Connolly’s Corner

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.

𝙁𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 – 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙚 𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

Charles finds significance in retrospect.

Occasionally I mention mainstream artists in my reviews. Sometimes for comparison, sometimes because they often simply can’t be avoided – here’s looking at you, Beatles. When sifting through new releases, we are unlikely to stumble across a new Beatles album, unfortunately – not counting the 2021 Let It Be mix of a few weeks back. It will be the usual huge artists of the last 10 or 20 years. Coldplay’s ‘Music of the Spheres’ (universally deemed mediocre by the press), Ed Sheeran’s ‘=‘ (said to be dated and very unexceptional indeed), and Adele’s latest single, ‘Easy On Me’ (another masterpiece from the mastress – well okay, if you say so). But – if it hadn’t been for the pummelling of pricey advertising – we maybe didn’t expect a brand new album by one of the old greats: ABBA.

(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.

𝙁𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙣𝙚𝙩 – 𝘿𝙤𝙢 𝙋𝙞𝙥𝙚𝙧 (𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩. 𝘾𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙨 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚)

Charles is all at sea…

Last week, I somewhat misjudged things. I didn’t do anything wrong or bad, I just simply made an error of judgement. Call it a misunderstanding. I wrote an entire mini-episode of the TV sitcom, Cheers. I thought it was a safe bet, and that perhaps 80% of my readers would know the show. It turns out it is more like 30%, including people from America, Canada and Britain. Which amazed me. I thought it was possibly the most popular TV comedy after Friends. Evidently I was wrong. What amazed me more however, was certain people completely misunderstanding. HUGELY. Three people thought I had simply copied and pasted the script of an episode. Two of those three said they remembered the episode!! And then there was one chap who thought I had actually been given the opportunity to write a new episode of Cheers, and that I had decided to show the whole script in a review of a song. Yep, that sounds totally plausible…! The nice thing about all this, is that it shows I evidently wrote it realistically. The sad thing is, some people evidently don’t read properly. Due to popular demand (I assume), I will NOT be writing a whole episode of another TV show most of you have never seen. I put the “NOT” in uppercase for the skim-readers who might have thought I meant the complete opposite.

(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.

𝙁𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙊𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙚 / 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙁𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙨 – 𝙉𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙡 𝙈𝙘𝙉𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮

Charles is taking sides…

To make up for last week’s “lazy” article, I will be doubling up this week… What is a single? I mean these days. It used to be a shiny black groovy platter with a great song on one side, and a very mediocre one on the other. This disc was 7 inches in diameter. I will skip over cassette tapes. Then came the CD. The CD single usually had two or three (or occasionally seven) songs on one side (usually one being decent), and no songs on the other. The disc was 4.75 inches in diameter. I will skip over downloads. Now we have streaming. It is ubiquitous. A modern single for streaming services has no sides, and no diameter. It usually has one song. Usually not that great. There is something so sterile about releases these days, especially when it comes to single singles. No backside, no B-side, and nothing to hold. There isn’t even a barcode to ruin what would have been a perfectly good design. But speaking of design, its cover measures roughly 2 inches on an average sized phone screen. Do you think the cover of Sgt. Pepper would have been devised had it been designed for a canvas of 2 inches…?

(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.

𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙪𝙩 – 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙝𝙞𝙚𝙢

Charles has misplaced his marbles…

This is the official week of love. Worldwide. Well, it contains a certain lovey-dovey day, anyway. Blooms and box of chocs at the ready? Almost certainly. Sometimes things just work au naturel. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, girl falls for boy. And they live happily ever after. Noyce. It does happen, I must assure you. But sometimes it’s not all that easy. Very often it is one-sided to begin with. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses mind over girl, girl looks on, girl likes to tease, girl eventually rips heart away from boy because girl thought it would be funny. Romance at its finest! It works well in films, but in real life it is tragic. And usually in films it will end with boy getting girl, and girl seeing error in girl’s ways. In real life, boy is left with trauma, and girl moves on to another victim. This isn’t a boy vs girl piece. It could easily be the other way around, but I am simplifying things by not going the route of “boy/girl meets girl/boy” etc…. It could get pretty confusing and, frankly annoying.

(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.

𝙁𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙤́𝙣 – 𝙀𝙡 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚 𝙅𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙚 𝙋𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚

Charles speaks but one language…

Andiamo! Despite my blood being decidedly foreign (not meaning I am ridden with germs), I am English. I mean, I was born in England, and have been here all my life. That makes me English, at least in the modern way of viewing things. Right? Well my foreign ancestry takes me back to two other places in the world. My native heritage lies in Italy and Ireland. Or Ireland and Italy, so as not to offend. I believe I am still roughly half English, but it may be less. I am not about to pay a rather large fee for someone to analyse my blood to find out. I don’t care enough. I am who I am, and that is fine with me. England is my love, and so is the English language. But I also feel a huge warmth and fondness for pretty much anything to do with Italy. I also quite like Guinness, when the time is right. And U2. When the time is right. But predominantly it is England that wins my heart. Paddy’s Day is universally known and celebrated. On Saturday it was St. George’s Day, otherwise known as England Day. Did you know? Would you have known if Google hadn’t told you? “England” and “English” are pretty much seen as dirty words here in London. I can’t think why. It saddens me. Everyone should be proud of their own nation. Almost everyone. Ooh! Contention! Joking, of course.

