

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

