Black and White Lines

Meera Syal appeared in a short play on BBC Radio 4 recently. Syal, a versatile actor and writer of Indian extraction, was playing a (presumably white) police liason officer called Jackie Hartwell in this mini-drama. She did a great job as usual, her ethnic background was neither here nor there. It made me wonder; areContinue reading “Black and White Lines”

Anniversaries to Forget….

Today BBC 6 music is making a big fuss about the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album because it was released exactly fifty years ago. Well, how astounding. What a perfect opportunity to celebrate a seminal work of popular culture, apart from the fact that Brian Wilson’s alleged masterwork sounds exactly the same as it didContinue reading “Anniversaries to Forget….”

Seven Space-pop Classics!

Humankind’s first steps into space inspired a rash of pop songs. In the wake of the first moon landing in 1969, songwriters started to imagine what space travel might mean for matters of the heart, and a mini-genre was born. Future-tastic sound effects, weightless melodies and tin foil in the videos all contributed to theContinue reading “Seven Space-pop Classics!”

Rock Dinosaurs Team Up

It could only happen in America. I can just picture hundreds of thousands of psychedelic beach chairs, picnic hampers and parasols spread out on the ‘Empire polo field’ (that famous rock’n’roll venue…) as Bob Dylan, the Stones, Paul McCartney, The Who, Roger Waters and Neil Young perform at a mega-gig in Indio, California this October.Continue reading “Rock Dinosaurs Team Up”

You can call him Al…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywjb0pSCfSU In the seventies there was a slew of tracks that blended folky balladry and rock textures and, although not neccesarily sounding like Dylan, they were clearly in debt to his epic style of songwriting. A long and winding melody would be combined with tasteful instrumentation and cryptic, poetic lyrics that were sometimes comprehensible, sometimesContinue reading “You can call him Al…”

Valentine’s Day – David Bowie

Remember this from David Bowie’s penultimate album The Next Day? It’s a perfect psychedelic pop melody; indeed it could easily have been written in 1965. Maybe it was, and he just kept it in his back pocket for some infathomable Bowie-ish reason. But no; the lyrics point a more contemporary subject; this is no romanticContinue reading “Valentine’s Day – David Bowie”

How I dumped Facebook…(for a week)

I remember when I set up my facebook account in 2009. I uploaded some photos to my profile, as you do, and sent out some friend requests. And then I saw a status update that has always stuck in my mind. It was by a female musician who was in a prominent band at the time;Continue reading “How I dumped Facebook…(for a week)”

Tracy Ullman back on UK TV

Tracey Ullman was a ubiquitous British entertainer in the early 1980s who was so over-qualified that she managed to be a highly-rated TV comic and have a pop career on the side (which included a delicious cover of Kirsty Macoll’s “They Don’t Know”). But Tracey lost her place in British culture when she married anContinue reading “Tracy Ullman back on UK TV”