pop
Tom Birchenough
There might seem to be a world of difference between Israeli director Eytan Fox’s last film, the coming-out-of-grief, intimate drama Yossi, and his new movie, the delicious, prove-what-you-can-do comedy musical Cupcakes. But both are about moving towards a better place, and overcoming the obstacles encountered along the way, with a little help from your friends.Cupcakes is about camaraderie as much as anything else, in this case a group of neighbours who have a tradition of getting together every year to watch UniverSong (as close to Eurovision as it comes – we presume that the latter name Read more ...
Aimee Cliff
When the red curtain opens - or drops with delicious melodrama - on the second night of Taylor Swift’s residency at the O2 Arena, the first thing you notice is her eyes. We’re a crowd of thousands, packed into the second largest stadium in the UK, and with our monumental collective gaze directed at one person you wouldn’t expect such intimate details to translate. But Swift need move only her eyes to elicit screams like you’ve never heard in your life. She swoops them oh-so-slowly to the right, pauses, then to the left, pauses, smiles. She is choreographed down to the retinas, and she is Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Once upon a time, there was an assumption that the DJs and remixers who emerged in the late 1980s would kill off touring bands like Depeche Mode. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth and 34 years since they first got together, Basildon’s finest are not only still providing remixers with plenty of raw material for their craft, but they are reproducing their recreations in the live arena. Last night, Depeche Mode not only played classic after classic in their original recorded form, but also a couple of re-arrangements by way of Goldfrapp’s understated reworking of “Halo”, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Despite his nickname and habit of doing a bunk, George “Shadow” Morton was one of America’s highest-profile and most distinctive producers and songwriters. He was responsible for shaping the sound and style of The Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, Vanilla Fudge and The New York Dolls. Until the release of Sophisticated Boom Boom!! – The Shadow Morton Story, the musical side of his story had not been told. A consummate collection, this significant release was pulled off with style. The packaging was superb, as was the annotation. Its music was amazing too.Morton’s vision brought filmic drama to pop. Read more ...
Aimee Cliff
Screens dominate the stage at London’s O2 Arena for The Big Christmas Reunion, which seems fitting given the show is an extension of ITV2’s reality series following 5ive, Atomic Kitten, Honeyz, Liberty X, B*Witched and 911 as they get back on the pop wagon a decade after they were all disbanded or dropped by their labels. The giant TV portals loom not just physically but structurally over the whole event, introducing each act with a reel of bland skits and intro VTs borrowed straight from the small screen.This gives the whole event the coldly lit sheen of reality TV, the structure a Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There’s something in the vocal delivery that calls for comparison to countrywoman Leslie Feist - a subtlety, an unreal-ness - but on her third, self-titled album Canadian songwriter Hannah Georgas has honed a sound of her own. What could easily have been your run-of-the-mill, heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter material spent a little time in the studio with Graham Walsh of Toronto-based electronica act Holy Fuck and came out with its soul intact, but with just enough bite to make these songs stand out.I confess to writing Georgas off a little last year, while she was opening for, and Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Oh dear, there it is – the career-plateau pot-shot at “journalists” and “critics”. It comes about halfway through the album, on the otherwise really good 1970s blues-rock-sampling “Looking Down the Barrel”, and it cements a sad feeling that's been growing throughout the record that here is an artist who's achieved some success and now has nothing to talk about except what it's like to be an artist who's achieved some success.See, the problem is not the pot-shot, but the fact that Tinie Tempah needs to make it. Having achieved big-time pay-day and proved his talent, he should be cutting loose Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
While it wouldn’t have been fair to expect 100 percent authenticity from a performer whose last stage show began with her rising from a trapdoor with two giant peppermint patty pinwheels spinning over her breasts, the follow-up to Teenage Dream was never going to replicate the bubblegum formula of its predecessor. As the recent documentary Part of Me showed in heartbreaking detail, Katy Perry has had a tumultuous few years - and no amount of Scandinavian hit-factories-for-hire were ever going to paper over all of the cracks.Still, as infectious lead single - and PRISM opening track - “Roar” Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Madness: Take it or Leave itIn 1981, Madness followed The Beatles, Slade and The Sex Pistols by playing versions of themselves in a film. Take it or Leave it is no masterpiece, but it is hugely entertaining. At the time, surprisingly, a soundtrack album wasn’t issued and its belated appearance on CD plugs a gap in the story of Madness.This smart, two-disc set teams a DVD of the film with the shelved album, for which a master tape was assembled. The CD is not a live set though, collecting the rough-and-ready performances seen in the film, but assembles familiar studio recordings and Fats Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Open letters are so passe. There’s a track on Back to Forever, the second album from folk-pop crossover star-in-the-making Lissie, that addresses the recent shenanigans of Miley Cyrus and her ilk as well as the singer’s own place in the music industry. “I stole your magazine, the one with the beauty queen on the front,” she sings in that glorious, smoky voice of hers, half mocking, half angry. “I don’t want to be famous if I got to be shameless.”And yet wouldn’t a Lissie take on “We Can’t Stop”, all midwest drawl and laidback swagger, be the greatest thing? It’s easy to imagine: the singer is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Kinks: Muswell HillbilliesRock’s rich tapestry currently has it that 1968’s The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society is their best album. This deluxe edition, 2CD reissue of 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies isn’t going to alter that, but it does force the emphasis away from the notion that their most lasting legacy will be a fascination with and celebration of Britishness.The album found Ray Davies and co looking to American archetypes, musical and cultural, and bringing them into songs drawing figurative links between the former colony and those still wedded to the old country. Read more ...
Jasper Rees
A new album from Elton John is also a window into the world of Bernie Taupin. For four decades the lyricist, like a golfer who has always just won the previous hole, has had the honour of going first. It’s easy to forget that with songs from Elton’s pomp in which the words, the voice and piano have long since melded into a unified whole. The reality is that the fantabulously out-and-about showman channels the musings of a heterosexual Californian recluse. It’s been a remarkable conjuring trick.So what has Taupin been thinking about on The Diving Board? Well, the opener “Oceans Away” is about Read more ...