REM are building momentum with their debut Murmer and follow up Reckoning both delighting critics and record buyers alike. However, REM were keen to expand their sound and as fans of Richard and Linda Thompson and Nick Drake they decided to use their producer, Joe Boyd, the problem was Joe lived in England, so they came over and recorded the album in London in early 1985. They were not used to Boyd’s long hours of mixing and remixing so with this and the joy of the British

I wasn’t born for Beatlemania, I was too young for punk so the first genuine music phenomenon I can recall is Frankie Goes To Hollywood who stormed the UK in 1984, I was the perfect age, thirteen. I had already started my musical snobbery so other acts who were getting to number one, Flying Pickets, Lionel Ritchie and Jim Diamond were of no interest to me, apologies to any of their fans. A dramatic operatic voice welcomes us in before Holly speaks and laughs but this is the

The Shins have been around since 1996, that’s thirty years, wow, they managed four albums in their first sixteen years but we have only had one record in the last fourteen back in 2017 and lead singer and songwriter James Mercer is the sole original member of the band, he also records with Danger Mouse In Broken Bells having released three records which may impact on the output of The Shins. A song from their debut album Oh Inverted World called New Slang was used in the fi