Ashes And Diamonds are releasing their debut studio album today and to celebrate, the band released their fourth single "Boy Or A Girl"a long with an Official Music Video. Directed by Vivienne Cure who adapted stills by the artist, Blumquist.
viernes, octubre 31, 2025
The Initiave: The Way Through The Woods
A new video for the previously unreleased short version of the PSB song, “The way through the woods”, is released today on YouTube as part of the “Emmi Aid” compilation album which is released today. Link to watch below.
57 musicians and bands have contributed songs to the album to raise funds to help save the Emmauswald, Berlin-Neukölln’s largest woodland, which is threatened by deforestation. The film for Pet Shop Boys’ contribution was shot by Toby Cornish, filmed on 16mm in the Emmauswald, processed by hand with natural developer brewed from leaves from the wood. The cover for the compilation was designed by PSB collaborator Scott King.
A new video for the previously unreleased short version of the PSB song, “The way through the woods”, is released today on YouTube as part of the “Emmi Aid” compilation album which is released today. Link to watch below.
57 musicians and bands have contributed songs to the album to raise funds to help save the Emmauswald, Berlin-Neukölln’s largest woodland, which is threatened by deforestation. The film for Pet Shop Boys’ contribution was shot by Toby Cornish, filmed on 16mm in the Emmauswald, processed by hand with natural developer brewed from leaves from the wood. The cover for the compilation was designed by PSB collaborator Scott King.
A new video for the previously unreleased short version of the Pet Shop Boys song "The Way Through The Woods" originally included in their 2012 album "Elysium", has been released today as a part of the "Emmi Aid" compilation album which is released today. EMMI AID is a compilation by the Berlin-Neukölln-based initiative EMMAUSWALD BLEIBT!
57 musicians and bands have contributed original or previously unreleased songs to support the Emmauswald, which is threatened by deforestation — a musical wake-up call to save Neukölln’s largest woodland. The film for Pet Shop Boys' contribution, the short version of "The way through the woods", was shot by Toby Cornish, filmed on 16mm in the Emmauswald, processed by hand with natural developer brewed from leaves from the wood.
Website: https://www.emmauswald-bleibt.de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmauswald_bleibt
New Music: The Good Life
Sleaford Mods are releasing a special "dark themed" video of new single "The Good Life" featuring Gwendoline Christie for Halloween . The track is off the band's forthcoming album "The Demise Of Planet X", available January 16 via Rough Trade Records. "The Good Life" marks Christies musical debut after she became friends
with Sleaford Mods, and the Severance, Star Wars and Game Of Thrones
star has spoken for the first about the experience of recording with the
band at London's iconic Abbey Road Studios to accompany the release of
the 'dark themed' video. Directed by British director Ben Wheatley who also shot the bold original version, the blackout edition is a suitably dark reshoot of the one-take performance to celebrate this spooky season.
New Music: The Crying Game
Just in time for Halloween, Still Corners band has just released their very own version of the Boy George's 1993 classic "The Crying Game", performed by Tessa Murray and Greg Hughes, this new version is mid-tempo and haunting at the same time with certain vibes a la "Twin Peaks" and with an official visualizer portraying bark blue forests, a white moon and some certain hazy haunty vibe.
jueves, octubre 30, 2025
Rocktrospectiva: The Smart And Brilliant "Freedom '90" Turns 35
Released on 30 October 1990, "Freedom! '90" was the thrid single taken from "Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, though released as the second single from the album in the US
and Australia. "Freedom! '90" was one of a few uptempo songs on this
album. The song refers to Michael's past success with Wham!, yet also
shows a new side of himself as a new man, who is more cynical about the
music business than ever before. The "'90" added to the end of the title was to prevent confusion with a hit by Michael's former band Wham!, also entitled "Freedom".
Michael refused to appear in the music video for the song, directed by David Fincher, and cast a group of supermodels to appear instead. It went into heavy rotation on MTV and was remastered for the 2017 documentary, George Michael: Freedom. By 1990, Michael had become weary of the pressures of fame, telling the Los Angeles Times, "At some point in your career, the situation between yourself and the camera reverses. For a certain number of years, you court it and you need it, but ultimately, it needs you more and it's a bit like a relationship. The minute that happens, it turns you off ... and it does feel like it is taking something from you." Accordingly, he decided not to appear in photo shoots and music videos saying: "I would like to never step in front of a camera again".
Although he later relented and decided to film a video for his new song, he still refused to appear in it. Instead, inspired by Peter Lindbergh's now-iconic portrait of Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford for the January 1990 cover of the British edition of Vogue, Michael asked the five models to appear in the video. While models appearing in music videos was then commonplace, they usually played the singer's love interest, for "Freedom! '90", the five models, rather than portraying his on-screen girlfriends, would lip sync the song in Michael's place. The video also included male models John Pearson, Peter Formby, Rafael Edholm, and fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti.
The video was directed by David Fincher. His team for the multi-day "Freedom! '90" shoot included Camilla Nickerson, who later became a Vogue contributing editor, as the clothes stylist, hair stylist Guido and makeup artist Carol Brown. Cinematographer Mike Southon shot the video in a vast building in the London Borough of Merton that Nickerson says exhibited "a grandeur and a Blade Runner feel". Despite not appearing in the video, Michael was on set.
The 92-sketch storyboard called for each model to film on separate days, except for Evangelista and Turlington, who appear in a scene together. Each model was assigned a verse to lip-synch, while for the song's chorus, Fincher envisioned the three iconic items from Michael's 1987 music video "Faith" that had come to symbolize his public image at the time: his leather jacket, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and guitar, exploding in a ball of flame, except the leather jacket, at each occurrence of the word "freedom" during the chorus. Before the chorus, the leather jacket was simply ignited and burned. Whereas "Faith" had opened with a jukebox phonograph needle touching a vinyl record, "Freedom! '90" opens with a compact disc player's laser beam reading a CD, after Evangelista turns on the CD player.
