Ryan Hamilton & the Harlequin Ghosts is a transatlantic collaboration, with frontman Ryan Hamilton hailing from just outside of Fort Worth, TX, while his backing band The Harlequin Ghosts are based in the U.K. The follow up to 2019’s This Is The Sound (which won an Independent Music Award for Best Indie Album’), Nowhere To Go But Everywhere was written by Ryan during a long road trip across the USA with his dog Peaches, while coming to terms with his recent divorce.
The Fast Colors began as an idea discussed between Chris Toh and myself over a meal – forming a classic rock tribute band. We roped Patrick Chng into the band as well and before you know it we were playing gigs, together with Chee Wah Yong and Tan Boon Gee on bass and drums respectively.
Since I reviewed his 2017 album, Something/Nothing, English singer-songwriter Nick Frater has been keeping up a steady yearly release schedule with Goodbye Kayfabe (2018), Full Fathom Freight-Train (2019) and his latest Fast & Loose this year. The self-described ‘60s/70s inspired power-pop’ specialist is determinedly prolific, by all accounts.
It’s hard to imagine classic rock – the music genre that defined the seventies and birthed punk and metal – even existing without the significant contributions of the Rolling Stones. Thus, it’s appropriate to look at the best Rolling Stones songs of all time!
I’ll be honest. This new album from The Neighbourhood shook me to the core. Now, this is a proper pop album. Not the shitty 2nd-rate lazy hip-pop that is popular nowadays but an old-school pop album. But with 2020 pop sensibilities. How did this happen?
If, like me, you believe that rock ‘n’ roll as defined in the 1970s by the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Queen, Elvis Costello et al is at the apex of popular music making, then anything by Brad Brooks is essential.
An introduction to the Bee Gees, one of the best bands of all time, in my humble opinion. But seriously, ten songs is, of course, merely the tip of a massive iceberg. Hopefully, this list of the best Bee Gees songs of all time will encourage you to dive a bit deeper into the oceans of Bee Gees genius. (In alphabetical order)
Faithful readers will be aware that I simply love The Jam viz. Paul Weller (vocals, guitar), Bruce Foxton (bass, vocals) and Rick Buckler (drums). The trio had a relatively short recording/performing career – around 5 years – but in that time, The Jam established themselves as one of the top bands in the UK. So what were the Best Jam songs of all time?
My actual first encounter with music appreciation is probably lost to me in the hidden recesses of memory. However, I do recall discovering pop music via The Chipmunks! It was a 1964 LP called The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits, which my late father had bought for me. I was about 3 or 4 years old maybe?
The Best Beach Boys Songs of All Time : I have shared my Beach Boys story before but it bears repeating. Prior to the 90s, I was not a fan. Like many rock fans who started listening to music seriously in the mid-70s, the Beach Boys were a joke, an oldies band singing outdated surf-rock. Sure, in my time coming across best albums list, I did hear of Pet Sounds but never took time to explore.
Last time out, we explored the idea that there were four fundamental music genres viz. classical, traditional, popular and avant grade. Now, obviously this is a blog about pop culture (I think our name gave the game away!) and so we can truly now focus on popular music genres.
An introduction to the best XTC songs of all time!
XTC is one of the best bands of all time. That’s an opinion I expressed in an earlier post. The Swindon band originally consisted of Andy Partridge (vocals, guitar), Colin Moulding (vocals, bass), Terry Chambers (drums) and Barry Andrews (keyboards). Andrews departed in 1978 to be replaced by Dave Gregory (guitars) while Chambers left the band in 1982 when he emigrated to Australia. The band was reduced to a duo for its final two albums, when Gregory parted ways with XTC in 1998.
Are you ready for THE BEST SONGS OF THE NINETIES??!!!?
1991 was the year punk broke. Or so we thought. While the alternative rock genre became mainstream in the early part of the 1990s, it really signalled the end of rock’s dominance over the music industry. The mic had been passed to hip-hop and its influence over pop culture remains unrivalled to this day.
To make these Best Songs lists work for me, even as I progress along the decades, I have made a conscious effort not to repeat artists from previous lists and to limit my selections to artists and/or songs that in my view, are strongly representative of the decade in question.
WHY RAP IS NOT MUSIC is a PoP Theory opinion piece. Nothing more, nothing less.
Form not substance
To avoid any misunderstanding about the opinion I am about to express here, please note that this post is discussing Rap as an art form and NOT a substantive judgement of the merits (or otherwise) of Rap as a genre. Now that that’s out of the way, let us begin.
Wow. I thought narrowing down the best songs of the sixties to ten in a list was a difficult task. The best songs of the seventies is even worse. Yikes. Again, my aim is to feature songs that are in my own experience, quintessential songs of the era in question. I personally believe that the Seventies is the best rock decade ever though not too apparent based on this list. Here they are, after some serious consideration, the best songs of the seventies in alphabetical order.
This post about Be will intersect amongst several of the concerns I seek to cover over here at the Power of Pop reboot. It’s about Music, Songwriting and Personal Well-being — all important issues to me in this time of coronavirus. So I need to keep these objectives in mind even as I write this.
The best laid plans…. I intended to release a new album in 2020, with supporting events etc etc etc. And then of course, COVID-19 got in the way. After months of staying at home, with hardly any social contact, I have begun to slowly coming out of the cave in the past week or so.
UNDERSTANDING MUSIC GENRES – THE BASICS is an opinion piece. Nothing more, nothing less.
Why understand music genres?
Music continues to be a major player in modern life and impacts all spheres of social and cultural influence – from politics to business to entertainment and so on. Even though the value received by music artists has been marginalised by record labels, publishers and more recently, tech companies – the value added by music artists remains vitally important.
Mention the sixties and a couple of fixed images come to mind. Men with long hair, women in mini-skirts, hippies in denim etc. Music-wise, the sixties represented the flowering of pop music expression in artistic terms before evolving to rock by the decade’s end. Here are ten songs (in alphabetical order) which I feel represent the best songs of the sixties.
While I have no problem with shamelessly self-promoting my own music – especially my songs about Singapore, I would not discredit any of my ‘Best of’ lists by inserting myself into the picture. Who am I? Kanye??
Yes, I know it’s a corny cliché but with this National Day weekend comes an opportunity to share my own thoughts about the best Singapore rock songs of all time! Hopefully, these selections will inspire you, kind reader, to discover more Singapore rock music. If so, then the effort would have been worth it!
As mentioned in my article on Story Analysis, besides being a singer-songwriter/composer and a pop culture writer, I am also a teacher of arts and music subjects. So the same approach I applied to Story, I can also apply to Music (Song Analysis) but of course, with different elements. Now, I don’t intend to go into any musicological concepts that require music theory training to decipher but will try my best to keep things simple for non-musicians as well.
