Preview: The Flaming Lips & Chris Martin – ‘I Don’t Want To Die’

To coincide with Record Store Day 2012 (today), Wayne Coyne is releasing a quirky collaborative punch of miscellaneous talents and status from both ends of the musical spectrum.

When Your Favourite Songs Started Life As Crummy Demos

Song writing is an evolutionary process. On countless occasions have human beings began brilliant anthems only to later banish their work to wooden drawers, never to lay eyes on it again. Here you… Continue reading →

Listen: A Choral Reworking of John Lennon’s ‘I Sat Belonely’ Poem

Here is an interesting concept. John Lennon’s characteristically dadaist poem ‘I Sat Belonely’ from his 1964 book In His Own Write has been given a beautiful choral reinvention with surprisingly sensitive results. 1964… Continue reading →

How To Write a Popular Song and Make Millions I: 5 Songwriting Tricks

Anyone can play guitar. And nowadays everybody does, to some extent. The most lucrative music career available is easily Popular-Song-Writer/Hollywood-Film-Composer if you’re after a quick penny, so perhaps this might be a field… Continue reading →

Letters of Note: A Gathering of Fascinating Correspondence

A somewhat woebegone reminder of a now extinct method of social networking lies in the letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes and memos compiled over at http://www.lettersofnote.com by a champion of offline communication, Shaun Usher.… Continue reading →

Is There Such A Thing As *Pure* Genius?

Contrasting with the philosophy of the BBC’s “Who Gets The Best Jobs” a few weeks ago, where journalist Richard Bilton explored the ease in which certain areas of society have access to the… Continue reading →

How Lennon and McCartney Composed “A Little Help From My Friends”

The Following extract is taken from ‘The Beatles: The Only Ever Authorised Biography’ by Hunter Davies. Hunter was blessed with a fantastic opportunity to watch the most successful songwriters of all time write… Continue reading →

Experiments in Sound and Sense: The Beatles (1966-69) – Equipment

II. The Beatles – Equipment “The people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion” “We’d finished touring in ’66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other… and create… Continue reading →