The video premiered a few weeks after the shoot, and was heavily aired on MTV.
The song was considered a highlight from the album, with a catchy chorus and uptempo, jangling instrumentation, coupled with his signature soaring vocals make this confessional a striking example of Michael's newfound independence and proves that his struggle for seriousness could retain the hooks and brilliant tones that make his music so endearing.
"Freedom! '90" was 6:30 long, but a shorter version was made available for radio consumption. It was the second US single from the album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, and had contrasting fortunes each side of the Atlantic—it peaked at number 28 on the UK Singles Chart, but was a major success on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and US Cash Box Top 100, reaching number 8 and 7 respectively. In Canada, Michael achieved another chart-topper.
Track List:
7-inch and cassette single (UK)
1. Freedom! '90
2. Freedom (Back To Reality mix)
CD Single US
1. Freedom! '90
2. Fantasy
Rocktrospectiva: The Perfect Britpop Tune "Wonderwall" Turns 30
Released on 30 October 1995 "Wonderwall" was the fourth single from the band's second studio album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. It was described by lead guitarist and chief songwriter Noel Gallagher, who wrote the song and co-produced it with Owen Morris, as being about "an imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself",
"Wonderwall" reached the top ten in 15 countries; it topped the charts in Australia and New Zealand, peaked at No. 2 on both the UK Singles Chart and the Irish Singles Chart, and reached the top 10 in Canada and the United States, reaching No. 5 and No. 8, respectively, thus becoming the band's sole top-40 entry on the latter country's main Billboard Hot 100 chart. Its music video, directed by Nigel Dick, won British Video of the Year at the 1996 Brit Awards. "Wonderwall" remains until now, as one of the band's most popular songs. Many artists have also covered the song, such as Ryan Adams, Cat Power, and Brad Mehldau. In October 2020.
The song was originally titled "Wishing Stone". Gallagher told NME in 1996 that "Wonderwall" was written for Meg Mathews, his then-girlfriend and later wife. However, after Gallagher and Mathews divorced in 2001, he said the song was not about her: "The meaning of that song was taken away from me by the media who jumped on it, and how do you tell your Mrs it's not about her once she's read it is? It's a song about an imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself." The song's final title was inspired by George Harrison's solo album Wonderwall Music.
The song was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales, during a two-week recording of the Morning Glory album in May 1995. Morris produced the song in a half-day along with Gallagher, using a technique known as "brickwalling" to intensify the sound of the song. Liam Gallagher served as lead singer on the song after Noel had given him a choice between "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back in Anger", another single from the album, with Noel singing lead vocals on the latter. All of the band's members except bassist Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan contributed to the recording, with Noel playing bass instead of McGuigan. This decision displeased Liam, who told Morris, "That's not Oasis."
Noel Gallagher debuted the song on UK television backstage at Glastonbury, and it was broadcast on Channel 4 on 24 June 1995. The song was not performed by the band during their headline performance the night before. The song went on to be regularly played on the (What's the Story) Morning Glory? Tour where it was typically played and sung solo by Noel acoustically.
The song has been described as a perfect example of melodic pop. A simple, sweet song, that it showed why Oasis is rapidly becoming one of music's great singles bands, with its explicit George Harrison reference, doesn't bother to conceal another nod at The Beatles. Many felt the song was one of Oasis' best records because it manages to be immensely robust while still being one of Noel's most lyrically personal songs.
The original music video to the song conceived by Johanna Bautista was filmed by British music video and film director Nigel Dick at Unit 217B in Woolwich, London, on 30 September 1995. The filming of the promotional video took place during the brief period when bassist Guigsy quit the band due to nervous exhaustion, and was replaced by Scott McLeod, who appears in the video along with the four other members of the band. The song won British Video of the Year at the 1996 Brit Awards.
The sleeve artwork was inspired by the paintings of the Belgian surrealist René Magritte, and was shot on Primrose Hill in London by Michael Spencer Jones. The hand holding the frame is that of art director Brian Cannon. The original idea was to have Liam in the frame before Noel vetoed that idea whilst the shoot was taking place. Instead, a female figure was deemed necessary, so Creation Records employee Anita Heryet was asked to stand in as cover star for the shot.
"Wonderwall" reached the No. 2 spot in both Ireland and the United Kingdom in October and November 1995. It finished at No. 10 on the year-end chart for 1995 and at No. 26 on the 1990s decade-end in the UK. In the United States, the song peaked at No. 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart for a then-unprecedented ten weeks and reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1996, becoming their only top-10 hit on the latter chart. It also proved to be a major hit in Australia and New Zealand, claiming the No. 1 spot in both countries. In Canada, the song reached No. 5 on the RPM charts.
Track List:
UK Single:
1. Wonderwall
2. Round Are Way
3. The Swamp Song
4. The Masterplan
US Single
1. Wonderwall
2. Round Are Way
3. Talk Tonight
4. Rockin' Chair
5. I Am the Walrus (Live Glasgow Cathouse June 1994)
Rocktrospectiva: The Ambitious And Prime Masterpiece "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness" Turns 30
Released on 23 October 1995 "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness" was the 3rd., studio album by US alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. It was produced by the singer and guitarist Billy Corgan, alongside the producers Flood and Alan Moulder. The 28-track album was released as a two-disc CD and a triple LP. It features a wide array of musical styles, including art rock, grunge, alternative pop, and heavy metal.The album spanwed six singles "Bullet With Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero", "Tonight, Tonight", "Muzzle" & "Thirty-Three".
The Recording sessions saw a wealth of productivity: dozens of fully completed songs were cut from the album and resurfaced on later releases. A box set released in November 1996 titled The Aeroplane Flies High compiled its promotional singles and around 30 fully completed songs from the Mellon Collie sessions that had not made the final cut (including "Pastichio Medley", a pastiche or medley of about 70 short pieces). Both albums were reissued years later with even more session tracks.
