On January 4th 2006 the house where Johnny Cash lived for 35 years was bought by Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb. The rustic house near Nashville, Tennessee went on the market in June 2005 with an asking price of $2.9m (£1.7m). Gibb said he planned to preserve the house to honour the Cash memory. Unfortunately Gibb’s ownership of the house was short-lived. In April 2007, the house burned to the ground during renovations when a flammable spray sealer caused fire to break out during construction. The Gibbs built a new house on higher ground, keeping the original Cash home foundations as a testament to the memory of Cash. The new house has been sold a few times since. So let’s get this straight, Johnny’s old house became a ring of fire, a bloke with the voice of a boy named sue seemed to be stayin’ alive!
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After six fab messages from artists and bands this is a brief Christmas message to all you wonderful readers of With Just A Hint Of Mayhem direct from me, Bill, at Mayhem Towers. A much safer place than Nakatomi Tower! I hope you all have a great Christmas and are looking forward to a wonderful 2026. Thank you for making my 2025 so good. See you next year!
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Here it is, the final day of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2025.. The ten posts so far have featured the Apocalypse Disco, Radiohead, Black Box Recorder, Shrub, the Postal Service, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Bring Me The Horizon, Muse, the Doors and R.E.M. Many of you will know by now that this years theme has not been not very festive and is almost certainly our darkest theme so far. But with all the crap in the world at the moment much of it driven by Dementia Don in the partly demolished and fake gold encrusted White House I thought I would celebrate Chrimbo this year with songs about the end of the world. These are twelve fabulous tracks despite the rather savage theme. Music has, and will always accompany me wherever I go, even if that is into the heart of the forthcoming (???) Armageddon!
I have decided to end the series on a relatively hopeful note. So I have chosen “World Hold On (Children Of The Sky)” by Bob Sinclair. The uplifting music and positive lyrics will hopefully make us all feel good. Words such as “Right here, spread love, everybody join together now. One race, one heart, love and unity, everybody sing. Yeah!” It was released as the second single from Sinclair’s ‘Western Dream’ album, in April 2006. It was a hugely successful track and it charted in many countries, particularly in dance charts, it also made the UK singles top 10. I love that whistling hook too.
I promised you a surprise for the day 12 post and click here to check it out. It is a rather excellent demo suggested to me by Boss Caine himself a.k.a. Dan Lucas. It is called “The End Of The World (Lo-Fi(Solation) Blues demo)” and you can take a listen over at Bandcamp, just click here!
I also promised you an end of the world playlist based on this series, you can find that below! Twelve songs making up almost an hour of Armageddon tunes!
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Here comes day 11 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2025.. The ten posts so far have featured the Apocalypse Disco, Radiohead, Black Box Recorder, Shrub, the Postal Service, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Bring Me The Horizon, Muse and the Doors. Many of you will know by now that this years theme is not very festive and is almost certainly our darkest theme so far. But with all the crap in the world at the moment much of it driven by Diaper Donnie in the partly demolished and fake gold encrusted White House I thought I would celebrate Chrimbo this year with songs about the end of the world. These are twelve fabulous tracks despite the rather savage theme. Music has, and will always accompany me wherever I go, even if that is into the heart of the forthcoming (???) Armageddon! Maybe I need to make them into a playlist, what do you think? Some of you have contacted me with a resounding yes to the playlist. It will appear when we post the final installment a.k.a. day 12. There may be a surprise extra track on the day 12 posting too, keep checking in!
Today we have what some may consider an obvious choice for this series, it is “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by the legendary and sadly missed R.E.M. It was released in 1987 and was the second single taken from their fifth album, ‘Document’. It reached 69 in the US Billboard chart that year and number 39 in the UK when it was reissued in 1991. In the 1990s in interviews with Musician magazine and Q magazine front man, singer and lyricist Michael Stipe said of the song which included a number of diverse references, such as a quartet of individuals with the initials “L.B.”: Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce, and Lester Bangs. that the “L.B.” references came from a dream he had in which he found himself at a party surrounded by famous people who all shared those initials. “The words come from everywhere, I’m extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state or just in day to day life, so that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels. It’s a collection of streams of consciousness.” It certainly fits our theme, thanks to the title and general lyrical strangeness.
