Van Morrison’s enjoyed a long and prolific career. Like Neil Young, he’s continued to released a new studio album almost every year, even long past retirement age. Such is the breadth of Morrison’s discography, the two albums he made with…
New Zealand is presently enjoying a strong crop of female singer-songwriters. Along with Hollie Fullbrook of Tiny Ruins, we also have Aldous Harding’s weirdness and Nadia Reid‘s imagery-laden writing. Pop superstar Lorde isn’t a singer-songwriter but shares the introspection of her contemporaries. Hollie…
The Boo Radleys emerged in the shoegaze scene of the late 1980s. They came from Wallasey, a town just across the Mersey from Liverpool. They shifted closer to pop/rock in the 1990s, and achieved critical acclaim, particularly for their 1993…
The classic lineup of Nirvana – Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl – first recorded together on the first day of 1991. They ran through seven tracks, all captured in just one take. Cobain later added vocals to two…
My favourite Jackson Browne song is the title track to his third album, 1974’s Late for the Sky. I’ve never fully understood its meaning. There are dark themes throughout the album – the closing track ‘Before the Deluge’ is apocalyptic.…
Growing up in Auckland’s North Shore, Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair deferred their chosen careers when they returned from their OEs. McGlashan was a musician. He had already drummed for the Auckland post-punk trio, Blam Blam Blam. He penned the…
They’re barely known outside New Zealand, but The Dance Exponents were reliable hitmakers in the 1980s. They kept enjoying success through the 1990s after they shortened their name to The Exponents. They weren’t edgy or pretentious, a pop/rock guitar band…
Irish rock band U2 peaked with their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. Their fifth record, it combined Bono’s fervour with a sweeping sound from The Edge’s effect-laden guitar and atmospheric production from Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. It’s also the…
Moody Glasgow pop band The Blue Nile have such a slim discography that everything they’ve recorded is to be treasured. Starting with 1984’s A Walk Across The Rooftops, they’ve only recorded three further albums, along with a solo record from…
In January 1994, Straitjacket Fits played their last gig at the Big Day Out festival. Disillusioned by the music industry, Shayne Carter returned to Dunedin and spent years largely away from the music industry. He later described this period to…
Ringo Starr had the most to lose from The Beatles‘ breakup. John Lennon had already launched a solo career with ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and ‘Cold Turkey’. George Harrison had a stockpile of songs that would form the basis of…
Aimee Mann scored her only hit single with her first attempt. She fronted Boston new wave band ‘Til Tuesday, whose debut single ‘Voices Carry’ reached #8 on the Billboard charts. Despite the immediate success of ‘Voices Carry’, it took a…
The streaming era has scattered previously held views on the hierarchy of popular music. Despite a critical pasting, Queen have emerged as the dominant classic rock band. The number one spot on the Billboard 100 in early 2022 has largely…
Dunedin has a small population and is located in the deep south of New Zealand. But Dunedin’s Flying Nun record label produced a string of critically acclaimed and influential guitar bands throughout the 1980s, including The Chills, The Clean, The…
Famously, The Monkees started as a band created for a TV show – they were sometimes referred to as the Prefab Four. But as their career progressed, they asserted more influence over their career. On their third album, Headquarters, The…
New Zealand indie band The Phoenix Foundation was formed by Wellington High School students in 1994. The group features two singer-guitarists – Polish-born Luke Buda and Samuel Flynn Scott (the son of a prominent NZ cartoonist). Keyboardist Conrad Webbe is…
Nebraskan singer-songwriter Josh Rouse is undervalued – his thoughtful and tuneful songs could have been hits in another era. He released some great records in the early 21st century – the concept album of Under Cold Blue Stars, about a…
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor was born in Auckland, New Zealand, the daughter of a poet and a civil engineer. She grew up immersed in poetry and literature. She built a profile through SoundCloud and talent shows, and in June 2013,…
Lots of dedicated music fans are sniffy about mainstream pop music from the 21st century. And if there’s anything worse, it’s 21st-century mainstream pop that was pre-fabricated for a TV show. Girls Aloud originated from the reality show Popstars: The…
