Jan 18: Protest songs - an introduction

Music has been used as a method of protest for decades... including the early songs of Woody Guthrie and others. Protests - whether against genocide or other issues are very much current news.

I will be mentioning some famous 'protest' singers and songs,  including the Scottish musician Dick Gaughan - another person who I have seen numerous times in folk clubs and pubs around South Yorkshire.

It's also worth mentioning the protests of musicians when politicians whose policies they don't agree with use their music. Or where the music is inappropriate to the protest but the protestors don't realise e.g. using Queen's music for anti-immigration protests...

I'm going to include a couple of my favourites here to start the process. 

There's a few rude words if that sort of thing bothers you in your music.

The first is quite a modern example, and comes from the 2020 album 'Blue Hearts' by Bob Mould - who I shall be featuring several times on this blog.

It is called 'American Crisis'.

In an interview he describes the genesis of the song, which came out around the time of the death of George Floyd.

There's a new album, and the song that we're talking about is called "American Crisis," and the genesis of the song is a little over two years ago. I was writing material for a previous album called Sunshine Rock, and it was supposed to be sort of a happy record, and "American Crisis" was supposed to be the second-to-last song on that album, right before "Western Sunset."

I thought it was a little heavy at the time. I didn't think it fit with the sort of uplifting motif of being in Berlin and everything that that record was, so you know, I tabled those words and music, and when Jon Wurster and Jason Narducy and my engineer Beau Sorenson, the four of us got together in early February in Chicago to make what is this album coming up, and this song, "American Crisis," like I said, it's been around for a while. It really inspired the way that I've been looking at things the past nine months.

I think it was probably in late summer of last year, when I was in Berlin, I just started playing a lot of guitar and thinking about that song, and thinking about things that we three in the band had talked about, wouldn't it be great to make like a real raw, sort of punk-rock record because, you know, at the end of the day, that's how I tell stories. So I had "American Crisis" and I started writing around that song.

But in doing so, in September of last year, I started reflecting back and the way things were in late 1983, who was I then? You know, I was this 22-year-old kid in Minnesota, and I was in this punk-rock band called Hüsker Dü, and we traveled around the country spreading our message to people.

Things back then were tough. I was a closeted, gay young man. I was sort of living in this new world for a couple years with this gay cancer called "grid" and then called AIDS, and you know, sort of having a hard time figuring out my sexuality and if there was a community for me to fit into and if I felt comfortable in that community, alongside a lot of televangelists and people on the right, you know, sort of the Reagan backers at the time, telling me I'm less than, telling me this is God's punishment for who I am and how I live.

All of that kind of feeling marginalized, of feeling less than, I was feeling that coming back during this current administration. It seems as if this person was chosen to be the spokesperson for a pretty far branch of evangelism.

That's what got the ball rolling, was all of those things. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but that's sort of where all the strings led, and then I sort of had this, you know, pond that became an ocean of ideas.

With "American Crisis," it's crazy because those words fell out two years ago, and they just fell out on the page and I looked at them and I'm like, "I'm not touching these." These are the words, just the way they are, and to jump up to today as we're talking and things are happening in real time, it's not something I'd wanted to see, I certainly don't take any joy in having foreseen the country going in this direction. I wish that this was not happening, but here we are.

The other was recorded by Aimee Mann back in 2017 when Donald Trump was starting his first stint as President. It's just as relevant now - in fact even more so. 

It is yet another classic Aimee Mann lyric and performance. Aimee Mann will also feature a lot in the year ahead.

Take a listen to 'Can't you tell?'

As always, what are the protest songs which spring to mind for you? Which are the most powerful? 

Please add them to the Google Form below and I'll come back to this and share some of them in a future post.

Jan 17: Environmental Songs #1: 'Look out any Window' - Bruce Hornsby

There are many songs which feature environmental problems and concerns about what humans are doing to the environment. I'll be sharing these on the blog...

