pop music
theartsdesk
On Valentine’s Day 2011 Disc of the Day album reviews sprang into being, and has been solidly reviewing five albums a week ever since. Out of the many thousands, which ones did we rate the most? To mark 10 years since its inception, 12 of theartsdesk’s music writers mark the occasion by choosing an Album of the Decade. They appear in alphabetical order by writer.Alt-J – An Awesome Wave – by Russ CoffeyThe early 2010s was a period when UK rock music slowly lost its swagger. The harsh economic climate meant songwriters increasingly forgot about the good times; instead, they turned their minds Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Ten years ago yesterday, on Monday 14th February 2011, one of theartsdesk’s writers, Joe Muggs, reviewed an album called Paranormale Aktivitat, by an outfit called Zwischenwelt. It was the first ever Disc of the Day, a new slot inserted into theartsdesk’s front page design, where it still resides today. By the end of the year, we’d introduced the now-obligatory stars-out-of-five system, keeping in the swim with other reviewing media. Since then, Disc of the Day has covered approximately 2600 albums and, before COVID, when the tube trains were running, it gave me great pleasure to see those Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s difficult to know where to start with Sia’s Music. The album is billed as a collection of songs “from and inspired by” the film of the same name – so not a soundtrack, except for when it is. It tracks range from candy coated to overly earnest; liberated to sexless; pop fun to cinematic; oblique storytelling to big-name co-writes – and yet, as delivered in the Australian singer’s distinctive, powerful voice, have a tendency to blur into one.The album starts strongly with “Together”. Co-written with star producer Jack Antonoff, it’s a huge pop number that taps into both artists’ Read more ...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Slowthai’s debut Nothing Great About Britain was both strikingly intimate and anarchic. He rapped about his childhood and British inequality over grime beats that sounded as if they were falling apart around him. Here "abrasive" and "insightful" coexisted within the same songs effortlessly.On TYRON, slowthai divides these two attributes, splitting the album into a raucous first half and a sombre second. The caps lock is used to hammer home this overarching theme of dualism.The first half delivers the mosh pit energy that slowthai does so well. The dizzying instrumentals are excellent. On “45 Read more ...
joe.muggs
It’s odd that there’s still no name for the wave of genre-agnostic British bands of the '00s. Not manic enough to be nu rave, way too interesting for the retro-guitar nu rock revolution / landfill indie tsunami, the likes of Hot Chip, Metronomy, Friendly Fires, Simian and the super-louche Wild Beasts between them mapped out a new area of psychedelic pop. And into this in 2009 came the Scottish / Northern Irish / English band Django Django, a perfect fit into this unnamed movement with their winsome melodies and ability to fold everything from psyche-folk to acid house to rockabilly into their Read more ...
Liz Thomson
The Staves – Emily, Jessica, and Camilla Staveley-Taylor – have routinely been described as “an indie folk act”, and while the term folk has undergone a lot of stretching over the years the band’s first two albums – Dead & Born & Grown and If I Was – could broadly be said to fit, their latest, Good Woman, requires redefinition.The album – recorded in London with producer John Congleton – comes after a six-year gap, though the three sisters began writing the material for it in 2017. But matters of life, death and birth intervened, leading to the sisters regrouping in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Dorian Benediction” begins with a muted organ and spectral chorale. Minimal drums, an electric piano, vibes, melancholy saxophone and a jazzy solo guitar fill out the picture. Over its four-and-a-half minutes, the atmosphere is haunted and haunting. This is music which appears to have seeped from the walls of a baroque church. It’s the final track of The Free Design’s third album, 1969’s Heaven / Earth.“An Elegy” is more direct but still as mysterious. It’s also jazzy and strings colour the arrangement, but there’s an epic quality as the song moves though a series of crescendos. This time, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“Hope”, from the debut album by 20 year old London singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, has a perfect chorus for these times. Blissed piano chords, lazy funk beats, lusciously upbeat synth dreaminess, and on top of it all, her sweet, airy voice offering support: “You’re not alone like you think you are.” It seems directed at those who quarantine isolation has swirled down into a dark place. There is much on Collapsed in Sunbeams that easily, chattily offers similar solace.Let’s be clear, it’s not a Covid-centric album, it’s a set of gently pensive sketched miniatures whose lyrics are a cut above the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
An old saw relating to The Doors says their ambition when they formed was to be as big as Los Angeles-based garage-psych sensations The Seeds. After listening to Lost Innocence – Garpax 1960s Punk & Psych, it’s hard not to wonder where the bands heard were aiming. What’s collected is from 1965 to 1969. All these combos operated in California, generally working in and around the LA area. All were produced by music biz maverick Gary S Paxton, whose company was named Garpax. He had been behind the novelty hits “Alley Oop” and “Monster Mash”.The Buddhas, Limey & The Yanks (whose frontman Read more ...
Harry Thorfinn-George
2020 marks the year when the PC Music label’s influence became undeniable. It’s easy to forget that, founded by A.G. Cook in 2013, it was once at the centre of a mini culture war. The label’s refusal to distinguish “between high and low, between Burial or Britney” felt exciting to some, but contemptuous to others. In retrospect, journalists’ comparisons to “Japanese tween pop of the distant future played through JD-Sports in-store radio of 2002” didn’t help the case against the latter.The war was waged and won, as A.G. Cook’s futuristic vision of what pop music could be is now reality. Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Back in October, Fiona Apple – whose Fetch the Bolt Cutters, released in April, captured a particular early pandemic mood – was interviewed by Emily Nussbaum for The New Yorker Festival. “I think we women should be marrying our friends,” she told the journalist. “We have sexual freedom! We have dogs! We have fun! We can do whatever we want!”Experiences like these have been a teeny, tiny crumb of positive over these unending months. Would I trade 10 months and counting without live music (last gig: The Hold Steady, arguably the best live band in the world, at their annual London “Weekender” at Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 2020, one archive release exerted a more forceful presence than any other. Live At Goose Lake August 8th 1970 caught The Stooges as they promoted their second album Fun House. The source was a previously unknown, professionally recorded tape documenting the whole album as it was played live, in its running order. Iggy Pop and the band were hard yet sloppy, tight yet rough, always blazing. Wonderful – and a reminder that musical surprises still crop up.While contemplating what’s been covered in this column over the last year, the feeling that archive releases can shift perceptions rises to Read more ...