Unleash the fandom: How a new breed of high-concept indie bands are pointing to a more sustainable future away from digital megamalls
With Elon Musk turning Twitter into 4Chan, Google full of hallucinated bullshit AI, Zuckerberg’s Metaverse folly and the sense that in building our homes on them, we’re investing in somethng that’s not just more temporary, but potentially more predatory than we had hoped, the world is falling out of love with platforms. So what can…
Doors of the mind: Ghosts and thresholds in Bowie, Dickens, and the Generation Game
I’ve never been able to pass a door in an ancient wall without wondering what’s behind it. I know the truth is overwhelmingly likely to be mundane, but my subconscious mind can’t help picking out the details: the old ivy growth across it; the absence of any mechanism on the outside; the permanent silence…
Resignations as historical force: Jurassic Park, grunge, capitalism and the story of the 1990s
There’s a lot of noise about Jurassic World cleaning up in cinemas right now. But what about the real back story? Back in the 1990s, Jurassic Park was – unlikely as it might seem – part of the same global breakdown as grunge and the Berlin Wall. Sound weird? In this short extract…
“Paddy? What a fantastic death abyss!” Why the 1990s were David Bowie’s REAL creative hot streak
My revisionist piece on the David Bowie’s least-known (but most creatively rewarding) purple patch was published in Sabotage Times today, just as the world hailed his latest offering. I argue that his lost years – Tin Machine, Black Tie White Noise, 1.Outside, Earthling, even The Buddha of Suburbia and his revelatory, manic…