How Old Is Superman?

Pete Baran — 20 Aug 2004

Kirk Alyn

How Old Is Superman? One of the seemingly undefined aspect of the Superman mythos is that of his ageing. Those who fall on the side of his omnipotence in everything (the superhearing, superbreath, superhair bunch) probably think as a pret[…]

Pop As Ghost

Tom — 9 May 2023

ABBA Voyage, The ABBA Arena

In Jim Steinmeyer’s fine history of stage magic, Hiding The Elephant, he goes into detail on the history of Pepper’s Ghost, the illusion that captivated Victorian London and revolutionised the tricknology of magic p[…]

The Bible Of Badness: GENESIS

Tanya Headon — 14 Nov 2006

In The Beginning There Was Nothingness. IF ONLY.
In The Beginning There Was The Word. NOT THE BIRD FROM L7 PULLING DOWN HER KECKS AGAIN.
But neither of these are strictly true. Because the first book of the Bible Of Badness is Genesis. And if you wer[…]

HIDDEN LANDSCAPES: THE PODCAST

mark sinker — 8 May 2018

Eight episodes are now up: Hazel Southwell and Mark Sinker talking through the story of the UK music press from two very different angles (bcz I am old and she is not), to help start the conversation around my upcoming book.
pod 1: the pilot!
pod 2: […]

Dead Again: MP3s And The Dissolution Of Pop

Tom — 26 Apr 1999

The mode of the music changes, the city quakes, or at least those blocks of primer-than-thou office space quake that house the HQs of worldwide record companies. The reason, apparently, is MP3 technology, which you all know about and most of you use,[…]

The Cottage Industry Of Moments

Robin — 1 Jan 2002

British Bubblegum Pop 1968-1972

“Sunday morning, up with the lark,I think I’ll take a walk in the park,Hey hey hey, it’s a beautiful day …”Daniel Boone, “Beautiful Sunday”, 1972

British bubblegum pop, c[…]

Girl Talk

Tom — 28 Jul 2009

Here’s something I did for fun yesterday: a graph showing the % of UK #1 hits with female lead vocals, year by year. (Shared male/female leads counted half)*.

(Click on it if you want it a bit clearer).
The red bars are the percentage of femal[…]

Which Decade Is Tops For Pops? The Results, Decade By Decade.

Mike Atkinson — 17 Jun 2010

Finally, the moment of ABSOLUTE POP TRUTH is upon us! And my goodness, what a nail-biter of a contest this has been. Halfway through the voting, two decades broke decisively ahead of the pack, establishing a lead that proved impossible to catch up wi[…]

The Friday Fun Canon Discussion And Monster Poll

Tom — 12 Mar 2010

People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, v[…]

The FT Top 25 Pubs of the 00s No 1: Glasshouse Stores

Pete Baran — 9 Jul 2010

So we get a winner, down on Brewer Street in Soho, the Glasshouse Stores was voted the number one pub of the noughties by those of us who voted. A nice pub sure, but so much better than the others? To find out why it scored so highly I thought I woul[…]

Why, Claudius? – Family Affairs

Bec — 17 Mar 2024

“Family Affairs” begins with disembodied Clavdivs summarising the last nine years of plot: Julia and Marcus Agrippa did get married, but then Livia poisoned Marcus Agrippa and forced Tiberius to divorce his wife Vipsania…somehow? This allowed T[…]

Why, Claudius? – My scavenger quilt will only hide the truth

Bec — 20 Jun 2024

Shortly after this project began, I was lucky enough to watch Richard Ayoade and Black Francis perform “Hey” during Adam Buxton’s live podcast. It was an evening packed with hilarious AI-generated art, charming anecdotes and general ramblechat,[…]