The Pop Corporation

WORDS ABOUT MUSIC + POP CULTURE

  • FOLK-ROCK LOVELIES, MAPACHE, EVERYONE

    Everyone loves a bit of mellow, well-made, ’70s folk-rock. And if you don’t, that’s on you. Grow up. With that, it’s all well and good delving into the past and ferreting out forgotten gems – but what of the new bands carrying the torch? Well, let’s have a listen to Mapache. Mapache have announced a

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  • PIRATE RADIO 82

    The BBC Archives have hit gold again, this time with a brilliant look back at a London pirate radio station back in 1982. You’ll hear killer reggae from those with radio shows made with pure love. Pre internet, pirate radio was vital because often, it was one of the only opportunities anyone got to hear

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  • URUSEI YATSURA GO GOLD

    One of the most underrated bands of the ’90s are Urusei Yatsura. They were noisy good fun and could deliver sugary sweet punk as well as delivering all manner of unholy noise on your ears. Hailing from Glasgow and with good hair, their gigs were chaos, with drumsticks used as blunt force to hit guitars

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  • THE LIFE OF A SUPPORT BAND

    Being a support act on a tour must be a strange experience. Imagine you’re playing to a hundred people in a pub, and then some stadium sized band decides to take you on the road. Quite the leap, and with non of the fame. Well, here’s an old video from the BBC Archives concerning exactly

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  • FFA COFFI PAWB REISSUE NEWS!

    Welsh music fans and Super Furry completists rejoice! The 1992 LP, Hei Vidal! from Ffa Coffi Pawb is getting reissued so you can have a lovely copy on vinyl. Formed in Bethesda in 1986 by sixteen year old friends Gruff Rhys and Rhodri Puw, this is the high watermark of the band’s work. You’ll be

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  • SO YOU MAY HAVE HEARD BLUR HAVE A NEW LP DUE

    Blur announced some massive Wembley gigs and that was that, right? Wrong. They have surprised everyone by announcing a new album! It’s called The Ballad of Darren and is out July 21 via Parlophone. Their first since ‘The Magic Whip’. And there’s a new song too, called ‘The Narcissist.’ Damon Albarn: “This is an aftershock record, reflection and

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  • NEW PALE BLUE EYES FOR THE ’80S INDIE FAN IN YOU

    Pale Blue Eyes have a new song out and, if you’ve not heard of them before (that’s okay – no judgement here) and you’ve been moaning about how no-one sounds as good as what you’ve misremembered as your youth in the 1980s, you’re in luck. See, the group’s new song ‘Take Me Over’ sounds a bit

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  • ANOHNI + THE JOHNSONS NEW ONE IS FANTASTIC

    ANOHNI and the Johnsons have a new track out and it’s a soulful, brooding gem. There’s a new LP due to called ‘My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross’, with the lead single called ‘It Must Change’. The artist says: “Some of these songs respond from the present day to global and environmental

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  • VILLAGE PEOPLE TURN ON TRUMP

    Donald Trump’s use of ‘YMCA’ (and to a lesser degree, ‘Macho Man’) by the Village People has been a curious thing. For someone who is, and represents everything virulently homophobic and a whole other bunch of phobics in the US, it’s particularly strange that he’d plump for a song that is not only very camp,

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  • GIRL RAY NEW SONG SHOULD EXCITE YOU FOR THEIR LP, HONESTLY

    Girl Ray are getting a lot of hype lately and sincerely, it’s richly deserved as they’ve been making great music for a while now, and the new stuff sounds like the best stuff they’ve done to date. Great stuff indeed. They have a new LP out in August called ‘Prestige’ and the latest track is

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STOP HOARDING TUNES


  • RYAN LESLIE BACK WITH THE STUDIO VIDS

    When Ryan Leslie is on form, he’s hard to beat. From ‘Diamond Girl’ to ‘I-R-I-N-A’, to ‘You’re Not My Girl’ and ‘Addiction’, R-Les was serving up bangers that were big, but should’ve been made even bigger. His production work with other artists was hot stuff too, with the mega ‘Long Way 2 Go’ with Cassie,…

  • TRACY CHAPMAN X LUKE COMBS NICENESS

    There’s been a lot of chatter around Luke Combs’ hit cover of ‘Fast Car’, a lot of furrowed brows and people wafting their forks pensively at dinner parties, about whether a country singer should be doing a song by a woman of colour, a woman people assume is gay (look, she might be, but she’s…

  • TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE

    In the corporate world, there’s this terrible pair of words that people use – “proactive” versus “reactive”. There’s something in it though, because we all know that there’s two types of people in the world. The first is someone who creates a parameter for a fun Spotify playlist. Maybe they come up with a scenario…

  • THE RETURN OF BETH GIBBONS

    Beth Gibbons is one of the good ones. Never needlessly hurried, she’s made incredible music with Portishead, and of course, she’s done other work like the folkie numbers with Rustin Man and Paul Webb. Well, she is back again with her debut solo LP ‘Lives Outgrown’. “As usual it reflects what’s been going on with…

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