After The Noise
Everything Is Equal
Thursday 02 July 2026
Hüsker Dü – These Important Years (1987)
A gentle walk around Cheetham Hill today.
Time to take my mind off the World Cup. England. Pundits. Endless analysis. Low block. And more fucking low block. Driving me insane.
Sometimes, when there’s a World Cup on, it’s easy to forget there’s a whole world beyond football.
This was exactly what I needed.
Some choice tunes from my youth, wandering along without much purpose, my trusty comrade Bowie at my side.
Bob Mould really is one of those misunderstood musical geniuses. Every now and again I find myself returning to Hüsker Dü, wondering why I ever left them behind in the first place.
These Important Years still sounds magnificent.
Perhaps it’s time The Listening Log got back to doing what it was always meant to do.
Listening to music. After the world cup of course.
Status Quo – Movin’ On (2011)
There’s nothing quite like the throb of Quo in your ears.
Driving rock music for a gentle wander.
The rain has finally fizzled out, leaving behind that sticky Manchester humidity.
It’s been one of those weeks.
Trying to balance work, the World Cup, dog walking and domestic chores.
First-world problems, admittedly.
I’ve also managed to brush against a patch of bloody stinging nettles.
They never seem to affect Bowie.
Just me.
As usual, he’s too busy stopping every twenty yards to leave another signature on a lamppost.
It never ceases to amaze me how much piss one Labrador can produce on a one-hour walk.
“I’m just marking my territory, father.”
So he tells me.
I’ve been doing walks like this for years.
Aimlessly wandering with my trusty phone in one hand, music in my ears and talking to myself.
People probably think I’m odd.
They’re absolutely right.
I am a little unhinged.
Still, there are worse ways to spend the latter part of a Thursday morning.
Especially with Status Quo providing the soundtrack.
Madonna – Spotlight (1987)
I’ve always loved this track.
The only new song on You Can Dance, Madonna’s 1987 remix album, and it’s an absolute gem.
You’ve got to love Madonna.
I missed her recent interview with Graham Norton, but I’ll catch up with it. It must be worth a watch. Though an hour of so with Norton is difficult at best!
What I’ve always admired is that she’s never really given a shit what people think.
And she still doesn’t.
Sixty-seven years old, pictured with a toyboy boyfriend almost forty years her junior, dressing in suspenders and stockings and carrying on exactly as she pleases.
Good for her.
I’m more of a Madonna dabbler than an out-and-out fan, but this is a fantastic pop record.
It’s impossible not to tap your feet.
I’ve had a difficult week. First-world problems, admittedly, but a difficult week all the same.
Then a song like this comes on while I’m out in the fresh air with my furry freeloading friend.
And, just like that, the world seems a slightly happier place.
A woman at the peak of her powers. This was released as a single in Japan but could easily have become another one in a long line of memorable 80’s Madonna hits.
The Rolling Stones – Divine Intervention (2026)
This is the band that paved the way for people like Madonna to parade around in suspenders and stockings at sixty-seven without apologising to anybody.
Britain’s favourite pensioners are back.
The new album is released on Friday and, once again, they sound astonishingly alive.
Divine Intervention is pure seventies Stones.
Swagger.
Riffs.
Attitude.
Everything you’d expect.
Yes, they’ve done it all before.
Who cares?
They’re the Rolling Stones.
I’ve been blasting this ever since I first heard it last week.
For me, it’s the best of the four songs released so far, although all of them suggest another cracking album is on the way.
Mind you, I’m a huge Stones fan.
I was probably always going to say that.
I remember Voodoo Lounge arriving in 1994 when the band were around fifty.
People were already asking whether they were too old.
Fifty.
Now Mick and Keith are heading towards their mid-eighties. Ronnie Wood isn’t quite there yet, but he’s doing his best to catch up.
Suddenly everybody keeps going.
Rod Stewart.
The Who.
Eric Clapton.
Nobody seems particularly interested in retiring anymore.
It does make me miss the ones who never got the chance.
David Bowie.
Mark E. Smith.
You wonder what they might still have been creating.
The instrumental break here is magnificent.
Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood trading guitars as vibrant as ever.
It’s wonderful to hear.
The late-career resurgence has been remarkable.
Hackney Diamonds was outstanding.
On the evidence of Foreign Tongues, this one might be too.
Then again, I’d always defend even the Stones’ dodgier records. (How ya doing, Undercover???)
Thankfully, this isn’t set to be one of them.
END OF LISTENING LOG
The Listening Log 