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.

𝙉𝙤𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮’𝙨 𝙇𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 – 𝘼𝙫𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙖

Charles is in a similar boat…

Who remembers a British band from the 90s called Republica? Those who do, what’s the song that springs to mind…? Is it “Ready to Go”? Here’s the chorus: “It’s a crack, I’m back, yeah I’m standing on the rooftops shouting out. Baby, I’m ready to go”. That’s me right now. I’m standing on the rooftops shouting out. Baby, I’m ready to go! Yep, it’s that time of the week where I please some and bore others. Woo-hoo! I’m ready to go. Not ready to leave, you understand. Ach, and some of you got your hopes up. Well, tough. Baby, I’m ready to stay. But despite my hoarse vocal cords from that echoing decibelage, I’m wondering if I’m being acknowledged, or even noticed… Every week I write about this or that, and sometimes even the other. But I wonder, if I were to copy and paste a great big chunk of the Oxford English Dictionary instead, how many would actually notice…? Would the comments still read “good song good review keep up the good work cant wait for the next one emoticon emoticon”? Possibly. Probably. Definitely. The internet’s a funny place, after all. I won’t be copying a chunk of the Oxford English Dictionary, though, as I’m not a fan of alphabet soup. These pieces go out to potentially every single living person on this Earth. The same goes for our music… Every single person can read these peculiar articles of mine for free. Every single person can listen to our music for free. Yet, most do not. I can’t understand why. Is it all terrible? Is it really all that bad?? Of course not. The real reason is that nobody knows. But the more important reason is that nobody cares. Why WOULD you?? Some random bloke on the internet writes about music and other random junk. Some unknown artist releases yet another song. Pah.

(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.

𝙉𝙤𝙧𝙬𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 – 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙙 & 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣

Charles stares at the sun…

The wait is over. It finally happened. We hoped, we prayed. We were ready for disappointment. But we always quietly had our fingers crossed. What it is is, Summer. England is not known for sun. Not to foreigners. It is known for miserable rain (as opposed to lighthearted upbeat rain), despite not really having that much rain these days. Well, of course I speak only of London, for that is all I know. I’m sure up north is as grim as ever. But then again, maybe I’m doing what the foreigners do. Assuming, due to what people say. Maybe I’m wrong. Let’s check. Today in London it’s sunny and 26 degrees. Huh! Turns out it’s exactly the same up north! So there ya go. Completely wrong, due to my assumption, based on very little. What’s that sound…? Sounds like a chuckle… It seems to be coming from the southern states of the Ewe Ess of Aye. Now look, I know 26 degrees is not a great deal to you lot – positively chilly, no doubt! But we in mainland Europe don’t live on the edge of a desert (or even indeed in the middle of one). Besides, it did reach 30 over the weekend in London. Which was enough to make me feel very heavy indeed. But good lord, I enjoyed it. We Britonians never know what we’re going to get. Could be chilly and wet and windy. Could be dangerously high temperatures with sun so strong it looks more like Arizona than Hyde Park. Grass bleached to dust. But despite all the worry and concern over climate change, we English always hope to get burnt fast. It is terribly childish and incredibly unsophisticated (not to mention downright stupid), I will admit. But it is the English way. Quick! Sun’s out! Flip-flops at the ready! Let that proud belly hang, flop and wobble to the beat of one’s own personal step. I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, too sexy it hurts. I mean, it HURTS! It is painful to look at. But, this is the nature of these people. To get toasted, and not give a tan about what others will have to look at. One might say they are blinded by the sun… I’m not really selling the place, am I… The good thing is, God invented sunglasses. And if you get ones dark enough (you know, those ones more suitable for viewing a rare solar eclipse) you won’t have to see all this ghastly stuff. Then you can concentrate on your OWN tan (and on not walking into lampposts or passing cars – no matter how amusing this might be to the other bellies).

(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.