(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.

𝙁𝙪𝙨𝙨 – 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙠 𝘼𝙝𝙡𝙢

Charles lost his soul…

The other night I rediscovered jazz. I had one little melody stuck in my head but I couldn’t think what it was. I was sure it was something from jazz singer Stacey Kent. I scanned through her entire discography. I was wrong. In my head it was both old and relatively new sounding. It wasn’t quite the old grainy jazz of the late 40s and early 50s, but it also didn’t quite have the lustre and close sparkle of newer jazz. I was mainly a bit stuck because I knew that I knew it extremely well, and yet I know VERY little jazz… At first I thought this melody (which introduces the song – I knew THAT much) was piano, but I quickly realised it was saxophone (or trumpet – I just couldn’t quite solidify it in my mind). I had the feel of the playing, but I still couldn’t be definite about the sound. It bugged me for a good half hour. I even tried many Miles Davis tracks, hoping it was either his own trumpet playing, or perhaps John Coltrane on the saxophone. Still couldn’t find it. Something suddenly clicked. I got it instantly. It was Paul Desmond playing the sax. The sound was cemented in my mind and I knew that had to mean one thing. It was a Dave Brubeck song. I have only ever had one album by Brubeck. But it’s an album you all own in one way or an other. Literally each and every one of you has this LP in your possession. And yet, you will all have different versions by different artists. So different that it’s impossible to believe they share the same title. I personally have loads of copies by numerous artists. Any guesses for the title of said album? No…? All right, I’ll tell you. It’s called Greatest Hits. Despite this song I was searching for apparently being on his 1963 album Bossa Nova USA, I only knew it from his 1966 Greatest Hits album. And I cannot imagine how many times I have played this record. It must be hundreds. I know almost every single note of every solo. And yet… I have never really been into jazz…

(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.

𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 – 𝙆𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙞

Charles finally has his Europe in the Summertime…

Who knew he’d talk about his holiday?? Quite impossible. Surely not! Well, surely. Predictability, with a twist.

(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.

𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙪𝙩 – 𝘼𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙘

Charles has just the one…

Temptation is… Well, what IS temptation? Something that lures. Something too good to resist. Something that sits on your shoulder refusing to allow you to forget. But is this a bad thing? That’s what’s interesting. Temptation tends to err towards the negative. There is usually the feeling of “I really shouldn’t, but…”. Like when you’ve already had two slices of chocolate cake, but now there’s only one slice left… It would be a shame to waste it… And wouldn’t it be more satisfying for that plate to be rid of remnants…? And so, like a wild animal, you pounce and devour. Crumbs a-plenty! Face like a used pig pen. And the plate has relinquished its duty to hold and present. Do you now feel the purest satisfaction? Do you now feel replete? Not really. You feel guilt, and you have a stomach ache. That final slice wouldn’t have had to go to waste. You could have had it the next day. And now you WISH you had had it the next day. But it’s too late. The deed is done. At least you have learnt not to do this silly thing ever again. At least you know now to be abstemious, should this predicament arise in the future…

(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.

𝙃𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙮 𝙉𝙤𝙬 (𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩. 𝙅𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙍𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙣) – 𝙅𝙪𝙣𝙚 𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙

Charles socks it to you with a smile…

The life of an artist can be a trying one. Oh, let’s face it, the life of a person can be a trying one. There is always so much to do. So much to think about. So much to worry about. So much to push for. So much to strive for. And so much to bring you down. So let’s have breakfast and look at the news. Bad, worse, absolutely bloody terrible. It’s exhaustingly negative, and all true. This is not how I wanted to start my day. I have a lot to do! Ah, now here’s something. It’s “lighthearted” and jovial. “Dolce & Gabbana launches luxury perfume for dogs”. And I’m sad to say that this was not made up. This is a genuine article headline in The Times today (Monday – when I write these things). Riiiiight. So that’s all good. Paper to one side, methinks. I mean, if it isn’t catastrophically dreadful and deeply depressing, it’s absolutely downright moronic. Coffee. That’s a good thing. Sip sip sip. Noyce. But I have heard that it can be bad for the heart. Hmm… Well, I’ll put that on my list of things to mildly concern me and look into later. As I start my day, I realise it’s Monday. Well, I don’t realise; I KNOW. Monday has that big invisible clanging bell hanging over it as soon as the wakey-wakey alarm does its thang. Bastard Monday. The best and worst thing Bob Geldof ever did was to make us all come together in agreement, in not liking Mondays. I don’t even have to tell you why.

(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.

𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙮 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 – 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣

In ignorance, Charles has a heavy heart…

A lot of bad stuff is going on in the world. Always. Even at the best of times, there is always bad stuff. Bad people, bad things, bad decisions. Even nature itself can be bad. It’s enough to flip that smile for a while. Each page turn of the paper; or scroll of your preferred news outlet can often lower the soul, despite it often being so disconnected from our own little world. So why not ignore it? Why not cocoon oneself within one’s own blinkered existence? Why not, indeed! Well, because we need this information. More than ever, these days we crave the latest goings-on. It has almost become “cool” to know exactly what is happening everywhere in the world, the split second it happens. But seemingly not in all ways. In many ways we stay within the comfortable confines of what we know and what we are happy not to know.

(more…)