
It really is hard to imagine the shape of pop and soul music without Barrett Strong. While he may not have been the household name that many of his peers were, where would popular music be without his hugely influential and soulful powerhouse that is ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’? There’s more too – he…
Imagine for a second, you’re driving past Abbey Road, and you nearly hit a pedestrian on that famous crossing. Imagine some more, that the pedestrian in question is Paul McCartney. The car in question is a Prius, so it’s kinda funny that he nearly got offed by a green motor. Also, let’s go with the…

Caroline Polacheck’s is an adventurous pop star, and that’s always a good thing. She’s recently hit out at lazy comparisons to Bjork and Kate Bush, preferring to make music under her own steam, which is fair enough. She’s got a big voice and likes to be mildly awkward, which we say as a compliment of…

Hey! Do you like new music and, not just new music, but slightly difficult music that’s fun? Well, you should check outy Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra newbie, ‘Future Shaman’. Apply here if you like wonky jazz and post-rock. It’s discordant, good stuff. Mazurek is a composer/trumpeter and the Exploding Star Orchestra features Damon Locks…

We like a popstar making bold choices, and Sam Smith has been doing exactly that lately. It doesn’t matter whether you like the tunes or not, we should absolutely support a commercial artist when they lean into the experimental and off-kilter. Did you see them on SNL, with Sharon Stone draping themselves all over the…

It feels kinda shitty referring to a new artist as ‘Bjork’s daughter’, but needs must. Isadora Bjarkardottir Barney is her name, and she’s released her debut solo work as part of a comp showcasing Icelandic music. The comp is called ‘DRULLUMALL 4’ and Isadora’s track – ‘bergmál’ – is really good, you’ll be glad to…

The mighty Pet Shop Boys are all set to share some previously unreleased songs in April. It’s all part of a new thing they’re doing and that new thing is a book called ‘Annually’. The 2023 edition of the yearly release (hence the name) will be a 64-page hardback affair, containing journals, photos from their…

You can try and be as clever as you want, deep diving on this, that, and the other… but sometimes it’s just worth reminding yourself how great a band were. From Detroit, America’s greatest music city, Inner City was the brainchild of the great Kevin Saunderson and Paris Grey. Saunderson of course, was one of…

They’ve got an awkward name, have Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs. You get the impression they’re not arsed about this fact one bit, and besides, everyone’s already writing it down as Pigsx7. Anyway, they have a new heavy track out called ‘Detroit’ and with that, there’s news of a tour. This is the…

We don’t know much about Gia Ford, but we heard this new song from her called ‘Earth Return’ and it’s really good. We think this might fall under ‘alt-pop’, but we’re not sure of some of these genres – not that they matter! We’re hearing some gloomy ace old French pop, a smidge of Lana…

We’ve been getting stuck into King Pari’s music recently and it’s really great. We hear sniffs of Minneapolis ’80s funk throughout their cuts, which usually means a bad facsimile of Prince’s sound, but resolutely not the case here. We featured their song ‘Eggface (I’m Not Screamin’ for Nothin’)’ on our recent radio show which you’ll…

Doves went away for a little while, but now they’re back and have announced three intimate live dates following on from a brand new track earlier this week. There’s a new album coming too, and the whole thing is very heartwarming given the reasons for them going AWOL. The band say: “We were beyond heartbroken to…
THERE’S NO MONEY IN THIS GAME ANYMORE, BUT IF YOU WANT TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR THE POP CORPS, YOU ARE WELCOME TO GET IN TOUCH. HAPPY HUNTING.
POP CULTURE IS WORTH TALKING ABOUT.
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