An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm. There aren't many X bands.
"XTC were clever and came from Swindon, so therefore we were crap ... I was always jealous of bands like Talking Heads, who were doing similar things to us but were from New York, and therefore cool. But the English don't like normal people doing intelligent things."
Andy Partridge (2004)
I used to listen to XTC quite a lot, particularly in the 1990s, in car journeys heading for the Peak District or in and around Rotherham and Sheffield, particularly Moorgate and in the company of my friend Caroline. They produced a lot of very fine albums.
XTC were founded in Swindon in 1972, with the two founding members: Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, growing up on a large council estate in the city. Their style is a blend of various musical influences and styles.
Their breakthrough track in 1979 involved them 'Making Plans for Nigel', (with its line about British Steel) which established their sound. I was 15 at the time and remember it being played quite a lot.
My dad worked for British Steel at the time... but he isn't called Nigel.
One of my favourite XTC albums was produced by Todd Rundgren and is called 'Skylarking'.
It has quite a nature-based theme including referencing the cycle of the seasons in an early song. The production of the album was not without its problems.
Check out the Smartest Monkeys from their album Nonsuch: named after a large house which was demolished
Another classic album is 'Oranges and Lemons', which was influenced by The Beatles in their more psychedelic phase.
This included some memorable tracks including the off-kilter 'Mayor of Simpleton', 'King for a Day' and the final track 'Chalkhills and Children'.
Here's a review of 'Skylarking', which is described as a "pastoral" album.
I'll finish with one of my favourite of their song, a letter to God... 'Dear God'.
David Gregory from the band also played with the progressive band 'Big Big Train' (who will feature on the blog a number of times).
Partial XTC Discography - AI generated
What X would be in your algorithm? There aren't many to choose from to be fair....
In 2023, Sir Paul and Beatles drummer Sir Ringo Starr used AI to extract the vocals from an unfinished demo left by John Lennon to produce a new song, Now and Then. The song, billed as the Beatles' final release, drew widespread praise and was nominated for two Grammys and a Brit award.
"I think AI is great, and it can do lots of great things," Sir Paul said. "We took an old cassette of John's and cleaned his voice up so it sounded like it had just been recorded yesterday. So it has its uses. But it shouldn't rip creative people off. There's no sense in that."
The album project called 'Make it Fair' was a protest about the use of copyrighted music to train AI models, which could then produce music which copied their style. Music generates billions of pounds to the UK's economy, and is also part of the UK's 'soft power'.
This was the 'track listing' on the back of the album...
The message is clear to Goverment, who have done *checks notes - nothing about it.
Generative AI can produce 'music' but it's not really music. Nick Cave has spoken about this elsewhere.
As with all Clay Pipe Music albums, the graphic design is excellent.
The album cover features imagery that is connected to the town: a place I know well and have spent quite a lot of time there over the years.
A KLOFMAG post. Rather than relying solely on field recordings, Boulter masterfully reinterprets the coastal atmosphere through instrumentation. Tracks evoke the experience of walking the Cinder Track (once a railway line connecting Scarborough to Whitby – l've walked along that path north of Sandsend and it's a very other-worldly landscape) or sitting on the beach, weaving a tapestry of sound that reflects on history, the enduring landscape, and humanity’s impact.
“At a time when it seems we are pushing our planet to the edge,” Boulter muses, “I felt such calm and connection to the landscape – and how simple beauty can be.
But we can change.” “Whitby” is a poignant reminder of nature’s resilience and a subtle call for reflection.
It has added to the intriguing and creative roster of artists, and catalogue of albums which have been released by Clay Pipe Music.
From this globe come voices from every region of human migration and settlement. They attest to the many ways of life we humans have carved from our earthly and social landscapes. Their songs have great feeling, meaning and power. In them, we find our ancestors, our families, and ourselves.
An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.
The Who have been around for decades, and have just concluded a final tour (although they've said that before) and were also in the news in early 2025 for sacking their drummer... twice.
I was pleased to catch the band on one of their final performances in the UK.