The album was lauded by critics for its ambition and scope, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness earned the band seven Grammy Award nominations in 1997 as well as nine MTV Music Video Awards nominations, and "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Tonight, Tonight" and "Thirty-Three" became the band's first Top 40 hits, crossing over to pop radio stations. It has since been regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s and of all time.
After the 13-month tour in support of the Smashing Pumpkins' second album Siamese Dream, Billy Corgan immediately began writing songs for the band's next record. From the outset, the band intended the new record to be a double album, partly inspired by the Beatles' self-titled album. Corgan said, "We almost had enough material to make Siamese Dream a double album. With this new album, I really liked the notion that we would create a wider scope in which to put other kinds of material we were writing." Corgan felt that the band's musical approach was running its course, and wanted the band to approach the album as if it were its last. Corgan described the album at the time to the music press as "The Wall for Generation X", a comparison with Pink Floyd's 1979 album, one of the highest-selling and best-known concept albums of all time.
The band decided against working with Butch Vig, who had produced the group's previous albums, and selected Flood and Alan Moulder as coproducers. Corgan explained, "To be completely honest, I think it was a situation where we'd become so close to Butch that it started to work to our disadvantage... I just felt we had to force the situation, sonically, and take ourselves out of normal Pumpkin recording mode. I didn't want to repeat past Pumpkin work." So Flood immediately pushed the band to change its recording practices. Corgan later said, "Flood felt like the band he would see live wasn't really captured on record". In April 1995, the band began recording in a rehearsal space instead of entering the studio straight away. At these sessions, the band recorded rough rhythm tracks with Flood. Although originally designed to create a rough draft for the record, the rehearsal-space sessions yielded much of the new album's rhythm-section parts. Flood also insisted that the band set aside time each day devoted to jamming or songwriting, practices in which the band had never before engaged during recording sessions. Corgan said, "Working like that kept the whole process very interesting—kept it from becoming a grind."
Corgan sought to eliminate the tension, long hours, and emotional strain that permeated the Siamese Dream recording sessions, the band countered idleness by using two recording rooms at the same time. This tactic allowed Corgan to develop vocals and song arrangements in one room while recording occurred in the other. During these sessions, Flood and Corgan would work in one room as Moulder, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy Wretzky worked in a second. Iha and Wretzky had much greater roles in the recording sessions of Mellon Collie compared to previous albums. This was, in large part, to counter rumours from the Siamese Dream sessions that Corgan was recording all of the bass and guitar parts by himself. Iha commented about how the recording sessions for Mellon Collie improved from that of Siamese Dream.
Following the rehearsal-space sessions, the band recorded overdubs at the Chicago Recording Company. Pro Tools was used for recording guitar overdubs as well as for post-production electronic looping and sampling. Wretzky also recorded numerous backup vocal parts, but all were cut except that which was recorded for "Beautiful". When the recording sessions concluded, the band had 57 potential songs for inclusion on Mellon Collie. The album was originally planned to have 31 songs, but the count was reduced to 28.
The songs on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness are intended to work together conceptually, with the two halves of the album representing day and night. Despite this, Corgan has rejected the term concept album to describe it, and it was at the time described as more "loose" and "vague" than were the band's previous records. He also said it is based on "the human condition of mortal sorrow". Corgan aimed the album's message at people between 14 and 24 years of age, hoping "to sum up all the things I felt as a youth but was never able to voice articulately. ... I'm waving goodbye to me in the rear view mirror, tying a knot around my youth and putting it under the bed."
Musically, the album has been described as featuring alternative rock, grunge, alternative metal, art rock and heavy metal. Its sprawling nature resulted in diverse music styles from song to song, contrasting what some critics felt was the "one dimensional flavor" of the previous two albums. A much wider variety of instrumentation is used, such as piano ("Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness"), synthesizers and drum loops ("1979"), a live orchestra ("Tonight, Tonight") and even salt shakers and scissors ("Cupid de Locke"). All guitars on the album were tuned down a half-step in order to "make the music a little lower," according to Corgan. Corgan and Iha shared soloing duties; Iha estimated that the guitar solo duties were divided "half and half" on the record.
All but two songs on the album were written by Corgan. The closing track from the first disc, "Take Me Down", was written and sung by Iha, while the album's final track, "Farewell and Goodnight", features lead vocals by all four band members and, according to the BMI database, was written solely by Iha, despite being credited on the album liner notes as being written by both Iha and Corgan. Iha wrote additional songs during the making of the album that did not make the final cut.
The album received critical acclaim by called the album "the group's most ambitious and accomplished work
yet". It was also selected as the best album of the year in its year-end "Best of 1995" list by some medias.
Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness Track List
Dawn To Dusk 1:
1. Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Instrumental)
2. Tonigh, Tonight
3. Jellybelly
4. Zero
5. Here Is No Why
6. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
7. To Forgive
8. Fuck You (An Ode To No One)
9. Love
10. Cupid de Locke
11. Galapogos
12. Muzzle
13. Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans
14. Take Me Down
Twighlight To Starlight 2:
1. Where Boys Fear To Tread
2. Bodies
3. Thirty-Three
4. In The Arms Of Sleep
5. 1979
6. Tales Of A Scorched Earth
7. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
8. Stumbleine
9. X.Y.U.
10. We Only Come Out At Night
11. Beautiful
12. Lily (My One And Only)
13. By Starlight
14. Farewell And Goodnight
Rocktrospectiva: Monie Love's Succesful Album "Down To Earth" Turns 35
Released on 30 October 1990 "Down To Earth" was the debut studio album by English rapper Monie Love. It peaked at 109 on the Billboard 200 and at 26 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and spawned three charting singles. "It's a Shame (My Sister)" which became Monie's only top-40 hit in the U.S., and peaked at 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Monie in the Middle" and "Down 2 Earth" were both successful on the R&B and hip hop charts.
