Here is the Mayhem chart for July 2025, a little late (just like last month) I know, but better late than never right? Regular readers know the chart is based on my streaming listening habits. These are gathered over the last month by obscurify.com. My taste in music dropped one point to 98% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were David Bowie, Carole King and Bob Marley. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for March and they are Liz Davinci, Dead Rat Society and The Dead Zoo. Bowie, Dead Rat Society, Liz Davinci and David Bowie have retained their obscure and legacy positions from last month.
Panic Shack sit atop the artist chart for July 2025. party Nails was the only act that remained in the artist chart from last month, falling from number 1 to number 10. Three artists appear in the artist chart and the song chart: Scene Queen, Panic Shack and the Dead Zoo. Scene Queen smashes her way to the top of the song chart with her wonderful single and future disco classic “L-Shaped Couch” 70% of the artist chart is female or female fronted and the song chart is not far behind! ALT BLK ERA and Delilah Bon make a welcome return to the artist chart. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five! Seventeen minutes of fabulous music!
Mayhem Artist Chart July 2025
1 Panic Shack 2 The Dead Zoo 3 Paul Weller 4 Jah Wobble 5 Scene Queen 6 ALT BLK ERA 7 Delilah Bon 8 Cassyette 9 Kindelan 10 Party Nails
Mayhem Song Chart July 2025
1 L-Shaped Couch – Scene Queen 2 Thelma And Louise – Panic Shack 3 Catherine – Rival Consoles 4 Catch 22 – Specky Cult 5 Bruise – The Dead Zoo
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Here it is, we are finally ready to reveal Mayhem’s Top 20 Albums Of 2024. This is part 1 which covers positions 11 through to 20. Have your favourite albums made the Mayhem cut? Check out the list below and check out part two which will reveal the top 10 very soon! I had the list almost complete and then just to make life difficult Not Now Norman and Carol Hodge both released new albums and they appear at number 16 and 20 respectively. Are you looking forward to part 2? There will be a 20 song play list when Part 2 arrives!
11 Cartoon Darkness – Amyl and the Sniffers – Perfectly crafted cartoon punk. 12 What Now – Brittany Howard – What a fucking voice! 13 POST HUMAN: NeX Gen – Bring Me The Horizon – They have evolved into something very special! 14 Where’s My Utopia? – Yard Act – A stunning sophomore release. 15 The Past is Still Alive – Hurray For The Riff Raff – This captures the simplistic beauty of great music! 16 Go HARD or Go HOME – Not Now Norman – They went very hard and we didn’t go home! 17 EELS TIME! – Eels – Mr E once again produces a sublime collection. 18 66 – Paul Weller – He is my age and can still turn out a great album, unlike me! 19 Another Nice Mess – Curtis Eller’s American Circus – A gorgeous slice of American music. 20 EffortLess InSecurity – Carol Hodge – The Hodge pulls off yet another towering album.
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Here is the Mayhem chart for June 2024, albeit a tad late. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen to 96% more obscure than the rest of the UK! A drop of 2% from last month. The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, the top three “Legacy” artists for last month are David Bowie, Sparks, and R.E.M. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to and for June those were Hawksley Workman, Jenny Don’t And The Spurs, and The German Art Students. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including three that were in the top ten last month, Taylor Swift, Paul Weller, and Delilah Bon! Delilah is one of only two artists to feature in the artist chart and the song chart for June, with her current single “The Internet” making it to the top of the song chart and May’s number one “Evil, Hate Filled Female” falling to number 5. Delilah has been in the artist charts for seven consecutive months. The other artist to appear in both lists for June is Kate Nash, who also tops the artist chart. Female artists make up 50% of the artist chart and 80% of the song chart! So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.
Mayhem Artist Chart June 2024
1 Kate Nash 2 James 3 Charli XCX 4 Scene Queen 5 The Streets 6 Delilah Bon 7 John Grant 8 Me First And The Gimme Gimmes 9 Paul Weller 10 Taylor Swift
1 The Internet – Delilah Bon 2 My Drummer’s Girlfriend – ALT BLK ERA 3 Millions Of Heartbeats – Kate Nash 4 No Calories In Cocaine – The Howl and the Hum 5 Evil, Hate Filled Female – Delilah Bon
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Here is the Mayhem chart for May 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered together by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes are 98% more obscure than the rest of the UK! A drop of 1% from last month. The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, the top three “Legacy” artists are Johnny Nash, Stevie Wonder, and Bruce Springsteen. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to and for May those are PERCY, The Apocalypse Disco, and Joe Solo. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including two that were in the top ten last month, Frank Turner, and Delilah Bon! Delilah is the only artist to feature in the artist chart and the song chart for May, with her current single “Evil, Hate Filled Female” making it to the top of the song chart. Delilah Bon has been in the artist charts for six consecutive months. Meanwhile, a rather big artist hits the top of the artist charts. Yes, Taylor Swift has finally topped the only chart that matters! To honour that achievement she is also included in this month’s playlist! Incidentally, the longest artist name ever to reach the Mayhem Artist Chart is Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan, they are at number six! So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.
