This was the first song I ever heard by Tori Amos. It’s also the last, when it played over the closing titles of an episode of Beef last night. A wacky song by a kooky redhead, it was a good fit for what is a wacky TV show about a man and a woman with extreme anger management issues.

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DBX – Losing Control

12th January 2024 · 1990s, 1994, Dance, Music

When it comes to minimal techno it don’t come much more minimal than Daniel Bell. And sometimes – driving at night, for example – that’s just what you want to hear. Well, I do.

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Shurik’n – Samouraï

19th December 2023 · 1990s, 1998, Hip-Hop, Music

Here’s a slice of French hip-hop from the soundtrack of the Marseille-set cop drama Blood Coast (aka Pax Masillia) by a member of the city’s best known rap crew IAM.

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This came on the radio the other day and I was reminded just what a startlingly original song it was. And it still sounds as fresh and innovative as it did 33 years ago.

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Last night I went to see the Fun Lovin’ Criminals… at least I thought I had. They had their name spelled out in huge letters across the stages But their main man, Huey, was no longer in the band.

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I’d never say we were really friends, and we came from very different backgrounds. But as fellow punks of the same age (he was born on Christmas Day just 16 days before me) Shane and I had an acquaintance.

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For years I knew the name (once heard, never forgotten) but never really paid any attention to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Until I saw them in the rockumentary Dig!

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Kanda Bongo Man – Isambe

22nd August 2023 · 1990, 1990s, Music

I’ve always loved soukous music, with its lively rhythms and circular electric guitar melodies. And if this doesn’t get you dancing then your feet must have fallen off. Either that or you’re dead. 

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This is beyond meta: Teenage Fanclub, who directly inspired Yo La Tengo, a band famed for their outstanding cover versions, repaying the compliment by covering one of theirs in return.

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The first time I heard this song it made me cry and it still does. Especially today. Its lyric, written in the 1980s, articulates why a young woman with a young child might not wish to bring up a child Thatcher’s Britain.

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