Monie Love career began thru a few cameos the rapper made in
89′: one, on the remix to De La Soul’s classic posse cut "Buddy", and the
other on Queen Latifah's "Ladies First". These would work in
Monie's favor, since both songs were released as singles,
whose videos got a lot of airtime back in the day and expose the world
to Monie's charm and cuteness. This would eventually lead to
Monie inking a deal with Warner Bros. and releasing her debut album Down to Earth
Down to Earth
The album highlights include: "Monie In The Middle" her first single released from the album found Monie sharing a tale of a high school love triangle that she's involved in, then the brilliant "It's Shame (My Sister)" remained as the main favourite from listeners in her entire catalog just two albums. The production duo of Cox & Steele worked again, this time sampled The Spinners classic of the same title (minus the “My Sister”). Monie used this one to encourage a friend in a bad relationship to call it quits and move on. "Don’t Funk With The Mo" Afrika Baby Bambaataa (of the Jungle Brothers), Kevin Maxwell, and Jerry Callendar collaboratedfor their first production credit of the evening. They provided a simple funk instrumental for Monie to gave a brief run down of her start in the rap game, which includes a crooked producer who tried to get more credit than deserved for his role in getting her signed, another good one was "Ring My Bell" back in 1990 when house music was the link and then everyone including hip hop jumped on it, Monie Love was not exempt from that fairweather ride. "R U Single" was Monie’s posing question to a prospect."Just Don’t Give A Damn" the production firm of Afrika & Associates somewhat redeems himself from the previous song’s failure, and provided a decent backdrop for Monie to discuss a relationship with her man who has left her the victim of domestic violence, "Down 2 Earth" was a true humility, "I Do As I Please" Cox & Steele returned to the production helm for this one, but unfortunately the magic just passed,
"Pups Lickin Bone" for this one Monie recruited JuJu from the world-famous Beatnuts to provided the instrumental for her calling out of a gardening tool trying to work her man’s field. "Read Between The Lines" it was based on the instrumental, which was, surprisingly brought to you courtesy of no other then…Afrika & Asscociates "Swiney Swiney" again Afrika & Associates provided a stale instrumental for Monie to proclaimed her distaste for the other white meat. and finally "Grandpa’s Party" which was like a mess but one of her finest of the record.
The critics gave Down to Earth
an "A−" and was impressed by Love's proud sensibilities, as she
"radiated sisterhood even though she concentrates on the guys, and
positivity and tradition" without much culturally or politically
conscious lyrics, it seetled for midtempo pop raps with slight insights".
Down To Earth Track List:
1. Monie In The Middle
2. It's A Shame (My Sister)
3. Don't Funk Wid The Mo
4. Ring My Bell
5. R U Single
6. Just Don't Give A Damn
7. What I'm Supposed 2 B
8. Dettrimentally Stable
9. Down 2 Earth
10. I Do As I Please
11. Pups Lickin' Bone
12. Read Between The Lines
13. Race Against Reality
14. Swiney Swiney
15. Give It 2 U Like This
16. I Can Do This
17. I'm Driving You Crazy
18. Grandpa's Party.
Rocktrospectiva: The Album That Defined An Era "Different Class" Turns 30
Released on 30 October 1995 "Different Class" was the 5th., studio album by English rock band Pulp, the album was a critical and commercial success, entering the UK Albums Chart at number one and winning the 1996 Mercury Music Prize. It included four top-ten singles in the UK, "Common People", "Sorted for E's & Wizz", "Disco 2000" and "Something Changed". Widely acclaimed as among the greatest albums of the Britpop era since then.
When Pulp released Different Class in October 1995, it was at the peak of the Britpop era – less a cultural movement and more a label the music press had slapped on a collection of disparate (though mostly white, guitar-based) British bands infiltrating the charts in the mid-90s. What started as a celebration of the British music industry reasserting its influence after a few years dominated by the US grunge scene had morphed into something of a media bandwagon.
The year had already seen UK number one albums by Elastica, Supergrass, The Charlatans, Black Grape and The Boo Radleys. By that summer Britpop had reached – depending on your point of view – either its apex or nadir, when Blur and Oasis were involved in a chart battle that dominated newspapers and made the BBC’s Six O’Clock News. Blur won that first round and released their fifth album, The Great Escape, a few weeks later. Oasis followed with (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, which would go on to become the biggest-selling record of the decade in the UK.
Pulp had no interest in the Britpop tag, yet 30 years on, its Different Class not only feels like the most enduring snapshot of a mid-90s Britain on the cusp of a New (Labour) era, coming down from the acid-house boom and looking ahead to the millennium – but, with its tales of illegal raves, class divisions and uncertain futures – still feels the most relevant today.
To a casual music fan, it might have felt like Pulp appeared out of nowhere in 1995 – when within the space of weeks their single Common People hit number two in the charts, they played a triumphant Glastonbury headline set and frontman Jarvis Cocker became an unlikely tabloid fixture. It had actually been almost two decades in the making. Cocker formed the band in Sheffield in 1978, when he was just 15 years old.
The album was released in the UK at the height of Britpop. It followed from the success of their breakthrough album His 'n' Hers the previous year. Two of the singles on the album – "Common People" (which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart) and "Disco 2000" (which reached number seven) – were especially notable, and helped propel Pulp to nationwide fame.
The inspiration for the title came to frontman Jarvis Cocker in Smashing, a club night that ran during the early 1990s in Eve's Club on Regent Street in London. Cocker had a friend who used the phrase "different class" to describe something that was "in a class of its own". Cocker liked the double meaning, with its allusions to the British social class system, which was a theme of some of the songs on the album. A message on the back of the record also references this idea: "We don't want no trouble, we just want the right to be different. That's all."
When the band went back into the studio to finish recording their fifth album, it was with the knowledge that they finally had the captive audience they’d waited so long for. “We felt that the next record was our chance, it was our time, it was our springboard into the public's consciousness, a chance to reach out to those people who hadn’t cottoned on to us yet,” says Banks. Pulp had been on the margins for so long. The idea that finally we were going to be exposed to a greater audience was a delicious sort of feeling.
