Readers Choice Playlist (August 2018)

August 2018 saw Janglepophub feature 149 tracks on our album reviews / #dailyjanglepop series on our various social media sites. These covered a vast array of janglepop nuanced tracks from the 1960's - 2018.

The Top 20 (see below) is decided purely by the 7 day engagement rates of the janglepophub readership on our various social media sites including blog link clicks.

EP Review: The Hannah Barberas - Go Go Hannah Barberas (2018) (Self Released)

I can do clever things with excel spread sheets and I am gainfully employed do so. They give me a nice big office and a few staff that can also do clever things with spread sheets and then make me predict things that might happen to the company and their money. I like it because a)  it pays well, b) I am left to my own devices and c) most importantly I get to listen to music all day and as such thoroughly devour a release prior to reviewing it.

EP Review: Four More From...by Honey Moon (2018) (Heist or Hit Records)

Honey Moon make you need to be in warm climes. They have that strange laconic 'urban surf pop' vibe that exfoliates all things haze, gaze and marijuana from that distinctive american coastal music essence and replace it by planting it's flag in the gloriously crooning hinterland that is equidistant between all manner of 60's melodies, fabulous over produced sophisti-pop and the sort of occasional sun drenched jangle-pop that gives you permission to sweat and get your pasty white legs out in a pair of shorts...It is music to sit in a British pub beer garden to, on one of our three days of summer sun and drink ice cold foreign lager.

Fickle Finger Playlist #0005

This time around the Fickle Finger has absolutely no discernible topic...it is purely the music that the FF has been pointing at with some frequency in the last few weeks.

Album Review - Learning To Go Underwater by The Filters (2018) (Self Released)

The Filters are a four piece band hailing from Vermont, consisting of Ross Temple (guitar), Ryan Prushinski (drums), Sam Morris (vocals/guitar) and Tyler Cameron (bass/vocals), who appear to still need to decide what their definitive essence is going to be  and hopefully care even less as it is the ambiguity of this debut than procures its excellence.

Album Review - Ringleaders of the Tormentors by Morrissey (Attack)

After over two decades of trying to persuade anyone who would listen that he lives a veritable monk-like, celibate existence, in which flighty, fluffy concepts such as love were ill-conceived notions of the common-man and sexual lust the mere constraints of those unable to intellectually conquer our more basic instincts, Morrissey finally has his Doris Day meets Hugh Hefner moment in this album, as he accepts love and lust into his life. It is a bizarre volte-face as the Pope of Mope turns into an inconceivable 'Love God' right before our ears.

EP Review: At Home With The Postcards EP by The Postcards (2018) (Self Released)

Last month I got all slushy, mushy, gushy and any other romanticized '...shy' type words that may be eluding me at present, over a brief, but nonetheless brilliant, three track EP from South London's newest purveyors of 80/90's retro indie/jangle-pop, The Hannah Barberas (see review here).

Album Review - An Entire Album About My Ex-Girlfriend by Something Else (2018) (Self Released)

The digital music era we live in, is one of contraction. Much of the music the under 35's love comes from a tiny little yellow folder found on their hard drive or from within one of the numerous streaming sites now available. This enables music fans to contract geographical distance to within a lazy reach for their mouse, as the musical scenes from cities thousands of miles away are instantly available at your laptop.

EP Review - The Briar Rose by Choo Choo Train (1988) (Label: The Subway Organisation)

Prior to becoming the successful power pop outfit Velvet Crush, the Ric Menck and Paul Chastain partnership were a couple of young lads unleashing their love of all things 1960's janglepop via bands such as The Springfields, The Big Maybe, Choo Choo Train, The Stupid Cupids, Bag O Shells and as members of Matthew Sweet's band.

In fact they are probably best know for being the first international artists to ever be signed for pioneering labels Sarah Records (The Springfields) and The Subway Organisation (Choo Choo Train).

Album Review: Slinky by Milltown Brothers (1990) (Label: A&M Records)

For some inexplicable reason this album never bothered the critical acclaim radar, let alone slipped under it. 

In fact the wordsmiths who invent terms like ‘critical acclaim radar’ would be delighted that they could use another tabular inventions (the word ‘blip’) to ensure that those inclined could say Slinky never even registered a ‘blip’ on the ‘critical acclaim radar’, thus showing their parents that their accusatory sighs about a wasted university education could finally be silenced. 

So apart from me who did the album bother? Who was it that convinced the brothers Nelson to pitch up eleven years after their last effort and make another album (2004's Rubberband).

Album Review - Distant Light by Tape Waves (2018) (Bleeding Gold Records)

Dream-pop. Has lot of fans. They procure visions in my mind of intellectuals who really like the harp, which I suppose is a little strange considering very little dream-pop has much harp in it...but then, I am nothing if I am not a little strange.