August 1989: Shakespear’s Sister are breaking into the top 10 with their debut single “You’re History”. At the same time, a man better known for his production work has overcome his shy reluctance to pen...

It’s too easy, really, to connect Joy Division to The Smiths. You could start in Salford, home of Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and the Salford Lads Club, which The Smiths posed rather iconically in front...

It’s a pretty small jump from Crowded House to Joy Division. You just need to take a diversion via Paul Young, obviously. Not only did Young cover Don’t Dream It’s Over, his three times platinum...

Having hinted at it yesterday, I did think I’d hold out for longer before pulling this one out, but perhaps I can use it as the start of a series of tenuous or gratuitous links...

In a world that fully embraces Crowded House (who might just crop up later this month, you never know…), it’s mystifying that a band like the Go-Betweens should pass by almost unnoticed during a 12-year...

I've decided November is to be 80s month, and although I'm a day late with the first video, this gives me a chance to dedicate the first track to office drones everywhere.

Ah, the 80s: that most magically neon of decades, that shiniest, glitteriest, poppiest of times. The decade in which, musically speaking at least, I was born, and found my ears, and found the dial, and...