Much of the writing for the record took place above a pottery warehouse owned by Banks' family. "We would set homework, where you'd have to come to the next rehearsal with some song idea – a word, a bit of a tune, a phrase, a scenario, anything, "says Banks. "We'd swap instruments so that no one was getting too big for their boots. It was a great time of everyone being together and having input. And, you know, thinking that we were on the cusp of something."
As on His 'n' Hers before, Different Class saw Cocker return to one of his favourite subjects, sex, on songs like Underwear and Pencil Skirt. But his observations also moved out of the bedroom to focus on the class divide, something that he and other band members had become increasingly aware of.
As part of the chart battle between Blur and Oasis, those two bands had seen not only their songs pitted against one another, but their class, often in the simplest and most patronising of ways. Oasis were the northern working-class lads who loved drinking beer and getting into scrapes. Blur were the middle-class art-school southerners whose lyrics quoted Balzac.That these two versions of UK life were the only ones presented itself showed an inherent problem with Britpop. Blur v Oasis, that whole scene… it had no idea what was going on in black music, in Asian music. It was just oblivious. And if you were going to participate in the spirit of the 90s, you had to participate in that – in music that often you had no interest in or knowledge of, that often had nothing to do with the way you’d grown up, the records in your house.
Meanwhile Pulp – who confused those stoking the pantomime class war by having members that managed to be both northern, working class and go to art school in London – were too busy writing about class wars to participate in them. On Common People Cocker tore into class tourists, inspired by a well-to-do Greek girl he met at Central Saint Martins who wanted to try slumming it in Hackney for a while – "smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend she never went to school". Hidden underneath those irresistible pop hooks is a mounting anger not just at her but all those who co-opt a working-class identity as a shortcut to authenticity – without ever dealing with the fear, uncertainty and absence of choice that comes with having no money.
His anger is even more palpable on I Spy, a song in which someone who has nothing observes those who have everything. Pulp had spent most of their lives on the outside looking in, making them the perfect champion of the disempowered
Pulp had spent most of their lives on the outside looking in, making them the perfect champion of the disempowered. “Being able to observe without being observed yourself, you get to see the real sort of underbelly or workings of what goes off in life,” says Banks. No detail passed Cocker by, from “the broken handle on the third drawer down of the dressing table” (F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E) to the “woodchip on the wall” in Disco 2000. His stories were specific, but reflected a wider society, too – as in Sorted for E’s and Whizz, a song inspired by Cocker attending raves in the late 80s. “Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel, or just 20,000 people standing in a field?” With illegal raves now on the rise again in the UK, he could easily be talking about 2020, not 1988. In fact, aside from calls to “meet up in the year 2000”, so much of the album and its themes of being young and out of options feels pertinent in the current day.
The album reached number one and went on to win the Mercury Music Prize. A sell-out arena tour followed. Pulp were no longer the outsiders. It felt good – to begin with, at least. “When you’ve been in the desert so long and you reach the oasis you jump in and fill your boots,” says Banks.
The sleeve design was created by Blue Source. Initial copies of the CD and vinyl album came with six double-sided inserts of alternative cover art, depicting cardboard cutouts of the band photographed in various situations. A sticker invited the listener to "Choose your own front cover". In all standard copies thereafter these 12 individual covers made up the CD booklet, with the wedding photograph used as the actual cover.
Different Class received widespread acclaim from music critics in the UK. THe album was a deft, atmospheric, occasionally stealthy and frequently booming, confident record. Arguments about Blur versus Oasis are irrelevant. Pulp are in a different class. Different Class is the sound of Jarvis Cocker keeping score – with delicious accuracy." Different Class has aged very well, possessing that timeless quality that is present in all classic albums, but is still obviously a product of its time, a snapshot of mid-'90s life in the UK. Along with Blur's Parklife, it remains the high point of the Britpop era; music, lyrics, production, artwork, it's as perfect as it gets.
Different Class Track List:
1. Mis-Shapes
2. Pencil Skirt
3. Common People
4. I Spy
5. Disco 2000
6. Live Bed Show
7. Something Changed
8. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E
9. Underwear
10. Monday Morning
11. Bar Italia
miércoles, octubre 29, 2025
In Memoriam: The Swedish Actor And Musician "Björn Andresen" Dies At 70
Björn Andresen, the reluctant "Most Beautiful Boy" dies at 70. Andresen the Swedish actor who as a teenager played an ailing composer's object of
unrequited desire in the 1971 film "Death in Venice," but who resented
being objectified by the film's director, Luchino Visconti, who called
him "the most beautiful boy in the world," died last October 25 in Stockholm. The cause of death, in a hospital, was cancer, said his daughter, Robine Roman.
Mr. Andresen was 15 and had long blond hair and high cheekbones when he was cast as Tadzio, a Polish boy who visits Venice with his family, in Visconti’s adaptation of Thomas Mann's 1912 novella. Tadzio's mere appearance bewitches the composer Gustav von Aschenbach, played in the film by Dirk Bogarde. They meet in an elevator, leaving Aschenbach spellbound as they lock eyes but do not speak. Aschenbach then follows Tadzio around the city and fantasizes about him as a kind of artistic and romantic muse, before growing sick and dying in a beach chair as he reaches toward the boy.
In his 1983 autobiography, "Dirk Bogarde: An Orderly Man," described Andresen as the perfect Tadzio and said that he had an almost mystic beauty. But, he added, the last thing that Bjorn ever wanted, I am certain, was to be in movies. Visconti was also fixated on Mr. Andresen. During the boy’s screen test, the director asked him to strip to his swimsuit.
"When they asked me to take off my shirt, I wasn't comfortable," Mr. Andresen told Variety after the release of "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World," a 2021 documentary about him directed by Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri. I wasn't prepared for that. I remember when he posed me with one foot against the wall, I would never stand like that. When I watch it now, he said, I see how that son of a bitch sexualized me.
