On the 7th September 2018, Mac Miller (real name Malcolm James McCormick) was found dead of a suspected drug overdose in his LA apartment at the tender age of 26. A respected and talented rapper, singer and record producer, the music world went into a frenzy when the sad news made its way onto the […]

Strand of Oaks lead singer-songwriter Tim Showalter has made a fine career out of penning songs about topics that most other singer-songwriters—most other musicians—would not dare address. He also has a great ear for what makes a song stick in a listener’s head (or ears); from his 2009 release Leave Ruin to his band’s breakthrough […]

In a year that saw the death of so many music stars, there was still something particularly painful about George Michael’s death. This may be highly subjective but I think that for those of us in our 40s or 50s, George Michael was the ultimate songwriting companion. Many noted that his music was “the soundtrack of […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment For the last month, we at Global Comment have posted a song a day of the best Christmas songs of all time. Now, here they are gathered together into one post, with an added Spotify list. What’s your favourite Christmas song? Did we get it right? Let […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment There was only ever one song that would make a suitable finale to our musical advent calendar and it is, of course, Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade. Another titan of glam rock, also from the Midlands and released in the same year as Wizzard’s fantastic effort, Merry […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment Today’s calendar entry is – confession time – my personal all-time favourite Christmas song. I love all of the songs we’ve featured in the calendar but the reason I really love this one is its simplicity – it’s not a protest song, it’s not political, there’s no […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment And welcome to the 1980s! Unlike most of the other big Christmas hits, I have never met anyone who doesn’t like this song – it seems to be universally accepted as a Christmas classic. In fact, one radio DJ in Austria liked the song so much he […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment Chris Rea was one of the voices of my childhood. Every summer we used to make the drive from Birmingham up to Sunderland to visit my grandparents and one of the albums that we used to listen to in the car was Chris’ Road To Hell. I […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment Today’s entry on our musical advent calendar takes us back to 1973 and has been a perennial favourite ever since. It’s definitely one of the most beloved Christmas songs of my childhood, and perfectly encapsulates a thought that most kids have had at some point – yes, […]

By Kate Lillie Originally published on Global Comment Santa Claus Is Coming To Town has a solid claim to being THE original Christmas hit. Originally released in two formats in 1934 – vinyl and sheet music – it sold over 130,000 copies within 24 hours and is the oldest song we’ve covered in our calendar […]