Tracks - page 27

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...

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...

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...

Bob Dylan’s great. I love Bob Dylan. I love Lay Lady Lay, Visions of Johanna, ‘It’s all Over Now, Baby Blue’, Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Like a Rolling Stone, Mr Tambourine Man, ‘Maggie’s Farm’…...

The Velvet Underground: very much a band’s band, and much loved by critics and influencers. Their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico might not have shifted many units on its initial release in 1967,...

Despite falling in love with the ubercool sound of Teen Age Riot at first listen after finding it on one of the free CDs that came with the short-lived Rock CD magazine, and despite being...

I don’t quite know how this has happened, but according to my last.fm profile, My Bloody Valentine currently lie somewhere outside my top 500 most listened to artists. While I’ve never professed great love for...

Every Time The Sun Comes Up is menacing yet beautiful, Van Etten's voice somehow sliding smoothly but forcefully through the notes while the sparse instrumentation keeps to the corners

And so the transformation of The Horrors from psychotic freak show through a sort of goth-garage, out the other side and into swirling psychedelia is complete. And let’s all agree right here right now that...

Given that it’s taken me the best part of 20 years to figure out what my favourite R.E.M. album is, this might explain why I could spend most of forever trying to put together anything...

There are many live versions of this track available on youtube, but my advice would be not to spoil the moment of actually hearing it played live for the first time by accepting a pale...

If all I really wanted was to show the authenticity of my indie credentials, I’d just pick The German Album, or The House of Love as my favourite House of Love album. Purists would no...

I guarantee you that Tindersticks Second Album is the best album you’ve never heard. And that’s a money back guarantee (subject to terms and conditions, yadda yadda yadda).