pop music
theartsdesk
And so we reached the climax of Series 7, long awaited by cognoscenti but greeted with mounting apathy by non-believers. Though some had held out hopes for boy - infant? - band One Direction, it was live poll favourite Matt Cardle who ultimately romped home to victory.It was hard to tell why - Cardle has the charisma of an apprentice photocopier salesman, and his performance on the night barely breached the frontiers of insipid. Hysterical supporters of Rebecca Ferguson, urged onwards by Coleen Rooney, thronged the streets of Liverpool to urge their girl on, but Rebecca's identikit soul-diva Read more ...
bruce.dessau
If you stick the phrase "Britpop Revival" into Google, the first page of results suggests that there has been one in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2005 and even 1998, barely a handful of months after Britpop was the epitome of Cool Britannia. It looks as if there will also be one in 2011, with Pulp primed to play again, Damon Albarn talking about releasing a new Blur single in January and, judging by Suede's storming reunion last night, more from Brett Anderson's gang, who, in theartsdesk's humble opinion, never got the full credit they deserved during the heady Blur vs Oasis years.Lead singer Anderson Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It’s often assumed that people who write about music just sit around listening to achingly hip bands and rare grooves. Not true. You’ll often catch me listening to such Jeremy Clarkson-endorsed combos as Genesis or ZZ Top. Meat Loaf? Certainly. Guilty pleasure? As charged. Phil Spector may have had his pocket symphonies for the kids, but Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman gave them six-minute operas. To my mind there hasn’t been a song written that conjures up the glorious tragedy of being 16 quite like “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”. The thing is though, the Loaf, he ain’t 16 anymore.He’s in his Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Of the runners and riders for an alternative Christmas hit, Captain SKA's jolly tune with samples of Osborne, Cameron, Thatcher and Clegg is the latest one to be gathering momentum. The other campaign, already rolling on nicely and more likely to succeed, is the one to get Cage's silent "4'33" to Number One for Christmas - a rather brilliant protest and a perfect present for the conceptualists and anti-consumerists in your life.Stars like Pete Doherty and Imogen Heap and an orchestra got together to not record that one yesterday with the Facebook page Cage Against the Machine (a reference to Read more ...
joe.muggs
Another week, another “fix” in the glorious cavalcade of manipulation, ill-feeling, class hatred, allegations of racism and – oh yes – singing that is The X Factor. This week it was another shift in the rules, seemingly in order to allow the judges to vote off 50-year-old Irish till operator and Shirley Bassey soundalike Mary Byrne and keep in a quantifiably worse singer, the steely-eyed and prematurely wizened teenager from Malvern, Cher Lloyd.It's the second seeming stitch-up in two weeks: last time around we witnessed the goalposts once again picked up and moved in order to get rid of 54- Read more ...
david.cheal
One of the great pleasures of watching live music lies in witnessing the joy that people get from making it; to experience a great live band in their prime, to see them interacting with each other, feeding off each other, pushing each other on, is a marvellous thing. Arcade Fire are like that: this show, the second of two nights in London from the Montreal band, was an infectious outpouring of feverish emotion and raw energy. I really don’t think any of them are virtuoso musicians, but there was a cohesiveness, a sense of collective endeavour from the eight-strong ensemble, that made them Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It's been a while since the pop/punk and post/pre-Richey comparisons have been made. Ironic considering how seemlessly the Manics slip between modes these days. Today theartsdesk brings you an exclusive preview of the live, power-popping video of "Hazleton Avenue", due for release next Monday to coincide with their live digital EP, Some Kind of Nothingness (available on iTunes).Having had to postpone the Birmingham and London gigs in October due to James's laryngitis, tracks have been taken from elsewhere during the band's hugely successful tour, which recently took in Australia and the Far Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Two lots of abiding electropop royalty, classicist Slovenian techno, an indie band who play electronica, a hyper-synthetic R&B superstar, Irish-Mancunian disco-boogie, "buzzsaw fuzz" meets Phil Spector, Paris-Bordeaux-Alabama-Berlin rock chaos, Welsh psychdelic dreams, a post-dubstep crooner and a novelty song about Gillian McKeith - (almost) all human life is here in Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs's round-up of tracks of interest out to buy now.Pet Shop Boys Together (EMI) About 200 years into their career, the Pet Shop Boys have barely changed - still plaintive, still rolling out Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's a kitchen-sink feel to this children's play by David Almond – indeed, nine-tenths of it takes place in a Newcastle kitchen – which adds a certain edge to it. Even though the broad, cartoonish comedy is signalled from the off, there's an initial hint of real-life grimness in the scenario of a little girl trying to care for her unkempt father who won't eat properly, emits abrupt shrieks and is convinced he is a bird. There's an engagement with loss that runs through the play too, a bittersweetness that makes it completely unsurprising that the Pet Shop Boys, those masters of putting a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Heaven 17 are an underrated group. Sidelined by electro-pop festishists and too egg-headedly wordy to be embraced by Eighties kitsch afficionados, they're easily best known for their 1983 hit "Temptation". Last night they played this late in their set - of course - but before the encore. Not the recognisable single, mind, but a percussive work-out redolent of pumping Italo-house.It remains a cracking song, whichever version they chose to play, an epic gospel-tinged duet between singer Glenn Gregory and backing vocalist Billie Godfrey, the latter's thin frame belying potent lung-power. However Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Luxembourg's musical landscape has few claims to represent the Grand Duchy itself. Most of Luxembourg's Eurovision entries weren't actually from the Duchy, as there was little local music to draw on. So Belgium's cod punk-gone-blando Plastic Bertrand became 1987's entry (with “Amour, Amour”). In 1965 Luxembourg won Eurovision with France's France Gall's “Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son”, a song written by her countryman Serge Gainsbourg. Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting to the outside world in the 1930s and went on to define the Swinging Sixties until the BBC woke up to what was going on. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There’s a moment during Hjaltalín’s encore when bolero rhythms take over and you wonder if the Reykjavik septet have invented a new musical hybrid: a Ravel-driven makeover of Seventies-slanted soul. As singer Sigrídur Thorlacius lets rip on the thrillingly anthemic “Feels Like Sugar”, it’s clear that Hjaltalín aren’t bothered with current musical templates. They take from the unlikeliest sources, smoosh them together and end up sounding like no one else. After all, this is a band with a stand-up bassoon player. At home, they topped the charts covering a song by Icelandic disco star and Read more ...