New music
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Boys Don’t Cry is a collection of flawless reinterpretations of songs originally performed by men by the honey-voiced singer known as Rumer, whose million-selling debut Seasons of My Soul chalked up high-profile admirers and a clutch of award nominations.The female-singer-puts-her-own-spin-on-traditionally-masculine songs is nothing new, having become a staple of live performances by everybody from country starlets to X-Factor contestants. Laura Marling, who beat Rumer to the Best Female Brit back in 2011, put out an EP featuring songs by Neil Young and Jackson Browne and, as far back as 2001 Read more ...
David Benedict
There comes a point in almost every great soprano’s career when she tells the world that Tosca, the Marschallin or Isolde be damned: what she wanted to sing all along was The Great American Songbook. This announcement tends to be made - how shall I put this? - later rather than sooner. In Jessye Norman’s defence, in 1987, just five years after her landmark, ultra-luscious recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, she recorded a disc of Gershwin, Richard Rodgers et al. Yet since that recording included her terrifying, never-to-be-forgotten cover of Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” ( Read more ...
bella.todd
The proto version of this tribute show took place at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2008 on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Sandy Denny’s death. This tour coincides with the release of a new box-set and draws on Thea Gilmore’s courageous recent settings of some of Denny’s rediscovered lyrics. A career-spanning set of covers, it pours water on the embers of a stunning back catalogue as much as it reignites them.Young compere Andrew Batt is clearly a dedicated Denny fan, having himself compiled the 19-CD box set (including 100 previously unreleased tracks). But with his trendily rolled jacket Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The death of Robin Gibb was announced last night. He had been diagnosed with cancer following surgery for a blocked intestine in 2010, when it was discovered that he had cancer of the colon. This April, it was announced he had contracted pneumonia. His death leaves brother Barry as the only surviving Bee Gee.Although influenced by The Beatles, The Bee Gees did, in time, become as big. From the beginning, Robin’s distinctive, soulful and emotional voice was always crucial to their edge. Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears said of Robin, “You are and forever will be a massive influence and inspiration Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
A Salford lad who used to work as a bolt-cutter by day and sing in working men's clubs at night, Russell Watson started out in showbiz by singing popular hits by Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond or Simon & Garfunkel alongside a few belters from famous musicals. One night the patron of the Wigan Road Working Men's Club suggested he should have a go at Puccini's "Nessun Dorma"."It was the first operatic piece I ever sang, and that was really where it all started for me," Watson recalled. It lit the fuse on a chain of events that led to Watson signing a deal with Decca and winning himself global Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The use of Sigur Rós’s aural drama for the soundtracks of Life on Earth, Vanilla Sky and its subsequent sound bed ubiquity has meant their music has become divorced from who they are. The enthralling Valtari emphasises that these four Icelanders are a band rather than a machine supplying lazy directors with ready made atmospherics. Even so, Valtari’s “Ekki múkk” and “Varúð” are so spectacular they’ll no doubt warm the hearts of filmmakers world wide.Thankfully, Sigur Rós have ditched the outside elements that made their last album, 2008’s Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, a compromised Read more ...
Natalie Shaw
One image remains stuck from Watch the Throne's second of five sold-out nights in London; it’s a song-long vision of Kanye West and Jay-Z – aka J Hova or just Hov – sat side by side for Hov’s “Hard Knock Life”. Hov’s words fell out of his mouth seemingly effortlessly as the track's structure emerged while ‘Ye sat in a silent, contemplative stoop - his dripping sweat and jewellery making him look post-marathon mid-set.They’re hip hop’s biggest stars, sure, but here we have two very different entities. For their numerous collaborations – aside from the Watch the Throne album, some of Jay-Z's Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The end had long been nigh for The Cult, when it first came in 1995. It wasn’t just the booze and the arrival of grunge. It was as much that smart-arse Brit Pop was never going to have much truck with a man who called himself Wolf Child and wrote lyrics like, “Cool operator with a rattlesnake kiss”. More fool them. But yet, for all the brilliance of Love, Electric and Sonic Temple there was no denying things went seriously downhill after the fourth album. Still, fans have long believed in one last Memphis hip shake from the old peace dogs. And finally, on their second comeback, we now have Read more ...
theartsdesk
Paul and Linda McCartney: Ram (Deluxe Edition)Jasper ReesThe project to reissue the big moments in Paul McCartney’s solo career continues. McCartney and Band on the Run have already had the deluxe treatment. Now it’s the turn of 1971's Ram, the one and only time the uxorious former Beatle gave the lovely Linda equal billing. She takes a co-writing credit on half a dozen songs, supplies backing vocals and, most of all, sleeve shots of her hubby wrangling livestock and jamming. Ram is more notable for other things. Having played all the instruments on his first solo effort, it found McCartney Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Gary Numan (born Gary Webb, 1958) was born in Hammersmith and raised in the western outskirts of London, the son of a bus driver. By the latter half of the Seventies he was fronting punk band Tubeway Army but his fortunes changed dramatically when he added synthesizers to the formula and became, with the album Replicas and songs such as “Down in the Park” and “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”, one of electro-pop’s great innovators. His coldly catchy music, sci-fi imagery, adenoidal voice and air of robotic isolation was hugely influential. He sealed his repute with the globally successful single “ Read more ...