They played at Sandringham House in the summer of 2023, supported by the Lightning Seeds and Richard Ashcroft - who later went on to support Oasis in their comeback gigs.
They were accompanied by an orchestra and performed a selection of songs from Tommy.
This is my son's favourite film and the music and visuals were excellent. The Wikipedia entry describes the various film locations used for the shooting of the film.
The film was directed by Ken Russell. Pete Townshend received an Oscar nomination for the music.
Image: Alan Parkinson
Here's a much earlier version of 'The Who', performing, when they had all the band members and had such power. This was the final performance of Keith Moon.
This 1989 performance features the excellent Simon Phillips on drums. I have seen him performing with Mike Oldfield and he has appeared on a great many albums as a session musician.
For many there are some key songs in the set that they hope to be played. They include songs from 'Tommy' and also 'Quadrophenia' - which is based on the battles between Mods and Rockers down in Brighton.
They played a final tour in the USA - with no UK dates - as they were massive in the country. One sign of this is that they were the half-time act at the Superbowl - one of the major cultural moments in the year - back in 2010, playing a medley of songs...
And this post finishes with one of my favourite of their tracks, and one that they ended their concert at Sandringham with... one of the last times they played in the UK it turns out...
Who are the 'W' bands in your algorithm?
Update
Loren Gold, who has toured with 'The Who' for a long time, and was part of the SuperBowl show that I shared above has been announced as joining Rush for their tour next year... did I mention I have a ticket?
OK, so I've already had a Pink Floyd album in this feature, but this is another iconic one.
For decades after this, the building (which is a power station) lay empty after it was decommissioned. There were numerous plans for its redevelopment, but eventually money was raised for its redevelopment.
Here's an image of mine from 2015 when work was underway.
It's now finished and a high-end destination for shopping and entertainment. I recommend the beers and sausage rolls at the Brewery.
There was also the classic escape of an inflatable pig called Algie.
OK, so Rush are expanding their 50 something tour to the UK.
I first saw them play live almost 45 years ago...
How much are the tickets?
Do I really want to go when Neil is not on the drum riser?
Will they fill in some of those gaps if these dates sell out and perhaps go to some better venues? Hmmm....
Answer to my conundrum...
You go onto the Rush pre-sale (code R50) and get yourself a ticket for the O2 at a 'reasonable' price - comparable with other tickets I've paid for this year, such as David Byrne in 2 weeks' time... more on that to come....
“We are thrilled to support the ‘Fifty Something‘ tour, celebrating a band whose music has resonated and inspired fans for generations, and to honor Neil’s extraordinary legacy as both a drummer and lyricist. Neil’s musicianship was singular. Compositions of intricacy and power that expanded what rhythm itself could express. As both drummer and lyricist, he was irreplaceable. Inimitable in his artistry, and unmatched in the depth and imagination he brought to the lyrics that inspired and moved so many, he profoundly shaped how fans connected with him and the band, giving voice and meaning to their own lives. As the band enters this new chapter, it promises to be truly unforgettable. We are excited to see how their new vision unfolds, and to hear this legendary music played live once again.”
Carrie Nuttall-Peart and Olivia Peart, Neil‘s widow and daughter.
And here's my ticket from when I saw them in 1983....
An A-Z of bands suggested by the Spotify algorithm.
This American band's greatest chart success came back in 2000 when the title track from their album 'Everything you Want' went to number one in the USA.
The band was founded by students at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. It has had quite a few members alongside the core members. With a little more support and luck it could well have been much bigger, but I like all of their albums.
Here's that most famous track from 2000. My guess is you may never have heard it before.
They also recorded several pieces of music with the late Neil Peart from Rush, including 'Instamatic'. The enthusiasm of Matt Scannell for this track was really wonderful to see - I posted it on the anniversary of Neil's passing.
Peart co-wrote the song 'Even Now' on 'Burning the Days', released in 2009. I like this a lot.
