The real deal
One of the biggest talking points in pop these past couple of years has been how successful old musicians have…
Imperial measures
At the turn of this century, looking back on the late 1980s when the Pet Shop Boys could do no…
Oops! He did it again
Every so often, Jason Pierce drifts into focus. It happened at the end of the 1980s, when his then group…
The perfect pop star
Dua Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia, was released at the least promising moment possible: 27 March 2020, the day after…
The essential Wellerness
You don’t need to be a historian of pop to realise that having been part of a huge manufactured group…
Family entertainer
Stormzy occupies a curious place in British pop culture right now. He’s the darling of liberals for all his good…
Her dark materials
It took a moment to realise Keeley Forsyth was there. There were already three musicians, faint figures on a dark…
Playing hooky
One of the curiosities of modern pop’s landscape is that no one knows any longer how to measure success. An…
Hardcore thrills
Even leaving aside its origins as prison slang, punk has always meant different things on either side of the Atlantic.…
A great leap forward
The single thing you don’t want when you are beginning a run of four shows in a prestige venue, with…
The singing is the star
When I were a lad — back when you could buy the entire back catalogue of the Fall for thruppence…
Soul searching
No musician ever went bust overestimating the public desire to hear classic soul. Slapping on a Motown backbeat has revived…
Running on full and empty
The bigger the next big thing, the smaller the room you want them playing in. You want the people who…
Morrissey remastered
Many of us who grew up loving the Smiths have rather shelved that affection in recent years. Many of us,…
About more than just the music
The single most boring and pointless thing that is ever said about rock and pop — and it always comes…
Hot metal and methadrine
They may no longer get many teenagers at their shows spending all their money on merchandise, then throwing up on…
Musical Medicis
The new music economy relies on cross-promotion and artists reaching out to different scenes. And the rise of streaming means…
Could she be the new Sade?
Some years ago, when I was the music editor of a newspaper, I called a number of historians of black…
The real death of rock
What would a rock band have to do now to be seen as heralding the future? Twenty years ago, it…
Aural hot chocolate
I’ve given up comfort food. I’m trying to shift lockdown pounds that have left me with the physique of the…
Ladies first
On the way home from This Is The Kit’s show at a socially distanced Barbican, I listened to Avalon by…
Live and kicking
There is a reason music writers tend to stick with music writing rather than transferring their manifold talents to the…
‘I’m not interested in moral purity’
Michael Hann talks to St Vincent about Sheena Easton, Stalin and performing in five-inch heels
Sandy psychedelia
The other week someone posted on Twitter a link to a YouTube clip titled ‘Family Lotus and D.J. Cookin’ at…
Nowt so great as folk
Has any musical moment extended its tendrils in so many unexpected directions as the English folk revival of the mid-1960s?…