One that immediately springs to mind for me is from Bruce Hornsby and the Range's second album: 'Songs from the Southside'.

From the lyrics:

There's a man workin' in a field
See's the rain and it's burning
He's saying this can't be real
As he sees the color of the fields turning
Far away the men too busy getting rich to care
Close their eyes and let it all out into the air
Hoping nobody else would care
Look out any window
Look out any open door
Look out any window
See what's going on in the world around you

The song references some actions of businesses, leading to acid rain and pollution of the oceans affecting fish catches.

The Bruuuce website is a goldmine for any Bruce Hornsby fans as it includes all sorts of content including the meanings of the lyrics to songs.

Here's a live version with the Noisemakers... he reinvents his own songs in every concert that he plays...

come back to the UK soon Bruce!

If you have an idea for another song with an environmental theme, please add your suggestion into the comments....

Jan 17: AI bands in the charts

Towards the middle of 2025, some songs appeared near the top of the charts which it turns out were not created by humans. The Velvet Sundown were not a real band.

There had been 'virtual bands' before that of course, with the Gorillaz - music by Damon Albarn and others, and artwork by Jamie Hewlett - but humans created the music.

The band are very much against "AI slop".

In November, 2025, this BBC article asked an important question:

This BBC article explains how to spot the telltale signs of AI-produced music.

We will mention a few AI music tools through the course of the year as well, which I have used occasionally. Come along to Matt Podbury and I's GA Conference session to find out more too.

What other AI bands are there that you are aware of?

Should they be clearly labelled on streaming services such as Spotify?

Let me know what you think in the comments...

Jan 17: Sigur Ros: Route One

Route One is available to stream on Spotify (and elsewhere)

It is available in various versions.

It's a promotional film for the new music by Sigur Ros, and was a 24 hour long continuous trip around the ring road which runs around Iceland. I watched it for the first few hours on and off, and the vehicle headed on familiar roads in the SW of the country close to Iceland. When I woke up, it had moved round to the East and the landscape was more rugged and the road surface poorer.

This was a wonderful way to spend a few hours listening to the continuous music… and watching Iceland roll by.

This is an excellent way to explore the landscape of Iceland, particularly the south coast - and the sections driven in better light.

The music is split into pieces which are named after a geographical location in latitude and longitude. Copy and paste these into Google Maps to see the place where the band had reached on their journey.

e.g.

Here's Part 1 of the journey.

And someone suggesting the locations:

2:56 - Reykjavík - 64º08'43.3"N 21º55'38.8"W) 

41:41 - Hellisheiði (Geothermal power station in Hengill) 

48:55 - Hveragerði 

1:00:15 - Selfoss 

1:28:12 - Hella 1:39:20 - Hvolsvöllur 

1:54:28 - Markarfljót (river) 

Around 2:07:45 - 63º32'43.7''N 19º43'46.3''W 

2:43:14 / 3:35:28 - Vík í Mýrald 

3:46:06 - Mýrdalssandur (outwash plain) 

4:27:44 - Kirkjubæjarklaustur - 63°47'36.2"N 18°02'16.9"W) 

5:16:44 - Skeiðará (river) 

5:21:18 - Skaftafell (National park) 

6:04:29 / 6:16:40 - Jökulsárlón (Glacial lake) - 64º02'44.1"N 16º10'48.5"W 

7:16:38 - Höfn í Hornafirði 

7:28:04 - Almannaskarð (mountain pass. The tunnel is called Almannaskarðgöng) 

Couldn't find location or name of 8:09:36, apart from it's somewhere in Djúpavogshreppur, but I'd love to know! 

8:52:42 - Djúpivogur

Jan 17: Guest blogger Brendan Conway #1: From Penny Lane to Euro-Country: Psychogeography is alive and well

My first guest post from Brendan Conway.

How the legacy of the greatest single ever made continues to inspire songwriters to capture a sense of place including current rising stars such as CMAT.