Bjorn Johan Andresen was born on Jan. 26, 1955, in Stockholm. His parents were not married, and he never knew his biological father, an artist who died in an accident two years after he was born, his mother, Barbro (Erixon) Andresen, a poet and artist, married Per Andresen, who adopted Bjorn. She died by suicide when her son was 10.
Bjorn began seriously studying the piano at 6. Not quite a decade later, he was playing in a pop-rock band when his grandmother, who had already begun pushing him into acting, took him out of a rehearsal to audition for Visconti. "All that he could think about was he would be late for his rehearsal," Ms. Roman, his daughter, said in an interview. "Music was his life. Acting just happened."
During the making of "Death in Venice," Visconti acted protectively toward Mr. Andresen. But the boy felt unprepared when Visconti took him to a gay club after the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1971. In the documentary, Mr. Andresen recalled feeling besieged by voracious looks, wet lips and rolling tongues and getting drunk to cope with the unwanted attention. He wondered if Visconti, who was gay, was testing him to see if he was also gay, which he wasn't.
At a news conference at Cannes, where "Death in Venice" was nominated for the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, Visconti seemed ready to discard Mr. Andresen, saying that he had been more beautiful during filming, that he was at an awkward age and that he might become a handsome man. At Cannes, Mr. Andresen felt overwhelmed by the sudden spasm of fame that he faced — which was most likely inflamed by Visconti's claim, when the movie opened in London that March, that Mr. Andresen was "the most beautiful boy in the world."
After promoting "Death in Venice," he traveled to Japan, where the film had made him a teen idol; he made records and appeared in TV commercials there, and some young women carried scissors in the hope of snipping off locks of his hair. His looks also brought him a brief fling with Carrie Fisher, whom Mr. Andresen met in Paris in 1976, the year before her breakout role in "Star Wars." She approached him in a bar and asked him if he was, indeed, Bjorn Andresen.
Over the last 20 years or so, his flowing hair became gray and he obscured his face behind a beard that made him look something like Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" films.
Mr. Andresen continued to act, mostly on television in Sweden but also in films, including a memorable turn in Ari Aster's 2019 horror movie, "Midsommar." He was also a keyboard player in a dance band, a composer of jazz and bossa nova music, the arranger of the music for a Swedish production of "The Rocky Horror Show," and the manager of a small theater in Stockholm.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Andresen is survived by two granddaughters and a sister, Annike Andresen. His marriage to Susanna Roman ended in divorce. A son, Elvin, died in 1986 of sudden infant death syndrome, while Mr. Andresen slept next to him. Mr. Petri, one of the directors of “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,” said that he had known Mr. Andresen for more than 40 years and recognized him as a major cultural figure in Sweden, worthy of a documentary." He was a big thing for our generation," he said in an interview. "He was world famous and ‘the most beautiful boy.' We knew that he was not comfortable with what happened with Visconti, so we wanted to give him the chance to tell his own story.
martes, octubre 28, 2025
Primicia: Sympathy Magic
Florence + The Machine is releasing a new album, Everybody Scream,
this Friday. Now she has shared its third
single, "Sympathy Magic," via a music video. "Sympathy Magic" was written and produced with Danny L. Harle and
Dessner. Longtime collaborator Autumn de Wilde directed the song’s
video. Everybody Scream is the follow-up to 2022's Dance Fever.
During the tour for that album Welch needed lifesaving surgery and her
recovery influenced the new album. A press release explains that her
recovery "took her down the path of spiritual mysticism, witchcraft and
folk horror as she felt the limits of her body and explored what it
means to be healed. The album treads through womanhood, partnership,
aging and dying; exposing the murky in the mundane.
Rocktrospectiva: The Exotic "Slave To The Rhythm" Turns 40
Released on 28 October 1985 "Slave To The Rhythm" was the 7th., studio album by Jamaican singer and songwrite Grace Jones. Slave to the Rhythm was a concept album, produced by ZTT Records founder and producer Trevor Horn, that went on to become one of Jones' most commercially successful albums and spawned her biggest hit, "Slave to the Rhythm" another single was released "Jones The Rhythm" but didn't cause a stir and was overshadowed by the popularity of the first single.
After finishing sessions at Compass Point for her Living My Life album in late 1982, Jones took a break from recording music and focused on an acting career. Within two years, she made her debut as an actress in the 1984 film Conan the Destroyer, where she played alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. She later appeared in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985) as the villain May Day. After finishing filming in late 1984 she returned to the studio to work on a follow-up, ending an almost three-year-long hiatus.
Both the title song and album, was written by Bruce Woolley, Simon Darlow, Stephen Lipson and Trevor Horn and was produced by Trevor Horn, who was assisted by Lipson. Slave to the Rhythm was a concept album that featured several, radical interpretations of one title track. The project was originally intended for Frankie Goes to Hollywood as a follow-up to their hit "Relax", but was finally given to Jones. The recording process featured Horn, Lipson and Jones creating a new version of the song every week or so, ballooning the budget for a single song to nearly $385,000. As such, several versions were collected and released as the album proper.
Musically, Slave to the Rhythm was a R&B album, that incorporates elements of funk and features go-go beats throughout the album. All eight tracks are interspersed with excerpts from conversations with Jones about her life, conducted by journalists Paul Morley and Paul Cooke. The album also contains voice-overs from actor Ian McShane reciting passages from Jean-Paul Goude's biography Jungle Fever. Though recording dates of each version of the song are unknown, "Operattack" was created with vocal samples from "Jones the Rhythm"; while "Don't Cry - It's Only the Rhythm" is a variation of the bridge that appears on "Slave to the Rhythm." "The Fashion Show" could be an early version of "Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones". Then "Ladies and Gentlemen" was released as a single, under the title of "Slave to the Rhythm".
Slave to the Rhythm was one of the most commercially successful of Jones' albums. It performed best in German-speaking Europe and the Netherlands, where it secured top 10 placings. It reached number 12 on the UK Albums Chart in November 1985. The album remains the second highest-charting album of Jones' on the US Billboard 200 (after Nightclubbing) and was her only entry on the Canadian Albums Chart.