Vertical Horizon's discography
What V comes up on your algorithm? Tell me in the comments
Another guest post from Carl Lee... this one should perhaps have been posted later in the year... but let's put it here now...
Carols in North Sheffield Pubs
In the early 1980s I lived in Malin Bridge, a suburb of Sheffield on its north-eastern border. It is where the Rivelin and Loxley valleys merge before joining the Upper Don in Hillsborough. I was a student at Sheffield City Polytechnic, and a southerner. Malin Bridge was very much working class Yorkshire.
Many of the early water-wheels that powered the early metal works were found on the rivers Loxley and Rivelin.
One December evening we went into our local pub, The Yew Tree, and it was abuzz with noise, singing, folk singing Christmas songs, carols maybe, whatever, it was it was not to our taste, we had a pint in the snug and left. That was my first glimpse into the centuries-old tradition in north Sheffield of singing folk carols in pubs in weeks leading up to Christmas.
In Sheffield this is as traditional as getting your best cutlery out on Christmas Day and it is a very local 'local'.
Not in the south or east of the city, maybe drifting into the Derbyshire Peak District and north towards Stocksbridge, but basically the villages and suburbs abutting Hillsborough and stretching out along the River Rivelin, Loxley and Upper Don.
Tradition can sometimes be a sticky concept. Much of what is now considered traditional about a British Christmas has a history no longer than two centuries, often far less, and has often been drawn from older, and sometimes non- Christian, mid-winter festivities. In 1843, when Charles Dickens published his now perennial backbone of British Christmas tradition ‘A Christmas Carol’, an appetite for re-evaluation and reinvention of old traditions was afoot in British society. It was drawing on old folk traditions and as cultural critic John Ruskin sniffed at the time it was an re-imagining of Christmas as “mistletoe and pudding”.
Today carols are an intrinsic part of Christmas, the most famous of which are learnt by rote from an early age in school if not in the home. Although it should be noted that in the 18th century ‘While shepherds watched their flocks’ was the only Christmas hymn permitted to be sung in Anglican churches. All other carols were considered too secular.
Image: not the Yew Tree pub in Malin Bridge, but Ely Cathedral - Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license on Flickr.
Carol services are therefore a relatively recent addition to British Christmas tradition with the first formal carol service said to be have been held at Truro Cathedral in 1880.
Today whether Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or atheist, any schoolchild in Britain who doesn’t at least know the words of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ or ‘Away in A Manger’ has either has had a terrible attendance record at school or hasn’t paid any attention whatsoever. These ubiquitous carols are the Church’s canon, which was developed in late Victorian times but the Sheffield carols pre-date that period by centuries.
These are the carols of the English folk tradition that are sung in pubs rather than places of worship. From mid November to the end of December across a number of pubs in the north west suburbs and villages of Sheffield, Bradfield, Worrall, Lodge Moor, Oughtibridge, Ecclesfield, Dungworth and perhaps most famously Stannington folk gather together to sing folk carols to the accompaniment of whatever instruments are bought to the evening; fiddles are particularly favoured.
Christmas carols in the Holly Bush pub Stannington, Sheffield - 'Hail Smiling Morn'
In recent years a resurgence of this tradition has seen it drift further into the city of Sheffield with even two of my local boozers in Nether Edge, coming to the party.
Local media now proclaims that this daily, multi-pub public singing extravaganza is what a ‘Sheffield’ Christmas is about.
Guides are printed and ethno-musicologists come from elsewhere to sup Bradfield Farmers Blonde and soak in some folk authenticity, although some might grumble about local brass bands sometimes getting in on the act, as this was not how it was 'back in the day'.
If this was in Andalucía or Sicily, Sunday magazines would extol its virtues on the travel pages but it takes place on the dark, often wet and windy, evenings of terraces and villages that stretch from Sheffield into the south Pennine hills, and pretty much nowhere else in the UK - not quite like this in any case.
The leading academic expert on this is Professor Emeritus Ian Russell whose 1977 doctorate was based on the singing traditions of West Sheffield.
