Charles Connolly

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝘼𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 – 𝙅𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙃𝙖𝙬𝙠𝙚𝙣

Charles is filling a void…

There was a song released weeks ago. Let’s call it “wicked song”. I adored it, but I had already opted for a different song to review that week. Still though, this “wicked song” lingered in my head. I really needed to talk about it. The following week occurred in its usual weekly fashion, and I had not forgotten about said “wicked song”, but in my honest approach I still went ahead and listened to all that was new that week. Alas, another great song took its place and “wicked song” was once again put on hold. Another week passed and although I still listened to all the latest new releases, I was determined this time to finally tell the world about this “wicked song”. I went back to the New Artist Spotlight playlists to find it and refresh my memory. I scrolled up, I scrolled down. I could not find it. I even used the search function within the playlists. It was not there. Fortunately, I had written it down, so all was not lost. “Wicked song” had not let me down; it was still wicked. But I was wondering why it was not on the playlists… After delving through the New Artist Spotlight itself, I found to my horror that the artist had left the community!!! By now, you’re probably all wondering who I’m talking about, or perhaps you are sure you know. But let me throw my spanner in your works (I’m running out of spanners)… Before having heard this “wicked song”, I had never heard of this artist. NOW you’re dumbfounded. You have no idea. But the thing is, I very much doubt you had ever heard of the artist. I believe they were one of those “try it for a bit then opt out because they can’t be bothered” types. Which is a huge shame, because this song is just fabulous and so utterly unique. And get this: it’s rap! Well, sort of rap. Feels more like spoken word in rhythm. And you know what’s REALLY going to annoy you? I’m not going to tell you.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧 𝙎𝙮𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙚 – 𝙆𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙞

Charles finds the impostor not guilty…

Everyone knows the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”; but how about, “Don’t judge an author by its book”…? Has it ever occurred to you that I might not be who you think I am? I don’t mean that I quietly identify as a blonde Asian lady or anything like that, because frankly, despite my petite frame I don’t think you’d believe me. But we generally have our thoughts and ideas of who someone is. What someone is like. This is all based on what we have so far managed to gather from whatever they have chosen to show and tell us. Lies are everywhere. Deception is rife. Not necessarily here, and not necessarily in me. But there are many people around today who spend their life pretending to be someone they’re not. This could be to draw attention to themselves and win friends. This could be because they are so ashamed of who they are, that they try their very best to be perhaps even the complete opposite. It could be because they are hiding a dark secret. It could be simply because they are naturally dull. It could be any number of reasons, but I can’t imagine there is much satisfaction in being an impostor. As to me, chances are, I am who you think I am. But I could be wrong. I don’t know how I come across, and I don’t know what you think of me. And the good thing about age…? I don’t really care. I am honest, though. That is one thing I can be sure of.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙜𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙙 – 𝙊𝙜𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙩, 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙤

Charles remembers that life is for living.

I rarely go into the topic of the virus. Very rarely. Many reasons. It can be boring. It IS pretty boring. It can be lowering. We are all sick to death of reading about it. Maybe “sick to death” is a poor choice of expressions, in the circumstance… I just wanted to get something off my chest, as it were. It’s about cycles. Neither of the bi- variety nor the menstrual kind, however to a certain extent it does involve the cycle of life – but not as we know it. When we speak of the cycle of life, we are really speaking of life and death; the being and the not being. I am not so interested in the not being, for there is nothing much to discuss there. The idea I had in mind is more in the way of cycles throughout our living. This time last year, things were very grim indeed. A vaccine had been approved, but it was not yet available to the general public. We waited with bated breath for the clock to tick past midnight, into a completely different year altogether. Good riddance to nasty 2020, and good morning fresh, golden ray of sunshine, 2021. To quote our festive friend: “Ho Ho Ho”. It did make me chuckle; the cynical, sadistic bastard that I am. The soiled cycle of the old year was complete, and the shiny, cling-film covered new one was just to be unwrapped. What joy! Santa is by this point joining me, rolling on the floor, laughing. ROFLing, I believe is the term these days. Well it wasn’t much of a change, was it. There was hope, however. We had a vaccine soon to keep us company. It can only be a good thing. But close to a year on, less than two thirds of London is vaccinated. Bravo! Variants came and went throughout the year. Many people became terrified and worried, regularly. Another variant means it is a journalist’s duty to terrify and worry. Spiffing! Every time we had a new variant, the press (and the people) would discuss whether it was particularly dangerous, and whether it would be immune to our sainted various vaccines. Immune to immunity! Who woulda thunk. We all so casually speak of science these days, not knowing the slightest thing about it. We are not scientists. Neither is the press. So we bring in the experts. They are very good at arguing with one another, and at being wrong. Eventually, even the journalists get bored of writing about the same stuff, and move on to something much more important. Like Prince Harry. Pahahaha! Santa’s having a grand old time now. So do we ever find out if various variants were able to beat the vaccine and win over our souls…? Nope. By this point, it is old news.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙣 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙋𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 – 𝘽𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝙎𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙧, 𝘼𝙞𝙢𝙚́𝙚 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙖

