Clutching At Straws
''Clutching at Straws'' is the fourth studio album by the British neo-progressive rock band Marillion, released on June 22, 1987. It was the last album with lead singer Fish, who left the band in 1988, and is a concept album. Although ''Clutching at Straws'' did not achieve the sales of its predecessor, the number one album ''Misplaced Childhood'', spending 15 weeks on the UK album chart (the shortest chart residency of any of Marillion's first four studio albums), it was still an immediate commercial success, becoming the second highest charting Marillion album by entering the chart at number two. It produced three UK Top 40 singles: "Incommunicado", "Sugar Mice" and "Warm Wet Circles". The album has received critical acclaim, being listed in '' Q'' magazine's "50 Best Recordings of the Year", it has been described by AllMusic as an "unheralded masterpiece", and ''Rolling Stone'' placed it at number 37 in its countdown of the "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time". In 1999 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marillion
Marillion are a British rock music, rock band, formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1979. They emerged from the post-punk music scene in Britain and existed as a bridge between the styles of punk rock and classic progressive rock, becoming the most commercially successful neo-progressive rock band of the 1980s. Marillion's recorded studio output since 1982 is composed of twenty albums and generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original lead singer Fish (singer), Fish in late 1988 and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve Hogarth in early 1989. The band achieved eight Top Ten UK albums between 1983 and 1994, including a List of UK Albums Chart number ones of the 1980s, number one album in 1985 with ''Misplaced Childhood'', and during the period the band were fronted by Fish they had eleven Top 40 hits on the UK Singles Chart. They are best known for the 1985 singles "Kayleigh" and "Lavender (Marillion song), Lavender", which reached nu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sting (musician)
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (born 2 October 1951), known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the frontman, songwriter and bassist for new wave rock band The Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. He launched a solo career in 1985 and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat in his music. As a solo musician and a member of The Police, Sting has received 17 Grammy Awards: he won Song of the Year for "Every Breath You Take", three Brit Awards, including Best British Male Artist in 1994 and Outstanding Contribution in 2002, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2019, he received a BMI Award for "Every Breath You Take" becoming the most-played song in radio history. In 2002, Sting received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Hepworth
David Hepworth (born 27 July 1950) is a British music journalist, writer and publishing industry analyst who was instrumental in the foundation of a number of popular magazines in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Along with the journalist, editor and broadcaster Mark Ellen, he turned the pop magazine ''Smash Hits'' into one of the most popular UK music magazines of the 1980s. He co-presented the BBC broadcast of Live Aid on 13 July 1985, when he was the presenter told by Bob Geldof to "fuck the address" when pleading with viewers to send in their money. Early life David Hepworth was born in Dewsbury, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, and Trent Park College of Education. He worked for HMV and Beserkley Records, before becoming a freelance journalist. Career His career in journalism began with contributions to ''NME'' and ''Sounds''. He joined the newly launched magazine ''Smash Hits'' in 1979, and two years later, after tu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ascential
Ascential plc, formerly EMAP, is a British business-to-business media business specialising in exhibitions & festivals and information services. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History Richard Winfrey purchased the ''Spalding Guardian'' in 1887 and later purchased the ''Lynn News'' and the '' Peterborough Advertiser''; he also started the ''North Cambs Echo''. He became a Liberal politician and campaigner for agricultural rights and the papers were used to promote his political views in and around Spalding, Boston, Sleaford and Peterborough. During World War II Winfrey's newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey (1902–1985). In 1947, under the direction of 'Pat' Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press (EMAP): this was achieved by the merger of the Northamptonshire Printing and Publishing Co., the Peterborough Advertiser Co., the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kerrang!
''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-off supplement in the ''Sounds'' newspaper. Named after the onomatopoeic word that derives from the sound made when playing a power chord on a distorted electric guitar, ''Kerrang!'' was initially devoted to the new wave of British heavy metal and the rise of hard rock acts. In the early 2000s, it became the best-selling British music weekly. History ''Kerrang!'' was founded in 1981. The editor of the weekly music magazine ''Sounds'', Alan Lewis, suggested that Geoff Barton edit a one-off special edition focusing on the new wave of British heavy metal phenomenon and on the rise of other hard rock acts. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 50 years after his death. His first published book was ''The Town and the City'' (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, ''On the Road'', in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes. Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New Y ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause'' (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in '' East of Eden'' (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in ''Giant'' (1956). After his death in a car crash on September 30, 1955, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in ''East of Eden''. Upon receiving a second nomination for his role in ''Giant'' the following year, Dean became the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list. Early life and education James Byron Dean was born on February ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's work was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit of his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the Skiffle#Revival in the United Kingdom, skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the smart Beatle", he was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually ceded to McCartney. Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by participating in numerous films, including ''How I Won the War'', and authoring ''In His Own Write'' and ''A Spaniard in the Works'', both collection ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which contained satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a Posthumous recognition, posthumous pardon in 2003. Bruce paved the way for counterculture-era comedians. His trial for obscenity was a landmark of freedom of speech in the United States. In 2017, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him third (behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time. Early life Bruce was Jewish, born Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York, Mineola, New York (state), New York. He grew up in nearby Bellmore, New York, Bellmore, and attended Wellington C. Mepham High School. According to his biography, during part of his high school years, he lived at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' (1958) and the true crime novel ''In Cold Blood'' (1966), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and multiple migrations. He had discovered his calling as a writer by the time he was eight years old, and he honed his writing ability throughout his childhood. He began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of " Miriam" (1945) attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf and resulted in a contract to write the novel '' Other Voices, Other Rooms'' (1948). Capote earned the most fame with '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under Milk Wood''. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as ''A Child's Christmas in Wales'' and ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog''. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the '' South Wales Daily Post''. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitli ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |