"Some names just didn't exist a generation ago, but have taken off in popularity. The most famous of these is Kayleigh, which came into existence thanks to the neo-prog rock band Marillion, who had a number two hit with a single of this name in 1985. It was almost unheard of before the song. But since then it has taken hold, especially with parents who grew up with a love of long-haired bouffant power ballads. A few years ago, the name made it to the 30th most popular girl's name in Britain, and it remains popular: 267 children were named it last year. Curiously, though, it has spawned a bewildering sub-sect of names, nearly all of which are unrelentingly bizarre. There were 101 Demi-Leighs last year, seven Chelsea-Leighs and four called Lilleigh, which sounds like a sanitary product."
"Although they were probably joking when they said it, the British duo of Mike Mason and Louise Trehy pretty much nailed it when, in an interview, they dubbed themselves the “Cockatoo Twins.” The music on Blow fits rather stereotypically into the 4AD stable of cosmic, guitar-based angel rock — so much so it’s almost (almost) possible to overlook the fact that, while beautiful, it is also stunningly derivative. Mason’s churning, phasing-heavy guitar lines, supple melodies and store-bought drum patterns provide Trehy with quite a pedestal for her whispery, cherubic come-on of a voice. Though blissfully enjoyable, tracks like “Sugar Your Mind,” “Cherry Stars Collide” and “Tastes Like Honey” are by-the-book 4AD."
"Crystal" is a song by English rock band New Order. The song was released on 11 July 2001 as the first single from their seventh studio album, Get Ready (2001). "Crystal" entered the UK Singles Chart at number eight, attracting considerable attention and critical praise as the band's comeback single, their first original since 1993. The song also found success internationally, peaking at number three in Canada, number seven in Finland, and reaching the top 50 in Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Sweden. "Crystal" appears as the first track on the album in a version different from the single release, with an extended intro and coda."
"Paul McCartney began writing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" during the Beatles' stay in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968. Prudence Farrow, one of their fellow Transcendental Meditation students there, recalled McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison playing it to her in an attempt to lure her out of her room, where she had become immersed in intense meditation. McCartney wrote the song when reggae was becoming popular in Britain; author Ian MacDonald describes it as "McCartney's rather approximate tribute to the Jamaican ska idiom". The character of Desmond in the lyrics, from the opening line "Desmond has a barrow in the market-place", was a reference to reggae singer Desmond Dekker, who had recently toured the UK. The tag line "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah" was an expression used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor, an acquaintance of McCartney. According to Scott's widow, as part of his stage act with his band Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Scott would call out "Ob la di", to which the audience would respond "Ob la da", and he would then conclude: "Life goes on."
"Liquido was a German rock band formed in Sinsheim, Germany in 1996 by four friends: Wolle Maier (drums, programming), Wolfgang Schrödl (vocals, guitar, keyboards, piano), Stefan Schulte-Holthaus (bass) and Tim Eiermann (vocals, guitar). The vast majority of their songs are sung in English. Their debut single “Narcotic”, recorded in 1997, was a hit in many European countries in 1998. This song was later remixed and became a German, Austrian and Dutch hit for YouNotUs in 2019."
"Luka" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, released as the second single from her second studio album, Solitude Standing (1987), in May 1987. It remains her highest-charting hit in the United States, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Worldwide, the song charted the highest in Sweden, peaking at No. 2, and reached the top 10 in Austria, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. Shawn Colvin sings background vocals on the record."
"The mid-80s were not the kindest time for 60s and 70s rock legends. For every gimlet-eyed operator who successfully navigated an alien and unforgiving landscape of power ballads, crashing snare drums, Fairlight synthesisers and MTV moonmen – the Eagles’ Don Henley and Glenn Frey; Tina Turner – there were scores who seemed utterly lost. It was a world in which the natural order of things had been turned on its head to such a degree that the drummer from Genesis was now one of the biggest stars on the planet. David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed … at best, they ended up making albums that diehard fans pick over for tiny morsels that suggest they’re not as bad as the reputations preceding them; at worst they made stuff they’d spend subsequent years loudly disowning, involving terrible clothes, inappropriate producers, awful cover versions and – in extreme cases – attempts to rap. In theory at least, Fleetwood Mac should have been in more trouble than anyone. The band that reassembled after a four-year hiatus to record 1987’s Tango in the Night was in even greater disarray than usual. The celebrated complications in their personal lives that had fuelled 1977’s 40m-selling Rumours were still taking a psychological toll, as was the band’s celebrated capacity for excess. Singer Stevie Nicks emerged from rehab, free of cocaine but soon to become addicted to clonazepam, a tranquilliser so strong she claimed not to remember a subsequent four-month US and European tour. Nicks rarely turned up to the recording sessions at guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham’s home studio; when she did, Buckingham banished her and drummer Mick Fleetwood to a Winnebago on the driveway, horrified at the state they were in. Bassist John McVie’s drinking was out of control; he had an alcohol-induced seizure the year Tango in the Night was released. The era was brought to a suitably miserable close when Buckingham and Nicks had a physical altercation after the former announced his departure from the band."
"When we get together and write, it's not like three individuals ― it's like one person in the room. Usually, we have a book of titles and we just pick one. I loved 'You Win Again' as a title, but we had no idea how it might turn out as a song. It ended up as a big demo in my garage, and I recorded stomps and things. There was just one drum on there. The rest was just sounds. Then, everybody tried to talk us out of the stomps at the start. They didn't want it. 'Take it off. Too loud! Can we have them not on the intro, just when the music starts?' All this stuff, but as soon as you hear that 'jabba-doomba, jabba-doomba' on the radio, you know it's us. It's a signal. So, that's one little secret ― give people an automatic identification of who it is."
"The lyric idea was spun by seeing a number of people walking about Chelsea on a very, very early Monday morning. And it was these sort of actors that you don't know their names... And they were going down buying the morning Daily Expresses, it was a ritual, and they were looking at themselves in the window, as if to buy the paper was actually a take, it was part of some formal play they were in. It was also about young ladies, who often, sort of like me, live in their bedsit apartments, and they've got their Marks & Spencer's duvets and their collections of books and things. We put the two ideas together and confirmed that with the dreamers that you often get down in London that think that the paths are actually paved with gold. And we came up with this, again typical Marillion depressive vibe thing, where you've got the girl in the bedsit. She'd love to be an actress, but she's never got the guts to sort of make that jump from standard 9-5 into the great big world of entertainment industry."