In recent decades, a recurring theme among the most creative and highly-regarded musicians is their influences from the past, including recordings from many years before they were born.

One example is Irish musician CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson). CMAT’s first album in 2022 included a track called ‘Geography Teacher’. Her most recent album title and title track ‘Euro-Country’ also has a justifiable geographical ring about it, with various meanings, including her love of music from different countries, particularly when artists sing in their own language and all types of country music.

CMAT’s songwriting is strongly influenced by her experience of growing up in Dunboyne, County Meath around the time of the banking crisis of 2008, which caused a major economic crash in Ireland following the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom years. 

Songs on the album include laments about the ensuing social and economic impacts and loss of cultural identity: 

‘Everybody became unemployed. Then, in the village I grew up in, there was a year or 18 months where loads of the people I went to school with, their dads started killing themselves because they'd lost everything in the crash.’ (see Middle-aged Men and Suicide in Ireland (Donnell and Richardson 2018) ).

The title track ‘Euro-Country’ starts with a verse in Irish and the video takes place in the sterile interior of the Omni Shopping Centre in Santry, northern Dublin. There is nothing distinctive about the place - it could be anywhere. 

Geographers will pick up strong resonances with issues around ‘clone towns’ and ‘out-of-town’ retail-led developments. 

Along with many of the best contemporary artists, CMAT actively trawls deeply and widely through musical heritage. In this video, CMAT breaks down the process behind her 'EURO-COUNTRY' album, plus 'Running/Planning' (Artist In Residence’ on BBC 6 Music in August 2025 - there is a link to influence of Pentangle and The Beatles' use of the mellotron explained here) 

Her work follows a long tradition of psychogeographical songwriting which began in the 1960s. 

Along with so many trends of that era, The Beatles were a major catalyst. They initiated or picked up on cultural shifts, ran with them and brought them into the mainstream, often in a profoundly influential way. In turn, their songwriting style borrowed ideas from other songwriters such as Bob Dylan and critics such as Kenneth Allsop. 

A turning point was The Beatles song 'In My Life' on their 1965 studio album 'Rubber Soul'. Starting with the line ‘There are places I remember…’ it was mainly written by John Lennon drawing on reminiscences of his childhood holidays in Durness, northern Scotland.

It signalled a major shift away from The Beatles’ earlier, straightforward love songs to a more autobiographical, reflective style of songwriting. In particular, their innovative fusion of pop music with feelings and memories about geographical places unwittingly pioneered a psychogeographical approach to songwriting. 

Then in February 1967, The Beatles released arguably the greatest single record of all time - a 'double-A side' of Penny Lane written by Paul McCartney and Strawberry Fields Forever written by John Lennon. Both were psychogeographical vignettes of suburban life - evoking memories of places associated with their upbringing in Liverpool.

The influence of The Beatles' new approach on other songwriters was immediate and enduring. In 1967 alone, several hits of the year demonstrated that other artists were choosing psychogeographical themes to good effect including The Kinks' 'Waterloo Sunset'; Small Faces' 'Itchycoo Park'; The Monkees' 'Pleasant Valley Sunday', and Scott McKenzie's 'San Francisco'. 

It wasn’t just about the song's lyrics but its instrumentation and production as well. 

The Beatles popularised the use of cut-up methods and sampling loops to paint soundscapes with early uses on songs such as 'Tomorrow Never Knows' on the 1966 album Revolver. 

On their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band they incorporated cultural influences from distant times and places including vaudeville, music hall and Indian classical music. They embraced new technologies of the day such as the mellotron (a keyboard instrument which played tape loops) for the opening chords and /textures throughout 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and synthesisers on the 1969 album Abbey Road, especially on George Harrison’s classic song 'Here Comes The Sun'.

