The FreakyTrigger extended universe of weblogs

2PAC ft ELTON JOHN – “Ghetto Gospel” The pattern for recent hip-hop Number 1s on Popular – Nelly’s pair being the best example – has been the chart-topper as a kind of medal for services rendered, generally coming an album cycle after th...

2PAC ft ELTON JOHN – “Ghetto Gospel”
Popular: #1013, 2nd July 2005

#ScienceFiction
“Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead”, is a very funny parody / pastiche of Space Opera, by Robert Sheckley (1972). One of the best titles ever. I recommend this podcast for an excellent reading & discussion of it
freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/09/a...

Omargeddon: Project Closure Report

Omargeddon #55: Is It The Clouds? Omar Rodríguez-López’s most recent solo album Is It the Clouds? dropped January 2024 (aptly on the Clouds Hill label) and was the first to follow 2016-17’s epic release schedule. While it’s not quite ...

Omargeddon #55: Is It The Clouds?

Omargeddon #54: Sworn Virgins As much as this idea totally whips, sadly, Sworn Virgins isn’t a concept album centred around the priestesses of Vesta, although it did inspire me to draft a fantasy longlist of musicians I’d like to ...

Omargeddon #54: Sworn Virgins

Omargeddon #53: Saber, Querer, Osar y Callar Hooray for me! Also several others, but it’s hard to get excited about that. Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio, the long-awaited Mars Volta double album I totally manifested is here at last, and it is a...

Omargeddon #53: Saber, Querer, Osar y Callar

CRAZY FROG – “Axel F” In 2004 I took on the worst project of my professional life; worst in the sense that it was miserable and time-consuming and also in the sense that I did it very badly. A certain mobile phone company ...

CRAZY FROG – “Axel F”
Popular: #1012, 4th June 2005

🤪🐸

OASIS – “Lyla” The long twilight of Oasis is reaching its end, at least in Popular terms. The 00s took them from the kings of English rock to a drab fixture and finally a running joke, bigmouths promising a return t...

OASIS – “Lyla”
Popular: #1011, 28th May 2005

Omargeddon #52: Solid State Mercenaries The Jeopardy! category is “Before and After”: ANSWER: They’ll use semiconductor technology to amass an army for hire, if the remuneration is right. QUESTION: Who are Solid State Mercenaries? Why yes, ...

Omargeddon #52: Solid State Mercenaries

AKON – “Lonely” This is going to be one of those annoying reviews which takes the billion-view signature hit of a highly successful artist and picks away at production choices which – objectively! – have been extreme...

AKON – “Lonely”
Popular: #1010, 14th May 2005

Omargeddon #51: Omar Rodriguez I’m inclined to think of Omar Rodriguez as the first official ORL solo record, even though that’s not technically correct. And yet, my predilection for proving myself to be the best kind of correct is...

Omargeddon #51: Omar Rodriguez

I just got to this point in your series, and I'm loving them.

Ironically, they're also making me want to re-read Cerebus, for all the good bits AND for the slow motion trash fire.

I am suddenly reminded of the piece I wrote then for @freakytrigger.co.uk — I will always stand by it.

Omargeddon #50: Mantra Hiroshima Labelling music as ‘psychedelic’ is about as useful as labelling it as ‘progressive’. Both are wildly subjective terms, and both are frequently deployed when defining Omar Rodríguez-López’s extensive ...

Omargeddon #50: Mantra Hiroshima

Just gonna use this as an excuse to link to the archive…

Time Reconsidered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Who - starting at #1 Fang Rock

Peoples Pop 2024: THE FINAL GROUP The results are in! We have a final group of 40 songs to vote on in the WORLD CUP OF 2024, and a handy GOOGLE FORM where you can do just that. The form has details on the scoring system, and it’s open...

Peoples Pop 2024: THE FINAL GROUP

THE WORLD CUP OF 2024 In case you weren’t aware, the Pop Polls are back back BACK on Bluesky, and we’ve started off with the annual year-end poll, The World Cup Of 2024 (hashtag: #peoplespop24 if you want to play along the...

