New Music Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cocteau TwinsSunday, 28 October 2018
Think of Cocteau Twins. Their label 4AD will inevitably be high on the list of markers coming to mind. Whatever they were like as people, mysterious, oblique, shadowy and other similar adjectives were conjured for the band – and label alike. Despite interpretations of them as something other, their 1990 album 4AD Heaven or Las Vegas went Top Ten in the UK, entered the American Top 100 and sold quarter of a million copies. Read more... |
John Fogerty / Steve Miller Band, BluesFest 2018 review - keep on chooglin'Friday, 26 October 2018
Rock critic Greil Marcus observed that John Fogerty’s songs are “about as contrived as the weather”, and there can surely never have been such an easy and instinctive songwriter in rock’n’roll. Read more... |
Sŵn Festival 2018 – a welcome return to formWednesday, 24 October 2018
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Read more... |
Duane Eddy, London Palladium - the twang's the thangWednesday, 24 October 2018
Fifty years after he first entered what was then known as “the hit parade”, Duane Eddy stepped on stage at the London Palladium, cheered to the echo by an audience old enough to remember 78 rpm. By and large, they’d worn less well than the man they’d come to hear, who looked trim in charcoal jeans and cowboy boots, and a jacket of the sort tailors on Nashville’s Music Row specialise. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The ActionSunday, 21 October 2018
From 7.30pm on Thursday 19 January 1967, George Martin and The Beatles spent the next seven hours at the Abbey Road’s Studio 2 working through takes one to four of “In the Life of…”, a new song which, when completed, would be retitled “A Day in the Life”. In late May, fans would hear it as the final track of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Read more... |
MØ - Forever NeverlandThursday, 18 October 2018
Think of Karen "MØ" Andersen and you may well picture one of her smash hit videos. "Lean On", for instance, where the singer gyrates to a Bollywood/ house mashup. Or "Kamikaze" set in post-apocalyptic Ukraine. Yet, for all the Zeitgeist-y imagery what really made those songs so popular was really just simple... Read more... |
Smashing Pumpkins, Wembley Arena review - Corgan and company deliver the goodsWednesday, 17 October 2018
A three-hour show? There’s no doubt that The Smashing Pumpkins give good bang for the buck but it’s rare to see a band of this size and stature play for more than two hours in London. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Rockin' in the USA - Hot 100 Hits of the 80sSunday, 14 October 2018
One marker arrived on 1 August 1981, when MTV began broadcasting. With its format based around screening pop videos, American radio had a competitor and would lose the edge it once had. Read more... |
CD: Jess Glynne - Always In BetweenThursday, 11 October 2018
The first release from Jess Glynne’s new album, “I’ll Be There” confirmed the North London singer as the first ever British female artist to have seven no.1 singles in the UK Chart. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kubrick's MusicSunday, 07 October 2018
Stanley Kubrick’s use of music in his films has been inspirational. In 1999, The Caretaker – a nom-de-musique of Jim Kirby – issued Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom. While his alter-ego openly acknowledged the director’s film The Shining, the album’s music reconfigured vintage recordings of bands in tribute to the film’s haunted ballroom scenes. Read more... |
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