THE YEAR OF RIVER COTTAGE POP – My 2012 In British Pop Music
The true sound of the UK, the true folk music of our time. Not a fuckin’ Alt-J fan among them and none of them are gonna end up running a fkn dairy-farm
“Music fans have to stop being so fucking menopausal” | An interview about teens, emos, chavs, music
Subcultures stop being creative as soon as they become aware of themselves as subcultures.
Cats On Fire – All Blackshirts To Me (Soliti Records)
I thought pop music in this agile, ADHD age would never make me feel like this again, obsessed, living and loving and lurching and lounging in these songs to the exclusion of all else. But All Blackshirts To Me is one of those records that simply won’t become background, is impossible to live with rather than live within, a record you’d be a prick to ignore.
22 (perhaps more) of Neil Kulkarni’s favourite songs of 2012 so far
The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore. Suits me fine. Don’t know how to dress in summer so I’m hiding out in my jimjams playing with my 7”s like a teenage wank-addict.
Song of the day – 465: Cats On Fire (+ some words on Pulp)
In their own way, they’re Smiths good: a backhanded compliment if ever I wrote one.
A new list from the NME, and some thoughts about pop-hackery
Secretly, what modern mainstream pop-hackery confirms is that there’s a fundamental sadness to the role of music writer, or at least there is if you let it take hold – you are employed to basically be a hanger-on, an eavesdropper, a spod, a geek, someone who won’t shut up about something the rest of the world just get on enjoying.
Inside the earth you hear music …
Don’t watch with mother(fuckers) like you. Avoid adults; your irony-addictions will sap you of the ability to be moved.
Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth (Domino reissue)
By Neil Kulkarni
PhD research: Neil Kulkarni on the role of the music critic | ESSENTIAL READING
The ability not just to make words stick to a page/screen but give them a sense of life, make them walk and talk with your own spirit – s’tricky and the best music critics have always done it.
An almost completely random collection of things I’ve loved so far in 2011
Yup, my heart is yours, you Scots, ‘unfaithful servants of filthy, fucking language’, as Mr Withered Hand says.