Cliff Richard - Private Collection: The Best of Cliff Richard Songs, 1979-1988 (Piano Vocal Guitar)
Chart Blog (Free subscription) | 21/11/2009
Imagine, if you can, a time when it seemed like every third record in the chart shared a common gene. And not just a lyrical thread or a particular way of processing the human voice so that it sounds like a singing robot nose, we're talking about a drum sample, one which starts with a "whooh!" and ends with a "yeah!" , and back in the early '90s it was EVERYWHERE. Every dance track...
PopMatters Music (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
The transition into Thai has given the Anglo-American music a penetrating note, as if high-pitched percussive instruments are being quickly struck and pieces of metal are being clashed. Americans, says the American in the room next to the one in which I'm sitting, have not heard of Cliff Richard, so if you're American I'm not sure how useful it will be to learn that the 1960s Thai pop genre known as...
Annie's Witterings. (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
A month or two ago, Tim got up early and drove to Brighton to record brass on Robb Johnson's new Christmas album, "The Ghost of Love". We've just got the package of finished albums through, and are listening through to it - it's absolutely brilliant. It's a concept album, and if you're looking for a nice, warm, fuzzy, feelgood kind of a Christmas album to shelve beside Cliff Richard and...
Can't Stop the Bleeding (Free subscription) | 15/11/2009
I’ve falled a tad out of touch with the video exploits of Nick Stevens, but if the above clip is anything to go, the recent NESN fixture hasn’t lost a step. I don’t know what’s up with former Colts head coach/spiritual advisor to backup QB’s Tony Dungy, but Cliff Richard’s secret to phenomenal physical fitness [...]
DCblog (Free subscription) | 14/11/2009
A correspondent writes to say he's noted that regional accents disappear in songs, or at least become less detectable, and wonders if there's an explanation. This is true, as a general observation, and there two reasons for it. The first is phonetic. Several of the main identifying features of a regional accent tend to disappear when singing - the intonation (obviously, as a melody replaces it), the...
FreakyTrigger (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
#567, 29th March 1986, video I was absolutely forbidden from watching the first series of The Young Ones, in 1982. I relied on awed playground rumour of its violence and uproar. I was a little scared of it. Second time around, in 1984, I could watch it but not in the living room – only [...]
The Local (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
What's on in Sweden: International film festival & monster truck extravaganza in Stockholm; Cliff Richard & The Shadows (UK) in Gothenburg; Tower of Power (US) in Malmö/Lund.
Arnie Skelton (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Summer holiday - Cliff Richard, 1963
Bishop Alan’s Blog (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
Back in the 1590’s’s when Popes were Popes, Painters were Giants of the Italian renaissance who churned out jumbo ceilings and monumental walls heaving with large-as-life-and-twice-as-natural centaurs, heroes and gods, accompanied by chunky putti. The English, on the other hand, excelled at miniatures — tiny, intensely personal studies the size of passport photos. Titter ye not. It...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
The Gloucestershire trainer recommends Pettifour on chase debut but thinks Ballyfitz is his best bet at the Paddy Power meeting As if determined to prove the truth of his reputation for eccentricity, Nigel Twiston-Davies has packed 20 journalists and almost as many bottles of port into a double-decker bus at his yard in rural Gloucestershire. After observing two minutes' silence for the fallen, the...
A Hobbit's Journal (Free subscription) | 10/11/2009
I'm a little late with this one, as it happened back on the 26th of October! Ryan, Luke and myself had a day out down Nottingham for the dvd signing of Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee . The signing itself was at HMV at 1pm, and thankfully we didn't queue for long before getting our newly purchased copies of the Le Donk dvd signed by Paddy Considine , Shane Meadows and Scor-zay-see himself. I had a little...
Paul Owen (Free subscription) | 10/11/2009
Today, at lunchtime, a couple from South Wales will be revealed as Britain's biggest ever lottery winners having won (or scooped if you are a tabloid journalist) £45, 570, 835.This couple has chosen to be identified which, given the nature of those scoop obsessed journalists, seems either brave or foolhardy dependent upon your point of view. Soon their lives will be trawled over, their friends...
Word Magazine blogs (Free subscription) | 09/11/2009
What was the last single banned by the BBC? It's a question that's been niggling away at me for sometime now. If anyone knows it'll be someone from within The Massive. Do stations actively slap bans on songs or singles anymore? Surley it's simpler to ignore or non-playlist something potentially sensitive. And in a time of receeding sales, would any act or artist produce a piece of 'pop' contentious...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
Two lottery ticket holders who claimed Britain's largest jackpot prizes – more than £90m between them – are awaiting visits from the operator, Camelot, that will change their lives for ever. When they have passed a set of security questions, and their tickets have been scanned to check where and when they were bought, their claims will be validated and they can begin to think about...
Longpier (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009
Back in the 1950s and 60s, the Southend Odeon was THE place in south Essex to see not just nationally, but internationally famous acts and groups. Doubling up as a cinema and an auditorium, the Odeon - on Southend High Street - was consistently putting on major shows and acts to more than 2,000 people at a time. Louis Armstrong appeared there in 1962, The Beatles played twice in 63, The Rolling Stones...
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