Alongside Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome, Propaganda’s A Secret Wish defined the grandeur of ZTT. Their debut album stood alone as a beacon of extravagant synth-pop… until…
Popscene – Dreampop
We lose ourselves in the hazy sonic textures of dreampop, that most painterly of musical genres… What is it? With dreampop the clue is in the word ‘dream’. This is…
Spotlight: We Are The World – the album
We Are the World hit No.1 across the globe, sold 10 million copies and picked up four Grammy Awards. Yet the album of the same name appears to have been…
Adamski interview: “I nicked Boy George’s moped as we went scrambling in the rain”
Adamski was the child punk prodigy who became one of rave’s first superstars, with his mega-hit Killer. In 2020 he told Classic Pop of tabloid infamy, offending Seal, LSD-fuelled biking…
Fatal Attraction: Del Amitri interviewed
In 2021 Del Amitri returned with Fatal Mistakes – their first new album in 19 years. “If anyone can make a great Del Amitri record, it should be us,” Justin…
Run-DMC Interview – “The greatest period in hip-hop was the time before recorded rap”
Run-DMC took hip-hop to the mainstream VIA crossover classics Walk This Way and It’s Tricky, but split after the death of Jam Master Jay in 2002. In 2021, rapper DMC…
Space is the place – Marti Pellow interviewed
In 2021, Marti Pellow was a man on a mission – and even a global pandemic wasn’t enough to stop him recording an ambitious double album inspired by a diverse…
My Pop Life – Samira Ahmed
The journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed talks us through her music obsessions… What’s the first song you remember loving? I think it was probably Northern Lights by Renaissance, but my…
Sparks – 21st Century Sparks Collection review
A welcome invitation to reassess the oft-neglected but ingenious back catalogue amassed by the dynamic duo during this century’s first decade Given Edgar Wright’s documentary The Sparks Brothers and their…
The Associates – Sulk + Billy Mackenzie – Life: Recordings (1995-96) review
Revisiting the golden moment when Billy Mackenzie somehow became commercial, and the troubled music of his final years The correct example for the most unlikely band ever to go mainstream,…