THE WORLD CUP OF 2024

@peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social

Omargeddon #49: Woman Gives Birth to Tomato! Friends, this year is going to be a doozy, one which will require mental fortitude on par with the strength of Hercules combined with the flexibility of Gumby. And yet there’s only much loin-girding a...

Omargeddon #49: Woman Gives Birth to Tomato!

Bec’s best books 2024 In the ancient times, when I was old enough to know better but young enough to believe it didn’t matter, when LiveJournal was the central focus of my socialisation, at this time of year my reading fee...

Bec’s best books 2024

The Top 100 Songs Of All Time: 1. Pet Shop Boys – Always On My Mind/In My House [From December 2014] The intro: 00’00 – 00’39 In December 1987 the Pet Shop Boys released “Always On My Mind”, a cover of the song made famous by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. It became the Christm...

Twenty years ago (well in a few weeks time) we started a list. Ten years ago (well in a few weeks time) Tom finally got us to the end of it

freakytrigger.co.uk/freaky-trigg... (ebook still available)

Spoilers, this was #1…

24th Freaky Trigger Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl (#FTABCANYPC24): The Tower Bridge Cat On Stairs Sunday, 29th December 2024I marks the 25th anniversary of the first Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and so we are heading to Southwark to sample some pubs with fascinating architecture...

24th Freaky Trigger Annual Between-Christmas-and-New-Year Pub-Crawl

"The Tower Bridge Cat On Stairs"

#FTABCANYPC24 #opalanniversary

24th Freaky Trigger Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl (#FTABCANYPC24): The Tower Bridge Cat On Stairs Sunday, 29th December 2024I marks the 25th anniversary of the first Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and so we are heading to Southwark to sample some pubs with fascinating architecture...

24th Freaky Trigger Annual Between-Christmas-and-New-Year Pub-Crawl

"The Tower Bridge Cat On Stairs"

#FTABCANYPC24 #opalanniversary

’24 Candles Last year I wrote up some trends in the way British people listen to Christmas music now – as expressed via the medium of the streaming-era Christmas charts, which offer a fairly accurate barometer of...

’24 Candles

Omargeddon #48: Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fungus This is not my best-loved time of year: it’s cold, dark and tainted by too many unhappy holiday memories. All the decorations remind me of when I was very young, and how I dreaded the annual construct...

Omargeddon #48: Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fungus

This is not my best-loved time of year: it’s cold, dark and tainted by too many unhappy holiday memories. All the decorations remind me of when I was very young, and how I dreaded the annual construction of our plastic fir tree, anticipating my dad’s... https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=35779

The Top 100 Songs Of All Time: 1. Pet Shop Boys – Always On My Mind/In My House [From December 2014] The intro: 00’00 – 00’39 In December 1987 the Pet Shop Boys released “Always On My Mind”, a cover of the song made famous by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. It became the Christm...

Twenty years ago (well in a few weeks time) we started a list. Ten years ago (well in a few weeks time) Tom finally got us to the end of it

freakytrigger.co.uk/freaky-trigg... (ebook still available)

Spoilers, this was #1…

The UncoolTwo50 is over - well, the voting phase is - but the posting continues. These are the final 10 near-misses. 60. PUBLIC ENEMY - “By The Time I Get To Arizona” (1991) https://youtu.be/zrFOb_f7ubw?si=WC7ckW55CGN12bSo I learned too late that this... https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=35773

23. MYLENE FARMER - “Libertine” (1985) Events overtook me - they overtook everyone - and two weeks ago, when I posted this song to Bluesky, seems a very long time indeed. I’ll try to reconstruct this ancient era.... https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=35765

Omargeddon #47: Doom Patrol If I really wanted to – and I don’t – I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the f...

Omargeddon #47: Doom Patrol

If I really wanted to - and I don’t - I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the first knell sounded shortly after the release of the... https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=35748