Rock 'n' Roll Times
lunes, noviembre 09, 2026
New Music: Dissapearing Act
domingo, noviembre 08, 2026
New Music: Glowing Buzz
New Music: Spaceman Charm
New Music: Lonely In The Future
sábado, noviembre 07, 2026
In Memoriam: The Legendary Richard Lloyd Dies Aged 75
His family confirmed that Lloyd died Saturday morning at his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “His loving wife Sheila and his dog Willie Mays were with him at the end,” his family said in a statement to Rolling Stone.
According to his family, Lloyd's death was caused by cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile duct cancer that he was diagnosed with in March 2026. A crowdfunding campaign had revealed that Lloyd had developed tumors in his liver and, crucially, there was one that could not be surgically removed.
Television, which formed in 1973, played a significant role in the emerging punk rock movement that grew up around CBGB, the legendary former music venue on the Bowery in New York City. The group was among the earliest punk acts to perform at the downtown venue, which had previously focused mainly on country and bluegrass music. During a 2007 interview, Lloyd reflected on his role in shaping the club's history, declaring: “CBGB’s is the most famous rock ‘n’ roll club to have ever existed and I fucking created it! I was the invisible force behind it.”
Television recorded just two studio albums during its peak in the late 1970s. The band’s first album, released in 1977, was Marquee Moon, which has since earned widespread recognition as a landmark recording. Rolling Stone ranked it No 107 on its 2023 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The record is still considered one of the most influential guitar-driven albums in rock history.
Lloyd was born Richard John Alt on Oct. 25, 1951, in Pittsburgh, Lloyd moved with his mother to New York City as an infant. He grew up in Greenwich Village, took up the guitar at an early age and attended concerts at the legendary Fillmore East as a teen; his struggles with mental health and substance abuse also began at this time. He attended New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School but dropped out before graduation.
After living briefly in Boston and Los Angeles, he returned to New York and gravitated toward the burgeoning scene around punk forerunners the New York Dolls. Verlaine and his longtime friend Richard Hell had formed a band called the Neon Boys with drummer Billy Ficca, and, after being introduced through Terry Ork (who would later release Television’s first single, "Little Johnny Jewel" on his self named independent label), brought Lloyd into the band. Hell left in 1975 and was replaced by Blondie bassist Fred Smith, raising the band’s instrumental prowess significantly.
Things progressed quickly for the band from there — David Bowie famously called Television "the most original band I’ve seen in New York" — and the band signed with Elektra Records in 1976 and released "Marquee Moon" in February of 1977. Domestic sales were unimpressive but the band, and the scene, captured the imaginations of the influential British rock music press — where punk rock was exploding — and the band actually enjoyed three hit singles, successful tours and two top 10 albums in the U.K.
However, the success was short-lived, as the band — marred by Lloyd's debilitating heroin addiction — split shortly after the released of its second album, "Adventure." Despite that, an album titled "Live at the Old Waldorf," recorded in June of 1978 shortly before the band’s dissolution, finds them at the peak of their powers.
Rocktrospectiva: The Sophistipop Classic "Breakout" Turns 40
Lead singer Corinne Drewery wrote the song while recovering from a fractured skull she had suffered in an equestrian accident. Swing Out Sister had already signed a two-song deal with Mercury Records, but the first song, "Blue Mood", had failed to chart. Mercury said the band had to have their second demo in by the next Monday morning or risk being dropped, causing the band to compose "Breakout" under stress. This influenced the lyrics, as Drewery was inspired primarily by her decision to give up on a much more secure career as a fashion designer to pursue her dream of being a singer. There was some controversy around the bass line used in the song; it was claimed that the band had taken it from an unpublished Elezze Records track, and the band argued that they had created the line on their own after listening to the 1986 FIFA World Cup TV theme in Britain.
The music video for "Breakout" features lead singer Corinne Drewery as a fashion designer, who with the assistance of the other two band members designs and makes her own dress, and later makes a successful runway debut, modelling the garment while her bandmates open a bottle of champagne and toast to her success. There are two versions of this video; the official monochrome version and the alternative colour version. The video was directed by Nick Willing.
