FIFTY3FRIDAYS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUY (AND DAVID)
Struggling to find an opening gambit for today’s Fifty3Fridays, I noticed it was Guy Garvey’s 52nd birthday. So, I thought it was appropriate to raise a glass to the Elbow frontman and equally have an excuse to play out this issue to my favourite Elbow song, “My Sad Captains” ; the name of our longstanding Fantasy Football League to boot. Being a Spurs fan, I know a great deal about sadness but little about captaincy. It is also David Gilmour’s birthday today. The Floyd guita
19 hours ago
FIFTY3FRIDAYS: SIX HUNDRED NOT OUT
Last week’s Fifty3Fridays was all about Fresh On The Net and today’s issue continues to draw some more great new material from the FOTN well. The headline might not be one that cricket writers would conjure in tribute to the current England squad but it does signify that today marks the six hundredth Listening Post . That’s a whole lotta listening for the moderators over the years and what must be well over 100,000 artist entries. Take a bow, Tom Robinson , the man who star
Feb 27
FIFTY3FRIDAYS: TO BE TAKEN WEEKLY
FRESH ON THE NET It will come as little surprise that I have Fresh On The Net to thank for introducing me to many of the acts featured in these columns. Each week, artists of all styles and genres upload songs to the platform founded by Tom Robinson in 2009 to be heard by a team of moderators now led by the remarkable Del Osei-Owusu . Each week we listen to up to 200 new tracks and democratically choose 25 of them to form the week’s Listening Post. Readers in turn lend thei
Feb 20
FIFTY3FRIDAYS: BE MY VALENTINE
So, before the local garage runs out of flowers, let me gently remind you that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. While you may think that the cheap jibe above should be rightly consigned to the 1970s, male panic buying of red roses from street vendors to supermarkets remains an annual event. The association between St Valentine and romance though goes back considerably further and it has also been suggested that the feast day’s true origins may be in the Roman festival of Luperc
Feb 13
FIFTY3FRIDAYS: REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL?
So, January has come and gone while, to date, February has brought little cheer: Epstein’s never-ending files, Trump, Mandelson’s shame, Russia’s renewed energy infrastructure strikes in Ukraine, UK flood warnings, more Trump. Reasons to be cheerful? Well, music may bring some relief whether to simply entertain or to provide just cause for reflection. Along with the return of our monthly Spotify Playlist, I hope this week’s choice of music will do both. Indie-electro artist a
Feb 6
FIFTY3FRIDAYS: YOU’RE GORGEOUS
It seems every band who had a reasonable hit or two in the past 50-odd years is finding it increasingly easy to come out of the woodwork, reform or reissue, or simply celebrate an anniversary. The cute ones then get to appear on The One Show, sell out their tour and get booked for a summer festival or two. This phenomenon appears to happen almost weekly and it is no surprise in that nostalgia is always in vogue. It may explain why boy bands of yore resurface with a brand-new
Jan 30