Professor Russell observes that “carolling in pubs was, and is, primarily festive, seasonal, unrestrained emphasising sociability and conviviality”. The songs sung are folk songs and adaptions of carols within the existing cannon, most folk in the UK would not recognise many, they are essentially local to the tradition and have been passed down across generations. Variations occur between villages, and even between pubs in the same village.
Such hyper-localised musical traditions are not unique to Sheffield, the UK, Europe or anywhere but they are increasingly assailed by mass media homogenisation and at Christmas this appears particularly so, especially musically with Mariah Carey, Slade and George Michael leading the corporate charge in Britain.
Yet a fiddle or two, a beer of two and some, often out of tune, hearty singing with your neighbours and friends seems as Sheffield as it gets, until somebody mentions football, but that’s for Boxing Day.
Carl Lee is retired but was a lecturer at The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, taught A level Geography for 20 years at Sheffield College, is the author of five books about geography and has a PhD in economic geography. He has been nuts about music since buying his first single in 1973: 10cc’s 'Rubber Bullets' if you were wondering.
Update
BBC News - December 2025 -
Also the Repair Shop at Christmas featured a repair of a book that had been used in the services for many years.
An A-Z of bands from Spotify, based on the algorithm which suggests the best match to each letter of the alphabet.
I've listened to U2's music since 1983-ish. This goes back to their live album at Red Rocks.
My first U2 experiences were back in the 1980s with albums like Boy. I remember bringing in the New Year in a holiday cottage in Wales in the late 1980s with 'New Year's Day'.
There are a few favourite songs of mine, including a live version of 'City of Blinding Lights'.
U2 at Wembley on Friday 12th June 1987, the day after the general election result. U2 were at the peak of their powers. Support included The Pretenders, Spear of Destiny and World Party. We’d tried to get tickets but it was sold out so we thought we’d go and listen to it from outside. We then realise that there was a hole in a wall above a fire escape so we managed to shin up and climb through the hole where it opened up on the roof of toilet block, which wasn’t very promising. However, we jumped down without injury and just ran before anyone could catch us and dived down one of the stairwasy onto the pitch just as everything was starting. For ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’, Bono changed the lyrics for the spoken section at the end of the song, saying ‘and they run and run, into the arms of…Margaret Thatcher’. The place erupted.
Bono has been involved in a great many political campaigns to some degree, and their shows are also very political.
Tickets went on sale on Friday for the UK tour of Jon Anderson and his accompanying musicians 'The Band Geeks'.
I first heard Jon sing live in the 1980s with Yes.
I was able to see the classic line up, with Alan White, Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman. I also saw a range of other musicians play in the line-up, including Buggles-era, and ABWH etc.
More to come when I reach 'Y' in my A-Z of music for February.
I had access to the pre-sale so purchased mine on Wednesday, and went for the classic venue which is the London Palladium.
Here's the band playing the Yes track 'Roundabout'.
For those in the know, the opening notes of this song were also the first part of the theme tune for the Brazil series I used back in the 1980s and into the 1990s.
This particular programme was used for years... called "Skyscrapers and Slums" - a term we would not use today as these are essentially people's homes.
It features Mauro "the show shine boy" who had dreams of being a pilot... one of the great mysteries of the geography world back then - in the days before the internet - was whether he made it...
An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.
U:K is a short-lived 'supergroup' of technically proficient musicians. They recorded several albums including a live one.
Japan had more visits by Jobson and crew than the country they were named after. The band had a classic line-up, although in recent concerts, only two were from the original.
This features the late, great John Wetton on bass and vocals. He also played with Asia - which he founded. Previous bands included Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music,
The guitarist was the late, great Allan Holdsworth, a pioneer of guitar synthesisers.
The drummer was originally Bill Bruford, who also played with Yes and Genesis as well as Earthworks. He retired a few years ago, but not for long. I've seen him play live a number of times with both of those bands.
On the clip below, the drums are played by multi-instrumentalist Marco Minnemann is an awesome drummer who is capable of incredible rhythmic patterns in complex time-signatures. I remember watching a clip of him auditioning for Dream Theater.