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This is the sixth in our series of Christmas messages from bands and artists that we have featured on With Just A Hint Of Mayhem this year. This time it is from Skylights guitar Captain, Turnbull Smith. I understand from Turn that the boys will be releasing new music in 2026. In fact I have heard the next single and it takes the band to yet another level! I suspect next year will be another top one for Skylights, so get ready for it!
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Day 10 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2025 is here. The nine posts so far have featured the Apocalypse Disco, Radiohead, Black Box Recorder, Shrub, the Postal Service, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Bring Me The Horizon and Muse. Many of you will know by now that this years theme is not very festive and is almost certainly our darkest theme so far. But with all the crap in the world at the moment much of it driven by Rapey Van Winkle in the partly demolished White House I thought I would celebrate Chrimbo this year with songs about the end of the world. These are twelve fabulous tracks despite the rather savage theme. Music has, and will always accompany me wherever I go, even if that is into the heart of the forthcoming (???) Armageddon! Maybe I need to make them into a playlist, what do you think? Some of you have contacted me with a resounding yes to the playlist. It will appear when we post the final installment a.k.a. day 12. There may be a surprise extra track on the day 12 posting too, keep checking in!
Today’s song is a classic sixties track, “The End” by the Doors. It was the final track on their self-titled debut album that was released in January 1967. In 2015, the Library of Congress selected ‘The Doors’ album for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant“. In 1969 Jim Morrison said this of the song “Every time I hear [“The End”], it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song … Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don’t know. I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be“. Personally I do see it as bringing an end of the world vibe with it. It is a truly epic track which in its original form runs for nearly 12 minutes. I have thrown in an even longer live version below too.
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This is the fifth in our series of Christmas messages from bands and artists that we have featured on With Just A Hint Of Mayhem this year. This time it is from the magnificent Strip. They have had a great year and the pinnacle might well have been reaching the Fulford Arms Battle of the Bands final a couple of months back. They are one of the most energetic bands I have ever seen, get them in your life for 2026!
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This is the fourth in our series of Christmas messages from bands and artists that we have featured on With Just A Hint Of Mayhem this year. This time it is from the fabulous Pennine Suite. This band have made a number of appearances in these pages since their first in 2021. They continue to pump out some cracking tunes, and I just purchased their 4-track vinyl release which is excellent. The band have played a range of great gigs this year too. You really need to check them out if you haven’t already.
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Here comes day 9 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2025. The eight posts so far have featured the Apocalypse Disco, Radiohead, Black Box Recorder, Shrub, the Postal Service, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and Bring Me The Horizon. Many of you will know by now that this years theme is not very festive and is almost certainly our darkest theme so far. But with all the crap in the world at the moment much of it driven by Trumpelstiltskin in the partly demolished White House I thought I would celebrate Chrimbo this year with songs about the end of the world. These are twelve fabulous tracks despite the rather savage theme. Music has, and will always accompany me wherever I go, even if that is into the heart of the forthcoming (???) Armageddon! Maybe I need to make them into a playlist, what do you think? Some of you have contacted me with a resounding yes to the playlist. It will appear when we post the final installment a.k.a. day 12. There may be a surprise extra track on the day 12 posting too, keep checking in!
Today’s song is by Muse and it comes from their 2022 album ‘Will Of The People’, it is a perfect choice for this years theme, I bring you “We Are Fucking Fucked”. The album went to number one in the charts in many countries including the UK. Speaking about the origins of the album, Matt Bellamy said that “Warner Records requested a greatest hits album from Muse. Instead, the band decided to make an album that was a montage of all of those types of genres that we’ve touched on in the past and would feel like a greatest hits album of new songs.” He said that the lyrics on the album were inspired by “the increasing uncertainty and instability in the world as the Western empire and the natural world, which have cradled us for so long, are genuinely threatened. This album is a personal navigation through those fears and preparation for what comes next.” Bellamy has also described the track as “the weirdest, darkest lost B-side of Muse’s life”. So if we are truly fucking fucked, then this song is definitely a part of my Armageddon playlist!
