Unlike Supergrass (see yesterday’s track) Dodgy were never quite able to discard the off-the-wall approach of The Dodgy Album and move into more serious territory with later albums. That said,...

With their cheeky kids n escapades debut I Should Coco, and the success of Alright (a number 2 hit in the summer of 1995), Supergrass have since been often unfairly painted as both one-hit wonders...

Oldham’s Inspiral Carpets were one of those classic 80s/90s indie bands who came out of the North-West. Along with Happy Mondays, Stone Roses and others, they fused the original brit-rock and indie-pop influences that created...

I think it was my general, though not universally applied, early 90s rule of looking to the near future rather than the near past that was responsible for my missing out on Cocteau Twins. I...

When The Fall came calling, I wasn’t really ready. It was the mid-90s so fifteen, sixteen, seventeen albums and about 300 keyboard players into Mark E Smith’s revolving door of musical tyranny. Free Range I...

David Bowie has sold 140 million albums worldwide, one source claims. Another offers at least 134 million. He has released over 100 singles, and 26 studio albums. Many music writers and fans would tell you...

Today we’re back in the company of my early 90s burgeoning CD collection. 0898: Beautiful South (to give it its full credited title), or 0898 as its more commonly known was the third album by...

Magnolia is a quite lovely piece of glistening dream pop from Wilsen. Flecks of guitar float by on the breeze of 24-year-old London native Tamsin Wilson vocals, with bandmates Johnny Simon Jr and Drew Arndt...

Seminal, crucial, and riding high at number 440 in my most listened to artists chart are German synth-stabbers and uncanny valley pioneers Kraftwerk. As one of the most influential bands in the history of pop...

“Of course I love the old songs, from New Wave to Murder Park” sings Luke Haines on Future Generations, from the fourth (we weren’t expecting another one…!) album by The Auteurs. See what you can...

After the relative failure of Now I’m A Cowboy, and the irrepressible surge of Britpop, it’s tempting to describe After Murder Park as more of the same, only more so. In order to understand what’s...

“If you possess the wrong kind of ambition, you fall between the cracks”, Luke Haines opines with the final sentence of Chapter 10 of Bad Vibes, the first part of his autobiography.

While I was jotting down thoughts about an introductory chapter for my book, I got to thinking about old Marvin Gaye, and how it could possibly be true that I didn’t own a single one...

“What makes you ashamed to be British?” asked Select Magazine of each of its cover stars in the now infamous ‘Yanks Go Home!’ edition in May ‘93. Luke Haines, lead singer of

**New Wave** is 21 today. To celebrate this momentous occasion I am giving myself over - for better or for worse - to the uncompromising snarl and dark mind of Mr Luke Haines for the...

I get slightly concerned when I see a quote from Sam Calagione, head of the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery on the soundcloud entry for this track:

Naturally I own Astral Weeks. Thanks to friendly generosity I own Veedon Fleece, and I even own Polydor’s 1990 compilation The Best of Van Morrison. Brown Eyed Girl was one of the songs that nostalgia-fuelled...

Catchy without feeling melodic is how Simon Reynolds describes the early sound of Siouxsie & The Banshees, and that lack of melody might be one of the reasons I’ve never delved further than knowing that...

For a brief time, until the tragic suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis, Joy Division operated in a dark world of their own haunting creation: ambiguous flirtations with fascist symbolism went hand in hand with...

Happy 55th birthday Ian McCulloch! Your present from me is that I have listened to two of your tracks today - Market Town, from new album Meteorites, and classic track The Killing Moon, from Ocean...