” on yo arses. However, given the sheer volume of songs and pop chart action that he has been responsible for, Lloyd-Webber is rarely mentioned here and if he is, it’s at the same low level of respect as perhaps a Rupert Murdoch or a disgraced figure like J**m* S****e. Is this entirely fair? Has everything musical coming from his pen been consistently terrible? Really?

I put it to you that “Memory” from Cats is a very good song indeed. Do I willingly play it? God, no. But I can accept that in the context of a musical – spotlight on singer, it’s a perfect emotional lip-trembler and a challenging song to sing well. So stand up Elaine Paige! (Oh…she IS standing up).

My mother bought Pie Jesu when it was released as a single and played it a great deal. I don’t hate it. I like really quiet orchestral murmurings and all the voices on here are present an correct. Yes, it’s ALW and the ILMHTASTH Sarah Brightman so “boo” and » Continue Reading.

Exciting Depeche Mode news just in. They are in the studio, working on new material! There are now two surviving original members. Dave, the skinny singer with a penchant for waistcoats and his old friend Martin, a tanned and thirsty musician with distinctive blonde hair. They have known each other pretty much from school days in the grey commuter-belt town where they grew up. I know, I know. This sounds a lot like Status Quo – and this has got me worrying. You see, when Quo’s personnel were in place (i.e. not dead yet) you got the feeling that there was a certain amount of quo-lity control. By the time it was just the two of them, decades of success meant that they had a ferociously loyal fanbase and a substantial good will. As they felt cheated by the record industry, they set about monetising their legacy in any way they could. This video shows them in this later period, singing “Fun Fun Fun” in a shopping mall food court, with some of the Beach “Boys”. And there’s Cilla Black pretending to enjoy it for 10 seconds so she could get her appearance fee. Fine, I guess – but would » Continue Reading.

A friend and work colleague is having a tough time at the moment. I know he is a massive Dylan fan and I also know he’s not an obsessive in terms of collecting his records etc.

I’d like to send him a Dylan item as a thoughtful gift that he might not necessarily have. I am a bit of a Dylan ignoramus so can only call to mind the LPs that everyone always talks about. I have had a look at what is available and there is a lot of material.

I know there are a lot of Dylan heads here. What would you consider a cracking Bob-related gift? Budget around 50 quid.

I woke up this morning wondering what John Lennon thought about ELO and Jeff Lynne? The others worked with him, especially George. The late 70s LPs sold by the gazillion and were very Beatley indeed. Perhaps John liked him – and this is why the others were happy enough to work with the Mr Blue Sky Hitmaker.

Anyone know? Come on, it’s not like there’s anything else happening at the moment.

What a guy. I like him. What do you think?

Just checking in to see if anyone is watching. It’s breakfast time here in NZ and the nation, as one, is crowded around their TV screens, drinking in every moment of Duran Duran and Rod Stewart while they eat their morning Weetbix(sic).

I’m gilding the lily a little bit – yes, it’s on TV here but I suspect I’m the only person I know who’s actually watching the show.

Highlight so far is Alicia Keys crowbarring in her famous song about New York by having a preamble ramble about how “London feels like home… so in many ways this song is just as much about London…”. Yeah wha’evah, AK.

Anyway, I am enjoying the frosty, eyes glazed-over expressions of the royals until they realise they are on TV. Particularly Kate – her resting face is severe with pursed lips and the narrowed eyes of a ruthless operator.