pop music
Guy Oddy
Hot Shot 2020 has been billed as a rerub of Shaggy’s colossal turn of the century release Hot Shot. It’s not quite an accurate description of an album that has already been released in three different forms and shifted nine million copies though. In fact, this version only has six tracks in common with the original and adds cover versions, re-recordings of some of Mr Boombastic's other huge hits, like “Oh Carolina” and, of course, “Boombastic”, and a few other odds and sods. However, taken on its own terms as a grab bag of Orville Burrell’s musical highlights, it hits the spot on a relaxed Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Strange Destinies” is the first track. “Take your eyes off me Svengali” is its memorable opening phrase. Conjuring up Van Morrison, Tom Petty, Mike Scott, Bruce Springsteen and even The Boomtown Rats when they were aping the first and fourth of those, the song clangs along with a powerpop chug and sports a hook-filled melody. Great.Despite this memorable opening, a triple-CD retrospective dedicated to Philip Rambow might seem like a cult item. Especially when no tracks from The Winkies, the band which first brought him to attention, are included. But there’s definitely a story.The Winkies Read more ...
Russ Coffey
If one song best captures the overall mood of XOXO, it's the Beatles-meets-country strains of "Living in a Bubble". The punchy lyrics offer a timely warning about the effect of 24-hour news. The real impact, however, comes from the gentle, acoustic textures that usher you back to a pre-digital age. That's XOXO all over. Despite the teenager on the cover, this is really a record that exudes wisdom and experience.In truth, even back in 1985 when The Jayhawks formed, they sounded pretty wistful. Over 11 albums the Minnesotans have specialised in harmony-rich Americana mixed with Read more ...
caspar.gomez
Coronavirus blah blah blah. Glastonbury cancelled. What to do? Didn’t go to the 2010 festival for reasons too tedious to go into. Suffered the worst FOMO of my life. This is different. There is no Glastonbury. But sitting around at home… we’ve all been doing that for months…I call Don Carlton, who has been my fellow adventurer for eight of the last 10 Glastonburys: “Hey Don, we’ve got to do something that weekend, but I don’t know what…”“I have a plan,” he says.It is Thursday 25th June 2020.T-minus two days until Don Carlton’s plan kicks in. I’ve just driven for four-and-a-half hours on the Read more ...
On the Record review - #MeToo turns its lens to the music industry, gives the mic to women of colour
Jill Chuah Masters
On the Record, the latest documentary from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (acclaimed directors of The Hunting Ground), dives into the sexual misconduct allegations against music mogul Russell Simmons, the so-called ‘Godfather of Hip Hop.’ It centres on interviews with Drew Dixon (pictured below), who — as a twentysomething music executive — launched Whitney Houston hits and scouted a young Kanye West. She left the industry after Simmons allegedly raped her.This is an elegant, stinging addition to the #MeToo dialogue, which gives due emphasis to black women and the music industry — a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
If the title of their third album alludes to the lazy assumption of female-fronted as a musical genre, HAIM’s revenge is to try a little bit of everything, while never sounding anything less than themselves. Women in Music Pt. III elevates the sister trio’s signature harmonies, infectious rhythms and Sunshine Coast melodies with muted saxophones, warped vocal samples, techno beats, good ol’-fashioned soft-rock guitar riffs - and a whole lotta honesty.The band take turns at being giddy, flirtatious and introspective, letting rip equally at 3am booty calls, depressive illness and patronising Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
This morning at 9.00 AM would be when Worthy Farm opened its gates to the hedonistic hordes. The weather is scorchio and Glastonbury 50 would have been such a party. Instead, that will all be Glastonbury 2021. So right now, those who love their annual Pilton pilgrimage need to get inventive: the festival and the BBC have laid on a feast of allsorts. It’s about to kick off. Let’s get amongst it…BBC CoverageThe BBC have devoted a whole new special iPlayer channel to Glastonbury and will be showing old sets from 10.00 AM Thursday morning until after midnight, and doing the same every day, up to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Orange Crate Art makes most sense in the context of Van Dyke Parks’s solo career rather than that of Brian Wilson’s. For the former it was preceded by Tokyo Rose, an orchestrated set tackling the intersections of American-Japanese cultural and socio-political relations. All the way back to his debut album, 1967’s Song Cycle, Parks has created albums with American signifiers as their pegs. With Orange Crate Art, the theme is symbols evoking mythic California. The punning title is literal: an inspiration is the graphics on crates of California-grown orangesBefore Song Cycle, when Parks and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The lockdown may be loosening but we’re no nearer to gigs and festivals occurring so, for the foreseeable, online is where it’s at. Here, then, is the latest selection of musical happenings that you can wrap your eyes and ears around during the coming week. Dive in!Make Music DayOriginating with France’s Fête de la Musique back in 1982, the idea of Make Music Day is to put as much music in as many public spaces as possible. It has blossomed over the decades, catching on in the UK where, last year, almost 30,000 performed to around 140,000 people. In 2020, of course, the event takes place Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Jehnny Beth was the formidable and mysterious leader of Savages’ flinty monochrome attack, remoulding stark post-punk into gender-fluid shapes. Retiring the band after two Mercury-nominated albums, and returning to France after more than a decade of self-discovery in London, this solo debut is the product of an intense period of self-reflection, softening the carapace of her English persona to ponder innocence and rustic roots.Beth’s friend PJ Harvey laughingly dismissed her poetry as “terrible”, and even Cillian Murphy’s spoken-word turn can’t redeem some po-faced portentousness, or a chilly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There’s something wrong with the picture above. It’s the sleeve of a French EP issued in August 1966 credited to a surly looking band called “Them”. The chap standing in the middle has what appear to be bullet holes in his shirt, but where’s the band’s frontman and main songwriter Van Morrison? Further confusing matters, the EP was also issued with the band credit altered to “The Belfast Gypsies”, where otherwise the sleeve was the same (pictured below left).The band on the sleeve was not Them, or drawn from the outfit Morrison was with in 1966. Them had split in Hawaii in June 1966 following Read more ...
joe.muggs
Will Westerman is not afraid of sounding retro. It's clear his influences are diverse, from jazz fusion to the bedroom proto-house experiments of Arthur Russell. But in their final form, his high gloss production, highly literate songs and fretless bass sound like something out of a creatively leftfield but megabucks studio-produced mid Eighties record: the likes of Talk Talk, Kate Bush, Roxy Music's Avalon and above all The Blue Nile loom large.Westerman's arrangements and DEEK Recordings owner Nathan “Bullion” Jenkins's production does an incredible job of doing what would have required Read more ...