The Beatles cleared a path for other artists to experiment such as Pentangle who fused folk with rock and jazz for songs such as 'Light Flight' (1969) about challenges of life in London for three young women and 'Wedding Dress' (1971), which CMAT describes as ‘the greatest song of all time’, incidentally recorded 25 years before her birth!

Well into the twenty-first century, artists frequently gain substantial inspiration from the innovations which took place many years before they were born, five or six decades ago. For example, CMAT explains that ‘I love the mellotron… we used it on every single song on this record’ such as 'Running/Planning' to create sound imagery by fusing disparate genres such as country and western, chamber pop strings and old-school music tech. 

As in a relay race, the psychogeographical baton created by The Beatles has been handed successfully from one generation to another.

For further details about The Beatles' psychogeographical song writing and other links to geographical places, take a look at these two Story Maps. (They will appear elsewhere on the blog as well).

Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever  - the geography of the greatest single ever

Sgt. Pepper’s Places - a geographical perspective on The Beatles in 1967

Brendan Conway is a geography teacher with over thirty years’ experience and led his current school to the GA Centre of Excellence. He has authored a range of learning materials for Oak National Academy, Tutor2U, Collins, BBC Bitesize and has expertise in GIS. Brendan is very interested in the links between geography and music and has written far too many story maps on this theme.

Jan 16: Cities and Music: an introduction

There are many cities which have a particular connection with music, and led to the development of a particular 'sound', or had their moment when a whole range of bands emerged from their music scene. 

Some of the UK examples would include Liverpool (of course), Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol etc. The recent Oasis reunion was a reminder of their close connections to a particular city.

From the USA we would have to mention Seattle and Detroit as obvious examples too. Motown and Grunge....

"To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.” 

Marshall Berman

Cultural Landscapes are one aspect of cities which I've explored a lot, thanks to the influence of Simon Oakes, Jo Norcup, Alex Schafran and a whole range of other culturally-inclined geographers.

Also check out the excellent book: 'Hit Factories: a journey through the industrial cities of British pop' by Karl Whitney (which was published in 2019).

I will be revisiting this book this year and hope to work some ideas up into a unit of work on music and cities. This blog is part of that work, as it will gather further ideas from you, the readers and visitors.

I'm hoping to complete a curriculum resource on musical cities and the benefits to the economy, creative industries, soft power and the rest.

Thanks to Jo Norcup for the following link as well which was posted some years ago now, related to the links to music from Birmingham. 

Home of Metal in @guardian.

One hell of a city: how Birmingham embraced its heavy metal legacy https://t.co/c2FGDeqI98

— Home Of Metal (@homeofmetaluk) June 23, 2019

This became much more significant recently with the passing of Ozzy Osbourne and his funeral. Black Sabbath Bridge will certainly have a lot more visitors. Their appearance at the Commonwealth Games and the creation of Ozzy the bull have also added to cementing the legacy of this band within the city and beyond.

Carl Lee mentioned quite a few extra things in his book 'Home' on Sheffield. I shall be coming back to that as well and Carl will be contributing to the blog as the year progresses.

I will also revisit this Guardian piece.

What cities do you think are particularly influential in musical history? 

Not just in the UK (although I'll start with those in the blog...)

If you have any further ideas, fill in the Google Form here, and I'll follow up any interesting suggestions. 

We will come back to this at numerous times over the year ahead and visit these cities - I'll share my personal experiences of many of them over the year ahead too...

Jan 15: UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage lists

UNESCO has a list of places that are designated as World Heritage Sites.

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation.

It also has a list of other less tangible assets which deserve some sort of protection because of their connection with a particular place or region. These run into the hundreds and include a huge range of events and activities which are 'unique' to a place or group, and need protection to avoid dilution - much like the PGI status awarded to some foods which could otherwise be copied.

These are called the Intangible Cultural Heritage of places.

This diagram lets you dive into the lists, or there is a more practical list here which can be searched.

As you can see from the screen grab above - the 'objects' on the list include costumes, handicrafts, family traditions and rituals as well as dance and poetry.

