
Just the other day, everyone was sharing their Spotify Wrapped graphics and having a giggle and all that, but things were about to get tremendously serious at Spotify HQ. This week, the streaming behemoth announced that they’d be sacking 17% of their staff. That’s around 1,500 people losing their pay just before Christmas. Pretty brutal.

Kiss are no longer real people, and will be forever young as some imaginary thing. See, they’ve announced the ‘end of its physical existence’ because now, they’ll be digital avatars. They’ve copied ABBA obviously, because pop walks so rock can run. Anyway, it all feels a bit weird and this whole scenario is like when

Kenya Grace apparently had a viral smash, but virality is something that passes us by so we’ll just have to accept what’s been said regarding all that. What we do know, however, is that Kenya’s new single ‘Paris’ is a slice of future pop that we like a whole bunch. Writing, producing and performing her

Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band are bringing back the jangle, with Ciao Ciao Bambino! Recorded in West Kirby with Bill Ryder-Jones (him again!), Head says: “’Ciao Ciao Bambino’ came to me one night when I was thinking about the first words I ever heard. It was a song called ‘Ciao Ciao Bambino’ that my

Writing pop music isn’t easy, despite what dopes might say. When you get a slice of baroque, folk-pop, you better not ignore it and we’re super into this new track from def.fo, ‘Autumn Leaves’. If you like some strings with your jangle, get on this. It’s a group that features Tom Powell (Michael Head and

Now ambient music is back, the good folks over at Light In Attic Records have teamed up with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed’s Archive custodians to give us a vinyl reissue Lou’s ‘Hudson River Wind Meditations’. It’s not been on record before, and as you’d expect, it’s a real fancy package indeed. Out January 12,

Some songs, some albums are beatified by rock critics decade-on-decade, and sure, we should doff our cap to cultural impact and massive sales and all that stuff. But honestly, we’re allowed to just be irritated too. There’s loads of stuff that gets rammed down your craw so hard that the sheer ubiquity of the damned

The Indigo Girls are one of those hugely significant bands that mean so much to so many, yet, fly under the radar of most rock press, almost invariably because they’re women, and maybe because they make folk rock. They also happen to be gay, and the male gaze doesn’t stretch that far, clearly. The group…

Not every day is a solid news day, and not every day sees something you want to spend the time reviewing. However, other people are doing good stuff and we feel the need to share that, because we’re not the oracle on everything. With that, the always fantastic Bandsplaining have done a smart video on…

The music industry is sparring with TikTok and the whole thing has the vague whiff of when the music industry had a massive brawl with Napster. Now, of course, the scrap with Napster somehow ended up with Spotify, which isn’t exactly a result for people who make music, but consumers are happy enough. TikTok, for…

Once again, we’re talking about the lousy algorithm. For fear of sounding like horrible old-heads who yearn for the past, we do miss the time when we had every opportunity of listening to the music we wanted to, because we were the people off down the shops and trying before we were buying, and then…
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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