Isolation

After The Noise

Everything Is Equal

Saturday 30 May 2026

John Lennon – Isolation (1970)

Just what you need on an overcast Saturday morning.

Something mellow from John Lennon.

I don’t know this one particularly well. I’ve heard the album, but these days so much music passes through the ears that most of it barely registers unless something genuinely grabs hold.

A bonus here is that the track is completely Ono-free. Perhaps that’s a little harsh on the Japanese avant-garde artist, but she did possess a remarkable knack for derailing a perfectly good Lennon song.

As Status Quo once said, “I Didn’t Mean It.”

To be fair, Yoko had her own debut solo album released at the same time, so her distinctive vocal talents were being deployed elsewhere.

This is lovely. Dreamy, understated and gently melancholic. You can immediately hear Ringo behind the drums. It could almost be a Beatles outtake.

A perfect start to the day.

Erasure – Push Me Shove Me (1986)

Andy Bell, the Erasure one rather than the Ride and Oasis one, is from Peterborough.

As a proud Cambridge citizen, I should probably dislike Erasure on principle. Peterborough are, after all, our arch football rivals.

However, I suspect Bell has little interest in football and refusing to enjoy a band simply because of where the singer comes from would be spectacularly silly.

Erasure, alongside Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell, belong firmly in the upper division of great 1980s singles bands.

This toe-tapping effort from Wonderland sounds very much like album-track territory, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I saw Erasure at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1990 and they were magnificent. Pure pop perfection.

And Vince Clarke remains one of Britain’s great musical minds. People often forget he helped found Depeche Mode and wrote all their early classics.

Sepultura – Apes of God (2003)

What are the chances?

A playlist containing almost 10,000 songs, and the one Brazilian artist on it appears while I’m sitting in Brazil writing about music.

I hadn’t planned on mentioning Brazil quite so much. I’ve kept a fairly low profile on social media during this trip.

That lasted until Thursday.

Anyway, Sepultura.

I’ve always been more of a dabbler than a devoted fan, but I do enjoy this sort of thing. They even troubled the UK charts during the mid-90s with Roots Bloody Roots.

Sepultura are ideal for blowing away any lingering cobwebs.

Assuming you have cobwebs to blow away.

A mighty machine of a band that simply refuses to disappear. The world is undoubtedly a better place with Sepultura in it.

Frankie Knuckles – Sold On Love (1991)

Another artist I’ve admired from a distance rather than followed religiously.

Then came a shocking discovery.

Frankie Knuckles died in 2014.

Why does nobody tell me these things?

A genuine pioneer of house music, this comes from the same album that gave us The Whistle Song, which remains a wonderful piece of pop music.

This track is more reflective and mellow, perfectly suited to the mood of the morning.

I’m still getting over the fact that Frankie Knuckles has been gone for over a decade. I genuinely had no idea.

I’m off to mourn the loss of a legend.

A little later than most people, admittedly.

END OF LISTENING LOG