Music is very well represented on the list.

Have you experienced some of these less well known musical styles or events on your travels? Perhaps you've come across a festival that you weren't expecting and that wasn't promoted particularly, or spent the night in a club when a startling act plays music of a kind that you've never heard before.

Here's a few examples:

- Oud

- Irish harping and the Uillean pipes

- the Hardanger fiddle in Norway

- the Chinese zither (guqin)

- Fado in Portugal

Some of these may well get their moment on the blog as the year progresses.

Jan 15: Maps on album covers

I'm interested in the imagery on album covers. 

This was far more significant and impactful when LPs were the norm - CDs are a little too small to get the full effect. 

One album which has maps on the cover is this one by Keane.

What other albums can you think of that have maps on their front covers?

Later in the month, I will be sharing a longer blog post on a book which focuses on this aspect of music: 'Maps on Vinyl' by Damien Saunder.

Can you suggest another LP that has a map on the front cover?

Add some thoughts in the comments.

Jan 14: Film Soundtracks #1: 'Magnolia' - Aimee Mann

As I continue this blog, I'll also be mentioning particular film soundtracks of note with cross postings from my Geography in/on Film blog.

This can be viewed here.

Spotify is a great way to access new music. As I subscribe, I like to get my money's worth and have been known to spend as long as 10 hours a day listening to music while working on writing. Sometimes I'll have a bit of a binge on a particular band or follow the various algorithms which suggest other similar music, or start a radio station based on an album.

Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson has one of the best film soundtracks there is, with major contributions from Aimee Mann (with Jon Brion) along with tracks by a few other bands including Supertramp. This is an anthology film, with a long running time.

Aimee Mann is one of my favourite artists and I have followed her music for around thirty years.

Here's the album as a Spotify album embedded below, particularly helpful for those who subscribe.

One of the key tracks from the album is 'Wise Up'. 

Warning: the clip below may contain spoilers for events in the film.

Another song from the film "Save Me" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which it lost to "You'll Be in My Heart" from the Disney movie Tarzan. By way of introduction to a live performance, Mann has referred to "Save Me" as "the song that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins and his cartoon monkey love song."

Mann has occasionally dedicated her song to Collins in several different venues, albeit in jest.

Source: Wikipedia

Extra film trivia challenge

In which film does Aimee Mann plan an anarchist who loses one of her toes?

Answers in the comments. No prizes, for fun only.

So what are your favourite film soundtracks?

Let me know using the Google Form below... I'll share some of the responses in a future post...

Jan 13: Tour t-shirts - what are your favourites?

One part of going to see a band playing live is checking out the merchandise stand and taking home a t-shirt to remember the gig, and also to wear to another concert in the same tour ideally to show everyone that you've already been to see the show before (that works less well these days).

I have some classic t-shirts from years ago, and will be sharing images of them in the blog as the year goes by. I still fit into most of them, and quite a few are still in good nick.

Here's one of mine which dates back to 1984. 

It was a shirt I bought at the Hammersmith Odeon before seeing Jethro Tull on their 'Under Wraps' tour, when they brought in more keyboards and had the excellent Peter John-Vettese playing with them.

The concert was actually recorded for radio broadcast and later released as an album: Live at Hammersmith 1984. 

The full version is also available on YouTube. I remember being particularly pleased to hear Thick as a Brick, and some of Ian Anderson's new solo album: Fly by Night which remains a favourite of mine that I play quite regularly.

My most recent purchase was from the Sigur Rós gig at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2025 - a subtle shirt with the name of the band on the front and a TAKK cover design on the back.

Before I start sharing mine in future posts, here's a chance for you to dig into your drawers to see if you have any old classic t-shirts. 

If you do, let me know which ones you have and when they date back to. Photos welcome.

