Archives – 2020  
Recent

Image

EVANESCENCE – "Bring Me To Life"
Read post
Popular: #955, 14th June 2003
— 19 January 2020 Tom 29 comments

Corporate rock, a vignette: the label wanted Evanescence to add a male co-vocalist all through their debut album. The band said no, and so a compromise was met – Amy Lee would be joined by a growly dude only on this first single. (more…)[…]

Image

R. KELLY – "Ignition (Remix)"
Read post
Popular: #954, 17th May 2003
— 4 January 2020 Tom 76 comments

So here we are. In 2014, when I wrote the entry for “I Believe I Can Fly”, acknowledging the monstrousness of R Kelly, I had plans to make this piece some sort of grand follow-up. Here is a song that – when I started Popular – was the[…]

Recent

Latest comments on Popular

  2. Listening to this now, probably for the first time since 2005, I'm surprised by how much of Axel F is…

  3. I genuinely thought that the long gap after Amarillo was a fear of having to review this. Turns out no,…

  4. If Axel F deserves to be remembered for anything it is as a reminder that in 2005 the concept of…

  5. A ringtone is surely the opposite of a normal single, you're supposed to want to switch it off as quickly…

  6. Considering it's mentioned in the review, I was taking that as the joke-in-passing. Though I'll object to one thing in…

  7. 'If you told me it was a knowing parody of Ringo Starr’s minimalist approach on (eg) “Free as a Bird”,…

  8. It feels instructive to compare "Lyla" with "Dakota" — both songs are in the same stadium rock tradition, both essentially…