Over the past few days, I’ve been reviewing Lauryn Hill’s discography. It wasn’t a difficult task – in the twenty years since she left The Fugees, she’s made two solo albums. 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a stunning…
There’s recently been a study released, based on streaming data from Spotify, that indicates that most people gravitate towards music that was released in their early teens. Females favour music that they first heard at the age of 13, and…
One of my favourite musical discoveries of 2017 has been the solo catalogue of Jimmy Webb. While his 1970s albums are a little scattershot, there are plenty of examples of his harmonically complex but accessible songs. Along with his contemporaries…
Tommy Keene passed away unexpectedly in his sleep this week at the age of 59. The critically acclaimed power pop musician had recorded an album with Robert Pollard, and collaborated with The Goo Goo Dolls, Paul Westerberg, and recently with…
Along with Robert Forster, Grant McLennan was one half of the song-writing team behind The Go-Betweens. While The Go-Betweens were on hiatus during the 1990s, Grant McLennan embarked on a solo career, releasing four solo albums, two albums with The…
Melbourne’s Hunters & Collectors started as an arty new-wave band, but ‘Holy Grail’, released in 1992, is slice of Australian pub rock. There’s plenty to critique; it’s based around the straightforward I – IV – VI – V chord progression,…
Paul Kelly’s a respected songwriter in Australia, with a solo career that began in 1981. He’s the type of figure who receives lots of songwriting awards and inclusions on great song lists, without necessarily breaking through to public consciousness, and…
We had a lot of 20/20s last week – apologies if I’ve missed anyone, but congratulations to Rich, Jim, Geoff, Cristian, Tony, and Aaron, who all filed perfect scores. Sadly, we lost Tom Petty this week. This week’s quiz is…
Whether he’s recording as the guitarist and co-leader of Hüsker Dü, as a solo artist, or as the leader of Sugar, you generally know what you’re going to get from Bob Mould. I understand that he’s diversified somewhat on some…
Don McGlashan is up with Dave Dobbyn and the Finn brothers as New Zealand’s best mainstream guitar-rock writers. He’s best-known for his work in 1990s rock band The Mutton Birds, but they were the third group he recorded with. His…
Prefab Sprout‘s terrific 1990 album, Jordan: The Comeback, features a song named ‘Wild Horses’. It’s about an older gentleman’s unsavoury attempt to woo a young lady. Paddy McAloon is a brilliant lyricist, and he’s in full flight here, throwing in…
The small city of Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, produced a lot of great music in the 1980s – The Flying Nun record label distributed acclaimed albums by acts like The Chills, The Clean, The Bats, and Chris…
For some reason I never found Aretha Franklin’s original studio albums in second-hand bins, and for years the only album I owned from her was a double disc retrospective. The second disc dabbles in her 1980s work, with star power…
Vigilantes of Love took their name from the New Order song ‘Love Vigilantes’. The band hailed from Athens, Georgia, a city with rich pop music heritage; in all honesty they’d probably struggle to break onto a list of greatest musical…
I’ve been covering Pavement’s albums over the last week or so – revisiting their five albums has helped me to appreciate them more, and how full of ideas their albums are. They’re definitely a strong contender for the best guitar…
Each May is New Zealand Music Month. It’s a promotion that has outstayed its welcome, especially as New Zealand has outgrown the cultural cringe for homegrown music that was evident in the 1960s and 1970s. But, perhaps not coincidentally, I’ve…
A game I like to play on my cycle commute from work is figuring out the best band of each ten year era. For instance, The Beatles and Bob Dylan are contenders for 1960-1970, while 1985-1995 has a few contestants,…