Use the Google Form here to send me your best shirts.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Jan 13: Pick and mix #1

The first of a series of pictures from the IKEA storage boxes where I keep my CDs. They were originally in alphabetical order but that gets muddled over time as I return discs which have been in my car for a while.

Which of these would you choose to play and why?

Let me know in the comments.

Jan 12: Ticket Stub #1: The Blue Nile

Remember these? 

Before the days when you have your ticket as a QR code or bar code on your phone, or printed it at home using your own ink and paper - even animated for particular events at the O2 these days so even a screenshot isn't enough to deter the fakers...

I'm going to share some of my old ticket stubs which I took some pictures of back in the day. There were plenty more which disappeared into the mists of time... some others are tucked into CDs and LP sleeves I think.

This ticket was from a gig by the Scottish band Blue Nile. They have a very geographical name of course. They apparently picked their name while looking at a map.

I first heard them in the summer of 1988 on tape cassette in a bothy on the isle of Rhum.

It took place at Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1996. I've seen many a gig there over the years.

Because of the reluctance of the singer the band has hardly ever toured, and albums have been very infrequent.

We had excellent seats: on the 8th row and on the end of the middle section of seats. And you can't argue at the price. I went to this gig with my girlfriend of the time (now my wife for over 25 years) who also loved the band - she's an 80s girl. I also still have my polo shirt which I bought from the merchandise stand that night, and I can still fit into it. 

That's a reminder that we will also start sharing pictures of old tour shirts in a future post. So start hunting those out too....

This gig was absolutely amazing...

Here they are on Jools Holland's programme in that year, performing one of their classic tracks:

And here's Paul Buchanan performing with Peter Gabriel in a song from his 'Ovo' album.

The band are from Glasgow and this blog will explore the influence of cities on the sound of bands, and their cultural significance. Many other musical acts also come from this Scottish city. The band were referenced by Taylor Swift in a recent album.

The excellent piece by Kieran Curren in The Tribune linked to above explains more of the links with the city:

Seeing themselves at odds with some of the more trendy denizens of the Glasgow scene at the time, the group holed up in their flat in the city’s West End, often rehearsing all night through headphones, perfecting their sound. This would take hold on the 1984 LP A Walk Across the Rooftops, released on South Glasgow’s own Linn Records (an ad hoc label offshoot of their hi-fi company Linn Audio), adorned with a photo of the trio gazing through a shop window in the Southside’s Cathcart Road.

On Tinseltown in the Rain:

Much of their work is focused on the city of Glasgow itself, the city as a character, and the changes wrought by the early shock of the Thatcherite revolution. A Walk Across The Rooftops’ key track is ‘Tinseltown in the Rain’, today their most popular song in terms of streaming numbers on Spotify. Sounding like a possible hit in an alternate universe, ‘Tinseltown’ provides wry, contemplative lyrics where ‘tall buildings reach up in vain’, full of nostalgic dread (‘Love was so exciting’). It is also a hymn to the ‘one big rhythm’ of the city, the interrelationship between standardised consumption and the feeling of strange magic. It still resonates powerfully with Glaswegians to this day, the Glasgow that is in flux, taking it hard, but always emotionally open and expressive. Yet Buchanan has also spoken of its universality, its replicability—this could be anywhere (but in a good way).

And on Heatwave:

Buchanan’s resigned lyric is a riposte to the hyper-capitalist boosterism for greed, under the guise of economic growth: ‘Are we rich or are we poor, does it matter anymore?’ Much as the essential detail of the city—its almost-connected red sandstone tenements—is zoned in on in the title track, ‘Heatwave’ points out another target of Thatcher’s shock doctrine: ‘falling down, on the young and foolish’. Its vacant centre, its illusory quality, ‘straw houses, in the promised land’.

More on 'Hats' and the music and the struggles to make the album on this RTE Documentary, which starts with Matt Healy from The 1975 talking about how it influenced their music.

In the documentary they head for Kelvingrove in a taxi to visit the house where they recorded the music for their first album... and where Paul Buchanan could look out of the kitchen window across the rooftops...

