
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

Oh, the fractured and chequered history of the mighty Sugababes. There’s been six members, and you could only really argue that four of them really count, and the puritans, three. Obviously, the holy trinity are Mutya, Keisha and Siobhàn, but Heidi’s tenure involves some of the group’s most iconic moments, even if deep in our…

BBE Music put out good shit, and if you’ve heard their J-Jazz compilations, you’ll know that they’re some of the finest, most adventurous comps around. In addition to that, they’ve put out a brilliant book chronicling Japanese jazz called J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz From Japan 1954-1988, which is a look at some super…

Khruangbin are back everyone, and yes, they’re wigs! The new song is called ‘May Ninth’ and, for fans of the trio’s sound, it sounds like Khruangbin, so no worries – they’ve not pivoted to sounding like dubstep or anything. It’s taken from the imminent ‘A La Sala’ and it’s gently psychedelic, woozy stuff. The album…

It’s 2001 and the USA, UK and pals are carpet bombing the Middle East. January, George Dubya Bush is sworn in thanks to some hanging chads, Apple launches iTunes and, later that year, 9/11 would change everything forever. While US democracy looked shaky, while war saw people taking to the streets in protest, people set…
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