Thirty years since Blur beat Oasis in the Battle of Britpop, I chat with a lost Britpop hero about what really happened in the sparkly corners of the scene.
Why I’m thrilled my book has ended up in Fopp
When I saw my book about the music of the 1990s heavily discounted in record shop Fopp, I was delighted not disappointed. Here’s why.
Live Forever: The ’90s in one song
I try very hard not to like Oasis in the mid-1990s, even wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of their rivals Blur, to the famous gigs in Knebworth Park. But something about Liam Gallagher’s agitated sense of hope gets my attention.
A song meant to be sung through tears – why ‘Yes’ won the real Britpop wars
Thirty years since the release of McAlmont and Butler’s toweringly bittersweet anthem ‘Yes’, here is a chapter from Connection is…
The drunk crucifer
It’s Christmas so here is the gift of chapter sixteen from my book, Connection is a Song: Coming Up and…
A lost Britpop classic – Further by Geneva
We were spoilt in the mid 1990s, with new bands and new musical movements being touted every week by a…
Connection is a Song – A book about you
Hello, it’s been a while since I posted here and that’s because I spent 2023 writing a book. It’s called…
30 years of Little Baby Nothing, a hazy blackness descending
In my kitchen cupboard there’s a mug in red, black and white. It sits there next to the Leeds mug,…
Love’s got the world in motion (at last)
You know what, I am a little bit teary-eyed today. Not because I never got the chance and not because…
The gardens where we felt secure
Perhaps because they still seem rare, hot summer days always remind us of our childhoods. Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where…
For your savage amusement 