I remember picking up the LP of 'Hats' when it came out from a record shop in a small town on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

There used to be an app with a Walking Tour of the city but it was removed some years ago...

What's your favourite Blue Nile track?

Have added a few to the Spotify playlist today.

Let me know in the comments...

Jan 11: Geographical features on Album covers

I remember when albums came on vinyl and inside a large 12" square cardboard sleeve, perhaps with additional liners, booklets and other designs which opened out in different ways. The cover design was important as were all the notes, lyrics and other elements of the packaging. 

CDs don't have the same magic, and of course many people now stream music rather than owning physical products.

Some album covers have geographical features on them, and there used to be a collection of these which I blogged about some time ago on my old Geography and all that Jazz blog. It's an idea that comes back from time to time.

Do you have ideas for examples of album covers which were quite geographical in their imagery. 

This would make a good challenge for students - to find a suitable image and then label it with the feature, although you may need to provide them with some.

Here's an example.

Houses of the Holy (1973) - Led Zeppelin

This was designed by Aubrey Powell, an Old Elean (which means he was a pupil at the school where I currently teach in Ely) and features the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

More on his work with Hipgnosis later on the blog.

Here's one closer to home for me.

The Stranglers had an album in 2004 called 'Norfolk Coast' and the cover photo by Harrison Funk was taken on the Norfolk coast... at Hunstanton. It was mostly written by their bass player who retreated to Holme-next-the-Sea on the coast in 1999 when feeling disillusioned and wrote a lot of music which became the album.

The cover is shot on the carstone boulders revealed when the tide goes out at Hunstanton near to its famous stripy cliffs.

Sadly, the seaweed which used to cloak the boulders has largely disappeared over the years...

Maps also feature on lots of albums of course, and I shall certainly be sharing examples from the wonderful book 'Maps on Vinyl' by cartographer Damien Saunder which I have on the shelves of my GeoLibrary. More on this to come.

Can you share your favourite examples of geographical features on album covers?

Visit the Google Form here to make your suggestions and I'll add some of them in a later update post.

Jan 10: This is not America

Today is the 10th anniversary of the passing of David Bowie: a musical icon for many. I remember listening to his music from the late 1970s onwards. My wife saw him play live, but I never managed it. 

He is often described as a musical 'chameleon', adopting a number of personas in his music, and also having a successful acting career. Three classic albums are referred to as the Berlin trilogy.

In 2022, the film 'Moonage Daydream' was released: a montage of footage. This is well worth catching and captures the experience of seeing him play live for his fans.

David Bowie's archive is now on display at the V&A Storehouse in East London. 

This contains a range of objects (about 90 000) and there is more information on Bowie's career and the creation of some of his most famous songs. I have plans to see it later this year and will be blogging about the visit here of course.

Social media is full of people sharing their favourite David Bowie tracks today.

Here's a track which is not necessarily my favourite, but whose name is perhaps apposite.

It's from the soundtrack to a film called 'The Falcon and the Snowman', which starred Sean Penn. Penn is getting a lot of nominations for acting in the Paul Thomas Anderson film 'One Battle After Another', More about that over on my dedicated film blog.

For the album, Bowie was asked to contribute by the composers Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. They will be mentioned on the blog a lot. He worked out the vocals after watching an early cut of the film.

The story of the track is here. It was recorded in late 1984. Released in early 1985 it made it into the UK charts.

It is called 'This is not America'.

The iconic Bowie track 'Heroes' was used in the final closing credits of the final episode of 'Stranger Things'. 

I will be blogging more about that particular track later in the year, and also sharing a Bowie story map created by Brendan Conway.

What is your favourite Bowie track? 

Let me know in the comments.

Update

Thanks to Matt Podbury for suggesting this performance by David Bowie, and referencing his collaboration with Queen. More on that to come later in the blog.