
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

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

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

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

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

Like rare records but hate spending a bazillion quid on them? Thank god for reissues! And thank god for Mr Bongo who are reissuing the ace Grupos Los Yoyi LP, ‘Yoyi’. Bongo are launching a Cuban series and this is a gem of a psychedelic funk affair, that touches on fusion, disco, future shit, Latin…

We know very little about Samantha Urbani, but that’s okay – you don’t need a back story to get into someone’s cool new record do you? That said, we’re eager to find out more on hearing new song ‘Time Keeps Slipping’ which is from her debut LP, ‘Showing Up’. Have a listen. Sounds a bit…

There’s a lot of quizzes about The Beatles in the world, but very few of them will get devotees’ brain-matter really fizzing. Well, there’s one on the always charming Dave Bennett YouTube channel which made our brains melt. It’s not impossible, but there’s moments where you’ll yell ‘I KNOW THIS ARRGH!’, and the answers are…

CHAI are a very cool pop band that you should get to know if you haven’t already. It’s been called ‘Neo Kawaii’, and that’s definitely a great name for the sound – but there’s also a sniff of Minneapolis funk about it, amongst the Mega Drive menu music choogle. CHAI’s self-titled new LP is out…
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.
CONTACT: HOWDYPOPCORPSATGMAILDOTCOM