Pop
Why David Byrne deserves every penny he makes from his tour
Let’s get the ‘was-it-good?’ stuff out of the way first. Yes, it was good. It was better than good. It…
No one would want this gig to be the final memory of them: Soft Cell at the O2 reviewed
When Soft Cell first appeared on Top of the Pops in summer 1981, miming along to their version of Gloria…
Thank god for the return of the generation gap in pop
In June, a 20-year-old man called Jahseh Onfroy was murdered after leaving a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy…
St Vincent’s Masseduction is my album of year (in that I don’t actually hate it yet)
This has not been an appalling year for pop music — it was better than 1984, for example, and 1961.…
One of the most compelling pop singers right now is a gender-fluid observant Jew
The most compelling pop singers in music right now — at least in the branch where pop singers still play…
Prince bored me rigid
I saw Prince play once. I was bored rigid but couldn’t mention this to the girls I’d gone with: as…
Bowie realised there was more to life than art
The DJ and sage Mark Radcliffe once said that he didn’t think he could ever like anyone who didn’t love…
In praise of cheap box sets
This column does like a bargain. Indeed, it not only esteems and relishes a bargain, it has also worked long…
Four of the best albums to write books by
I have been writing a book this summer, in the usual mad tearing hurry. (Much as I admire those who…
Why do we always beat up on drummers?
It’s rare that I see a piece about music that makes me want to cheer from the rafters and shake…
![Nothing much happens, yet there is so much to watch: Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. [Photograph: Carlos Somonte/Netflix]](https://spectator.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/8Decfilm.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=503&h=302)