The big draw for me is Eddie Jobson. He is a multi-instrumentalist, classically trained and a phenomenon, and will appear elsewhere on the blog.
Here they are playing one of my favourites of theirs.
And this has just been added to YouTube because Eddie is going to be performing live for the first time in some years.
It's a live performance of 'Carrying no Cross'.
From Eddie Jobson's "Four Decades" solo concert in 2013, with special guests John Wetton and Marco Minnemann.
Other guests appearing at the concert included Sonja Kristina (Curved Air), Alex Machacek (U.K.), Aaron Lippert (UKZ) and Ric Fierabracci performing a broad range of music from Jobson's forty-year career.
An alphabet of bands and artists as a series through February. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.
Tangerine Dream is a band whose line-up has changed repeatedly over the years, but which continues to this day, and will continue indefinitely because its about the music and the idea and not the particular people who make up the band at any one point. The Wikipedia page explores all the musicians who have contributed to the project. I first saw them over 40 years ago.
It was founded by Edgar Froese and other key musicians for some years were Christopher Franke and Johannes Schmoelling.
The current line up is made up of the multi-instrumentalists Thorsten Quaeschning, violins from Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick - the most recent addition.
Their White Eagle album from 1982 has a nicely geographical front cover. The deluxe version has some excellent bonus tracks as well. This is one of my favourites.
I was very pleased to catch them playing a 50th anniversary concert based around their album 'Phaedra' at the Barbican in 2024.
The 2nd half of the concert (after an hour long performance of the main album as a session) was full of hits and started with a storming 'No Happy Endings'. This is on the soundtrack to the video-game Grand Theft Auto V.
Here's a live performance of Madagasmala.
There is also this video featuring the last live performance by Edgar Froese in June 2014 and a cracker of a song 'The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green' featuring two of the current line-up.
Thorsten Quaeschning released an album with Steve Rothery of Marillion as a duo called Bioscope in 2025. It's very good also.
One of my favourite tracks played live is called The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green. This was often the final track played at gigs and this recording is particularly special as it was the final time that
In January 2026, they released a recording of a special 50th anniversary concert at the Barbican where they played their album Phaedra plus a selection of other tracks. It's in my collection. I was there at the event!
Discography
There isn't room to put the full discography of albums as they have released over 100 I believe...
Here's just a few ... from older albums to more recent ones...
AI generated so there will be some errors.
The penultimate line-up played a concert at the opening of a new concert venue, and the resulting gig is available free of charge here. It's wonderful...
A lot of music is written about particular places.
Airports, in the work of Marc Augé are "non places".
Non places are described as follows:
Non-place is a neologism coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé to refer to anthropological spaces of transience where human beings remain anonymous, and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places" in their anthropological definition.
Examples of non-places would be motorways, hotel rooms, airports and shopping malls. The term was introduced by Marc Augé in his work Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, although it bears a strong resemblance to earlier concepts introduced by Edward Relph in Place and Placelessness
In 1978, Brian Eno released "Ambient 1: Music for Airports", a quietly radical album that redefined the role of music in public and private space. The album was born out of frustration: after spending hours waiting at Cologne Bonn Airport, Eno found himself irritated by its sterile, uninspired atmosphere. Rather than simply complaining, he reimagined what sound in such a setting could be—composing an album "designed for airports" but meant to function in many contexts.
At the time, ambient music was more a concept than a genre, mostly existing in contrast to the formulaic "muzak" of elevators and lobbies.
Eno’s approach was intentionally different. He didn’t want to stimulate or distract. Instead, he wanted to create space: for thought, for calm, for uncertainty.
As he put it in the liner notes, ambient music:
“must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”
Each of the four tracks on 'Music for Airports' unfolds slowly, with a ghostly serenity:
“1/1,” the opening piece, features tape-looped piano patterns that feel both deliberate and weightless.
“2/1” stands out for its non-vibrato vocal loops, which Eno called “uncannily lifeless”—intimating not peace, but the eerie absence of human presence.
