Rock
At their best the Psychedelic Furs are fantastic
It’s amazing what the movies can do. In 1986, the John Hughes teen flick Pretty in Pink — the one…
Imagine ZZ Top stuck in a lift with Gary Numan: Sturgill Simpson’s Sound & Fury reviewed
Grade: A– The outlaw country genre has shifted a little over the decades since Waylon and Willie, with each proponent…
Sweet but formulaic: Blinded by Light reviewed
Once upon a time two men sat in a New York bar lamenting the state of Broadway. So they decided…
Reliably odd but the deranged proggery grates: King's Mouth by The Flaming Lips reviewed
Grade: B- So a queen dies as her giant baby is being born. The baby grows very big indeed and…
Hideously tasteful elegies to useless country singers: Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars reviewed
Grade: B– The first Springsteen song I ever heard was ‘Born To Run’, back when I was 14. I clocked…
Why I’m done with Fleetwood Mac
There is something inexplicably exciting about pop’s notion of a ‘scene’: young musicians of similar outlooks drawn together by a…
David Coverdale, lead singer of Whitesnake, talks hair, love handles and 'sexism'
‘Invest in your hair,’ advises David Coverdale, a man with a shag of the stuff glossier than a supermodel’s and…
Enveloping and gorgeous: Cate Le Bon reviewed
The last time Bikini Kill played in London was in a room that now serves as the restaurant of a…
A Saturday-night variety show: Take That at the O2 reviewed
Being old is big business in live music nowadays, in a way it wasn’t even 25 years ago. When Take…
Magnificently incoherent: Royal Trux’s White Stuff reviewed
Grade:A Royal Trux are back — kind of. Singer (if that’s what you want to call what she does) Jennifer…
An undervalued songwriter and decent man: Bryan Adams at Wembley reviewed
On 29 June 1991, a record called ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ by Bryan Adams entered the…
1975 was a great year for pop – worthy of a better band than The 1975
Grade: C A derided year in pop music, 1975 — and yet a great one. The mainstream was horrible, but…
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…
Paul Simon says farewell with a daring and inventive show
Early in 1987, a middle-aged woman approached me on the record counter of the Slough branch of Boots. ‘What do…
Thank you, West Midlands, for the blind alley of heavy metal – blues without rhythm, wit or soul
They’re still alive, then. Chuggedy-chug, grawk, screech screech, chuggedy-chug. First mention of demons — line one, song two. Song one…
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.…
Baxter Dury on London going to the dogs, his acclaimed new album and his dad
Michael Hann talks to Baxter Dury about his acclaimed new album – and the challenges of being Ian Dury’s son
St Vincent may be this decade’s Prince
Grade: A The old Tulsa sound was a rather agreeable low-key, shuffling, blues-inflected rockabilly — primarily J.J. Cale and Leon…
Forget Bowie – our times are ripe for Black Sabbath’s worldview
To get a reminder of how strange the 1970s were, there’s no need to plough through lengthy social and political…
Modishly morose but full of fine moments: LCD Soundsystem's American Dream reviewed
Grade: B+ Number one. Everywhere, just about. You have to say that the man has a certain sureness of touch.…
Glam is back
Late on the Friday afternoon of The Great Escape — the annual three-day event for which the London music industry…
Elvis would have loved it: Elvis in Concert at the O2
Elvis Aron Presley departed this world on 16 August, 1977. Even if you delight in conspiracy theories and believe the…
Was 1966 really as grim as this BBC4 documentary suggests?
In the song ‘All the Young Dudes’, David Bowie gamely tried to reassure the youth of the Seventies that, despite…
Was 1971 really the best ever year for music?
According to David Hepworth, the year he turned 21 was also the year when ‘a huge proportion of the most…
Phil Lynott, from Dublin teenager to rock'n'roll burnout
It’s often said that there are only seven basic plots in literature. When it comes to biographies of rock stars…
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