Designed by Jean-Paul Goude,
Jones' partner at that time, the cover picture is a montage of several
copies of a single photograph of Jones, that makes her hair look
"extended" and her mouth "stretched". The process of its creation is
illustrated in the title song's music video. The artwork has its roots in an earlier design of Goude's, the cover of Cristina's 1984 album Sleep It Off.
Slave To The Rhythm Track List:
1. Jones The Rhythm
2. The Fashuon Show
3. The Frog And The Princess
4. Operattack
5. Slave To The Rhythm
6. The Crossing (oohh the action...)
7. Don't Cry
8. Ladies And Gentleman: Miss Grace Jones
Rocktrospectiva: The Temper "What A Life! Turns 40
Released on 28 October 1985 "What A Life!" was the 2nd., studio album by Australian band Divinyls, the album was a mixed or rock a new wave songs written by Divinyls members Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee.The album spawned five singles "Good Die Young", "In My Life", "Pleasure And Pain", "Sleeping Beauty" & "Heart Telegraph".
After touring and promoting in the United States, Divinyls came back to Australia to begin the follow-up to Desperate,
with Mark Opitz producing again. They produced three songs including
"Don't You Go Walking" and "Motion" but Amphlett and McEntee were not
satisfied so they returned to the road, replacing drummer Richard Harvey
with J.J. Harris, and wrote more songs. A year later they again tried
recording, this time with the producer Gary Langan who was the founding member of the band Art of Noise.
He brought a sophisticated, high-tech edge to Divinyls' sound, but a
full album failed to get done. Recording stopped once more.
Eventually, Amphlett and McEntee made a journey to Los Angeles, where they asked pop producer Mike Chapman to come back with them to Australia and finish their second album. Chapman ended up producing only two songs: "Pleasure and Pain" and "Sleeping Beauty". The album was released almost two years after recording began. It reached No.4 in Australia and No.91 in the US, while "Pleasure and Pain" hit No.11 in Australia and the lower reaches of the Top 100 in the US. Two later singles, "Sleeping Beauty" and "Heart Telegraph", charted moderately in Australia but did little in the US. Despite its Australian success, Chrysalis declared the album a failure.
The Divinyls' best strengths were both in Christina Amphlett's unique vocal delivery, and guitarist Mark McEntee's bottom-heavy, grungy, guitar work, and not so much in their songwriting. The band always managed to come up with a few memorable songs, such as "Pleasure and Pain" a thinly-veiled ode to sadomasochism, "Casual Encounter," and the ballad "Sleeping Beauty," unfortunately many of the album tracks were hardly memorable for critics and audience as well. "In My Life" was a catchy rocker, but Amphlett's vocals sounded banal and unpolished. The album's closer, "Dear Diary," was a pretentious stab at art that instead sounds very flat and dull.
Critics were mixed considered the album as loud and hard-edged, as purely physical as any metal band, but tempered with ... swaggering rowdiness.
What A Life! Track List:
1. Pleasure And Pain
2. Sleeping And Beauty
3. Good Die Young
4. Guillotine Day
5. Talk Like The Rain
6. Heart Telegraph
7. Old Radios
8. In My Life
9. Para-Dice
10. What A Life!
Rocktrospectiva: The Rad And Hypnotic Hit Single "West End Girls" Turns 40
Re-released on this date 40 years ago, "West End Girls" was the hit song that propelled Pet Shop Boys career into global stardom. Written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe,
the song was released twice as a single. The song's lyrics are
concerned with class and the pressures of inner-city life in London
which were inspired partly by T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land
(1922). It was generally well received by contemporary music critics
and has been frequently cited as a highlight in the duo's career.
The first version of the song was produced by Bobby Orlando and was released on Columbia Records' Bobcat Records imprint in April 1984, becoming a club hit in the United States and some European countries. After the duo signed with EMI, the song was re-recorded with producer Stephen Hague for their first studio album, Please. In October 1985, the new version was released, reaching number one in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1986.
In 1987, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards, and Best International Hit at the Ivor Novello Awards. In 2005, 20 years after its release, the song was awarded Song of The Decade between 1985 and 1994 by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. A critic's poll in 2020 by The Guardian selected "West End Girls" as the greatest UK number-one single
Originally released in April 1984, "West End Girls" was released, becoming a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and a minor dance hit in Belgium and France, but was only available in the United Kingdom as a 12-inch import. In March 1985, after long negotiations, Pet Shop Boys cut their contractual ties with Orlando, and hired manager Tom Watkins, who signed them with EMI.
A new versión was demanded, and it took it an entire week had been spent re-recording and rearranging "West End Girls" with producer Stephen Hague at Advision Studios, using Studio Two housed with an Otari 24-track tape machine and an SSL console.
The song, according to engineer David Jacob, was musically "constructed with only four basic rhythmical patterns throughout", with no 'real' instruments production-wise except for one cymbal. The rhythmic foundations were laid down with an Oberheim DMX drum machine. In addition to that, the synthesizer strings that run throughout the song were created using a blend of string sounds from an E-mu Emulator I and an Emulator II.
The bass part is a composite of different sounds from an Emulator II, a Yamaha DX7 and a Roland Jupiter-6, all of which were connected by MIDI. It had been played by hand to "lend more fluidity to the track", although initially there was a bit of difficulty in keeping the part in time with the drum machine. The song features a cowbell-like sound, which is in fact a combination of a cowbell and an Emulator II choir sound recorded into a Roland MSQ-700 sequencer, and spun in manually at appropriate places in the song.
The trumpet solo in this version was played by Hague on the Emulator. According to Jacob, "it took about six hours to get the trumpet to sound genuine, purposely playing wrong notes to make it sound more 'jazz'".
