Commentary Archive
Top 10 One-Hit Wonders According to Spotify
May 22, 2014
Ah, for the lost days of a real one-hit wonder. When someone would dominate the airwaves for months at a time then vanish off into the musical ether, never to be seen or heard of again. Now, we tend to see one-hit wonders stretching their fifteen minutes into hours of tedious reality TV or yards
Whatever Happened to The Sundays?
May 21, 2014
Occasionally, bands just drop out of existence, like they’ve accidentally stumbled into a musical Bermuda Triangle. After a selection of modest-to-smash hits, you’ll completely forget they exist, until years later when you hear one of their songs on the radio or in the background of a retro TV show and go “yeah, whatever happened to
10 Best Pop Artists of the 80s
May 15, 2014
The 1980s was a sensationally good time for pop. It just was. Suddenly, a big chunk of the music-listening population decided that all they really wanted to do was to have a bit of fun and get down to the funky rhythm. So we’ve put together a list of the definitive pop artists on the
The Evolution of Money and Wealth in Hip Hop
May 13, 2014
Twenty years ago in 1994, Skiz Fernando released the book The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture & Attitudes of Hip-Hop, a well received history on one of American popular music’s biggest success stories. On the blurb, he set out some of the movement’s defining musical features as well as charting the genres history from
Louis Armstrong Duet with Lil Wayne? How Jazz Influenced Hip Hop
May 12, 2014
Jazz. Hip-hop. Jazz. Hip-hop. Jazz. Hip-hop. Just two different things at their heart, really, when you think about it. Right? When you think about the genesis of jazz, the first thing that crosses your mind is probably a bunch of well-dressed gentlemen knocking back illegal booze and forming tightly-wound groups in the underbelly of glamorous
Posh Pop And A Decade of Keane’s ‘Hopes and Fears’
May 8, 2014
On May 10th this year, it will be exactly ten years since Keane’s Hopes and Fears charted in 19 countries worldwide. An emotionally charged, soft melodic rock record that would start the careers of four Sussex lads who to date have released four studio albums and charted worldwide with gentle anthems like “Crystal Ball”, “Somewhere
Is Pitchfork Still the Center of the Indie Music Universe?
May 2, 2014
In a slightly disconcerting 51-second video uploaded in 2006, dissonant piano music plays. Then; a man—no, not a man, a dummy dressed in red, with the name Sound Team taped to it’s chest, swerves into view of the shaky-cam footage. The dummy is swiftly impaled on a pitchfork a number of times; it’s then hurled
10 Best Songs About New York City
April 30, 2014
Ah, New York City. The city of dreams, creator of artists, inspiration behind countless big-name, generation-spanning songs. New York lays claim as the subject of probably more gorgeous songs than any other city in the world; something about the combination of old and new, young and old, creative and urban seems to spark everyone to
Paul Weller Is Right To Be Angry About eBay
April 24, 2014
Immediately after I found out that Paul Weller was bowing out of all future Record Store Days because his limited edition single ended up on eBay, I was dumbstruck at how ignorant he seemed of the world he now lived in. People have always sold things, I thought, after handing over the single on this
The ‘Russian Facebook’ now at war with Major Record Labels
April 17, 2014
One social network is now the subject of much of the music industry’s collective anger, and it’s probably not one you’re using like Facebook or Twitter. VK (previsouly known as VKontakte) is Russia’s ‘version of Facebook’ and has been turning a blind eye to some systematic music piracy happening on it’s servers. Three separate lawsuits
