The Pop Corporation

WORDS ABOUT MUSIC + POP CULTURE

  • SPOTIFY PAYOLA?

    Any musician who has uploaded their music to Spotify as an independent artist knows how futile it all is, expecting to end up on any of the editorial lists made by the company, which help push songs to millions of people using their front page. The fact is, if you don’t have the connections through…

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  • RIP JOSEPH BYRD – A TRUE ONE-OFF

    After his father bought a mine in Tucson, Arizona, Joseph Byrd grew up and found himself drawn to music. Initially, it was vibraphone and accordion in pop groups, he soon branched out into local TV arrangements and college jazz combos. A talented kid, he found himself in a fellowship at Stanford, where he rubbed shoulders…

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  • SHOEGAZE DANIEL AVERY MIX

    You may know Daniel Avery for his smart techno music, but there’s more strings to his bow than thunderous beats and brain frazzling synths. To show that, he’s done a really nice shoegaze mix which is perfect for transporting you out of the gloomy weather at the tail end of 2025. While this mix may…

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  • WEYES BLOOD FEATURES ON SPELLING TRACK

    If you’ve been waiting impatiently for a new album from Weyes Blood, you need to chill your boots. All good things come in their own time. Of course, she featured on a Drugdealer track earlier in the year, but she’s also appearing on a new track from SPELLING. And yes, we kinda feel bad that…

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  • ORVILLE PECK RETURNS

    Orville Peck is one of the leading alt-country voices – thankfully, that means his musical choices, rather than simply branding him as ‘alternative’ because he isn’t a heterosexual man – although you’d be forgiven for thinking that’s the case. He’s got a new EP coming out on November 14th called ‘Appaloosa’ and there’s a song…

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  • VIAL’S GLAM GRUNGE

    A lot of punk has a hardcore or pop punk bent at the moment – makes sense given the early Noughties are officially retro and the kids are looking to the past for comfort. Well, it’s nice to see some other genres bleeding into the scene. We look to VIAL, who have put a single…

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  • DISCUSSING ROISIN MURPHY

    We wanted to write something about this Whole Thing with Roisin Murphy, but didn’t get much further than “why can’t some people just shut their mouths about other communities, especially ones who loved them so much?” Well, we just watched a very sensitive and well thought out video essay from The Last Mixed Tape, which…

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  • CHECK THE CONVENIENCE

    There’s a certain twang in alternative rock that really works the gears of music nerds. You look at Pavement, Television et al, and you find that the discordant guitars aren’t simply playing out of key, but makes you feel a bit smarter. It’s a cunning trick. Well, we got that feeling from the new song…

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  • FREE RANGE NOV 25

    Hello there. We remembered that listeners of our related radio show – FREE RANGE – might like to read the tracklisting for the show, instead of just listening to the words being pronounced badly throughout it. It’s the last show of the year before the round-up of 2025’s best music, so the last time where…

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  • SURPRISE NEW NONAME TRACK!

    We’re big fans of NONAME who is someone who absolutely marches to the beat of her own drum, and she’s at it again with a surprise new track! Called ‘Hundred Acres’, it appeared on the algorithm which did its job for once, and as you’d expect, it’s smart as hell, funky, irresistible chorus, and is…

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STOP HOARDING TUNES


  • SONGS THAT RANDOMLY ENTERED MY HEAD #8

    Hatebeak are a thrash metal band that have a parrot for their lead singer. Of course it randomly entered the ol’ brain putty.

  • MORE NEW HIGH LLAMAS

    The High Llamas are ace and it’s lovely to have them back. They’ve got a new song called ‘Toriafan’, which is different enough from the old stuff to make it worth your while, but also containing that High Llamas magic of years past. Sean O’Hagan, who basically is the band, sez: “The song is about…

  • THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUL OF BRAZIL

    Brazil has a rich heritage of musical inventiveness, giving the world the languid sophistication of Bossa Nova and the erupting joy of Samba. Of course, through the ‘60s and ‘70s, in the face of a brutal, military dictatorship, Brazilian intellectuals and the youth forged an artistic path through Cinema Novo and now famous Tropicalia music…

  • SIERRA FERRELL NU COUNTRY

    Country music has always got a raw deal for being racist hick music, but that’s usually from the worst kind of person who hasn’t listened to a lick of country music in their life. Fact is, it’s a genre as enduring as any other, and as broad a church as you’ll find anywhere. That said,…

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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.