This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
Hi – It’s Dave here at Mumubl.com, welcome to our recommendation email where I give you some tips on what’s great to listen to and watch in the world of music.
We’re almost at Easter egg time, the sun’s been out and it’s starting to seem that somehow we’re on our way to summer. I feel like I’ve maybe not listened to as much new music this year as normal but I’m sure as we hurtle towards festival season the big new sounds of the summer will start to make themselves known. It doesn’t help that the Britpop documentary mentioned below has given me a whole host of albums I want to revisit or that maybe passed me down back in the 90s.
If there’s any things you think I should be listening to, reading or watching then let me know, shout out on the Mumubl.com social media wherever you reside.
As always – tell all your friends – every little share helps
Currently checking out – “From nothing to a little bit more” by The Lathums.
In this edition
Surrender / Everything is a remix / Which Decade is Tops for Pops / Britpop – The music that changed Britain / Inspiration Liverpool / MUMUBL.COM
Surrender
A while ago the Elvis film made its way into these recommendations not just for being a great watch but because it cast light on someone that I only really knew the caricature of. A similar experience came here with another person who falls firmly into that caricature category – Mr Paul Hewson, or Bono as he’s better know. He’s a target of much lampooning but he reveals himself to be refreshingly self aware in this autobiography framed around 40 of U2s hits.
U2 are huge, strangely so as I don’t know of many people who would declare themselves U2 fans, but Bono talks us through that rise and his reasoning for using that platform to not just ask you to buy terrible charity singles but also pressure the real movers and shakers of this world into action.
It’s well worth a read to shed some light on the caricature of the man and overturn some of that as well as charting the rise of one of the biggest ever bands on the planet.
Maybe swerve the accompanying album, not only for being overly long at 40 songs, but also because the originals in pretty much every case are better. A weird choice, for example, to read how Bono himself declares the drumming of Larry Mullen Jr to be the powerhouse soul of a song like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and then record a version without it.
Everything is a remix
Kirkby Ferguson is a YouTube filmmaker I came across over a decade ago with his original documentary series “Everything is a remix” which he then followed with the equally excellent “This is not a conspiracy theory”. Looking at aspects of popular culture and creativity and the seeds of that creativity.
As he planned to bow out of online filmmaking he has finished updating the Everything is a remix series for more modern developments including things such as AI. Well worth checking out alongside the recent Drowned in sound podcast episodes on AI, particularly episode 7 featuring Dr Hayleigh Bosher.
The completed 2023 version is now available on YouTube and I’d highly recommend you check it out.
Which decade is tops for pops
The start of the year podcast recommendations post had Which decade is tops for pops as one of a few newish podcasts to check out. The guys have just wrapped on their first season of the podcast and dropped a round up “Season One: Grand Finale”. It covers over all the music listened to in the series, revealing the winning decade for the first season. But it’s worth listening to solely for the discussions of the construction of the charts, the pitfalls of changing compilation methods and its effect on the chart and the music of the period.
Britpop – The music that changed Britain
Channel 5 documentary is not a phrase that normally peaks my interest and honestly having seen this was dropping I hadn’t paid it much attention. That was until I saw a few recommendations and discussions of this in my twitter feed, I thought why not give it a chance? It’s been a great watch covering over a period of music I grew up in and, as mentioned, giving me a massive list of albums that I want to revisit and also a few that passed me by at the time.
It was a great period for guitar bands in the UK and there is a whole host of great music in here, some great talking heads and on the whole a pretty good look at the background to everything going on with UK music in the 90s. It’s expectedly Oasis and Blur heavy but there is plenty of space for the other bands of the era, Elastica, Echobelly, Ash etc.
It may need saying but I imagine your mileage may vary depending on how much you enjoyed the music in the first place and maybe that lack of general appeal may be why Channel 5 bumped the last two episodes to a middle of the night graveyard slot (apparently that has happened to other documentaries on the channel) – catch it all on demand at your convenience instead.
Inspiration Liverpool
The new Inspiration Liverpool site launched recently with the first new interview for quite a while as I had a chat with singer / songwriter Dan Fagan about the music that has inspired him.
Have a read of that and the archive of old interviews on the site and keep an eye out on our social media for a heads up on new pieces coming up.
From Mumubl.com
The Mumubl.com website continues to get new posts and one of these days you’ll get some new stuff from me as well. Head over to check out the latest pieces on there and also don’t forget you can sign up to add your own and share your musical loves.
This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
