Easy Pieces
''Easy Pieces'' is the second studio album by the British rock and pop band Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. It was released on Polydor Records in the UK on 22 November 1985 and included the hit singles " Brand New Friend" (#19 in UK), " Lost Weekend" (#17 in UK) and " Cut Me Down" (#38 in UK). The title of the album derives from the American drama film ''Five Easy Pieces'' (1970), which Cole described as "one of my very favourite films", saying, "I want to write at least five songs out of that film". Following the praise and healthy sales of their debut studio album ''Rattlesnakes'' the previous year, ''Easy Pieces'' became the band's fastest-selling album, selling more in its first two weeks than ''Rattlesnakes'' had managed in a whole year. It was also their highest charting album in the UK, peaking at number 5. The album produced three UK top 40 singles. However, despite ''Easy Pieces''' commercial success, the reception from critics was lukewarm and the band themselves were unh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions were a British rock and pop band that formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1982. Between 1984 and 1989, the band scored four Top 20 albums and five Top 40 singles in the UK; it also had success in several other countries including Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand. After they broke up in 1989, Cole embarked on a solo career but the band reformed briefly in 2004 to perform a 20th anniversary mini-tour of the UK and Ireland. Band history The band were formed whilst Cole (who was born in Derbyshire, England) was studying at the University of Glasgow. They signed a recording contract with Polydor Records; their debut single " Perfect Skin" reaching number 26 on the UK Singles Chart in spring 1984, while the second single "Forest Fire" reached 41. Their debut studio album, '' Rattlesnakes'', was released in October 1984. Produced by Paul Hardiman and featuring string arrangements by Anne Dudley, it peaked at No. 13 in the UK and was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Music Week
''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music Week''. On 17 January 1981, the title again changed, owing to the increasing importance of sell-through videos, to ''Music & Video Week''. The rival '' Record Business'', founded in 1978 by Brian Mulligan and Norman Garrod, was absorbed into Music Week in February 1983. Later that year, the offshoot ''Video Week'' launched and the title of the parent publication reverted to ''Music Week''. Since April 1991, ''Music Week'' has incorporated ''Record Mirror'', initially as a 4 or 8-page chart supplement, later as a dance supplement of articles, reviews and charts. In the 1990s, several magazines and newsletters become part of the Music Week family: ''Music Business International (MBI)'', ''Promo'', ''MIRO Future Hits'', ''Tours Report'', ''Fono ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elvis Costello
Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author and television host. According to ''Rolling Stone'', Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical traditions of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with the raw energy and sass that were principal ethics of punk", noting the "construction of his songs, which set densely layered wordplay in an ever-expanding repertoire of styles". His first album, '' My Aim Is True'' (1977), spawned no hit singles, but contains some of Costello's best-known songs, including the ballad " Alison". Costello's next two albums, '' This Year's Model'' (1978) and ''Armed Forces'' (1979), recorded with his backing band the Attractions, helped define the new wave genre. From late 1977 until early 1980, each of the eight singles he released reached the UK Top 30. His biggest hit single, " Oliver's Army" (1979), sold more than 500,000 copies in Britain. He has had more ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dexys Midnight Runners
Dexys (known as Dexys Midnight Runners from 1978 to 2011) are an English pop rock band from Birmingham, with soul music, soul influences, who achieved major commercial success in the early to mid- 1980s. They are best known in the UK for their songs "Geno (song), Geno" and "Come On Eileen", both of which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, and achieved six other top-20 singles. "Come On Eileen" also topped the US Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and, with extensive airplay on MTV, they are associated with the Second British Invasion. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys went through numerous personnel changes over the course of three albums and 13 singles, with only singer/songwriter/co-founder Kevin Rowland remaining in the band through all of the transitions and only Rowland and "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone) appearing on all the albums. By 1985, the band consisted only of Rowland and long-standing members Helen O'Hara (violin) and Billy Adams (guitar). ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Teardrop Explodes
The Teardrop Explodes were an English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978. Best known for their Top Ten UK single " Reward", the group originated as a key band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s. The group also launched the career of group frontman Julian Cope as well as that of keyboard player and co-manager David Balfe (later a record producer, A&R man and founder of Food Records). Other members included early Smiths producer Troy Tate. Along with other contemporary Liverpudlian groups, The Teardrop Explodes played a role in returning psychedelic elements to mainstream British rock and pop, initially favouring a modernised version of lightly psychedelic late 1960s-influenced beat-group sound (sometimes described as "bubblegum trance") and later exploring more experimental areas. In addition to their musical reputation, the band (and Cope in particular) had a reputation for eccentric pronouncements and behaviour, sometimes verg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Madness (band)