Marlon Williams grew up in Lyttleton, New Zealand. He toured Europe as a member of the choir of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and started playing guitar in high school. His band The Unfaithful Ways, formed with two friends…
Breaking up Split Enz, Neil Finn retained drummer Paul Hester from the final Enz lineup and created a more streamlined band. They recruited Australian bass player Nick Seymour (brother of Hunters and Collector’s lead singer Mark) and secured an American…
The Beach Boys spent the first half of the 1960s becoming more sophisticated. Under the leadership of Brian Wilson, they grew from emulating Chuck Berry on ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ to creating masterpieces like Pet Sounds. When Brian Wilson’s mental health suffered…
One of the most misleading album titles in popular music is Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats. The country part isn’t misleading; Dean and Gene Ween actually recorded an entire album in Nashville with notable musos like Charlie McCoy and Bud…
Against all odds, Phil Collins made a strong start to his tenure as Genesis’ lead vocalist. Recorded after Peter Gabriel left to pursue a solo career, 1976’s A Trick of the Tail was an impressive record. Collins couldn’t replicate Gabriel’s…
I’ve already covered the Split Enz and Crowded House catalogues separately. This page covers Neil and Tim Finn’s solo albums and duo projects. I’ve only covered a handful of Tim’s solo albums, but I’ve written about most of Neil’s solo…
The Beths met at jazz school in Auckland, New Zealand. Guitarist Jonathan Pearce stated that playing jazz provided a “very clear idea of what we didn’t want to do”. Instead, the quartet reverted to the music they loved in their…
By the time Jimi Hendrix released debut album Are You Experienced?, he certainly was experienced. After a stint in the army, training as a paratrooper, he played with the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, and his own band Jimmy James and…
As I wrote in an earlier Syd Barrett post: When people talk about wasted potential in rock and roll, it’s usually premature deaths like Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, or Kurt Cobain. But Pink Floyd’s original leader Syd Barrett also belongs on the list –…
I’m just the right age to have accumulated a collection of friends who were obsessed by The Smashing Pumpkins. One friend went for at least two years where he listened to at least one Pumpkins song every single day. Another…
Los Angeles power-pop band Weezer have pumped out records since 1994, but they’re largely beloved for their first pair of albums; 1994’s Weezer and 1996’s Pinkerton. Both records featured bass player Matt Sharp and were the only records Weezer made…
Emerging in the late 1960s from Los Angeles, Spirit were an odd band even by the standards of an era when rock was in its infancy and genre rules hadn’t yet ossified. Spirit’s members ranged in age from 16 to…
Many significant UK rock acts from the 1960s and early 1970s were deeply rooted in the blues. Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac were among many young bands steeped in blues tradition. Queen took…
Iron Maiden’s third album, The Number of the Beast, was made under time pressure. The group had five weeks to record their first album with new lead singer Bruce Dickinson. The single ‘Run to the Hills’ was released in advance…
Van Morrison is a prolific recording artist, releasing more than 40 studio albums during his solo career, as well as fronting Them in the 1960s. He recorded a lot of non-album material, but his only non-album b-side that I’m aware…
Scott Walker is one long-time favourite artist who I’ve barely mentioned on this site (edit – I have now). Born Noel Scott Engel, in Ohio, he moved to London and fronted vocal heartthrob group The Walker Brothers. When the trio…
Chicago’s Jamila Woods is a writer and a recording artist, and as such she’s able to sing eloquently about racial issues. Her second album, 2019’s Legacy! Legacy!, was a neo-soul masterpiece, so recently I’ve gone back to her 2016 debut…
Don McGlashan kicked around the arty end of the New Zealand alternative scene during the 1980s. He played the drums in Blam Blam Blam, providing lead vocals for the iconic and ironic ‘There Is No Depression In New Zealand’. On…
There was a lot of great pop music in the 1960s, and Birmingham psychedelic rock band The Move are overlooked among the rush. They never made an impression in the US where the band they morphed into, Electric Light Orchestra,…
