Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten: The Human League – Hysteria
In the early 80s people wanted Pop Stars and Pop delivered. Debbie Harry, Boy George, Adam Ant, Gary Numan, each one putting their own unique stamp on it, with an unforgettable look. And then along came Phil Oakey, who’d been germinating in a dark world of weirdness. He was androgynous pop perfection; all the girls …
Not Forgotten: The Divine Comedy – A Short Album About Love
Released at a time where the fashion was to fill the whole run time of a CD with as much material as possible regardless of quality, all in the name of offering the listener more ‘value for money’, The Divine Comedy’s A Short Album About Love, as its name suggests, pulled in the opposite direction. …
Not Forgotten: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Ragged Glory
It had been a long time coming. Neil Young had last reached one of his irregular artistic peaks in 1979 with Rust Never Sleeps, but throughout the next decade he seemed to go into free-fall, until he recorded the Eldorado EP which stopped the rot and followed it up with the fair to middling Freedom. …
Not Forgotten: E – A Man Called E
For two decades now E of Eels has steadily established himself as the premier purveyor of mature male angst. Literate, tuneful, and capable of creating great pop songs that can either be life-affirming or, as the man himself puts it ‘major bummer rock’, and sometimes, both of these things simultaneously. But what of the music …
Obituary: Jaki Liebezeit – Can’s human drum machine 1938 – 2017
Jake Leibezeit will be best remembered for his work with German avant-garde band Can. He played on some of their most memorable albums, such as ‘Ege Bamyasi’ and ‘Monster Movie’, and brought a steady motorik beat, relentless and minimalistic, yet unmistakeably human. His rhythmic repetoire however had infinite depth beyond the bare-bones pulse of Krautrock, …
Not Forgotten: Pink Floyd – Animals
In early 1977 the winds of change were blowing. Reflecting the mood of unrest prevalent in the UK at the time, the established old guard of music acts had evolved into largely complacent animals, while the combination of general discontent and the cyclical nature of change meant that they were about to be swept away …
Not Forgotten: Frank Black – Francis
How are you getting on with the latest incarnation of Pixies? Some of it’s OK. We got Head Carrier on the strength bouncing around to Um Chagga Lagga when it came on the radio. And it’s fine. But there’s the late 80s/early 90s stuff upstairs so… Here’s the thing though. The Pixies album I find …
Not Forgotten: Cat Stevens – Tea for The Tillerman
Maybe it was a reaction to being a social misfit during my school days, but while my contemporaries were falling underneath the spell of various grunge and hip hop acts back in the early 90s, I had started to pay more and more attention to my parents’ album collection. As teenagers during the 70s, they …
Not Forgotten: Rock Bass – Garbles
With their debut, Garbles, it’s quite obvious that Rock Bass do power pop. However, the trouble with a lot of power pop is that so much of it can sound really quite generic. Of course, historically the keystone act was Big Star, but there have been other stand outs as well. Cheap Trick, Teenage Fanclub, …
Not Forgotten: The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
September 2002. It is a time of personal misery and darkness. I’d sold the house I’d worked so hard to afford and had struggled to find a new place, so I was stuck back at my parents and holed up in their tiny box room with those few of my worldly goods that I could …