Charles listens wherever egos…

Well, THAT was quite a week, wasn’t it! Phew. That big little article I wrote about Fair Play for Independent Artists garnered rather a lot of attention. Ya see, these things take time to put together. That article was not just cobbled together in half an hour with masking tape temporarily stopping it from falling to bits. It took me hours. And days in the planning. I say planning: it was mildly swimming around my mind for a bit beforehand. I needed to gather together all the information that might have been necessary, and then I knew it had to have some sort of structure. So I proceeded to ignore most of that information and just go by what I knew. This was pure laziness, but I wanted this to feel real. To be from the heart; not just a list of statistics and a rant. Tone was vital. It was all rather daunting if I’m honest. Which I am. Honest, not daunting. I mean, yes, I am used to writing weekly articles. But this was different. I am naturally silly. I like doing the humour thing. With humour. I like to pull facial expressions with words. I like to be light but not pointless. No, I like to think there is weight in what I write, but not deep, dark, depressing weight. No, no. Like Queen. I try to write like the music of Queen. Proper and unexpected, but fun and poppy on the surface. Yeah, that’ll do. This article last week was to be something new. Something different. Something to really stretch me. Lord knows, I need a stretch. It got to the point where I was having dreams about it. Not very healthy, but there you go. This is because it was and is important.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙛 𝙊𝙣𝙡𝙮 – 𝙅.𝙃.𝙈

Charles does an embarrassing little dance…

An old school chum of mine used to pronounce the word “Only” as “O’ly”. For 20 years he thought it was a silent ’N’. I never found out why, and I only recently stopped laughing about it. To thi’k of him pro’ou’cing this word wro’g si’ce we were childre’… I just thought you should k’ow.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄’𝙡𝙡 𝙌𝙪𝙞𝙩 𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 – 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙣 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡

Charles packs it all in…

Each week comes with private messages from artists wishing me to review their latest single. While some might think I find this annoying or tedious, I am actually flattered. It suggests that my Corner is somewhat of an aspiration. Something special for which to strive. Like a poor man’s Mercury Music Prize, but weekly. Which makes the whole thing rather difficult. The more popular my Corner gets, the more pressure there is on choosing the “right” artist and song. Back when I started, it was getting only a handful of views, then rather quickly it started taking off. Soon it was reaching something like 60-80 views. In recent months however, it is now being read by around 300 people per week. Which astounds me. Having said that, the New Artist Spotlight currently has close to 1,000 members, so therefore more than two thirds of them are not even glancing at it. Seems a shame perhaps, but I am certainly content with a few hundred views. My goal has always been to popularise a certain song by a certain artist. A song which I feel deserves that spotlight. This could be a relatively unknown artist who’s been with us a while, or it could be one of the notoriously talented top dogs of the community. Lately, however, I have been trying to review artists I have never reviewed before. Incredible talent that very few know about. It’s fair, and it’s right. It can also help to coax a quieter artist out of its shell. But it’s also a gamble. What I do is so much more than picking a decent song and briefly telling you it’s good. It involves a lot of work, time, effort and thought – which in a way I hope does not come across when reading them – I like them to seem effortless and natural.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙂𝙤 – 𝘽𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙬𝙧𝙮

Charles something something (for want of a better something)…

Another week, another review. Another plod through the same old words in a different order. Sorry to put you all through this ordeal every week. I suppose it could be worse. Death is worse. Yeah, my reviews/articles/musings are better than death. There we go! And who says I’m not a positive optimist?? As opposed to the negative variety… The Easter weekend left me with good vibes. It treated me to family I have not seen in over two years. It also treated me to something else I have not experienced in quite a while. A hangover. This ghastly, heavy, HEAVY feeling. I have tried the English cure of “Plink, plink, fizz”, and I have also tried the American cure of “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz”. Those who know, know. Those who don’t: accept your fortunate lack of pointless knowledge and move on. My brain, however is chock-full of pointless knowledge. Nothing useful whatsoever. I think to an extent, it is what makes me, me. I may have listened to a LOT of songs over the years, and I may ADORE music in general, but I am far from any kind of trained music theorist. There is probably a better term, but like I say – I know nothing useful. Who wants to read that kind of in-depth jargon anyway? It would bore the panties off me. And so I turn to imagination. Usually, anyway. Today, My imagination is snoozing. Deeply. Where it is normally a lithium-charged sparkler, right now it is little more than a twitching twig close to decomposition. I am useless to you now. Lobotomies are us!

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙖𝙩𝙨 – 𝙀𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙨

Charles goes on a day-day…

The focus of late has been on England. Okay, Britain, if you wish. All right then, the Ewe Kay. The Far West of Europe…? Call it what you will, it has been in the press and on the tongues of most, this past week or so. Due of course, to the nature of all things royal. Yesterday gave me such immense pride. It was a sombre and unbelievably moving affair. A day to remember for the rest of time. Truly a fine end to a fine era, on a scale never witnessed before. For more crownly thoughts, have a read of last week’s review, here. For now, though, I would like not to run away from England quite yet. I wish to go back to a time when the Queen still reigned. Or more precisely, Saturday the 6th of August.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝘼𝙜𝙚 – 𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚 𝘽𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙨

Charles urges you to stop IT…

Despite the title of this song and article, I will NOT be talking about HAL (my name for A.I.). The topic of HAL is a dull one because HAL-generated music is a dull thing released by dull, unimaginative pretenders. Now on to something more fun.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙚 – 𝙎𝙞𝙭𝙩𝙝 𝙁𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙧 𝙈𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨

Charles finds a nook in time, and rounds off the year in headphones.

I hope you all simply had a wonderful Christmas time. Now that Santa is back home in his bed for a well earned annus somno (year of kip), the rest of us are all wide eyed (or not so) and twiddling thumbs. But we are allowed to do so without even a smidge of guilt. Christmas has passed and the New Year has yet to come. We are in a unique time of year. In limbo, even. It is neither one thing nor the other. An interlude, if you will. But it is not to be frittered – although frittering can still be done, if that is what you choose to do. This time of year is sort of how everything resolves. Time to take stock and reflect on the year’s happenings, or non-happenings. Have you been a good child? Have you been honest? Have you remained innocent? This ongoing “bad air” has somewhat soured things (again, or still), but we mustn’t let it take over our lives. We must find a natural impetus and push through to the other side. Turning a negative into a positive, as they say.

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