Critics praised the single and described it as a bubbling, dynamic number with irresistible rhythm and powerful, melodic vocals, backed by rousing horns and sweeping strings", and deemed it a potential hit, and still a timeless classic 'til to day.
miércoles, noviembre 04, 2026
Rocktrospectiva: The Crystalline And Dreamy "Shepherd Moons" Turns 35
In September 1988, Enya released her second studio album Watermark. It became an unexpected commercial success, charting around the world helped by its international top-ten hit, "Orinoco Flow". The album propelled Enya to worldwide fame and she spent much of the following year travelling worldwide to promote it through interviews, appearances, and performances. With such a length of time for promotion, Enya felt the priority was to return to the studio and record a new album rather than spend further time planning and completing a concert tour, partly due to the various difficulties involved in recreating her studio-oriented sound in a live setting. Enya worked with her long time recording partners, manager, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. The success of Watermark complicated the writing process at first. Enya recalled: "I put a lot of pressure on myself at the beginning ... When I was composing new melodies I kept thinking "Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?" Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right in the studio.
When the process got underway, she was able to forget about the success of Watermark and start again. She added, "It felt like Watermark was a dream. It felt like it hadn't happened. And in a way it's nice because you can concentrate only on the music. You can forget about charts, how much you sold. You forget that." As with all her albums, Enya considered a strong melody as a fundamental part to her songwriting. Only when she has pieced one together, usually with vocal ideas or with piano accompaniment, does she then build a song around it. As with Watermark, Enya sings Irish, her first language, English, and Latin. Her Catholic upbringing and childhood experiences of hymns and church music, coupled with later studies in classical music, were big influences that helped form her albums. She gained inspiration from several sources and stories, including her personal diaries and her grandparents. Two tracks on Shepherd Moons are traditional songs that Enya rearranged with Nicky. Initially, Enya felt worried that by recording non-original songs, she would be unable to perform them with the same amount of emotion as she might with her own compositions, though her strong feelings towards them coupled with their age, made recording them easier.
Shepherd Moons was recorded with new equipment purchased with the profits from Watermark. Much of the album was recorded at Aigle Studio, the recording studio in the Ryans' home, then located in Artane, a northern suburb of Dublin. However, as with her two previous albums, recording and production had to relocate elsewhere as the Aigle facility lacked the correct equipment to complete the final mix and mastering. The album was finished at SARM West Studios in London, where "How Can I Keep from Singing?", "Book of Days", and "Lothlórien" were recorded with additional engineering and mixing carried out by Gregg Jackman. As with Watermark, several musicians were brought in to perform additional instruments. Andy Duncan plays percussion on "Book of Days", Roy Jewitt plays the clarinet on "Evacuee" and "Angeles", Liam O'Flionn plays the uilleann pipes on "Smaointe...", Steve Sidwell plays the cornet on "Evacuee", and Nicky performs percussion on "Ebudæ".
As with Watermark, the album title opens with an instrumental title track with wordless vocals. Its title, "Shepherd Moon" devised by Roma, refers to two inner satellite moons around Saturn discovered in 1980, Pandora and Prometheus, that "protect and preserve the rings very much like a shepherd guiding his flock". Enya also liked the title as the association with the moon "is quite romantic". "Caribbean Blue" was a waltz that depicts a journey through a fantasy world. It was named by Roma Ryan, as the melody that Enya had come up with reminded her of the Caribbean. In writing about the song in 2002, Roma wrote: "As with all dreams we reach for the ideal and "Caribbean Blue" represents such a dream. The lyrics can be summed up in three words, Believe in yourself."
Enya believed "How Can I Keep from Singing?" was a traditional Christian hymn from the Shaker sect. She chose to record her own rendition of it as she liked its melody and "very strong" lyrics. She added, "They talked about the trouble in the world, the strife, the turmoil, but at the end of each verse it simply said "how can I keep from singing?" ... I believe this in music ... at some stage you've got to try and forget the trouble that is around you". Enya and her record company were sued for copyright infringement by Sanga Music, Inc. for recording the song because she had mistakenly credited this track as a "traditional Shaker hymn", thus assumed it as public domain. Pete Seeger had helped make the song fairly well known in the 1950s by publishing it with Doris Plenn's additional third verse in his folk music magazine Sing Out! (Vol. 7, No 1. 1957), recording it, and mistakenly credited it as a "traditional Quaker hymn" without copyrighting Plenn's verse, thus presenting the entire song as "public domain". It was again published by Sanga Music, Inc. in 1964. Seeger had presented the new verse as being public domain and Plenn had only wanted the song to be preserved rather than seeking to make a profit from it, so the court decided that Enya could use the verse without paying royalties
"Ebudæ" was an ancient name of the Hebrides islands in western Scotland. The word was previously referenced in "Orinoco Flow", specifically in the lyric "From the north to the south, Ebudae into Khartoum". The song is composed of wordless mouth sounds that resemble Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Its story was inspired by the tradition of Scottish waulking songs sung by women as they fulled cloth.
Enya drew inspiration for "Book of Days" from her own personal diary, something which Roma suggested as she knew Enya enjoyed keeping one. The song was adapted from its original form as an instrumental track for the soundtrack to the 1992 romantic film Far and Away, with Roma writing a set of lyrics based on the film's themes. The song featured Irish lyrics that describe the excitement of writing in the diary in the morning, "because you don't really know what's going to happen ... it's the expectation of that day really that she was talking about". "Evacuee" was written after she and Roma had seen a BBC documentary about a child evacuated from London during World War II and her subsequent reunion with her parents. A girl who was crying while recounting the story of her separation from, and return to, her home had moved them greatly. After Enya had written a melody for the song, the two imagined the scenario of the girl saying goodbye at the train station, "waiting until it's all over".
"Lothlórien" was an instrumental in reference to the Elvish kingdom mentioned in The Lord of the Rings novels and adaptations. The album's second traditional song, "Marble Halls", was an aria from the 1843 opera The Bohemian Girl by Irish composer Michael William Balfe. Enya felt a sense of challenge when she recorded the latter as it had only been previously sung in an opera setting. For Nicky, it was necessary to incorporate reverb in the song as its title suggested to him that the listener should feel as if they are within a hall itself.
"Afer Ventus" was Latin for "African Wind". Roma was inspired to name the track by listening to its sound and structure with the melody lines constantly "sweeping in between each other", which created a wind-like effect. "Smaointe...", roughly translated from Irish as "Thoughts...", was originally released as a B-side to the 7" single of "Orinoco Flow" as "Smaoitím... (D' Aodh Agus Do Mháire Uí Dhúgain)", released in 1988. The song refers to the story of a large tsunami destroying the church, and everyone inside, at Magheragallon Beach in Gweedore, where Enya's grandparents are buried. The theme of loss, something that Enya depicted in Watermark and Shepherd Moons, stemmed from her leaving home at age eleven to attend a strict boarding school, which she described as "devastating".
The album became a greater chart success than Watermark, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart for one week for the week ending on 16 November 1991. It spent a total of 110 weeks on the chart. In the United States, it entered the Billboard 200 at number forty-seven, the week of 7 December 1991. On the Billboard New Age Albums chart, the album was number one for twenty-nine weeks during its 266-week stay.
Between 1991 and 1994, Enya released four singles from Shepherd Moons. "Caribbean Blue" was the lead single, released in November 1991. It peaked on the singles chart in the United Kingdom at thirteen, and received some crossover airplay exposure on alternative rock radio stations in the United States. "How Can I Keep from Singing?" was also released in 1991 and features two previously unreleased B-sides: "Oíche Chiúin (Silent Night)", the Irish language version of the Christmas carol "Silent Night" recorded in 1988, and "'S Fágaim Mo Bhaile", an original composition recorded in 1991. In July 1992, "Book of Days" was released as the third single and peaked at number ten in the United Kingdom. "Marble Halls" followed in 1994 following its inclusion in the 1993 film The Age of Innocence.
Rocktrospectiva: The Masterpiece "Bandwagonesque" Turns 35
Released on 4 November 1991, "Bandwagonesque" was the third studio album by the Scottish band Teenage Fanclub. It served as the band's breakthrough record, causing a stir across Europe and North America by blending a revitalized Byrds-esque sound with contemporary production techniques—such as distortion, sampling, and elements of the "Madchester" scene. Their biggest hit, "Star Sign," helped open doors for them in the United States, followed by the beautiful alternative anthems "What You Do To Me" and "The Concept," both of which reached the Top 20 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart.
The album's success was such that it even managed to displace Nirvana's "Nevermind" from the No. 1 spot in *Spin*—one of the most influential music magazines of the era. Credit for the sound achieved on this masterful record goes to Don Fleming. Fleming had previously played in a band called Gumball, which specialized in a noisy brand of indie pop. Fate brought him together with Teenage Fanclub; after rehearsing a few tracks, Fleming—impressed by their chemistry—suggested they lean into the "noisy pop" style that was trending at the time (a sound that was easier to attempt than to master).
The band liked the idea, and production began. For the band, it was crucial to regain the standing they had lost with "The King"—a lackluster collection of instrumental covers that paled in comparison to the quality of their debut, "A Catholic Education." Then came the masterful "Bandwagonesque," which drew from the British rock tradition while embracing the independent style that was setting the tone at the time.
