Last week Mahlerman gave us some meaty musical Behemoths to munch on, so - having already covered the specky four-eyeses – I thought it might be apt to turn to those other playground unfortunates, the fatties. Gobble-gut, garbage-guts, guzzle-guts or gully-guts – I leave it to Jonathon Green to list the ... Read More...

Following the appearance of Bernard ‘Massive, unflagging, moral, exquisitely shaped, enormously vital, enormously funny, strong, supple, human, ripe, generous and graceful’ Levin in Nige's post about the inflation of hyperbole in book blurbs, Frank remembers the great critic's take on pop music... Given that it was published in 1970, Bernard Levin’s ... Read More...

Daniel Kalder continues our Record Rehab series with another look at a Bowie relaunch album that failed to fire on all rockets. Originally released in 1993, David Bowie’s Black Tie White Noise was the first of many albums he would drop over the next ten years that would each be hailed ... Read More...

For Remembrance Sunday, music of consolation from some who also served... Last week the inestimable Mahlerman treated us to a quartet of  composers once known as ‘the cow-pat school’ – a derisive reference to their thematic interest in the English pastoral. One contemporary (and close friend) of Vaughan Williams not in his ... Read More...

This week Brit peers at some short-sighted pop stars... Oh blimey, I  hope I haven't done a Gervais in the title of this post. But I come to praise the visually-challenged, not insult them. Men, it has been inaccurately said, seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. This is nonsense as we love ... Read More...

As The Stone Roses reform for their Third Coming, Brit books their Second one into Record Rehab... The world of British rock journalism - as it exists in the music mags, student newspapers and weekend supplements - is inherently absurd. Its principal absurdities include but are not limited to: excessive hype ... Read More...

Mahlerman celebrates a quartet of long-lived musical greats... Leaving aside His Bobness who, for most of us, sits in very thin air atop Mount Olympus, there are a handful of greats still sucking in denser gas below him. Just the mention of their christian names, like Bob, identifies them to most ... Read More...

Brit wonders whether their respective musical styles can shed some light on the cultural differences between the Greeks and Germans, currently locked in a loveless economic embrace... Given that the relationship between these two ancient European powers is currently of major international interest, I thought it might be apt this Sunday to ... Read More...

We begin a new series, in which we rehabilitate unjustly condemned albums, with a look at a piece of German electronica - was it all about being badgered for sex by machines? Like many people I enjoy the music of Kraftwerk and think that their reputation as musical pioneers is entirely justified. ... Read More...

This week we examine an inspired if actually quite strange mingling of cultures. Was the adoption of American soul music by white, working-class British youths one of the strangest things to happen last century? We're used to this sort of thing now. But I'm not sure anyone would have imagined it ... Read More...