Sometimes a record is so jammed with great songs that something worthy has to be shipped out to a b-side. Despite its huge success, Peter Gabriel’s So isn’t one of those records. Singles like ‘Red Rain’ and ‘Sledgehammer’ are terrific,…
Faith No More have covered a lot of ground over their career – in particular, 1995’s King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime utilises a different genre for every track. Mike Patton is one of the most talented vocalists…
Arnold Dorsey struggled to break into the music industry until he was advised to adopt a more interesting stage name. Dorsey took the name Engelbert Humperdinck from the German composer of Hansel and Gretel. Already in his early thirties, the…
Universally beloved soul singer Bill Withers passed away this week. He came from the small coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, and spent his early career in the Navy. His career as a professional musician was notably short…
Power pop band Fountains of Wayne was formed by Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood – they took their name from a now-defunct lawn ornament store in New Jersey. Apart from one fluke hit (2003’s ‘Stacy’s Mom’) they were never huge…
Emma Paki was born in Whakatane, the New Zealand town closest to where White Island erupted in December 2019. She was born to a Maori heritage; and received her first guitar at the age of 8. Paki’s debut single was…
‘La Bamba’ is a traditional Mexican folk song, from the state of Veracruz. Ritchie Valens, a 17 year old rising star, converted the tune to rock and roll. It’s one of the best known Spanish language tunes in the rock…
Neil Finn joined the band Split Enz as a guitarist when he was still a teenager. His brother Tim was the band’s leader, writing most of their material, but Neil Finn wrote many of the band’s successful singles in the…
It’s a long way to the top (if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll), and Australian hard rock band AC/DC spent much of the 1970s building their profile. They cracked the big time with 1979’s Highway to Hell, which peaked at…
Of all the b-sides that I’ve covered in this series, Elvis Presley’s cover of ‘Mystery Train’ is the most iconic. It was voted on a 2003 Rolling Stone as the 77th greatest song of all time, an astounding feat for…
Marillion were named after JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, and were formed in 1979. Early Marillion were often compared to the progressive-rock era of Genesis – lead vocalist Fish’s theatricality was similar to Peter Gabriel. The core lineup of guitarist Steve…
Patti Smith was one of the first punk artists to make a record. 1975’s Horses, produced by John Cale, was a confronting album. Musically it drew from 1960s garage-rock, while lyrically it was provocative. Smith was clearly influential on an…
The b-side is often a British commodity, but one American artist was the equal of any British artist with the quantity and quality of his outtakes. Prince was so prolific that he released 70 official non-album b-sides, as well as…
Canadian power-pop band The Pursuit of Happiness scored a surprise top 40 hit in 1986 with their independent single ‘I’m An Adult Now’, helped by a low-budget, self-produced music video. The Toronto-based group signed with Chrysalis Records to make their…
The Kinks formed in Muswell Hill, London, in 1964. They launched their career with hard-driving rock and roll like ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night’, songs that are considered as landmarks in the development…
In The Beatles, George Harrison often suffered the indignity of being limited to two songs per LP. It worked fine at the start of the group, when he was the junior partner in the band. By the end of The…
Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is one of the great cult records. Issued in 1998, it’s full of enigmatic lines, like “Now she’s a little boy in Spain/Playing pianos filled with flames”, and Jeff Mangum’s raw…
Cat Stevens‘ work has endured because his low-key songs are relateable and accessible. Stevens has explored different styles over the course of his career – he started as a teen pop idol in the 1960s, and moved towards progressive rock…
The Police were arguably the greatest singles band of their era. In the late 1970s and early 1980s they released a string of great songs – ‘Roxanne’, ‘Message in a Bottle’, ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’, and ‘Every…
American rock icon Bruce Springsteen celebrated his 70th birthday this week. This means it’s half a lifetime since he released his most commercially successful album, 1984’s Born in the USA. A decade earlier, 1975’s Born to Run had launched Springsteen…
