We soon will be.

(While pondering the intriguing semantics of the lyrics, natch.)

(Via John X.)

The Boo Radleys' 1996 album "C'mon Kids" is the sort of record for which the term "commercial suicide" was invented. Like Pulp's "This Is Hardcore" two years later, it was the sound of an indie band reacting in panic to mainstream success by turning darkly introspective and abandoning the idea of writing great pop songs just when they'd finally gotten good at it.

As with Pulp, it wasn't actually the band's last record – they both managed one more album, with Pulp's "We Love Life" meeting a similar bargain-bin fate to the Boos' final effort "Kingsize" – but it was unquestionably the one that destroyed their success and cast them back into indie obscurity and poverty.

All things, though, are put right in time.

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I don't know why these two things work so well one after the other, but they do. I hope one day to be watching this TV channel.

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(Warning: contains Spotify. But if you don't have it, read on.)

Users of the controversial legal music-streaming service have become accustomed of late to more songs disappearing off their playlists than being added to them, so the sudden addition of Tranmere troubadours Half Man Half Biscuit to the archives was a pleasant surprise indeed.

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Everybody! Say! "OPA!"

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Malcolm McLaren RIP. This is a version of a piece I originally wrote for WoS a few years ago, reprinted in tribute to one of the world's great chancers. The world would have been a much more interesting place if he'd managed to become the Mayor of London.

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(From the incomparable Yo Gabba Gabba!, via Stereogum)

Following a tip-off from alert WoSblog viewer "JBR", I popped down to my local branch of Morrisons this morning in a sceptical frame of mind. The word on the street was that from today until March 7th, the supermarket chain was inexplicably offering a £5 discount on £15 (and £25) iTunes cards. But obviously that couldn't be right – nobody just gives away what's effectively free money, do they?

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Why would you want to?

WoSblog recommends downloading the full-HD version with the awesome KeepVid, and watching it about 20 times until you've spotted everything.

(Found: John X)

They're normally very hit-and-miss as a band, but this is a winner, all swirly and distant and standing-on-a-mountain-gazing-out-to-sea wistfully heroic. (In places it reminds me a lot of The Skids, in fact.) You can listen to the full thing legally below (no applications required), and/or click the image to buy it (and play all the songs in full individually before purchase too).

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or how one record changed my whole life.

(To enjoy this feature TO THE EXTREME!, install the excellent Spotify and click the song titles to hear the songs. Failing that, I'll just have to try to paint you a picture of some sounds, but made with words instead of paint.)

In the heady atmosphere of 1985-1986, I never thought I'd live to see the day when The Jesus And Mary Chain – musical revolutionaries, performers of shambolic 20-minute sets of hellish white noise and inebriated chaos, banned from Student Unions across the country because of their concerts' tendency to end in (sort-of) riots, scruffy council-estate urchins from the industrial wastelands of West Central Scotland – would be having their music celebrated and given away free with copies of The Times.

I guess if you're right, and you wait patiently enough, the world will often come round to your way of thinking eventually.

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It's an advert. But that doesn't mean it's worthless, and it doesn't make it any less beautiful. I'm not taking any advice on social responsibility or ethics from an aggressive smoker, so Bill Hicks can piss off.

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"…sharing our videos."

The clip below the jump is the video for my favourite single by the awesome Leeds-based agit-pop subversionists Age Of Chance. I stumbled across it on YouTube when a friend was asking for songs that started with the sounds of an orchestra tuning up, and was surprised to note the high quality. Immediately I wanted to share it with the beloved viewers of WoSblog, and was dismayed to note that it had embedding disabled, which always strikes me as churlish.

"No problem to a semi-tech-literate nerd such as I," I pondered. "I shall cunningly download the video via the splendid KeepVid, re-upload it to my own YouTube account, and embed it from there. Ha!"

Man, I'm wrong such a lot.

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I’ve been a little disappointed with the (lack of) reaction to ‘99‘ so far. Big Songs For Little Attention Spans swept the web a few years back, being linked all over the place and generating terabytes of downloads, and I’d hoped the easier accessibility and collaborative nature of Spotify – where you can just click a link to play all the songs legally, rather than having to download 100MB of illegal MP3s – would make ’99′ even more popular, as well as uncovering a whole bunch of new uber-short songs I’d never heard of.

But at the time of writing it hasn’t managed so much as a single retweet, and it seems doubtful that everyone in the world would have spontaneously become bored of the idea of punchy short songs tied into a theme (one small thread on The Word’s forum generated over 50 additions to the “b-side” playlist), so I started to wonder if making the compilation with Spotify – now almost exactly a year old – might have been more of a curse than a blessing.

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99 Songs Under 99 Seconds In 99 Minutes

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