Madness are an English ska and pop band from Camden Town, north west London, who formed in 1976. One of the most prominent bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s two-tone ska revival, they continue to perform with six of the seven members of their original line-up.Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. Retrieved on 19 June 2007. Madness's most successful period was from 1980 to 1986, when the band's songs spent a total of 214 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, holding the record along with English reggae group UB40 for most weeks spent by a group in the UK singles chart during the 1980s. Madness have had 16 singles reach the UK top ten, including " One Step Beyond", " Baggy Trousers" and " It Must Be Love", one UK number-one single " House of Fun" and two number ones in Ireland, "House of Fun" and " Wings of a Dove". " Our House" was their biggest US hit, reaching number 7 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. In 2000, the band received the Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwrit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Hardiman
Paul Hardiman is a British record producer. He worked with Lloyd Cole and the Commotions (on their debut ''Rattlesnakes'') and Lloyd Cole's solo career. His other production credits include Chris de Burgh's most commercially successful albums '' Into the Light'' (including worldwide hit " The Lady in Red") and '' Flying Colours'', as well as ''Soul Mining'' by The The. Partial list of credited works * 1972 – Hogwash – The Groundhogs * 1973 – Mystery to Me – Fleetwood Mac * 1973 – The Session – Jerry Lee Lewis * 1974 – Here Come the Warm Jets – Brian Eno * 1974 – The Hoople – Mott the Hoople * 1975 – Panic – Zzebra * 1976 – Ramshackled – Alan White * 1977 – Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted – The Animals * 1977 – Pink Flag – Wire * 1977 – Whatever Happened to Slade? – Slade * 1977 – White Rock riginal Motion Picture Soundtrack– Rick Wakeman * 1978 – Chairs Missing – Wire * 1978 – The Shirts – The Shirts * 1979 – 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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EMAP
Ascential (formerly EMAP) was a British-headquartered global company, specialising in events, intelligence and advisory services for the marketing and financial technology industries. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Informa in October 2024. History Richard Winfrey purchased the ''Spalding Guardian'' in 1887 and later purchased the '' Lynn News'' and the '' Peterborough Advertiser''; he also started the ''North Cambs Echo''. He became a Liberal politician and campaigner for agricultural rights and the papers were used to promote his political views in and around Spalding, Boston, Sleaford and Peterborough. During World War II Winfrey's newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey (1902–1985). In 1947, under the direction of 'Pat' Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press (EMAP): this was achieved by the merger of the Northamptonshire Printing an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Q Magazine
''Q'' was a British popular music magazine. It was founded in 1986 by broadcast journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, who were presenters of the BBC television music series ''The Old Grey Whistle Test''. ''Q'' was published in print in the UK from 1986 until its final issue was published in July 2020. In 2023, ''Q'' was revived as an Webzine, online publication, but this closed in May 2024. History ''Q'' was originally published by the EMAP media group and set itself apart from much of the other music press with monthly production and higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called ''Cue'' (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it would not be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in ''Q''s 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands. In January 2008, EMAP so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He published his first collection of stories, '' Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?'', in 1976. His breakout collection, '' What We Talk About When We Talk About Love'' (1981), received immediate acclaim and established Carver as an important figure in the literary world. It was followed by ''Cathedral'' (1983), which Carver considered his watershed and is widely regarded as his masterpiece. The definitive collection of his stories, '' Where I'm Calling From'', was published shortly before his death in 1988. In their 1989 nomination of Carver for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the jury concluded, "The revival in recent years of the short story is attributable in great measure to Carver's mastery of the form." Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mill town on the Columbia River, and grew up in Yakima, Washington, the son of Ella Beatrice Carter (née Casey) and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'', and formerly ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity. The Group's annual report (for the year ending 2 April 2023) indicated that the Scott Trust Endowment Fund was valued at £1.24 billion, while in 2021 it was valued at £1.14 billion. History The company was founded as the Manchester Guardian Ltd. in 1907 when C.P. Scott bought ''The Manchester Guardian'' (founded in 1821) from the estate of his cousin Edward Taylor. It became the Manchester Guardian and Evening News Ltd when it bought out the ''Manchester Evening News'' in 1924, later becoming the Guardian and Manchester Evening News Ltd to reflect the change in the morning paper's title. It adopted its current name in 1993. In 1991, it had a 20% stake in a consort ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |