New Mistake by Jellyfish
There’s recently been a study released, based on streaming data from Spotify, that indicates that most people gravitate towards music…
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Music Quiz: 1980s Music Videos
Congratulations to everyone who scored 100% last week – Rich, Chris, J, Geoff, 2loud2old, and Tony. This week’s quiz requires…
Five Musicians who look like Librarians
There’s a stereotype in popular music of youth and charisma, but not everyone fits the mould. Here are five very…
Night So Long by HAIM
I’ve already discussed HAIM recently on this blog, and I still find their sunny harmonies like musical comfort food, but…
Music Quiz – Dropped Albums
Congratulations to Aaron from who scored a perfect 20 in last week’s quiz. I think this week’s quiz will…
Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega
We’ve recently been away on a family road trip. My six year old is tolerant of different music, only once…
Music Quiz – Greatest Hits
Congratulations to Tony and to 2Loud2OldMusic, who both scored full marks in last week’s debut album quiz. This week we’re…
Restoration Day by Deborah Makarios – Book Feature
Usually this blog focuses on music, but my sister-in-law, who’s a full time writer, just self-published her first novel. Deborah…
The Classical by The Fall
Over the last fortnight, while on holiday, I’ve been reading an oral history of Rough Trade Records, who boasted acts…
Weekly Music Quiz: Debut Albums
Congratulations to Rich and Aaron who both scored full marks last week (and apologies to any late entries – I…
Borderline by Madonna
As an eager young music fan, I was perhaps an archetypal rockist. I wasn’t necessarily sexist, but 19 year old…
Weekly Music Quiz: Big in Canada
Congratulations to Geoff and Tony who both scored 28/30 in last week’s tough anagram’s quiz. Geoff is going to have…
Simon & Garfunkel Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel started their recording career as Tom & Jerry in 1957, making teen-oriented Everly Brothers style pop.…
Ella Guru by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
One of my favourite books is The Rolling Stone Rock ‘n’ Roll Reader, a collection of Rolling Stone articles and…
Music Quiz: Anagrams
Congratulations to the 20/20 scorers last week – 2loud2oldmusic and keepsmealive both scored full marks. I found this week’s challenge…
Jimmy Webb: Five Best Albums
Jimmy Webb enjoyed a sterling career as a songwriter in the 1960s – his website bills him as “America’s Songwriter”,…
Revolution Blues by Neil Young
It sucks to be me, but I’ve just spent most of the last week at a work conference at a…
Music Quiz: Caps
Congratulations to Tony and KamerTunesBlog who both scored a perfect 20/20 last week. This week’s challenge is to identify the…
The Moody Blues Core Seven Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Between 1967 and 1972, Birmingham’s The Moody Blues released seven studio albums, commonly referred to as the core seven. They…
Highwayman by Paddy McAloon and Jimmy Webb
One of my favourite musical discoveries of 2017 has been the solo catalogue of Jimmy Webb. While his 1970s albums…
Christmas Must Be Tonight by The Band
I spent my time at University working in a supermarket part time, and it only served to deepen my apathy…
Beatles Album Battle: Revolver vs Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
For all the great music that The Beatles made, my favourite two albums from the Liverpool quartet are their mid…
Locked Inside by Janelle Monáe
I haven’t spent a lot of time with Janelle Monáe yet, but she’s impressive; able to enjoy popularity despite an uncompromising…
Blog Dylan: Live in 1966
Bob Dylan’s a major musical figure who I haven’t covered on this blog yet. He has a huge discography, brimming…
King Crimson: Five Best Albums
King Crimson aren’t so much a band as a series of bands, all featuring idiosyncratic guitarist Robert Fripp. With a…
Nature’s Best? 30 Great New Zealand Songs
Welcome back for the 4th and final episode of my run through of New Zealand’s 30 greatest pop songs –…
Nature’s Best? 30 Great New Zealand Songs (part 3)
This post is part of the collaborative blog series on compilations organised by Vinyl Connection. Welcome back for the 3rd installment…
Nature’s Best? 30 Great New Zealand Songs (part 2)
This post is part of the collaborative blog series on compilations organised by Vinyl Connection. Welcome back for the 2nd examination…
Nature’s Best? 30 Great New Zealand Songs (part 1)
Welcome to the Various Artists/Various Blogs Festival! Check out this page at the Vinyl Connection for all the posts as we…
Paul Kelly – Life is Fine
Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly doesn’t have a lot left to prove with the 23rd studio album of his career. While…
Long Time Missing by Tommy Keene
Tommy Keene passed away unexpectedly in his sleep this week at the age of 59. The critically acclaimed power pop…
Gustavo by Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaValle
Mark Kozelek has steadily released a handful of brilliant songs on most of his albums, ever since the Red House…
Haim: Classic or Dud?