MAYHEM ARTIST CHART MAY 2024
1 Taylor Swift 2 Percy 3 Paul Weller 4 Richard Hawley 5 Billie Eilish 6 Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan 7 Yard Act 8 Frank Turner 9 Dea Matrona 10 Delilah Bon
1 Evil, Hate Filled Female – Delilah Bon 2 Debris – Skanger 3 Come Alive – Francesca Faye 4 Here Right Now – Jessica Wilde 5 My Bile – Kate Nash
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Allegedly according to producer George Martin, the 60’s Batman TV theme tune inspired George Harrison of the Beatles, to write the hit song “Taxman”. Now there’s a thought for a brand new super hero team up; Taxman and Robbing! I guess it’s also fair to say that the Jam ripped off “Taxman” with start and Weller’s band also recorded a version of the Batman theme!
I wonder how long it will be before folk start referring to the last weekend in June as Apollo weekend and not Glasto weekend. Well many people in York already do, and rightly so this relatively new festival is still very vibrant, friendly and fun even in its fourth year. I have now been three times and I enjoyed each visit immensely. If you like good music and a good day out for the family in Yorkshire then look no further than York’s Apollo Festival.
Anyway this year I was a bit of a lazy stage hopper in that I only visited one other stage apart from the Main Stage. I arrived at about 11.15 along with my beautiful wife Catherine a.k.a. Catwoman our good friend Caron and our amazing Odd Daughter Amelia. The first act we saw was the Ainsty’s Got Talent winner B Boy Swirl, aged just nine years old he is just three years older than Amelia. He proved himself to be a talented whirlwind of beatbox noise and break dance frenzy. What a brilliant start to the day.
Next up on the Main Stage was someone with a vocal talent that could easily compare and compete with Adele. The magnificent and truly soulful Kymberley Kennedy. Definitely check this lady out, she has a gorgeous voice. After that it was a quick dash to the Rick Witter Premier Stage for me to catch the final part of a stunning set from those magnificent scamps, the Mallrats. Just like the last time I saw them they were awesome!
I made my way back to the Main Stage for the second half of the Jackobins set. These scousers owe a debt to Brit Pop, but only a small one. Their talent goes much deeper than that. Ace mod covers band the outstanding 5:15’s were up next. What a party band these boys are, covers of the Jam, solo Weller, the Specials, the Yardbirds and so much more. They were followed by Chris Helme the former front man of the Seahorses. He is clearly a very talented and very chilled kind of bloke. But I’m afraid his music just doesn’t do it for me. But to each their own right?
I was disappointed that I had to miss the Supermodels this year. But I did have good reason, I had earlier bumped into the fabulous Rachel Brown of Northern Exposure who has recommended the Velcro Teddy Bears for ages. So clearly I was not going to miss them. Rachel and her fella Ash were also in the audience in the Rick Witter Premier Stage for the Velcro Teddy Bears Apollo début. So what were this highly rated Sheffield four piece band like? The were bloody stupendous. They rocked the place hard. If you love Led Zep, the softer side of Sabbath and hard but soulful rock then you will become a fan of the Velcro Teddy Bears. An incredibly tight band with a vocalist who could probably make any song his own. Their songs have the hallmarks of future classics. For me they were the band of the day. Thank you Rachel! I was also pleased to see my mate Kevin Forth in attendance too.
Dave McCabe and the Ramifications were next to entertain us from the Main Stage. Dave in case you wondered is a former Zuton. The band was excellent from start to finish in my opinion although I really would have liked to have seen them close with “Valerie” but Dave was having none of that.
Dodgy were the penultimate Main Stage band and it is fair to say that they were far more than just “Good Enough”. A stonking version of “Staying Out For The Summer” even managed to keep the rain at bay for a while. Sadly the rain really kicked in after Cast’s arrival, what a “Fine Time” for a downpour? So I must apologise to the marvellous Cast as we left about halfway through their set as we were soaked. But they are clearly still a great festival band. I saw them back in the 90s and if anything they have got even better.
So once again I have had the pleasure of attending another wonderful Apollo festival. This is one small wacky step for Dad dancing but one giant leap for festival kind. If you’re not already thinking about getting your tickets for next year, well frankly you’re not well!
