Meaningless Insights

1996.

So, it’s been almost a year since Steve Wright in the Afternoon came to an end.

Stephen O'Brien ponders on his own formative friendships as he watches the members of a-ha deal with their own in their new film, True North.

Stephen O’Brien tries to come to terms with the end of the greatest radio show of all time, Radio 2’s Steve Wright in the Afternoon On a Friday afternoon in March 2022, my girlfriend and I were driving along the Llyn Peninsula in Wales, on the way to a we…

On a recent episode of his excellent Electronically Yours podcast, Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware singled out Let Me Go as the best Heaven 17 track, and after revisiting it based on that proposition, I wholeheartedly agree.

It is the end of September 2018 as I write this, and I am here to tell you about the album of the year.

There are many contenders for The Best Kim Wilde Tracks You've Never Heard - and I'm going to cover a number of them in a new series of blogs - but I'm going to start with my favourite.

January 2016 has been an unrelentingly sad month, with the loss of many talented, creative people.

Before Christmas, I'd been listening a lot to Black's 1987 debut album Wonderful Life.

I'm probably one of the last bloggers to pay tribute to the late, great David Bowie in the week he died, and many many bloggers have expressed their sadness at his passing in far more eloquent and elegant ways than I could ever hope to.

1986 was an interesting year for Stock Aitken Waterman.

Everyone knows Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) as hit-making writers and producers, but as many fans know, there are a number of singles in their back catalogue which were not big hits.

Today's 80s UK Christmas Singles post is "Jason And His Amazing Stock Aitken Waterman Christmas Single!"

Today's 80s UK Christmas Singles post is a Rea-lly seasonal 1988 diatribe at the state of the roads in late December...

Today's 80s UK Christmas Singles post is a "Not Really a Christmas song but..." entry, taking us back to 1987 when Pet Shop Boys and Nat King Cole ganged up against Rick Astley...

Max Headroom - Merry Christmas Santa Claus (You're A Lovely Guy) Billed as the World's first computer generated TV host, Max Headroom was actually actor Matt Frewer behind complex prosthetic make-up and digitally-manipulated speech patterns.

Thank God it's extract number 5 from 80s UK Christmas Singles, and today it's Queen!

Today's 80s UK Christmas Single extract is a beautiful piece of melancholy from 1983...

Today we cover the UK's first hip-hop record -- which, amazingly, was a Christmas song...

Today's extract is the strange case of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour and his Christmas novelty record...

Here's the first extract from my 80s UK Christmas Singles book -- and I'm starting off with a popular classic: Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry Offbeat artist Lewie started out in the 1970s as part of Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, a novelty act best known…

My new book 80s UK Christmas Singles has just come out on Kindle.

This is a recurring feature which will look at obscure 80s records which I find interesting, even if no-one else will!

You may have heard radio DJs over the years make a particular and remarkable statement when interviewing a musician or pop group.

Getting ready for work the other morning, I was snapped out of my normal hypnagogic stupor when Radio 2's Chris Evans played "Drinking In LA" by Bran Van 3000.