The Garbage, Radiohead and Butthole Surfers tracks make this a must have, even if it pales next to the Crow and Judgement Nights soundtracks. I'll even take the Cardigan's track, even though it was flogged to death on radio and lead to that excitable Talking Heads cover with Tom Jones where she was completely out of…

Yeah, that guitar intro on 'Slide' is just a perfect alchemy.

'Push' rather than the other two, was flogged to death on radios in Australia. In 1998 though, long after the album was released.
It's interesting that even back then, the song inspired a few feminist think pieces. I imagine that today these days it wouldn't even have been released at all.

I'd argue that these guys - CC, M20, Hootie, and add Soul Asylum and Goo Goo Dolls - were the 90s successors to the Heartland Rock of the 80s: music that captures the feel of small town familiarity and longing.
But where Mellencamp, Seger, Petty, et al were inspired by original generation R&B, the 90s acts were…

I actually agree with most of this article’s main points; it is as I remembered it back in ’96. However, the gleeful schadenfreude of the tone really turned my off. I mean, rock & roll has been dead and mostly buried for a decade now; is there any need to so smugly dance on its grave?

Or, y'know, we can have fun, engaging updates of classic premises to inspire little girls because they probably don't care whether something is a remake or not.

I'd group 'Sportsball' in with saying that you aren't interested in the Kardashians or Taylor Swift or Twitter: sometimes you have to remind people that not everyone is into the the big mainstream whatever that everybody else cares about. I don't assume that everybody I meet cares about comics or sci-fi, but people…

I prefer Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage to Vol 4, for their ambition and variety.
Also the first two albums they made with Ronnie James Dio are nothing to sniff at.

I disagree about the filler. Bowie's 70s albums are so amazing because of all the hidden gems. Why, on Diamond Dogs alone you have the magisterial 'Sweet Thing' with its soaring vocals, and 'Big Brother' with it's haunting mellotron and trumpet and air-punching chorus. Either one could have been a single.

13 is the only Blur album I regularly listen to for fun, instead of as an obligation when I'm on a classic 90s kick.
Blur's version of "super fun, super hooky English guitar pop" is like being stuck on a fairground carnival ride with a bunch a Benny Hill imitators on speed…fun for a few minutes but wearying over an…

Man, I gotta stop reading this feature. It just makes me feel even more out-of-touch and hipster, if this is what constitutes mainstream music tastes these days.
I just can't get on the wavelength of someone who needs five Bloc Party albums, but can make do with just a Sabbath best-of. (A shitty best of too, because it…

Am I missing something? I never thought of the original Doom as a fast game with non-stop monster shooting. This is the second review that has emphasised that aspect. The reason I loved it so and re-played it so much, was the creepy atmosphere, exploring the occult symbols on the walls, and the sense of dread as you…

I never used to understand her appeal, back in her 80s/90s heyday, but she's aged magnificently. She was so gorgeous I didn't recognise her in Show Me A Hero

Really? I had no idea Porcupine Tree had any online traction at all. (Except for the comment section of Guardian UK reviews).

I guess it's been a while since I listened to it. I'll give it another spin and see.

Yeah, that's a nice positive way of describing Pitchfork's role in music culture. I can see how they would have provided a necessary service for people who needed it. And I can imagine how that mattered back in the early 2000s when radio was under the oppressive yoke of pop punk and nu metal.
However, I think they…

I think I'm cynical about In The Aeroplane because it seemed to me like the poster child for Pitchfork style rock revisionism; a mindset where good righteous music began with punk, and nothing remotely 'rockist' could be considered unqualifiedly acceptable. Where Pavement was a more significant band than Nirvana.

Except that I can't see any 'bullying' from Hardwick. The only people he seems to target are reactionaries and MRA types.

Brandy Clark
Ashley Munroe
Aleyce Simmonds (an Australian artist)

Yeah. While 'Bro Country' is a blight upon humanity, it does bug me that people will sneer down their noses at country music and then go back to listening to 'All About That Bass' and 'Anaconda' without a trace of irony.