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 (𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩. 𝙀𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙮) – 𝙎𝙖𝙣𝙤 𝙃𝙞𝙡𝙡

Charles is only pretending…

It’s been a while since I wrote about love here. Used to do it all the time. Writing, I mean. And it’s always tricky. Well actually, it wasn’t ALWAYS tricky. At the beginning it was quite easy, because it was new. But after a while, there is little more I can say on the matter. Admittedly, most of you will either not remember my earlier articles, or will not yet have joined the New Artist Spotlight community at the time they were published. Shall I just rehash one of my old ones, then? I mean, that’s what everyone else does these days, right? The thing is, I don’t like doing that. I never do that. I never do that with anything. Newness is “like my thang”. The funny thing is, we do it in songs all the time; this love-ad-nauseam doohickey. Admittedly less so these days as I think young people have been too anxious to learn how to love. Probably far too much like hard work. Okay, so I won’t concentrate on the very young ones (as if I ever did). Do we maybe just take love for granted? It’s a big old thing, don’t ya know. Love, I mean. We’ve all heard the stories. We’ve all been through it. It’s either beautiful and tragic. Or starts one way and ends the other. Actually, usually. “She’s the one” – how many times have I told myself that?? We so desperately want THAT one to be THE one. We all want the happily ever after. Some genuinely get that. Lucky sods. But more often than not, it just ain’t the way. Bit of a bugger, if you ask me.

(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.

𝙈𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘 – 𝘾𝙚𝙧𝙪𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙤𝙣, 𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙇𝙚𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙨𝙤𝙣

Charles casts a spell…

It’s a new dawn; it’s a new day; it’s a new life for me… And I’m feeling good. Hopefully your bodies and minds have recovered from the copious amounts of shandy booze, and I trust your ears have stopped ringing from the relentless colourful cannon fire. Some of you might have been saddened or even offended by having not received a New Year message from me. Even in the public chats, I was completely absent. But then again, most of you probably couldn’t give a monkey’s. Quite right. For those of you who have nothing better to do than to frown and weep and mourn the lack of a review for an entire week, have no fear: CC is here! Do not worry your pretty little head. I was simply saving that message for this here public broadcast. I have also been truly enjoying life without screen. There’s a whole world out there, ya know…! What did YOU all do between the festives (24th/25th) and the bing-bangs (31st/1st)? Did you read that book you were given for Christmas? Did you drink yourself into oblivion? Did you resent having to work between the two significant dates? Perhaps you just pigged out while listening to whatever Spotify told you to listen to? Well my favourite day was so simplistic it might even barely bear mentioning. But it is so often the simple things in life that we cherish the most. It was December 30th. I was heavily hungover from the night before – don’t ask. Feeling groggy can be awful, but it can also make you feel cosy at home. Like a yawning puppy. I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done. How could I possibly judge the balance of audio when I couldn’t even remember to put on trousers… Think of it as a duvet day. Yes, I know this is starting to sound like a teenage girl’s slumber party, but I assure you it wasn’t. My girlfriend and I did a jigsaw puzzle from start to finish, while listening to music. It was as simple as that. And a highlight of the music was Kaminski’s album from 2022 (no longer “last year”). We both had such a special time despite there being pretty much nothing to it. I suppose this is what love is all about. It is the magic of it. How something so simple can be so special.

(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.

𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙝𝙖̃ 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙖 – 𝙅𝙤𝙖𝙤 𝘼𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙝𝙖

