The Pop Corporation
WORDS ABOUT MUSIC + POP CULTURE
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If you’ve been reading the music press this week, there was some alarm or peevish glee (depending on where you were doing your reading) that vinyl sales had dropped. A Billboard piece stated that vinyl sales dropped by 33%, which is not insignificant. That’s selling 34.9 million units, down to 23.3 million in 2024. Are
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Daniel Johnston’s ‘Artistic Vice’ LP is going to be reissued and it’ll come with some new – or rather, previously unreleased – music attached to it as well, which is cool for fans! The redo will be out on October 18th, and it’s not just a case of one or two alternative versions of songs
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At the country music awards, they didn’t nominate Beyonce for anything despite her all-conquering country LP and while many shrugged, many were irritated by the whole thing. The irritation came from all sides, but more importantly, so did the shrugs – apart from something for the shelf in the spare toilet or a sticker to
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We haven’t heard a mix as original as this in quite a while. Glitchy electronics, free jazz, soundscapes and loads more. You don’t need us to wax lyrical about this. Press play if you like cool new things.
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There’s something about golden era rap that just loves a fancy action figure, to place on your shelves next to your collected essays from hip hop journalism, tchotchkes, rap comics and high-end record middles and the like. It’s very wholesome, honestly. Well, Doom’s ‘Mm… Food’ is getting a reissue for its anniversary on November 15th,
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Once upon a time, music retreated away from the bombast of Britpop and US rap-rock, and all over the place, more introspective bedroom producers were making tricky electronic music and singer-songwriters gravitated toward the acid-folk of the ’70s, focusing more on cottage industries and community. Tunng managed to straddle both worlds, with critics dubbing their
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Look, most bands put a song out to let you know new things are coming, but not 2nd Grade. The power poppers from Philadelphia have chucked THREE whole songs at our ears and mercifully, they’re all really fun and filled with skuzzy pop hooks and jangly guitars. The revival of power pop is very welcome
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Today is John Lennon’s birthday – he would have been 84 – and to celebrate this, we’ve been treated to something rather surprising. While a lot of repackaged music from musicians can feel a little exploitative at times, churning out old stuff without much new going on, that’s not the case with this latest Lennon
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The excellent GULP are having a party for the 8th instalment of their broadsheet counter-culture magazine, which features all the wonderful words, tidbits, diatribes and cool design we’ve come to expect from them now. The issue drops on Friday 11th October and you can get down in person at The New Cross in Manchester’s Northern
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In another week, this would have been an album review – and maybe it still will – but sometimes you don’t want to read someone’s thoughts about what makes music work and how great a song is. Maybe you just want to listen to some tracks and make your own mind up? How are we
STOP HOARDING TUNES
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GET ON TTWIG’S PYSCH DREAM
There’s a lot of stuff knocking around passing itself off as psychedelic music these days with little more than a wibbly synth and a gentle fuzz guitar. That means, when something genuinely psychedelic crops up, you need to hold it close and give it water and attention. With that, we go to the magical sound…
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SUING THOSE WHO USE AI
And so it begins – like copyright law, legal action over sampling, and getting into the nooks and crannies of interpolation with ‘Blurred Lines’ – and now, it’s the turn of artificial intelligence – it was always going to happen. This is coming from the camp of Jorja Smith as her record label has said…
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THEPOPCORPS / BEST OF 2025
What a year it’s been. We’ve have the president of the United States of America calling people names while desperately trying to distance himself from a list of wealthy people who were quite probably up to no good with a convicted sex offender who mysteriously died in custody. We’ve had one billionaire so lonely that…
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STEVE CROPPER, RIP
There’s few better and more generous than the MGs, ably backing some of the finest, most iconic hits of any generation. Never hogging the limelight, but vital in its proximity, Steve Cropper and his guitar to make great records, legendary. At the age of 84, he’s left the building. “The Cropper family announces with profound…
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