I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog so far with music from the 1960s and 1970s, and it’s…
Landed – Ben Folds
As a piano playing singer and song writer, North Carolina’s Ben Folds is almost inevitably going to draw comparisons to…
Neil Finn – Out Of Silence
Neil Finn is a respected elder statesman of New Zealand pop, with a recording career that stretches back to Split…
Bruce Springsteen: Favourite Five Albums
It took me a while to warm to Bruce Springsteen – the radio mostly played his 1980s hits from Born…
Holy Grail by Hunters & Collectors
Melbourne’s Hunters & Collectors started as an arty new-wave band, but ‘Holy Grail’, released in 1992, is slice of Australian…
Tuesday’s Top Tens
Happy Tuesday morning* (New Zealand time)! Often on Tuesday morning I feature an artist that I’ve recently added to the…
Second Song – TV on the Radio
Brooklyn indie band TV on the Radio were formed in 2001. They’re effectively a rock band, but their music is…
Elvis Costello Albums: Ranked from Worst To Best (The First Ten Years)
He scored a recording contract in 1977, as the punk and new wave movements opened the doors for fresh artists.…
Jesus Was A Cross Maker by Judee Sill
California’s Judee Sill had a troubled childhood, losing her father to pneumonia at eight years old. Her mother’s second marriage…
The Go-Betweens: Albums Ranked from Worst To Best
Brisbane’s The Go-Betweens are one of my favourite bands, but it’s sometimes difficult to explain their appeal. Robert Forster and…
How To Make Gravy by Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly’s a respected songwriter in Australia, with a solo career that began in 1981. He’s the type of figure…
Straight Into Darkness by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
There are a substantial number of songs by the late Tom Petty that I love and that I could have…
Creedence Clearwater Revival Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Creedence Clearwater Revival emerged in 1968, seemingly from a Florida swamp but actually from El Cerrito in California. Rebelling against…
As I Sit To Play The Organ in the Notre Dame Cathedral – Sparks
I’m publishing this blog entry in advance, and this song gives an indication, better than any other piece of pop…
Stuck Between Stations by The Hold Steady
When my wife and I bought our first house, it was a small two-bedroom doer upper. It needed plenty of…
Never Talking To You Again by Hüsker Dü
I don’t want my weekly song post to turn into an obituary thread, but the world of popular music lost…
Neil Young: Five Best Albums
Neil Young has enjoyed a long and erratic music career. His first brush with fame came with Buffalo Springfield in…
Cool in the Pool – Holger Czukay
We’re reaching peak rock star death era – many of the musicians active during rock music’s formative years are reaching…
The Band: Albums Ranked from Worst to Best
After years of playing live, The Band recorded the Basement Tapes with Bob Dylan, where they developed their unique melding of rock…
I Wanna Be By Your Side – Syreeta
Not content with merely creating some of the greatest albums ever made (and winning a bucket-load of Grammy Awards) during…
Come Around – Sugar
Whether he’s recording as the guitarist and co-leader of Hüsker Dü, as a solo artist, or as the leader of…
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft – The Carpenters
The Carpenters, from Downey California, released some transcendent songs in the early 1970s. Karen Carpenter’s beautiful voice showcased beautiful melodies…
The Shuffle the Music Tag
I was nominated by Turntabletalk (thank you!) to do the shuffle music tag challenge. Here are the rules. THE RULES• Mention…
Anchor Me by The Mutton Birds
Don McGlashan is up with Dave Dobbyn and the Finn brothers as New Zealand’s best mainstream guitar-rock writers. He’s best-known…
Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald
When my wife and I bought our own first house, we lived next door to a young man with mental…
Tom Waits Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
California’s Tom Waits has enjoyed a remarkable career. Emerging in the early 1970s as a whisky-soaked, piano-playing balladeer, his career…
Hey Snow White by The New Pornographers
The New Pornographers are a Canadian power pop super-group – the members were drawn together from other projects. Notable alumni…
Wild Horses by Prefab Sprout
Prefab Sprout‘s terrific 1990 album, Jordan: The Comeback, features a song named ‘Wild Horses’. It’s about an older gentleman’s unsavoury…
Just A Little Lovin’ – Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield began her career in a folk-pop trio The Springfields with her brother Tom. When The Springfields broke up,…
Richard and Linda Thompson Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
English folk-rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson’s career resembled a soap opera. Active as recording artists between 1974 and 1982,…
Down in Splendour by Straitjacket Fits
The small city of Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, produced a lot of great music in the 1980s…
Hope the High Road by Jason Isbell
I’ve been very impressed by Jason Isbell’s last two albums; 2013’s Southeastern and 2015’s Something More Than Free. After sobering…
Halleluwah by Can
Germany’s Can were too ahead of their time, and too weird, to enjoy a hit record, but they were hugely…
A Rose Is Still A Rose by Aretha Franklin
For some reason I never found Aretha Franklin’s original studio albums in second-hand bins, and for years the only album…
Eleanor by Vigilantes of Love
Vigilantes of Love took their name from the New Order song ‘Love Vigilantes’. The band hailed from Athens, Georgia, a…
Pavement (by voting and webpoll)
I’ve been covering Pavement’s albums over the last week or so – revisiting their five albums has helped me to…
Trump and Climate
I know this is usually a music blog, and apologies to my regular readers for the change in topic today…
Male, Middle Class, and White
Right now, I have created 63 artist pages on this blog, and 59 of them are white. Two of the…
Inherently Sexy Barley Fields – Quotes By Sting
I’ve been covering Sting on this website this week: I generally find that his solo career is under-rated –…
Three Great Albums – Marquee Moon, Spilt Milk, and Southeastern
I’ve had a lot of time for writing recently; some leave and then a work trip with long haul flights and…
New Zealand Music Month
Each May is New Zealand Music Month. It’s a promotion that has outstayed its welcome, especially as New Zealand has…
A Duck in a Microwave – and other music jokes
Soul singer Bill Withers was one of the most universally loved performers of the rock era – does anyone not…
Van Morrison: Five Best Albums
The best albums from Van Morrison's catalogue.
Album Battle – Wilco vs Radiohead
A game I like to play on my cycle commute from work is figuring out the best band of each…
The Woodstock Movie
An analysis of the 1969 Woodstock movie.
Site Updates: 500 Ratings and a New Domain
Aphoristic Album Reviews has had a couple of significant milestones this week. 500 Ratings I’ve been keeping a record of…
Rating The Beatles’ Albums
Obviously The Beatles are the most celebrated and analysed pop band in the history of music, and I don’t have…
Turning Rebellion Into Money
To what extent was punk rock an expression of dissent?
Ten worst pop stinkers ever – A Letter to the Editor
Ten worst pop stinkers ever I wrote this in response to a list published in a major New Zealand weekly…
An Explanation and a Plan
An Explanation I wanted to provide an explanation to my fellow bloggers who may have noticed that this blog has undergone a…
