In the latest X-Factor series they did an Elton John theme week for the first time. Nobody sang “Sacrifice”, probably because it’s very glum and not terribly good. But the choices they did make brought out the unique qualities not s[…]

“World In Motion” is the ultimate 1990 record, but oddly the specific World Cup it reminds me of is 2002: living in London, broadly optimistic about England’s prospects, watching football in the morning then going out in the afterno[…]

From Yazoo onwards, collaborations between electronic musicians and soul singers have followed certain protocols. The singer is the star, the living presence on the right-hand side of that “featuring”: the producer is the mood-setter, the[…]

After a crucifixion, an ascension: as discussed on the Lollards Of Pop, “Vogue” is Madonna’s attempt to join a pantheon of pop culture icons – “Grace Kelly, Harlow Jean….” and so on. No, not her attempt: her […]

Hello readers!
It has been a lot longer than I thought and hoped it would be since I put an entry up. Not that I have nothing to say about “Vogue” – quite the opposite – but I’ve had a difficult few weeks living at my in[…]

SPECIAL POPULAR ANNOUNCEMENT: The NEXT entry after this will be discussed at 7PM tonight on Resonance 104.4 FM, on the Lollards of Pop show. This will feed into the next text entry proper, in a bold new multi-media departure for Popular. Hearing the […]

Collage in pop is often an exercise in surprise – finding things which shouldn’t work together, but do. Throw too much into the mix and you can end up with a novel mess. But even then if you get the final element right it can salvage the whole cr[…]

Sinead O’Connor is one of the finest song interpreters not just because she thinks hard about the material and the feelings locked in it, but because she’s so good at placing songs into a situation. A great example of this is her version […]

A last encore for Stock Aitken and Waterman – their commercial headlock on the charts is broken, and we find their enthusiasm and imagination running out on a cloying version of the Little Anthony And The Imperials classic. Of course, this is a[…]

The video for “Hangin’ Tough” flicks between scenes of the New Kids in concert – watched by air-punching and weeping fans – and images of them street-dancing in sync on a graffiti-heavy background. One of them hefts a ba[…]