“2/2,” created using an ARP 2600 synthesiser and layered with multiple echoes, is lush, slow-moving, and quietly immersive.
What makes "Music for Airports" so enduring is its conceptual clarity. Eno wasn’t just crafting background sound—he was rejecting the idea that music must entertain or dominate.
Over four decades later, "Music for Airports" still feels timeless. It’s not only a foundational work in ambient music, but a philosophical statement about how we listen—and why sometimes, the most profound sounds are the ones that ask the least of us.
It is part of a series of ambient albums.
The full album can be heard below:
Brian Eno is an interesting musician and polymath who has dipped into a huge number of projects over the decades, and collaborated with a wide array of musicians with different musical styles.
He played for some years with the band 'Roxy Music'. He is a producer and musician, as well as involving himself with a whole range of art projects.
This excellent London Review of Books review by Ian Penman of two biographies contains a large amount of detail about his life, and his projects, some of which have been criticised. It is well worth reading!
Eno also provided "enossification" to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - adding to the sonic palette of the album - which has been blogged elsewhere.
Here, he explains how the idea of ambient music came about.
Eno's influence can be heard on other music which has already, or will be, featured on the blog, including David Bowie's 'Berlin Trilogy'.
We will return to this album later on the blog, as Carl Lee has also written about this set of albums and what they mean to him in another of his excellent blog posts.
What are your favourite ambient music pieces and artists?
I bought a hardback version of the book when that came out as a gift for my wife who is a huge Pet Shop Boys fan. She has seen them many times over the years, going back to the 1980s and including at the Royal Opera House. I've also seen them play several times including at Glastonbury.
It's a copy signed by the author: Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.
An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.
Sigur Rós are one of my favourite bands, and I have seen them play live as often as I can, even before 2012 when they first became particularly prominent by composing music used in a David Attenborough series - even if you don't think you know it, you will have heard it. I went to see them play last year and the person next to me said "I only know one song" - and I knew which one they meant.
Here's the song that introduced them to many:
The most recent concert was with an orchestra down at the Royal Albert Hall.
Here's one of my favourite tracks, as recorded at Abbey Road Studios: Ára Bátur
The track hadn't been played live before.
And then in October - they played it...
There are plenty of videos recorded by those who were present at the concert - see if you can find your favourite.
Vonlenska (Hopelandic) is the non-literal language that forms the unintelligible lyrics sung by the band on some songs, in particular by Jónsi. It is also commonly known by the English translation of its name, Hopelandic. It takes its name from "Von", a song on Sigur Rós's debut album Von where it was first used. However, not all Sigur Rós songs are in Hopelandic; many are sung in Icelandic. Vonlenska has no fixed syntax and differs from constructed languages that can be used for communication. It focuses entirely on the sounds of language; it lacks grammar, meaning, and even distinct words. Instead, it consists of emotive non-lexical vocables and phonemes; in effect, Vonlenska uses the melodic and rhythmic elements of singing without the conceptual content of language. In this way, it is similar to the use of scat singing in vocal jazz.
The band's website describes it as "a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music" it is similar in concept to the 'nonsense' language often used by Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser in the 1980s and 1990s or by Icelandic singer Björk.
It is worth exploring all their discography.
In October 2025, I saw them performing with the London Contemporary Orchestra.
Monday last week saw the appearance on iPlayer (and BBC One) of the new offering from Mackenzie Crook. He had already cast his magic with 'Detectorists' and an updating of 'Worzel Gummidge' and this is his latest series: "Small Prophets".
Cinder Well is the musical project of Los Angeles–based songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker. Her starkly emotive vocals and surrealistic lyrics are framed by cinematic arrangements drawing from traditional and experimental music. There is weight and resonance to Cinder Well — heavy in ways that do not rely on volume or distortion, but on the depth of songwriting and the unhurried space it holds.
This follows the previous wonder of 'Detectorists', which benefitted from a wonderful theme song from Johnny Flynn.
Much more to come on that in a post to come next month.
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