blogging anarchy in the UK
Music
Many parallels can be made between now and the Great Depression of the 1930s Well there's something quite important about my life that most of my blog readers don't know. To you I'm probably just this guy who writes things about politics on the internet. And yes, I am him. But I'm also a guy who writes lyrics and performs vocals in a musical project called Torture Garden, and we're currently in
Generation Terrorists was released twenty years ago today, and like the young Manic Street Preachers themselves, it was shot through with apparent contradictions. It was revolutionary yet depressive, punk yet stadium rock, testosterone-charged yet played by 'feminine'-looking men, uncommercial yet pop. And precisely because it was all those extreme things, it was absolutely bloody great. Great,
When Yosh sent me his Fled The Flock MP3s for review during that hinterland period between Christmas and new year, I was kind of excited that it was really my first fresh music of 2012, because it was due for release on 1st January. Since then, the Mancunian has released two entirely separate new tracks, with yet another album on the way. I say "yet another" because in 2011 he brought out two EPs
The album cover of the year award goes to... This second album by young Newcastle-born hiphop collective Verbal Terrorists lived up to - and even surpassed - all the expectations I had before I had the privilege of hearing it. And those hopes were already pretty high, after hearing free download No Ifs No Buts and following Nobull's Twitter feed for a few months. But yes, I couldn't have
In taking a final look at my list of 2011 albums, it is clear that there is a huge gap between the top ten and the bottom ten. The foot of the table is filled with bands and artists I used to love, and who I'd have hoped would have something to say about the tumultuous world we live in today. The truth is, many of them did contribute such pearls of artistic wisdom, but a long, long time ago. It's
Machine Head came to the revolution party early. Back in 2007, before the first banker bailouts, at a time when the anti-Bush wave had retreated and music was perhaps the most 'apolitical' it had ever been, Robb Flynn used The Blackening to urge: "This is a call to arms/Will you stand beside me?/This is our time to fight/No more compromising/And this blackened heart will sing/For sad solidarity
I remember the first time I saw Lupe Fiasco was on some Channel 4 Russell Brand vehicle a few years back. The former seemed like a pleasant, intelligent young man, and he did a rap about skating which was probably great if you were a skater, but didn't have much to say for those who weren't. The second occasion was while I was researching my first article on Occupy Wall Street. Here was the same
We've had the earnest storytelling of Pearl Jam's Ten and the generational despair of Nirvana's Nevermind. I'll now conclude my twentieth anniversary of grunge series by dusting off my MP3s of Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger (Alice In Chains wouldn't release Dirt for almost another year). Just like with all the bands I've just mentioned, Badmotorfinger wasn't Soundgarden's first release by any