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The revelation of Mayhem’s Top 50 Albums Of 2025 is now nearing the top. In past years it has only ever been a top 20, but it was hard to whittle the original list of 60 down to 20, so we kept 50 of them! So far we have given you parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 which cover positions 11 through to 50. Now we reveal the numbers from 1 to 10 in the final instalment, the top 10 or part 5.
Have your favourite albums made the Mayhem cut? Check out the list below and check out parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. (Just click on the numbers). There is, as promised, a 50 song play list, bringing you nearly three hours of great sounds (check below)! For information the whole top 50 is printed below as well. Here comes the top ten!
1 Service Station At The End Of The Universe – Antony Szmierek– “Perfect spoken word poetry set against sublime beats, like the bastard northern son of Mike Skinner” 2 Der Traum Über Alles – Avalanche Party – “Without a doubt the finest British band of their generation. I am gutted that they decided to call it a day” 3 More – Pulp – “A flawless return to form from one of Sheffield’s finest bands” 4 Panic Shack – Panic Shack– “Personal tales of truth and life from a superb band” 5 Rave Immortal – ALT BLK ERA –“A musical phenomenon that gets better with every release!” 6 black british music – Jim Legxacy– “Can anyone combine rap, R&B and electro pop better than Jim Legxacy? Probably not!” 7 Reflecting Light And Causing Chaos – Dead Rat Society – “Perhaps a little short, but this is a genuine example of an album that is most definitely all killer no filler“. 8 Suspects – The Dead Zoo – “A band that is standing on the threshold of true greatness” 9 Never Enough – Turnstile – “Who can write a hook-laden chorus better than this lot?“ 10 Who Let The Dogs Out – Lambrini Girls – “Perfect punk energy switched up to 11”
THE FULL TOP 50
1 Service Station At The End Of The Universe – Antony Szmierek 2 Der Traum Über Alles – Avalanche Party 3 More – Pulp 4 Panic Shack – Panic Shack 5 Rave Immortal – ALT BLK ERA 6 black british music – Jim Legxacy 7 Reflecting Light And Causing Chaos – Dead Rat Society 8 Suspects – The Dead Zoo 9 Never Enough – Turnstile 10 Who Let The Dogs Out – Lambrini Girls 11 Cut & Rewind – Say She She 12 West End Girl – Lily Allen 13 Parasites & Butterflies – Nova Twins 14 Bin Juice – The Lovely Eggs 15 The Clearing – Wolf Alice 16 Lotus – Little Simz 17 MAD! – Sparks 18 Euro-Country – CMAT 19 Pillow Talk – Party Nails 20 Antidepressants – Suede 21 The Passionate Ones – Nourished By Time 22 Can’t Lose My (Soul) – Annie and the Caldwells 23 Showbiz! – MIKE 24 Who Is The Sky? – David Byrne 25 Getting Killed – Geese 26 YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds 27 Lux – ROSALÍA 28 Golliwog – Billy Woods 29 Only Dust Remains – Backxwash 30 I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me – Lorna Shore 31 A Paradise In The Hold – Yazz Ahmed 32 Essex Honey – Blood Orange 33 EUSEXUA – FKA Twigs 34 DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS – Bad Bunny 35 Addison – Addison Rae 36 THE BPM – Sudan Archives 37 Like A Ribbon – John Glacier 38 That’s Showbiz Baby! – JADE 39 The Bad Fire – Mogwai 40 A Complicated Woman – Self Esteem 41 The Sky, the Earth & All Between – Architects 42 Music Can Hear Us – DJ Koze 43 The Collapse Of Everything – Adrian Sherwood 44 Sad And Beautiful World – Mavis Staples 45 Metalhorse – Billy Nomates 46 A Fine African Man – Knucks 47 Faux Animaux – Blue Violet 48 Lost In Good Intentions – Fishing 4 Compliments 49 Dreaming In Stereo – Jellybricks 50 Naked Truth – Autumn Dawn Leader
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