Pop
Ultimately hard to resist: Elbow reviewed
Our relationships with bands are often very like our relationships with people. Some are pure and lasting love. Some start…
How the railways shaped modern culture
Cue track seven of Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album Only the Lonely and you can hear Ol’ Blue Eyes pretending to…
The terrifying charisma of Liam Gallagher
You’d have thought Wembley Stadium was a sportswear convention, so ubiquitous were the three stripes down people’s arms from all…
Why I don’t get the blues
The Louisiana bluesman Buddy Guy is releasing a new album this week. It is called Ain’t Done With The Blues…
Irritatingly, Wet Leg’s new album is pretty good
Grade: B+ There’s quite a lot to dislike about Wet Leg, even aside from their stupid name. The entirety of…
Magnificent: Stevie Wonder at BST Hyde Park reviewed
The highs of Stevie Wonder’s Hyde Park show were magnificently high. The vast band were fully clicked into that syncopated,…
No amount of discourse will make a good pop song into a great one
There is no higher calling than making great pop music, and no mechanism by which such an achievement can be…
The political climate at Glastonbury was not especially febrile
Everyone who wasn’t at Glastonbury this year knows exactly what it was like: a seething mass of hatred and rabid…
Dua Lipa sparkles at Wembley – but her new album is pedestrian
If, as is said, there are only seven basic narratives in human storytelling, then there should be an addendum. In…
Jarvis Cocker still has the voice – and the moves
For bands of a certain vintage, the art of keeping the show on the road involves a tightly choreographed dance…
The charm of Robbie Williams
What could it possibly feel like to be a sportsperson who gets the yips? To wake up one morning and…
Compelling: Little Simz’s Lotus reviewed
It is not uncommon for (predominantly male) music critics to invert the ‘great man/great woman’ dictum in order to suggest…
A lovely album: Saint Leonard’s The Golden Hour reviewed
Grade: A+ The kids with their synths and hip producers, dragging the 1980s back: I wish they would stop. It…
Anyone irritated by Springsteen’s speeches hasn’t been paying attention
No one who went to see Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway residency a few years back came away disappointed because they knew…
We’ve underestimated Francis Rossi
I have a friend who insists that had Status Quo hailed from Düsseldorf rather than Catford, they would nowadays be…
I think I’ve found the new Van Morrison
Young male singers won the right to be sensitive in 1963, when The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released. And in…
The repetitiveness made me cry with boredom: Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke’s Tall Tales reviewed
Grade: B+ You are in the wrong hands here for what is a homage to this duo’s favourite electronic music.…
The powerfully disorienting world of Mark Eitzel
There’s a lot to be said for an artist making an audience feel uncomfortable. Richard Thompson used to say that…
A triumphant show: Self Esteem, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed
The most compelling character in the newish documentary One to One: John & Yoko isn’t either John or Yoko. It’s…
The disturbing ambient music of William Tyler
One could argue that all musical forms are essentially incomplete until the listener joins the party, but ambient music seems…
Divorce are the best young British band I’ve seen in an age
Can we talk business for a moment? When reviewers like me go to big arenas, we get the best seats…
Van Morrison is sounding better than ever
There is a website called setlist.fm which allows its users to vicariously attend pretty much any concert. Search the name…
Metal for people who don’t understand metal: The Darkness at Wembley reviewed
Midway through their thoroughly entertaining show at Wembley Arena, the Darkness played a song from a decade ago called ‘Barbarian’,…
The death of touring
Touring’s not what it used to be. When I were a lad, even big bands would do 30 or 40…
Silly, moving and imaginative: Steven Wilson’s The Overview reviewed
Progressive rock never died. Whenever some grizzled punk soldier next appears on a BBC4 documentary relaying their version of that…
