Some years ago BBC Radio 2 compiled “The Nation’s Favourite No 2 Single” a chart of the best songs to make it as far as #2 in the UK charts and no further. They compiled a list of “around 100 classic number two hits” and then Radio 2 listeners voted for their favourites. The results… Continue reading More Pop Trivia: Stuck at 2
There’s a documentary available on the BBC iPlayer now (and for another 27 days) about the gig that took place 40 years ago today in Manchester, the first Sex Pistols appearance in that city, at the Lesser Free Trade Hall. It’s called “One Night in Manchester: The Gig That Changed Music Forever”. Peter Hook, Jordan… Continue reading Punk and Prog
“It was the 3rd of June / Another sleepy, dusty Delta day”. Those are the first words of Bobbie Gentry’s US #1 “Ode to Billy Joe”, a song that always comes to mind on this date, along with the memory that this is the day I passed my driving test in 1987. If you’re unfamiliar… Continue reading Songs that feature dates
“It was 49 years ago today … Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play”. The Beatles album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (Universal Knowledge for most English-speakers over 35) was released on 1 June 1967. I don’t remember it myself but I do remember the ITV documentary that was aired on 1 June 1987,… Continue reading “It was 49 years ago today …”
Like many people of my generation I followed the charts (“the pop charts”, as we didn’t call them) as a child, as a teenager, and into my 20s. We listened to the Top 20 rundown on a Sunday evening, we watched “Top of the Pops” every Thursday, and over the years, whenever they changed the… Continue reading The Best Top 3 Ever
In every previous month so far this year there have been songs stuck in my head, Earworms, as noted in articles in January, February, March and April. There have been no involuntary snatches of tunes coming to mind with great force this month. The closest has been, of all things, “Super Trouper” by Abba. I… Continue reading No Earworms in May
“When I woke up the next day I was a different guy”. For me that is the most memorable sentence from Keith Richards’s “Life”. It describes the effect on him of hearing Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” on Radio Luxembourg one night. As it says on page 58 of my hardback edition: “That was the stunner.… Continue reading “When I woke up the next day I was a different guy”
For me April is a month of anniversaries and memorable dates, some of which I have written about as the month has progressed. Today is a day for reflecting on The Clash, one of the great bands, and on meeting two of their three front men, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. (I haven’t met the… Continue reading Memories of The Clash
This month’s earworms are just snatches of songs, a few lines here and there that I sing involuntarily. The first is Ne-Yo’s “So Sick”, a song I didn’t hear when it first came out. It was a UK #1 ten years ago this month, when my wife had her last Big Birthday, and when she… Continue reading April’s Earworms: Ne-Yo, Culture and Kitty Kallen
Is music a spandrel? This is a question I have discussed with many people over the years, usually beginning with a definition of the word spandrel. The term comes from architecture and has been borrowed to describe the by-product of an evolutionary adaptation, like flight in birds. Feathers evolved to keep birds warm, but they… Continue reading Word of the week: spandrel
The Compartments 