The other day I decided to take a quick count of all the artists in my album collection where I have at least 10 albums by a single artist. I included CDs, LPs and cassettes (although the only non compilation cassettes that I have are David Bowie bootlegs). Oh and while I’m on bootleg recordings obviously I have included them whether they are live, studio outtakes or simply unreleased stuff. I have not included digital recordings. I was surprised to find that there are 4o artists where I have at least ten releases by them. The list is below, (artist followed by the number of albums) there are no real surprises for me, are you surprised at any on this list? Have you ever done anything similar? I have also added a song from each of the top ten artists 🙂
David Bowie 141
Bob Dylan 30 Johnny Nash 26 Bruce Springsteen 26
Beatles 25
Neil Young 25
Elton John 19
Bob Marley 19
U2 19
Rod Stewart 18
Pink Floyd 17
REM 17 Elvis Costello 15
The Eels 15
Prince 15
Paul Weller 15
Ryan Adams 14 Led Zeppelin 14
Madonna 14
The Clash 13 Elvis Presley 13
Radiohead 13
Kate Bush 12
Oasis 12
Lou Reed 12
Stevie Wonder 12
Morrissey 11
Tom Waits 11
ZZ Top 11
Jeff Buckley 10
Julian Cope 10
Johnny Cash 10 Michael Jackson 10
John Lennon 10 Manic Street Preachers 10
Kylie Minogue 10 Iggy Pop 10
Rolling Stones 10
Frank Turner 10
The Who 10
Paul Weller is without doubt a legend and one of the coolest people in the music business. Even more so now that he has a slightly more normal haircut. Last night at the Barbican was the second time I had seen him perform as a solo artist. I had also seen him as a part of the Jam and as a part of the Style Council back in the olden days. Last night I was there with my good friend John Williams. We both really enjoyed the support band, the Sundowners from the Wirral. I would describe them as something like Fleetwood Mac in a psychedelic mood whilst on some really strong acid. Their lead guitarist is phenomenal. But they are well worth checking out in my opinion.
As for Mr Weller, well what can I say that hasn’t been said many times before? Not a lot really but I think he is clearly one of the finest musicians of his generation. He and his band maintained a high level of energy throughout the show which was around two hours in total and included two encores. Interestingly he played no Style Council or Jam songs. But then he has such a wealth of solo songs it hardly matters at all. He played some new and relatively new songs; “Saturn’s Pattern” from his forthcoming new album and “Brand New Toy” which was an exclusive Record Store Day release from last year. The highlights for me were storming versions of “Peacock Suit”, “Uh Huh, Oh Yeh” and “From The Floorboards Up” and a really soulful playing of “You Do Something To Me” and “Broken Stones”. However the pinnacle for me came in the second encore when Weller and the band brought the house down with a superbly executed “Changing Man”. I am pleased to say that the sound at the Barbican has improved immensely since my last visit. Paul Weller has picked some great musicians to for this band. Especially Steve Cradock who is an incredibly talented guitarist.
During the first couple of songs a fight broke out, that is something that I haven’t seen at a gig for a while. Weller remarked that this was ‘just like the old days!’ If I have one complaint it is the hundreds of phones and iPad style tablets that became a constant presence as punters filmed as much as they could. For all of those of you guilty of that I say put your electronic equipment down and watch the gig you morons! If you have never seen Paul Weller the I want to know why? I will definitely be seeing him again sometime!
Just two more days at work for me before Christmas now. Then it’ll be eight days of over indulging in food and drink before going back to the office in January probably considerably fatter than when I left. December 22nd or day 22 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts for 2013. Clearly you know the drill, this means that you get two songs with the number 22 in the title.
Is Bradley that tall? Or is Weller just short?
The first of those is from the Modfather, Paul Weller. The song is “22 Dreams“, the title track from Paul’s double LP (single CD) released in 2008. The song was also part of a single coupled with “Sea Spray” from the same album. Sadly it only made it to number 59 in the UK singles chart. The album fared much better though, reaching the number one spot in the UK album chart in 2008. This was Weller’s third solo album to reach the top spot. The song was co-written by Weller and Simon Dine. The latter also plays, cowbell, horns, guitar and bizarrely, siren on the track. It was one of eight tracks on the album that Dine had a hand in writing. Although the album was called ’22 Dreams’ it didn’t quite match that number for tracks. The standard issue of the album has 21 tracks.
The second of todays songs comes from another iconic British act, Iron Maiden with “22 Acacia Avenue”. The song is taken from the band’s 1982 UK number one album ‘The Number Of The Beast’, but it wasn’t released as a single. Iron Maiden are one of the most succesful heavy metal bands in history with 85 million album sales worldwide. The band were formed back in 1975, appropriately for these posts on Christmas Day. So they are close to their 38th birthday. Steve Harris is credited with choosing the name after he saw a film based on the Alexandre Dumas novel ‘The Man In The Iron Mask‘. The band went through many personnel changes in their early years. Perhaps the best known Maiden vocalist is Bruce Dickinson. He replaced Paul Di’Anno in September 1981. Prior to that Dickinson had been the lead singer for another UK band, Samson.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 