
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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

The amount of incredible music that’s buried by time or happenstance is criminal, and one such LP that deserves all the love you can muster is Planetary Peace’s ‘Synthesis’… but what is it? For fans of modular synths, DIY charm, acid folk and heartbreakingly gorgeous music, this needs to be on your radar. A husband…

Reacting to contemporary life in 80s America, referencing Alvin Toffler’s ‘The Third Wave’ book, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May invented techno. They were the Belleville Three. Alongside them, Eddie Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, James Pennington and others were at the forefront of the first flush of Techno. Everyone knows this already. Anyone with even…

Not everything that’s new to our ear is technically new. We stumbled across some hellishly fun psychedelic goth music by a guy called Paul Orwell. It’s quite an ordinary name that, for music that sounds like someone trying to summon something evil out of the floorboards, but that’s okay. He’s got an album out called…

The music biz and the world of entertainment is a murky place and no mistake, but sometimes, the links are tied mega closely to seemingly innocent songs that you love to singalong to. Take the case of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’. Many people will think of Tiffany, singing her little socks off in US…
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