pop music
Kieron Tyler
It might have begun with The Beatles espousal of Bob Dylan in 1964. There was also The Animals whose first two singles, issued the same year, repurposed tracks from Bob Dylan’s 1962 debut album. Before The Byrds hit big with their version of his “Mr. Tambourine Man” in summer 1965, Britain’s pop groups were already hip to Dylan and incorporating elements of his approach into their sound.Some acolytes like Donovan, who emerged in early 1965, even attempted to clone the Dylan look. Other were more subtle. The Searchers’ late 1964 single “What Have They Done to the Rain?” was an adaptation of a Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It starts with countdown to cacophony. A well-indicated pathway to absolute and total sensory overload. It’s calculated, clear and concise. The succinctly titled “Intro” hits like a sucker punch you never saw coming because it was never on the cards. The next thing that Sweden’s Echo Ladies presents is Kick-era INXS-level compression on “Almost Happy”, a track that answers the age-old question we’ve all struggled with – what would Peter Hook have sounded like with the Sisters of Mercy? This debut from Matilda Bogren, Joar Andersén and Mattis Andersson is awash with distorted synths, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As far as All Saints aficionados will be concerned, 17 years after they originally split they’ve pulled the dream team back together. Not only is regular “fifth member”, producer/songwriter K-Gee Gordon on board, but for two songs so is producer William Orbit, the man who, back in the day, polished “Pure Shores” and “Black Coffee” into their final chart-topping form. More to the point, Melanie Blatt, Shaznay Lewis and the Appleton sisters sound like they’re having a top time, bubbling with a joyousness which saturates their music.In the latter half of the Nineties All Saints were second only Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Cornbury Festival holds a very special place in my heart. When the babies were young, we realised that if we were going to be up all night without sleep we might as well be sat in a field listening to music rather than staring out of the window at a dreary North London street. Luckily for us, we accidentally picked one of the most family-friendly festivals out there.Over the years Cornbury has gone from strength to strength, headlining musicians from Bryan Adams, Kaiser Chiefs and Seal to Tom Jones, Razorlight, Jools Holland, and Van Morrison. Thank abso-goodness then, that rather than Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street. To vinyl. Only theartsdesk on Vinyl doesn’t just cover music for dancing, it covers every style of music imaginable (with a good showing for pop this month). Whatever your taste, from the heaviest rock to the lightest ambient music, theartsdesk on Vinyl will review it along the way. Enough intro, though. More juice. Let’s head to the largest, tastiest monthly review showcase on the planet. Dive in!Kali Uchis Isolation (Rinse/Virgin)Seems everyone knows about Kaliu Uchis – she's been on a Gorillaz album (and they're on here too), Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
"Homeward Bound – the Farewell Tour", they were calling it. But with a show this strong, nobody would complain if that farewell were to turn out at some point not to be absolutely final.Paul Simon is 76, and there is absolutely no doubt that as he sings in "The Boxer", "the fighter still remains". He has just done 10 of these shows across Europe in the last 16 days, each of at least two hours, and yet the voice still sounds strong, and his energy completely intact. This was a performance full of vim, sass and clear intent.Above all it's a show about the power of all those great songs, and a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Who in their right minds has the time of day for Rick Astley? As a cynical 1980s experiment by ruthlessly commercial production house Stock, Aitken & Waterman his Eighties output was vapid grinning plastic bilge. He was annoying too, really annoying, a neutered avatar representing suburban English everyboy blandness incarnate. One of the trickiest things as a music writer is facing up to long-held and enjoyed prejudices but, on hearing the title single from Astley’s latest album, I had to admit – through gritted teeth – that it’s a thoroughly enjoyable slice of Chic-like pop. But what of Read more ...
Owen Richards
Lamp Lit Prose is the ninth Dirty Projectors album since 2003, an incredibly prolific output for any artist. All the more impressive when you consider it’s the project of producer/songwriter David Longstreth, who also finds time to collaborate with artists such as Rihanna, Kanye, Paul McCartney and Solange. Such a notable CV befits an act as innovative as Dirty Projectors, and their latest release further demonstrates the talent on show.“Change is the only constant law” sings Longstreth, an appropriate lyric as Lamp Lit Prose is a journey of shifting influences. Tracks range from folk and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Dress each of the band in the same clothes. Stand them in a line outside the EMI headquarters building on Manchester Square. Get the taller ones with glasses to stand at either end of the row. Put the other taller one in the middle. Have the pair of less tall ones – who could be twins – stand between the taller ones. Symmetry and uniformity duly achieved, take the promotional photograph.The picture seen above was used as the cover of the debut EP by Manfred Mann (pictured below right), issued in the wake of their first hit single “5-4-3-2-1”. It was helped into the charts by being chosen as Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s three years since Years & Years’ debut album Communion, with its monster singles “King” and “Shine”, put them on the map as major pop stars. Their music was smartly (albeit faintly) flavoured with sounds ranging from LA alt-hip hop to Hot Chip, and in cute live wire Olly Alexander they had a characterful and proudly gay frontman. Their new album has, then, been much anticipated. Of the two songs already released from it, happily it has most in common with the stripped, tribalistic “Sanctify” than the grinning, trop-house cheese of “If You’re Over Me”.The unfortunate truth, of course Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The most intriguing aspect of the mid-Seventies, Memphis-based band Zuider Zee isn’t that they took their name from a geographic feature of the Netherlands or that they dealt in against-the-grain Anglo-centric pop rock or even that the new compilation Zeenith features top-drawer music which was never released at the time. It’s that their path never crossed that of the similarly minded and perennially lauded local outfit Big Star.In the liner notes to Zeenith, Zuider Zee’s Gary Bertrand says “We had no interaction with Memphis groups, none at all.” His bandmate Richard Orange goes further: “We Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Forty years on. You could have got attractive odds on Duran Duran still being here when, on a yacht carving the seas off Antigua, a cream-suited Simon Le Bon mimed “Rio” astride an unapologetically phallic bowsprit. “A ripple in a stagnant pool,” sniffed the NME upon first catching them live. But that was then and this is now and four of the original five, having spent many years as a three, are still at it, 14 albums down.Naturally, therefore, they were due a BBC Four homage, which came in the form of not one but two films: There’s Something You Should Know was a bog-standard soup-to-nuts Read more ...