New music
Thomas H. Green
First off, if you want to read a proper review of Two Fingers’ album just head here where I reviewed it a few months back. Instead, starting today and for the rest of the year, the musical side of Disc of the Day will be devoting itself more subjectively to theartsdesk's new music writers’ favourite albums of 2012.My contenders range from Orbital’s startlingly vital post-sabbatical return (Wonky) to Dexys' superb concept album about life, love and relationships (One Day I’m Going To Soar), from the very different, fascinating femme-pop of Santigold (Master of My Make Believe) and Sinead O’ Read more ...
graeme.thomson
On December 18, 2000, Kirsty MacColl was killed after being struck by a motorboat while scuba diving with her two sons in Cozumel, Mexico. The tragic, criminal circumstances of her death – the boat was speeding in a restricted area – and subsequent fight for justice have tended to overshadow the fact that her unique, witty, deceptively emotional pop manoeuvres have been much missed.The daughter of folk capo Ewan MacColl, she emerged in the punk slipstream, signing to Stiff in 1979 and unleashing the fizzing girl-pop of "They Don’t Know", later a huge hit for Tracy Ullman. She went on to Read more ...
Jasper Rees
What makes a good rock biography? Sex, naturally. Drugs, frequently. Rock’n’roll, obviously. None of the above are in short supply in Rod Stewart’s account of a long life spent howling into microphones and knocking up blondes. He came, he snorted, he conquered across four decades, in a variety of outfits from tartan to spandex, from the Eel Pie Island to Vegas. And the way he delivers it, this tall tale of wine, women and song has the flavour of a splendid lock-in down the boozer.But there’s more to Rod: The Autobiography. The best books about stardom are able to explain how it feels to Read more ...
theartsdesk
Joe Muggs writes: “KanZeOn is one of my favourite films – not just music films, but in any genre – of the past year. Not quite documentary, not quite art film, not quite music video, it's a slow, abstract audiovisual love poem to Japan and its relationship to sound and music. For the most part it shows three main characters (see the description by co-director Neil Cantwell below), playing music and narrating their understanding of that music – but in so doing, it tells us a vast amount about Japanese culture, psychology and spirituality, as well as showing some of the most stunning sacred Read more ...
graham.rickson
Does this disc succeed in doing what it sets out to do? Yes, it does, which makes my minor carpings irrelevant. It’s already selling in industrial quantities. But, to quote a review of another Christmas album on this site, “an album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention”, and too many of the traditional numbers featured here follow the same template – gloopy, synthetic sounding production values and glacial tempi. Experience has convinced me that carols can be most emotionally potent when they’re sung by untrained, youthful voices. We’ve all welled Read more ...
theartsdesk
The Prodigy: The Fat of the Land 15th Anniversary Expanded EditionThomas H GreenAlmost a decade after acid house changed the landscape of British music, it seemed rave culture was finally about to take over pop. The Chemical Brothers hit the top of the charts, assisted by Noel Gallagher, in Autumn 1996 with “Setting Sun”, Goldie led a wave of drum & bass eagerly signed by major labels, 12” singles were selling by the ton and, leading the charge, The Prodigy topped the single’s and album’s charts in mid-1997 on both sides of the Atlantic with “Firestarter” and its parent album The Fat of Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The best Christmas songs are a bit like the best decorations: more glittery than tasteful. Merry Christmas Baby's tracks may have a jazzy sheen but deep down they fit that bill. Its cover photo – Rod dressed in a white pimp-suit in front of a snowy bauble-laden tree - says all you need to know about what sort of crooning he's been up to here.This is the kind of music you might expect to hear coming out of the speakers in an upmarket department store. That's no criticism. Who wouldn't enjoy a well-executed mix of warm and fuzzy easy-listening seasonal standards and carols? Vocally there’s the Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
“I think the Muppets hit a new low.” “Yeah, and his first name’s Cee!” In the hierarchy of Statler and Waldorf’s cutting put-downs it’s more of a turkey than a Christmas cracker, but Cee Lo’s Magic Moment was never supposed to be subtle. The album’s cover art features the soul star, clad in a pink fur coat, playing Santa in a convertible Rolls Royce driven by reindeer and drawn by three white horses. If you peer closely enough, you’ll notice that among the gifts falling from the back of the car are copies of Cee Lo’s previous three albums. That the star has chosen a bombastic pop number based Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
With a hollered “hello Glasgow” and immediate launch into “Magpie”, the emotionally ragged song that opens this year’s Sugaring Season, it was as if Beth Orton had never been away. On this last date of her UK tour, the night before her 42nd birthday, Orton’s notoriously husky singing voice was unsurprisingly even throatier, more tremulous than usual. It had the effect of lending even more intimacy to cuts from a new album that, after a six-year gap and particularly tumultuous personal circumstances, emerged bathed in the quiet glow of domestic bliss. After setting the scene with only an Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Viva Forever! isn’t the clunker it’s been labelled. It’s also not the thin gruel of the standard West End jukebox musical. The real problem is that it can never be Mamma Mia!, the globe-conquering, ABBA-derived franchise previously devised by its producer Judy Craymer.To be fair, Craymer isn’t strictly the originator of Viva Forever! That honour falls to Spice Girls’ kingpin Simon Fuller and the combo themselves. They approached Craymer who, in turn, brought in Absolutely Fabulous writer and actor Jennifer Saunders to weave a narrative and script around the “Wannabe” gals’ back catalogue.Much Read more ...
mark.kidel
While living in Bombay in the late 1940s, betrayed by a business partner and his first marriage in the midst of painful implosion, Ravi Shankar decided to commit suicide. At the eleventh hour, a holy man, who happened to be passing by, knocked on his door asking for water. The man told Shankar that he was aware of his fateful decision. This wasn’t, he went on, the right time to be renouncing life. He had a great future ahead of him, the sadhu continued, and a major role to play in the dissemination of Indian music throughout the world. The man became Ravi Shankar’s spiritual teacher, and for Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It would be a fool who came to any Christmas album sternly expecting radicalism and the pushing of sonic frontiers, and an even bigger fool if they expected the same from one by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Christmas albums revel, for the most part, in idealised nostalgia and ritualised celebration but, since it’s now de rigeur for anyone to have a go in this area, the deluge increasing each year, it seems reasonable to hope for a few twists to keep us interested. We don’t get them from Travolta and Newton John.The pair, who reached superstardom with Grease in 1978, reunited when it Read more ...