Some academic bod has analysed every US presidential election and worked out the Keys To Success. He claims to correctly predict every populist vote.

Can we do the same for musical success? We can have a go. This is my equivalent - The Ten Keys To Music Success. It's obligatory to say "You won't believe Number 7!", but in reality it's entirely credible.

See if you agree.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

This episode is the the second of a double header. Steve Pringle, author of the classic Fall analysis "You Must Get Them All", gave us his thoughts on why the group resonate so strongly for so many in Part One. Here, he suggests to a nominal newcomer to the group's work where to get started on The Fall's vast catalogue. A handful of representative tracks from across the four decades the band flourished to get a rounded idea of where their appeal lay.

I took the liberty of adding a few of my own choice of tracks and assembled a playlist which complements the episode. There are a couple of tracks chosen by Steve not available on Spotify (New Puritan and Leave The Capitol) but they should be accessible on Youtube. Here's that playlist - and thanks again to Steve for his expert views.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6li5EHzkgG3Yel86A85oGm?si=ff505d67af4743de

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

If an author writes a book analysing every single, every album, every phase and every lineup change of a band, it might be a decent-sized tome.

In the case of The Fall, there's over 50 members, over 30 albums, over 500 songs and over 40 years to process. 

That is exactly what Steve Pringle undertook to carry out and he achieved his aim magnificently in his definitive 650 page chronicle on the group entitled "You Must Get Them All".

It was a pleasure to talk to Steve and drill down on what made the Fall the wonderful and frightening group that they were. This is the first of two podcasts with Steve and in the second he'll be revealing where to start for those new to the group and their work.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

Oasis are reforming for a reunion tour. Have you heard?

What marks out Oasis as so different from their contemporaries? It's hard to believe it's their musical sophistication or their profound lyrics. But something makes them incredibly popular.

We also take a look more broadly at why people get so misty-eyed about the 90s. Is it just harking back to a non-existent recent golden age, or is there something specific about the 90s themselves? Something to do with technology or society that was very different from now?

Join me, Ian Forth for an entirely reasonable discussion.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

On our previous show, Paul Burke proposed that punk was unimportant at the time, left no lasting musical legacy and the reason people still bang on about it is because the middle classes act as its gatekeeper in the media that we all read and watch.

In this riposte, while not dismissing all of Paul's points, I'll try to put punk in its cultural context and show how profound its influence has been, not just the music, but in design, a DIY spirit, female inclusivity and racial integration. 

And here's a compilation of 25 songs from the first flower of punk in '76 and '77. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/vinyl-maelstrom/id1739501489?i=1000666490941

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

Contrariness - we've got it.

"If you were born after 1970 and don’t remember punk, you’ve almost certainly been misled by people who do. You’ve probably been told – through countless paean-to-punk retrospectives, documentaries and newspaper culture pages ­– that it was a glorious, anarchic revolution that swept all before it. I can tell you first-hand that it wasn’t.

Punk was as middle-class as a Labrador in a Volvo. Far from being hugely influential, punk was a passing fad that made little impression on the charts and left the lasting legacy of a spent firework."

So says Paul Burke, novelist and columnist.  He's also put a playlist together of what people like him were actually listening to in 1976-77:-

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37Gk0WBbatuSq6CNHqO6fH?si=8e3a8c336bab435e

Paul has the conch for this episode, then I'll follow up next week with a counter blast on why punk was really rather important, after all.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

What even defines indie?

It used to mean something way back when. Groups that were on independent labels with a DIY approach and a different take on the world.

But in a world where Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish with their billions of listens are indie - even Taylor Swift - does indie mean anything at all any more? How did we get to where we are now?

Join me, Ian Forth for a short history of independent and indie music.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

That lime green colour. That blurry font. And now BRAT has been picked up by the Kamala Harris campaign (this is August 2024).

Is this something worth finding more about or will it all blow over by the autumn, like Gangnam Style and Barbie did? Almost certainly yes. But, it is intriguing and is, I believe, worthy of analysis.

If nothing else, you can outwit your nephew and niece - or your sceptical mother and father - by sounding incredibly well-informed on the subject. You are, as ever, most welcome.

One of the topics on CharliXCX's Brat album is insecurity. I've put together a Spotify playlist on this very topic for you: 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6y1jMp1i61h4MgF5M7vQWs?si=1de421fcef08489c

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

Turn on commercial radio and what time signature are you 95% likely to hear in the  first song? 4 beats to the bar, that's what. Is that just the natural pace of music or is something else going on?

In fact, if you went to a dance in the nineteenth century, it would most likely be in 3 time, or a waltz. Travel to, say, Burundi, Bulgaria, Bengaluru or Bursa and outside of commercial radio, local time is quite different - 11/8, to take one example.

So how did 4 time come to dominate? Was it the classical composers? Radio managers? The Romans? Join me, Ian Forth for a discussion of how we ended up with the ubiquity of 4 beats to the bar.

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.

Why do sports fans chant? Is it just to support their team or is there more to it than that? (Spoiler alert: there is more to it than that.)

Join me, Ian Forth, in a spirited discussion which will take in the Chip Butty Song, organic living folk traditions, secular rituals, the Maori hakka, Sufi whirling dervishes, the Covid effect, Pat Nevin, various professors, Posh Spice and the origin of language. 

Then, finally answer the question - Why do sports fans chant?

Be expertly briefed each week on a wide variety of intriguing musical topics.