In a world where Spotify algorithms are finding ever more devious ways to enter our consciousness it seems almost old-fashioned having an actual human recommend you some music. U2’s ill-fated attempt to load their new album automatically on the world’s… Read More ›
Spotify
The Best Music of 2018 So Far…
Ah, it’s mid summer. A time of hazy, sunny evenings. As the organisers of Wimbledon erect their “Sale! Punnet of Strawberry’s: only £50” signs (complete with grocer’s comma) it’s the time of year that allows me to drag out the… Read More ›
How To Buy Elton John On Vinyl (and an Alternative Best-of Spotify Playlist)
Although we might all have a stab at naming Elton John’s best albums, in these times of Spotify, there sometimes needs to be a reason why a particular record should be bought on vinyl. Happily in Elton’s case there are… Read More ›
Belle & Sebastian And The Horror Of Spotify Playlists.
In a world where people consume music through pre-determined streaming service playlists with grim titles such as “Cinematic Chillout”, “Music for Concentration” and “Songs for Sleeping”, how does a band that is already nine albums into a career spanning over… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
Aretha Franklin’s Emotional First Performance
…and Why It Took Nine Albums To Score Aretha’s First Hit Aretha Franklin sat at a piano in her father’s church, just days after her mother’s death. She was just ten years old and about to make her first ever… Read More ›
An Alternative Best of…Journey
Take A Midnight Train Going Anywhere With This Alternative Best of Playlist For AOR Kings: Journey… The idea that Journey might be pretty cool is clearly a difficult one to get your head around, but back in the eighties, Journey… Read More ›
Mix-tapes and Indie Points – A Users Guide
Good news. The mixtape is not dead….it’s just called a “playlist”… Where sensitive Belle and Sebastian-loving-indie-types once crafted cassette tapes filled with songs that told the prettiest girls in their class just how deep their feelings of love were through… Read More ›
Why Listening To Music Now Is So Much Better Than It Was 30 Years Ago
I was chatting recently with friends about listening habits… “It’s so much better and easier listening to music nowadays” I opined, expecting unanimous consent. None came. A piece of tumbleweed may have rolled across the bar. “I’m not so sure”… Read More ›
Yeah Yeah Yeah by Bob Stanley: The Chapter-by-Chapter Spotify Playlists Page
I had a terrific reaction from Twitter to my article about Bob Stanley’s history of popular music, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” back in May 2014… Like a nervous boy asking out the prettiest girl in school to the disco, I enquired as to… Read More ›
Are You A Music Obsessive? Check This Scientific Test: Plus A 2013 Mixtape
How much of a music fan are you? You may be pretty keen, but just how keen? I remember many years ago someone called Danny Baker’s radio show to say he had regularly sorted through Paul McCartney’s bins and pulled out a… Read More ›
Can You Use Spotify And Still Be An Ethical Music Buyer?
Calls to control a growing internet menace has reached fever pitch this week. “Protect the vulnerable!” goes the cry. It’s a dirty, filthy business everyone is agreed. No, not the government’s crackdown on online pornography, but the far murkier issue… Read More ›
Punk Floyd: Lydon “Likes Pink Floyd” – And When Floyd Worked With The Damned
Plus – Pink Floyd Back Catalogue To Appear On Spotify… Whilst doing what passes for research at Every Record Tells A Story (which basically amounts to reading the sort of books I would be reading if I wasn’t doing any… Read More ›
A Quentin Tarantino Spotify Playlist
Just a quick post today to try something new: A Spotify Playlist. The more observant readers amongst you will have noticed that I put a Spotify link at the bottom of each post I write, to allow those who have… Read More ›