Charles is just being nice…

I’m a bad man. Rotten to the core. Cruel and sadistic. Horrid horrid horrid. This is what everyone says about me. Okay. This is not what everyone says about me. At least, not to my face anyway. Then why say it here? Because sometimes we have thoughts. Irrational thoughts. Absurd and fictional thoughts, based on absolutely nothing. It was also a punchy way of starting the article. Ahem. Negative thoughts of oneself can easily creep in when surrounded by negative, bad and ugly. Take last week’s article, for example. I decided not to comply. I decided not to embrace a thing called HAL. I decided not to see the potential positive effect of it on art. While I won’t be changing my stance any time soon, this negativity can lead to heavier things. If one sees only doom and gloom, one feels only doom and gloom. And it is easy to slide down the slippery slope of “I’m no good”. These days, I would have said my thoughts and views are pretty balanced. Also, these days I think I’m pretty comfortable with who I am, and what I’m like. Am I bad? Am I mean? Am I cruel? Am I dishonest? Am I a criminal? No. Am I perfect? Pahahaha! No. Very far from it. While being in a generally healthy state of mind, I could always be better. We all could. But I’d just like to give the good guys a pat on the back for being so good. While we could all be better, just think how much worse we could be? All those liars and fakers and cheaters out there. We could be like that. We could be going around, spitting on grannies and tripping up children. I saw you, laughing at the idea of the kid falling over. I chuckled too. Because it’s funny. Okay, the kid isn’t laughing, but we mustn’t lose our sense of humour. Stifle that natural laughter, then help the kid up. For most of us, good enough, is good enough. Don’t try to be a positive drone. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t 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.

𝙈𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙚 𝙆𝙡𝙚𝙞𝙣 – 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙖

Charles analyses the situation…

There has been an increasing rarity of something in my reviews lately. Please don’t all shout at once: “Rap! Death Metal! Brevity!”… I know, I know. I’m more talking about something that used to be quite common in these parts. But has only come up maybe three or four times this year. We’ve had plenty of the rock, the indie, the alternative, the folk, the classical, the soul, the pop, the prog, and even the reggae. So, what am I talking about? What is missing? It’s something that is actually relatively common. But rarely of a high standard, because it’s bloody hard to do well; notoriously so. It has to sound polished. It has to sound classic. It usually has to sound professional (but there can be a certain charm when it’s not). It can be peaceful, but usually it’s sad; and it can be heart-wrenching. I’m talking about ballads.

(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.

𝙈𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙢’𝙨 𝙈𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚 – 𝙆𝙚𝙡𝙚 𝙁𝙡𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜

Charles isn’t yet brave enough…

Hands Up who’s sick to death of Spotify…? Who is absolutely fed up with everything it has become in recent years? The way it is less a music listening platform, and more a social media platform…? Oh, but it goes so much deeper than that. It ain’t just an ugly interface. Sorry, you can all put your hands down now; I saw “y’all”. Spotify has become a fully-fledged greed machine. It has no scruples or morals of any kind. It does not care about a single artist. It does not care about the music industry. It does not care about music. It is (only recently) trying to look like it is doing something about HAL (A.I.) – but even that is all a ruse. It is widely known (though not officially proven) that Spotify is not only adding HAL music to its own editorial playlists, but actually making fully HAL playlists, to the extent that there isn’t a single human-made track on such playlists (again, not proven, but known). Spotify has been punishing innocent independent artists for quite a while now, having whole artist catalogues removed due to one song unknowingly having been placed on a rogue bot-playlist (a playlist that is streamed automatically by robots in order to accrue streaming royalties). The artist did nothing here. And Spotify gives no warning. Because Spotify too is run by robots. Everything is automatic, and humans have little or nothing to do with its running. This is art, baby! And what about royalties? What does the artist get in return for someone listening to their song once? Let’s just say it would take about 300 plays of that song to buy the artist a Mars bar. So, not very much.

(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.

𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨, 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙑𝙞𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙤 – 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙨

Charles goes back in time to lose his mind once more…

There is a chunk of my life that none of you knows about. Not one. I used to a be a woman. No, no: with this beard, that would be most silly and quite unrealistic. Although I have always been quite proud of my eyelashes. I am going to tell you about that chunk. Cue dream-scene wavy lines – doodly doodly doo. And we’re here. The year is 2006. I am 22. My hair is quite long and naturally blonde. My beard is straggly and thin in parts, which makes me look somewhat like a terrorist stereotype. Nah, I can’t do this in the present tense – all too real and freaking me out. Let me tell you about the time anyway. Having recently obtained my music degree, I thought it best to have a lot of fun. And so I did. I was out every night of the week. Girls, parties, pubs, girls, drink, smoke, girls, drink, smoke, drink, smoke – ahem. I was YOUNG!! Leave me alone. So, there was all of that, as per usual. But as with today, there was one constant. Music. Always listening, always discovering, always playing, always going to gigs. But always PLAYING gigs. Good old giggity-gigs. I was in several bands through the years, but there was always one particular one that stays with me. We were really rather good – if you like that sort of thing. A simple four-piece consisting of guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Joe King was the incredible bassist. Yes, his real name was Joe King – his parents must have been having a laugh. Blah was the guitarist, and other blah was the singer. I say Blah because we didn’t particularly get on in the end, and the other blah was his girlfriend and so backed him up on everything he said or did. She also couldn’t sing and didn’t understand the concept of a melody. It was more of a drunk croon from someone occasionally walking on hot coals. You know these medic types (for that was what she was studying at the time)… This guitarist though – he was good, but his fingers were like spider legs. The simplest movement on the neck of the guitar made his hand look contorted like someone suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Basically, his fingers weren’t as good as his brain. He came up with really good licks, but couldn’t quite play them well enough. And then there was me. I was on drums.

(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.

𝙉𝙤 𝙋𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 – 𝙆𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙞

Charles is the cat with one eye open…

Let’s clear this up, once and for all. Last week’s review. I received a barrage of messages, comments and posts about it, from the people who didn’t quite understand. I was informed that I had linked to the wrong song multiple times. That no matter how much they searched, they couldn’t find the song “Polar Foil”… On the flip-side, I had people telling me how much they liked the song… Lord knows how they heard it… Despite most of these confused people realising it was posted on April 1st, it still didn’t quite click for some. Every single part of the article was made up. There is no such song as Polar Foil. There is no such Amazon product as Polar Foil. There is no block of ice that melts in the form of a cold hourglass. Both Polar Foil and Lila Proof are anagrams of April Fool. And Lila’s single released next month was called Yam because it’s an anagram of May (next month’s month). The cat’s out of the bag. Some of you may think it a shame that I have now “explained the joke”. I know one artist who REALLY can’t stand that. But I thought it necessary for those who felt perhaps uncomfortably incomplete, or “left out of the loop”. The thing is, this was entirely my own imagination. A vivid imagination that is so natural to me that I almost started believing it. In fact, there were times when I truly forgot, and went to my phone to listen to ”again” to the track – quickly remembering (rather embarrassingly) that it never existed. I gather many of you were also a little let down as you really wanted to listen to it. It sounded like it might have been amazing, I admit. The thing is, you can still do this. Close your eyes and do what I did. Imagine. Make the piece of music in your head, based on what you’ve read. Imagination is an incredible thing. And I do believe that if your mind is free from worry, and if you allow yourself, imagination is literally limitless. It’s a conscious dream.

(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.

𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙏𝙤 𝘿𝙖𝙮 – 𝙎𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙮 𝘿𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨

Charles catches the sun and puts it in his pocket…

The sun is a wondrous thing. It shines bright from behind the blue. It both creates and eradicates shadow, turning dark into light, and light into darker. Leaves and yolk-filled petals bask, as we burn and cower. Said scented blooms will turn in synchronisation with its beam, always to be head-to-head with the god of the sky. Those of us who do wish to confront its rays will do so with a youthful pride. Head held high, arms glistening with salty beads. What is it about these golden rays that makes us smile? A simple thing of brightness and warmth. Can it be as simple as that? Could it be the Vitamin D that our bodies make, much like a human equivalent of photosynthesis…? It is more powerful than chemistry, surely. We have learnt of solar power relatively recently, but have felt it within ourselves for millennia. This is where nature competes and wins every time. Everyone benefits. Well, almost everyone. Farmers with their droughts, skin cancer sufferers, people whose land regularly deals with forest fires, even little freckle-faced Billy who can’t go out to play because of his sensitive skin… There are negatives. Oh and then there’s the big old climate change stuff… But on the whole, The sun is a wondrous thing.

(more…)