pop
Lisa-Marie Ferla
According to Gabrielle Aplin, the delicate piano ballad which closes, and provides the name of, her first album in over four years was written as a letter to herself; and one penned at a particularly turbulent point in her life. “It’s not easy for me, but I know that I’m close,” she sings, as if willing the emotion into being.Dear Happy – which arrives on Aplin’s own Never Fade label following her 2017 split from Parlophone – is full of little moments like this: of resilience, reflection and recovery, providing a consistent through-line on a record which ranges from bubblegum pop and electro- Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Now the first generation of real rock stars are finishing their fifth recording decade, the question presents itself: what should a rocker do when their career has gone on much longer than they'd planned? 2019 came up with some excellent answers. Some old-timers continued to play loud, others grew more mellow. But one thing they all had in common was that their music journeyed deep into the imagination. Of all the rock-veteran albums released, none felt more widescreen than Springsteen's Western Stars. After 40 years of straining every vocal sinew, the gravelly singer tried his Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Abba fans can already have an immersive dining/dancing/singing experience at the O2 in Mamma Mia! The Party, and now, almost as a companion piece, is ABBA: Super Troupers The Exhibition, a show that sets out tell “the story of the band, their music and the era they defined”.That's a pretty tall order and I'm not sure – even as a dedicated fan – that Abba defined an era, but on the other two points this multimedia exhibition makes a decent go of it as it describes the group's history from first meeting to eventual break-up, and beyond.The four – Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
If this is what Sam Fender can provoke on a Monday night, then Lord knows the reaction he generates at a weekend. A chart topping album and sold out tour may mean the Geordie is firmly at pop’s top table now, but it was still impressive the sheer delirium his arrival onstage appeared to generate, a status that lasted throughout the brisk hour or so that followed.Although a youthful crowd, there were older generations in attendance too, perhaps a reflection of the fact that Fender’s influences tap into a cross-generational appeal. There is little point in pretending the 25 year old is re- Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Of 2019’s pop culture phenomena, the critical reappraisal of Céline Dion as an international treasure is one of the most delightful. It’s been six years since the Quebecois singer last released an English language album, a period in which she closed out 16 years of Las Vegas residencies, soundtracked both Disney and Deadpool and, most importantly, mourned her husband, René and brother, Daniel. Those losses unsurprisingly colour much of Courage, which across an expansive track listing features plenty of moments of recovery and resilience. And even, tentatively, hints at new happiness.Opening Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Pumarosa picked the perfect time of year to launch their second album into the world: its skittish drums, claustrophobic melodies and haunted vocals are the perfect soundtrack to witching season. But the horrors that inspired Devastation are far more personal: frontwoman Isabel Muñoz-Newsome was diagnosed with cervical cancer the week the band’s 2017 debut was released, with the band playing Glastonbury mere weeks after her surgery.With that back story in mind, you’d be forgiven for thinking tracks like “Fall Apart”, “Lose Control” and “Devastation” are primed to tell a particular story - but Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Considered logically, releasing an album as heavy on guest features as Charli XCX’s newest should present particular logistical problems when it comes to recreating the tracks on tour. Charli’s approach is the opposite: no gimmicks or trickery, just minimalist techno hedonism powered by nothing but strobe lights and sheer charisma.Charli XCX is the full package: MC, singer and her own hype man; number one, to butcher the title of her 2017 mixtape, in a hall full of angels on hand to contribute additional vocals when needed. Latest album Charli, released just last month, is both a party record Read more ...
Russ Coffey
James Blunt loves to joke about how gloomy his songs are and he says Once Upon a Mind is his most depressing collection yet. But the truth is that the album is really just agonisingly safe and painfully middle-of-the-road. (For the most part) Blunt has stared into his dark night of the soul and turned it into something beige and inoffensive.Partly it's the voice. That thin, strangely inert warble. It's also Blunt's tendency to treat every subject as a melancholy singalong. You might imagine a song about your relationship with your wife, would aim for a close, intimate feel. Instead Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s an easy joke to suggest that James Arthur needs an editor. By this point, the 31-year-old singer is almost as famous for his lyrical mis-steps and ill-advised use of Twitter as his 2012 The X Factor victory. You, his third album, seems to have been subject to the longest roll-out in history (first single, “Naked”, was released almost two years ago), and arrives at 17 tracks and over an hour in length. Prune away at least four soporific ballads, though, and you’ll find a decent pop-soul album; the insincerity of previous releases replaced with often gut-wrenching takes on broken Read more ...
Katie Colombus
There’s something in the dichotomy of Babymetal that I just can’t fathom. Cutesy J-pop meets heavy metal. Sheeny bubblegum-bounce dance routines to thrash. Sweet teen vocals over shredding.It’s like something that would get the audience vote on X Factor just because the entire nation wanted to piss off Simon Cowell. It shouldn’t work. And yet, bamboozlingly, they seem to have won over at least some of the hard core metal heads (Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Rob Zombie, Anthrax, Judas Priest) that should, by definition, think they’re a load of shite.My own mindset adds to the conglomeration of Read more ...
joe.muggs
When he arrived on the scene in the mid Noughties Mika – yes his name is Michael Holbrook – flew the flag for grandiose pop classicism. He had The Feeling as fellow travellers, and to an extent The Killers in their first wave of success and Muse entering their imperial phase channelled these same impulses. Now, of course the songwriting and production values of ELO, Queen, Abba, Wings, Hall & Oates are all good and noble things to aspire to. The love of studio as instrument, the ability to cram whole concertos and movies into three minute pop songs is nothing to be sniffed Read more ...
Katie Colombus
There comes a time for reflection in everyone’s lives – perhaps for Canadian indie-pop duo Tegan & Sara this is it. Harking back to the 1990s, they have found and re-worked tracks written in their teenage years, taking grains of truth from their own once lost lyrics and melodies, trussing them up with fancy production values and a new wave retro-pop sound.The album is launching just after the twins’ memoir, “High School” – a coming of age story of growing up in Calgary. Hey, I’m Just Like You feels like the musical accompaniment that should have been tucked into its sleeve.Created with an Read more ...