It’s the year of Our Lord 2019, and we’re rapidly approaching peak-rock-star-death era. The Cars’ mastermind Ric Ocasek passed away earlier this week. I was surprised to learn that he was 75, older than many of the stars that he…
Aside from their debut, each of The Go-Betweens’ studio albums follows a set formula – exactly ten songs with five written by Robert Forster and five by Grant McLennan. The pair anchored the Australian indie guitar band over two stints…
In 1978 New Zealand art-rockers Split Enz were in crisis. The group had lost key original members like Phil Judd and Mike Chunn. Their art-rock was out of step in the late 1970s, pushed from the mainstream by punk and…
Neil Young first rose to prominence in 1960s folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield, playing lead guitar on their breakthrough hit ‘For What It’s Worth’ and writing ‘Mr Soul’ and ‘Broken Arrow’. Young’s Buffalo Springfield work isn’t his earliest recorded legacy –…
John Flansburgh and John Linnell have been making nerdy pop music as They Might Be Giants since 1982. The Massachusetts pair released their debut album in 1986. One of their best known songs is their 1990 cover of ‘Istanbul (Not…
Little Richard emerged in the first wave of rock and roll in the 1950s, with hits like ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’. He and his contemporaries lost steam by the late 1950s; Elvis joined the army, Buddy Holly perished…
Every country has a songwriter who’s very successful in their home territory but hasn’t translated well elsewhere. Australia has Paul Kelly, while Canada had Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip. New Zealand’s equivalent is Dave Dobbyn, a songwriter who emerged…
A bunch of New Zealand acts where I don’t have the patience to review all their records. It’s a mixed bag – Fly My Pretties’ debut is the worst album I’ve ever covered on this site. Fat Freddy’s Drop Based…
As a New Zealander, this site is naturally biased towards New Zealand artists. I’ve collated them all into one page. New Zealand pop music didn’t start in earnest until later than the rest of the world. Despite flickers of brilliance…
James Murphy always intended to be a drummer or a sound technician, but ended up fronting a dance-rock band New York’s LCD Soundsystem bridge the divide between dance and rock – Murphy’s raw vocals are a great entry point for…
In 1967, The Rolling Stones followed The Beatles into baroque psychedelia. While the resulting album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, has its admirers, the band were quick to abandon the summer of love, toughening their sound for the blues-rock of 1968’s…
There are b-sides that are of high quality, that should never have been left off their parent albums. And then there is ‘The End of the Affair’, from Prefab Sprout. If forced to choose between the b-side ‘The End of…
Ed McWilliams and Geoff Maddock met in art class at high school in Auckland, New Zealand. They formed the trio Breast Secreting Cake with drummer Joel Wilton. Forced to change the name of their band, the group chose Bressa Creeting…
Rock chameleon David Bowie experienced two separate career peaks. Most artists improve with experience then run out of ideas, but Bowie reversed his decline and returned with a second set of excellent releases. In the early 1970s his career took…
I spent many happy hours in my late teens and twenties trawling used bins for CD bargains. I gained a lot of great music this way, and it became even easier as people converted their music collections to mp3. It…
The b-side is largely a 20th century commodity – from around 2005, singles charts began to count digital downloads, and the physical single is now obsolete. But there are still 21st century equivalents to the b-side – for example I…
It’s counter-intuitive to include The Smiths‘ most iconic song in a b-side series, but it was first released as the flip side of a single. Recorded in a four day burst of creativity that also yielded ‘William, It Was Really…
So far, in this b-sides series, there have been four scenarios in which good songs find themselves languishing on the flip-side of a single. These are: i) When a great song should have been featured on an album, but is…
As much as I love The Beatles, their solo careers have always mildly disappointed me. If you put ten years of your life into a burst of creativity, it makes sense that you don’t have much left in the tank…
The Replacements started as a bratty punk band, but as the 1980s wore on they lost their rough edges. They signed to a major label and shot for mainstream success. Their best years are generally reckoned to be the mid…
