
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

John Carpenter is twiddling the knobs again, with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies on a new version of his ’69th St Bridge’ which of course, was first heard on his ‘Escape To New York’. It’s a chunky, gnarly little number that will tickle the pickle of anyone who is into fun, sparse synth music. There’s…

When the tabloids went after George Michael, it was an appalling act of pettiness and spitefulness that saw him outed, not that his legions of fans cared about who he was fucking. So, it was a coup de grâce for George to tackle the whole thing head-on with his next single, ‘Outside’, where he gave…

Jamila Woods, for our money, is sorely underrated in the R&B game. She rarely missed and, in welcome news for our ears, she’s back with a great new song called ‘Good News’. There’ll be a new LP called ‘Water Made Us’ on October 13th, and if it’s anything like her last one ‘LEGACY! LEGACY!’, we’re…

Sure, you’ve heard Dire Straits ‘Walk Of Life’ a million times over. It’s a Dadrock masterpiece. It’s got that thin synth organ and boogie guitar, but did you know how hard it went live? Let’s not get bogged down in the whys and the whens, and just get straight into it – this is one…
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