Even so, critics were unimpressed, dismissing the band as unimaginative; instead, they turned their attention toward groups like Suede, who were being hailed as the future of British rock. The group drew from influences such as the romanticism of The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Big Star, and The Beatles, incorporating vintage guitar sounds. From this emerged a power pop record that remains their greatest legacy and the defining moment of their career. "Bandwagonesque" features classic, high-caliber compositions; the guitars and distortion are exceptional, while the tandem of Raymond McGinley and Norman Blake delivered top-tier rhythmic work.
Additionally, Fleming championed the use of harmonies and backing vocals, which provided the essential finishing touch to the songs. The album was released at a pivotal moment of musical transition—moving away from the excesses of the 1980s toward a new decade defined by the rise of grunge, shoegaze, and electronic music. Teenage Fanclub emerged as a vital link, bridging the gap between British jangly, melodic pop and the grit of American grunge.
It was a beautiful, inviting sound that captivated Kurt Cobain—and, by extension, his band's fanbase—after Cobain invited them to serve as a supporting act during the European leg of the "Nevermind" tour. In the words of Norman Blake himself, there weren't many artists making melodic indie pop at the time—music imbued with a sense of innocence, which is exactly what "Bandwagonesque" offered. While the vocals weren't necessarily polished or "bright," they became powerful when wrapped in layers of guitar—a quality that deeply resonated with the youth of that era.
The record features many great moments—starting with the beautiful "Star Sign" or the melodic and powerful "The Concept," as well as "What You Do To Me" (all of which are now indie pop classics)—but it also includes sentimental tracks like "Guiding Star" and "December," which echo the style of New Order. There is the instrumental "Is This Music," the noisy "Satan," and the perfect pop of "Sidewinder" and "Alcoholiday"—all contained within this marvelous record, which stands as the band's magnum opus. While they released other albums later, in my view, none reached the heights of this incredible record, a product of the magical year of 1991.
Bandwagonesque Track List:
Rocktrospectiva: The Legendary "Loveless" Turns 35
Released on 4 November 1991, "Loveless"—the second studio album by the Anglo-Irish band My Bloody Valentine—was their most expensive and time-consuming record to produce, nearly driving their label, Creation, to ruin. Yet, it is worth noting that this album—regarded as a legendary gem within the indie world—brought the band a lasting fame and renown, especially in the context of the well-known "shoegaze" trend. The album spawned the singles "When You Sleep" & "Only Shallow."
Back in the day, the group had been searching for its own identity; their sound—characterized by distorted guitars—often led to unfavorable comparisons with The Jesus and Mary Chain. Seeking a defining sound, they found it in 1988 with their first EP, which featured a wall of ethereal vocals enveloped by strident guitars and samples—effectively giving birth to the shoegaze movement.
Finally, the moment of truth came at last, an ambitious boundless effort to create "Loveless," the definitive masterpiece of the shoegaze movement and the band's most iconic record to date. The production process, however, was far from easy; the band cycled through 18 different sound engineers. Kevin Shields explored various techniques—such as strumming guitars while manipulating the tremolo arm, utilizing drum loops, and incorporating obscured, atmospheric vocals—over the course of three years. The project cost a total of £250,000 (though Shields claims the figure was £140,000). Regardless of the exact amount, it was a sum that nearly bankrupted Creation, the band's record label.
Bad blood arose between the two parties over this album, and the band was dropped from the label because working with Kevin Shields proved both difficult and costly. Alan McGee, the label's owner—though not before sending them out on tour to recoup some of the investment—even put up more money for a mini-European tour, despite the fact that the band was essentially broke.
While we consider the album incredible today, it didn't sell particularly well at the time; it reached No. 24 in the UK, but across the pond, it failed to even crack the Top 200. Despite positive reviews, no singles could be released, as Shields blocked any promotional singles and refused to include the band's name on the cover—much to McGee's growing frustration. As James Kyllo, one of the promoters, noted, the project was a beautiful undertaking, but he doubted the investment would ever be recovered. Consequently, McGee chose to terminate the contract; the risks were too high, and Shields offered no assurances that the same issues wouldn't recur, that was effectively the end for the band, which subsequently disbanded and remained largely inactive until 2013, when they finally released another record.
"Loveless" set the bar incredibly high—effectively killing off the shoegaze genre, as no one else within it dared to attempt a work so demanding, complex, and expensive. Yet, its legacy was profound, exerting a global influence on acts ranging from Guided By Voices and Nine Inch Nails to the Latin American band Soda Stereo, who drew inspiration from their 1992 release.
Loveless Track List:





