Category: Music

  • Cheap Music! (Terms and Conditions Apply): The Rise and Fall of Album of the Month Clubs

    Cheap Music! (Terms and Conditions Apply): The Rise and Fall of Album of the Month Clubs

    “The one thing Harry Houdini was never able to get out of was his Album of the Month Club subscription” Remember Album of the Month clubs? Watch out! They’re on their way back…

  • Welcome, Discover WordPress Readers!

    Welcome, Discover WordPress Readers!

    If you are reading this article, there’s a decent chance you’ll have come here via the Discover WordPress feature, a mythical, subscriber-and-ego-boosting seal of approval from the people who run WordPress – the web publishing platform that Every Record Tells A Story is written on. So hello fellow WordPress blogger! By the end of this…

  • Ten Things We Learned At The Village Green Festival. 

    Ten Things We Learned At The Village Green Festival. 

    It’s in Essex, it’s about the size of the kid’s field at Glastonbury, and it only costs £15 to get in (take that, austerity Britain!) but this weekend 16,500 festival goers experienced a mellow, friendly atmosphere and saw some great bands at The Village Green in Chalkwell Park, near Southend on Sea.  Here’s what we…

  • Breaking News: It Will Be Sunny on Saturday. The Village Green Music Festival Awaits!

    Breaking News: It Will Be Sunny on Saturday. The Village Green Music Festival Awaits!

    Ah, the British summer. As elusive as a politician’s answer.  In days of yore, at the slightest sniff of a sunny weekend, the Great British Public would, in a futile attempt to keep the kids quiet for five minutes, hop into their cars and happily spend four hours in a traffic jam, overloaded with bucket,…

  • Now That’s What I Call Cash! Do You Have This CD Worth Over £500?

    Now That’s What I Call Cash! Do You Have This CD Worth Over £500?

    With Record Store Day this weekend, the record collecting fraternity is faced with many quandaries: a) How can I afford the 4LP Deluxe Box Set of a 1975 Bruce Springsteen concert? b) Even if I could afford it, given that I already have it on MP3, can I really justify buying it on vinyl? (Answer:…

  • New Music, New Vinyl: Four Great Bands from Sugarbush Records 

    New Music, New Vinyl: Four Great Bands from Sugarbush Records 

    By the end of this article there’s a decent chance one of these four acts will be your new favourite band…. Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent may not be the first location you think of to set up a record label, but for one man the leafy Kentish suburbs have proved ideal.  For nearly thirty…

  • Secondary Ticketing’s Epic Fail: Why You Are Better Off Buying From Ticket Touts

    Secondary Ticketing’s Epic Fail: Why You Are Better Off Buying From Ticket Touts

    You have to hand it to the likes of Viagogo and Stub Hub. For years people have complained at rip off ticket prices from ticket touts. Here was a market that the corporates could clean up: make more reputable and fairer. And yet they’ve actually made things worse.  That takes some doing. It’s the equivalent…

  • The Brit Awards 2017: Chris Martin Pays Tribute To George Michael. 

    The Brit Awards 2017: Chris Martin Pays Tribute To George Michael. 

    It’s the biggest night of the year for British Music… There’s something about The Brits that can bring out the worst in people. Some watch The Brit Awards the way paparazzi watch for wardrobe malfunctions. They wait with bated breath for the moment that Madonna is pulled off stage by her cape, for Sam Fox…

  • The Grammys 2017: Adele Apologises and CeeLo does Doctor Who

    The Grammys 2017: Adele Apologises and CeeLo does Doctor Who

    The 59th Grammy Awards lit up our world once again on Sunday.  Didn’t it? Known in recent years as a breeding ground for a myriad of controversies, including celebrity disses (e.g. Taylor Swift v Kanye), stage-storming (Kanye, 50 Cent) boycotts (Kanye again, Will Smith, Public Enemy), domestic violence (Rihanna / Chris Brown), forgiveness of homophobia…

  • The Night Rory Gallagher Broke Belfast’s Musical Drought

    The Night Rory Gallagher Broke Belfast’s Musical Drought

    Jimi Hendrix was once asked how it felt to be the world’s greatest guitarist. He replied: ‘I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher’.” Belfast, New Year’s Day 1972. Forty five years ago.  There hadn’t been a rock concert played in Belfast for six months. Bands had stopped playing dates in Belfast. In July 1971 3,000…

  • A Brief History of The Beatles

    A Brief History of The Beatles

    Last week we published a Beatles Playlist of songs compiled by Every Record Tells A Story readers which we hope will persuade my friend, a Sceptical Swede that The Beatles are actually a half-decent band.  In case you missed it, my friend, code-named Agaton, finds Lennon and McCartney’s singing as annoying as he does the…

  • Five Years….

    Five Years….

    Today marks the fifth anniversary of Every Record Tells A Story.  I know. When you read some of the jokes it seems like so much longer doesn’t it? Much has happened since those first baby steps, so if you will indulge me, I thought I would have a brief wallow in the past, look at…

  • The Ultimate Beatles Playlist (For People Who Don’t Like The Beatles)

    The Ultimate Beatles Playlist (For People Who Don’t Like The Beatles)

    In the last blog post, I introduced you to a friend from Sweden named Agaton who told me he had always found The Beatles’ music irritating.  He asked me to come up with a playlist of Beatles tunes he would like – or at least that wouldn’t set his teeth on edge – in return…

  • Please Please Help! Build A Beatles Playlist For Someone Who “Doesn’t Like The Beatles”

    Please Please Help! Build A Beatles Playlist For Someone Who “Doesn’t Like The Beatles”

    I was catching up with a friend recently when he delivered something of a bolt from the blue. With a voice that appeared as nonchalant as that of a serial killer’s he confessed, without apparent shame, that he didn’t like The Beatles.  You can imagine my consternation.  My friend grew up in Sweden, not that…

  • A Look Back At Pink Floyd’s First Gig At Pompeii…in 70BC

    A Look Back At Pink Floyd’s First Gig At Pompeii…in 70BC

      Today is the 2,087th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s first show, when they played the opening ceremony of the Amphitheatre at Pompeii. Seeing Floyd play the inaugural gig there (they opened the set with the Latin-named “Astronomy Domine”) must have been fascinating back in 70 BC. Although, of course, they were known back then as…