It had all been going so well for Kevin Rowland with the first two Dexys albums, both yielding number one hits.Then they released Don’t Stand Me Down which was a commercial disaster although thankfully it now receives the praise it deserved. (https://www.albumsin200words.co.uk/post/242-dexys-midnight-runners-don-t-stand-me-down) Because of You made the top 20 the following year (I remember it was the theme tune to Brush Strokes a truly dreadful BBC comedy) and that was goodn

Goodbye Mr Mackenzie were a six piece, and they were at their best as a six piece, but keyboardist Rona Scobie had left before their third record Five and guitarist John Duncan also moved on, famously becoming involved with Nirvana. When working on Five there had been plans to push Shirley Manson’s vocals more to the front, but this had only happened on the track Normal Boy. Time for a re-think.   From the outside the lead singer becoming the guitarist and the backing singer

Name me a legend. You have read the title (I assume the odd person reads) but no one would have said Nick Lowe, to be fair I wouldn’t. I...

We used to drink in the same pub there was about ten of us, we had been friends at school all had got jobs and or gone to university but...

Out of the blue free songs started to appear on the internet but this wasn’t anybody chucking up whatever they wanted this was Mick...

Nine albums with a well-respected group and nine solo albums plus being able to turn your hand to the odd bit of writing, it’s fair to...

Sunday December 22 nd , 2002, was a crap day. Through the years I had always hoped That Petrol Emotion, The Smiths and The Clash would...

Here we are heading to another country for a review, I’ve recently done bands from Norway and Canada so let’s nip over to Denmark for...

Someone should compile a list of the most underrated bands ever, top 100 based on just being generally under appreciated. I have made it...

I was awful at Geography at school, I was good at English (a shock I know to regular readers) and Arithmetic, hence the job in Finance...

A great debut with magical singles, dazzling second but lost the genius guitarist, defying the critics comeback on the third record, a...

Recently I’ve not known any of the requests, amateur I know.So a request to review The Walkmen was another one I had no clue about so...

Want one of those reviews where I tell you nothing about the record that I occasionally write. Of course you do. I’m from Glasgow and my...

I always have to read something on the internet when writing these reviews so that I am semi accurate (then usually someone messages me...

Post marriage split my friends, and I used to meet on a Friday night in a social club before we properly hit the pubs where we would have...

Damned Damned Damned was reviewed way back in April 2023 ( https://www.albumsin200words.co.uk/post/73-the-damned-damned-damned-damned )...

It was all going so well for Siouxsie and the Banshees, Hong Kong Garden was a top ten hit and the debut album The Scream had been a...

I started reading up on this band and thought ah that’s why I’d never heard of them they split in 1983, I was only twelve my huge vast...

Warning this is one of those reviews that’s about me, not the album. If you have read my About page you will know my love (better half...

James Grant has recently released a record with Bernard Butler and Norman Blake and criminally has never achieved the commercial success...