The traffic noise which introduces the song was recorded by Hague using a Sony Professional Walkman on Gosfield Street outside Advision. By examining the original source tape, the sing-song voice heard at the beginning was discovered to be saying "Get on the mic-ro-ph-one". In addition to the rap verses and choruses sung by Tennant (each using different microphones—one for verse and another for choruses), singer Helena Springs was brought in to sing background vocals—parts of these were sampled into the Emulator to be used wherever wanted in the track.
They re-released the song in late 1985, topping the charts in both the UK and the US. Since then "West End Girls" has been generally well received by music critics, called the song "hypnotic", adding that "it's not only a classic dance single, it's a classic pop single, a sensational pop single.
The accompanying music video for "West End Girls" was directed by Andy Morahan and Eric Watson, and consists of shots of the duo around London. At the beginning of the video, noises from the city can be heard, a camera passes Lowe on the street, and focuses on mannequins in a shop window. Then appears a sequence of quick cuts with shots of the city's different sub-cultures; the video freezes and cuts to Tennant and Lowe, who walk through an empty Wentworth Street in Petticoat Lane Market. They stand in front of a red garage door; Tennant is in front dressed with a long coat, white shirt and dark necktie, directly addressing the camera, with Lowe standing behind him with a blank expression. Lowe is filmed in double-exposure and appears almost ghostlike. In other shots, Tennant power-walks imperiously while Lowe casually follows behind. While Tennant delivers the lyrics and chorus directly at the viewer, Lowe appears at times uninterested in the proceedings or preoccupied with other goings-on around them.
Then the video shows various shots at Waterloo Station, as the chorus starts. In slow motion, the camera pans across the WHSmith shop on the station concourse as the duo walk past. It cuts to a brief shot of a No. 42 red double-decker bus, showing the destination as Aldgate, also advertising the stage-show Evita, then black and white shots of the Tower Bridge, Westminster and the Westminster Palace Clock Tower from the sky. The duo poses on the South Bank of the River Thames in a pastiche of a postcard image, with the Houses of Parliament as a background.
The camera shows shots of young women, and passes through arcades and cinemas in Leicester Square. The camera now passes South Africa House showing protestors in the Non-Stop Picket, an anti-apartheid vigil. The video cuts to a closeup of Tennant singing the chorus, with a purple neon sign eerily passing across his face. At the end the camera passes again through Leicester Square, where people queue to see Fletch and Desperately Seeking Susan. The video was nominated for Best New Artist in a Video at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to A-ha's "Take On Me".
Track List:
7-inch UK (1984 release)
1. "West End Girls" (Nouvelle version)
2. "Pet Shop Boys"
7-inch UK (1985 release) Parlophone / R 6115
1. "West End Girls"
2. "A Man Could Get Arrested" (7″ version)
12-inch UK (1984 release)
1. "West End Girls" (extended mix)
2. "Pet Shop Boys"
10" limited edition – UK (1985 release) Parlophone / 10R 6115
1. "West End Girls" (10" mix)
2. "A Man Could Get Arrested" (Bobby Orlando version)
7-inch Belgium (1984 release)
1. "West End Girls" (Nouvelle version)
2. "Pet Shop Boys"
7-inch West Germany (1984 release)
1. "West End Girls" (Nouvelle version edit)
2. "Pet Shop Boys" (Edit)
7-inch Canada (1984 release)
1. "West End Girls" (Original 7″ version)
2. "West End Girls" (Original 7″ version)
12-inch UK (1985 release) Parlophone / 12R 6115
1. "West End Girls" (dance mix)
2. "A Man Could Get Arrested" (12″ version)
3. "West End Girls"
12-inch The Shep Pettibone Mastermix – UK (1985 release) Parlophone / 12RA 6115
1. "West End Girls" (The Shep Pettibone Mastermix)
2. "West End Dub"
3. "A Man Could Get Arrested" (12″ version)
Rocktrospectiva: New Order's "Sub-Culture" Turns 40
Released on 28 October 1985, "Sub-Culture" was the tenth single by English rock band New Order. It was released as the second and final single from their third studio album, Low-Life (1985) by Factory Records.
The single release, remixed by John Robie, was a drastic departure from the album version of the track. Robie's 12" and 7" single mixes feature more club-oriented, electronic instrumentation and prominent soulful female backing vocals.
The B-side of the single was an instrumental remix titled "Dub-vulture". An alternate seven-inch edit of the Robie remix taken from the Benelux version of the "Sub-culture" single appears on the group's 1987 compilation, Substance. This version also appears on the US 12" alongside the longer mixes.
A collection of Razormaid remixes of the track were released in 1986, which include additional vocals by Deborah Iyall of Romeo Void
The artwork of "Sub-culture" had only a regular black sleeve. A long-standing rumour held that graphic designer Peter Saville reportedly deemed the mix of the song unworthy of his talents, with Saville's input present only in a P/S/A (Peter Saville Associates) credit for typography. However this rumour was debunked in 2017 when Saville stated, "I never had the authority to say that there shouldn't be a sleeve. No, all I can presume is that one was not asked for"
The single peaked at No. 29 on the RIANZ (New Zealand Single Chart), No. 63 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 1 on the UK independent Singles Chart, No. 35 at Billboard Hot Dance Club Party and finally No. 18 at Billboard Hot Dance Single Sales.
Sub-culture Track List:
7": 7FAC 133 (UK)
1. Sub-culture
2. Dub-vulture
7": 7FAC 133 (Benelux)
1. Sub-culture" (Remix Edit)
2. Sub-culture" (Original Album Version)
12": FAC 133 (UK)
1. Sub-culture
2. Dub-vulture
12": Qwest 0-20390 (US)
1. Sub-culture (Remix)
2. Subvulture
3. Sub-culture (Remix Edit)
UK 7" free with Record Mirror
1. New Order: "Sub-culture" (exclusive remix)
2. Raymonde: "Jennifer Wants" (exclusive track)
3. Hipsway: "Bad Thing Longing" (preview from their forthcoming album)
4. Adventures: "Walk Away Renee" (specially recorded for RM)
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