The late Tom Petty was a brilliant singles artist – he wrote hit after hit of likeable, jangly rock. Contemporaries like Bob Seger and John Mellencamp were popular in America, but didn’t translate to New Zealand radio as easily; Petty’s…
The untimely passing of Talk Talk mastermind Mark Hollis this week has sent many fans back to re-examine his masterpieces. Many Talk Talk fans opt for the group’s final two records, the spacious and experimental Spirit of Eden and Laughing…
Kate Bush‘s 1982 album The Dreaming was excellent, but it wasn’t especially commercially successful. She’d previously enjoyed ground-breaking UK success; her debut single ‘Wuthering Heights’ made her the first female artist to hit UK number one with a self-penned song.…
B-sides are a relatively rare commodity for progressive rock bands. They often refused to stoop to the level of those pop proletarians, issuing singles. Additionally, if they had spare song fragments lying around, they could simply incorporate them into epic…
Remember the 1990s, when physical albums sold by the truckload? Manchester band Oasis had their second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, sell more than 22 million copies, and this volume of sales allowed them to lavish even their b-sides with…
In hindsight, The Flirtations’ best known song, ‘Nothing But A Heartache’, sounds like a girl group classic from the early 1960s. It’s a terrific piece, with a pounding back-beat and a strident lead vocal punctuated by horns. But at the…
Last week’s great b-side was a 1980s college rock band with folk-rock inclinations covering a folkie from the previous generation – 10,000 Maniacs covering John Prine’s ‘Hello in There’. This week’s pick is very similar – R.E.M. and 10,000 Maniacs…
Folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs often recorded covers for their b-sides; a smart move, as they showcased how cool their record collections were, and Natalie Merchant’s affected accent always gave their versions a point of difference. ‘Hello In There’ was featured…
After Ian Curtis’ passing, Joy Division transitioned into New Order, with Bernard Sumner taking over the front-man role, and Gillian Gilbert joining on keyboards. It’s hard to be too critical of Sumner as a wordsmith, given that he only accidentally…
I mean, Led Zeppelin didn’t write tunes that every one liked. They left that to the Bee Gees. Wayne Campbell As noted in the movie Wayne’s World, Led Zeppelin didn’t play the pop game. They avoided releasing singles, instead preferring…
1982’s Toto IV was the best known record by collective of LA studio musicians known as Toto. The record spawned three top ten singles, ‘Africa’, ‘Rosanna’, and ‘I Won’t Hold You Back’. ‘Africa’ in particular is well-loved, with a recent…
I was originally planning to feature Elton John’s Christmas themed B-side, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! (Who’d Be A Turkey At Christmas)’, and feature this story, written by my 6 year old daughter about our family vacation. Almost every time I went…
Despite their short career, Joy Division were one of the best known bands from the post-punk era. The Manchester quartet had previously operated as a punk band named Warsaw, but didn’t find their signature sound until they slowed down their…
For this b-side series, I’m only counting material that wasn’t released on studio albums. For instance, ‘Black Water’ by The Doobie Brothers became a #1 single, after its original release as a b-side, but it was also included on the…
Joni Mitchell paid her dues playing folk clubs in the mid 1960s, and she wrote songs for other folk artists like Dave Van Ronk, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Judy Collins before she recorded her debut album. Her first song to gain prominence…
English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock has created cult records all the way back to his days in The Soft Boys in the late 1970s. The Soft Boys began their recording career in Cambridge, and Hitchcock’s closest frame of reference has always…
The early Byrds albums are best known for their cover versions – their take on Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ launched their career, while their second album was named for Pete Seeger’s biblical ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ While Roger McGuinn, David Crosby,…
Growing up in a white middle class neighbourhood, The Clash were an important gateway band for me. Buying Clash albums introduced disco, hip hop, and dub into my record collection. While you could argue that explorations into disco and hip…
