pop music
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: Building Bridges - Eurovision Song Contest Vienna 2015Mind-bogglingly, Australia is a first-time entrant in Eurovision 2015. The nature of Europe may be a concern for some backwards-looking British voters in next week’s election, but the inclusion of Australia in a competition organised by the European Broadcasting Union extends the remit of being European beyond even the wildest imaginings of foolish fringe politicians. The competition may be seen on Australia’s TV screens, but is that any reason for them to perform? Apparently, it is.The booklet with the double CD of Read more ...
Barney Harsent
So, what I’m probably supposed to do when reviewing Django Django’s new album, Born Under Saturn, is mention the sleeper-hit success of their 2012 self-titled debut. I’m then definitely supposed to do a funny and find some suitable similes before summing up with something pithy and sage. The trouble is, I’m stuck here grinning like an idiot while thoughts flit in and out without ever finding room to land. Melodies can do that to you – stop you thinking and drag you into the moment, where meaningful reflection is all but impossible. Like being really pissed, but without the hangover. What Read more ...
joe.muggs
Few would have predicted it back when they were gooning around in over-tight Adidas t-shirts, but with the benefit of hindsight it makes sense that Blur should have the most convincing longevity of the Britpop generation. Why? Because more than any of their contemporaries, and despite all the personality clashes and narcotic breakdowns, they were genuinely a band. Yes, Damon Albarn was the leader, but he never eclipsed the other three in the way that Jarvis or the Gallaghers did. Even the raging bellend Alex James, though musically more or less pointless, was gravitationally part of the Blur Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Mike Rosenberg kept the name "Passenger" for his solo folk-pop project even when the rest of the band left in 2009, even though, for a one-man outfit, the concept of being a passenger is a curious one. (Who’s driving then?) For the most part, this 16-song, two-CD release continues the gentle-sounding but hard-hitting storytelling of last year’s Whispers. That album didn’t make too many waves (the hit single “Let Her Go” made up for that) but confirmed Rosenberg’s reputation among folk-pop connoisseurs – happy for Ed Sheeran and James Blunt to be spoiled by raving attention – for grit and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
There are certain things that you approach a Brian Wilson album expecting. Melody and harmony of course, but also a certain kind of approach: a fearlessness to experiment. When he finally completed the famously unfinished Smile in 2004, it was a landmark moment (though not, if we’re honest, as satisfying as the old demo versions). Then, while 2008’s That Lucky Old Sun was never going to be Pet Sounds, there was, at least, enough that was engaging about a man revisiting the sounds of his youth to be glad that he’d made it.Sadly, the same can’t be said of No Pier Pressure, a largely Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Very often, the greatest impact comes without shouting. Subtlety can have a power lingering longer than the two-minute thrill of a yell. So it is with Bridges, the eighth album by Eivør. In the past, the Faroese singer-songwriter has collaborated with Canada’s Bill Bourne, the Danish Radio Big Band and Ireland’s Donal Lunny, and taken turns into country and jazz. Bridges builds on her last album though, 2012’s Room, as further evidence that she is now more focused than ever.Bridges is an all English-language album. It opens with the elegiac “Remember Me”: the song asks “Will I leave a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Specials: Specials, More Specials; The Special AKA: In the StudioAfter hearing the three albums credited to The Specials during their formative period with 2 Tone Records it becomes hard to think of them as a single band. Their clanky sounding, Elvis Costello-produced eponymous debut album, issued in October 1979, just about holds together overall, but its successors now sound as though nothing united the different directions they were firing off in. More Specials (October 1980) sits up-tempo cheerlessness alongside a warping of easy listening. In The Studio (June 1984) comes across Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The best singer-songwriters, you might say, survey life's experiences with a forensic eye. That’s certainly true of Laura Marling. Her new album Short Movie chronicles the singer's recent stint in LA where she'd relocated for a couple of years. Marling's adventures are catalogued with a satisfying mix of introspection and free-form vibes. That, of course, was also partly true of her last offering, Once I Was an Eagle. The difference here is that her hopes and disappointments are expressed with a Seventies rawness that also hints at an inner rock-chick.Artists rarely Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Perhaps it’s because today’s economy often seems to reflect the nightmare of the late Seventies, but recent years have seen plenty of the original punks return to public attention with a renewed vigour. Whereas some, like support band The Rezillos, have reformed after a break of several decades, the Stranglers, despite a few line-up and stylistic changes, have never gone away and aren’t shy about playing a set of tunes drawn from their 40-year career.The Rezillos in fact, were a fine warm-up for the evening with their Banana Splits-like take on punk. Classics like “Somebody’s gonna get their Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Simple Minds: Sparkle in the RainPlaying increasingly larger venues throughout 1983 had changed Simple Minds. “In places like that, 50,000 people, there’s just no room for subtlety, and there’s no need for it and there’s no want for it.” The quote from frontman Jim Kerr is telling.When Sparkle in the Rain was released in 1984, it made good on the promise of “Waterfront”, the single which trailed it. This was a new, heftier Simple Minds: a band retooled for stadia. “Someone recently described the record as 'art school rock with fantastic bombast',” says Kerr elsewhere in the book Read more ...
Heidi Goldsmith
“How will I sing us out of this sorrow?" Björk wails over jagged cello arpeggios, six songs into her string quartet-led break-up album Vulnicura. Though heartbreak may be the theme most often stewed and chewed up by singer-songwriters, optimism - a belief in music's healing power - is the driving force of this nine-track record.Though we might wish Björk cried iridescent neon tears, the album's emotions are familiar enough to imagine her your snotty chapped-cheeked self. Albeit psychologically twisted by an accompaniment of legato strings that collide erratically with squelching beats. " Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
These days, reflections on Madonna’s 30 years at the top of the pop podium may only be framed in terms of the pagan Triple Goddess: maiden, mother and crone – or, at least, that’s what the global reaction to The Fall That Was Heard Around The World® would lead one to believe. But with enough raunch among the 19 – nineteen! – tracks that make up the deluxe edition of Rebel Heart to make all three blush and a track which, guest rap from Nicki Minaj aside, is essentially a blow-by-blow reinterpretation of pop bad girl du jour Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop”, it’s clear that the only Read more ...