Short version: Popular will be back on Friday and back to a regular schedule.
Long version: (more…)[…]

Britain has a Pop Establishment as surely as it has a political one, and the charity tribute gig is its equivalent of a State Funeral. The line-up for the Freddie Mercury celebration at Wembley Arena is a curious thing, reflecting not just how much o[…]

Another song where hearing the original changes your perspective on it: as a Bananarama album track, “Young At Heart” is fizzy but unusually thoughtful, a vignette of a kid growing to understand her parents’ choices and compromises.[…]

Shaggy’s take on “Oh Carolina” acknowledges its debt to the past right away – sampling the intro from the Folkes Brothers’ 1960 original. Not just a nod of respect, it’s a canny move, as the crackling, wheezing sha[…]

Delicious pop memory: Tony Parsons casting this song as an outrider of apocalypse on some late night culture or news show. He read out the lyrics slowly, in a tone of profound regret – how far had we fallen when this.. this thing could stand in[…]

I give a mark out of 10 to every track – this poll is for you to tick all the songs you’d have given 6 or more to, and you can discuss the year in general in the comments box.

Which of these Number Ones Of 1992 would you giv[…]

If there’s a single technique which – however unfairly – defines 90s and 00s soul music for the British public, it’s melisma, and if there’s a single record that cemented that link, it’s “I Will Always Love You”, at number one for[…]

Classicist pop often sacrifices quality for vibe. Shakin’ Stevens might have had the moves down but if “Oh Julie” had fallen back through time to the 50s it would have simply got lost in a flood of better rock’n’roll. Th[…]

The “End Of The Road” video presented its directors with a logistical dilemma: in a vocal group, what do the other members do when it’s some other dude’s turn to sing? The solution was a sometimes hilarious extended essay in m[…]

One-hit wonders can catch time in a bottle like no other records, since there’s barely any career context to distract you from your memories. “Sleeping Satellite” feels achingly 90s, but its mix of busker’s strum, baggy backbe[…]