New music
CD: Rod Stewart - Merry Christmas BabySunday, 16 December 2012
The best Christmas songs are a bit like the best decorations: more glittery than tasteful. Merry Christmas Baby's tracks may have a jazzy sheen but deep down they fit that bill. Its cover photo – Rod dressed in a white pimp-suit in front of a snowy... Read more... |
CD: Cee Lo Green - Cee Lo's Magic MomentSaturday, 15 December 2012
“I think the Muppets hit a new low.” “Yeah, and his first name’s Cee!” In the hierarchy of Statler and Waldorf’s cutting put-downs it’s more of a turkey than a Christmas cracker, but Cee Lo’s Magic Moment was never supposed to be subtle. The album’s... Read more... |
Beth Orton, Oran Mor, GlasgowFriday, 14 December 2012
With a hollered “hello Glasgow” and immediate launch into “Magpie”, the emotionally ragged song that opens this year’s Sugaring Season, it was as if Beth Orton had never been away. On this last date of her UK tour, the night before her 42nd birthday... Read more... |
Viva Forever!, Piccadilly TheatreThursday, 13 December 2012
Viva Forever! isn’t the clunker it’s been labelled. It’s also not the thin gruel of the standard West End jukebox musical. The real problem is that it can never be Mamma Mia!, the globe-conquering, ABBA-derived franchise previously devised by its... Read more... |
Remembering Ravi Shankar, 1920-2012Thursday, 13 December 2012
While living in Bombay in the late 1940s, betrayed by a business partner and his first marriage in the midst of painful implosion, Ravi Shankar decided to commit suicide. At the eleventh hour, a holy man, who happened to be passing by, knocked on... Read more... |
CD: John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - This ChristmasThursday, 13 December 2012
It would be a fool who came to any Christmas album sternly expecting radicalism and the pushing of sonic frontiers, and an even bigger fool if they expected the same from one by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Christmas albums revel, for the... Read more... |
Lou Doillon, Trans MusicalesWednesday, 12 December 2012
It was predestined that Lou Doillon would shadow her half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg and their mother Jane Birkin by going into music. More surprising is that her full-length calling card, debut album Places, is entirely written by her. The female... Read more... |
CD: Cerys Matthews - Baby, It's Cold OutsideWednesday, 12 December 2012
An album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention. Cerys Matthews has already proved that she has a gift for repackaging the familiar in her enchanting Tir, which anthologises much loved Welsh folk songs and... Read more... |
Status Quo, Brighton CentreTuesday, 11 December 2012
It is quite a sight to see your children doing the heads down Quo boogie but, by the time the band reach “Whatever You Want”, that is exactly where my daughters, aged 14 and nine, are at. The rest of the Brighton Centre, not sold out but respectably... Read more... |
CD: Tracey Thorn – Tinsel and LightsMonday, 10 December 2012
It’s got to be difficult making a Christmas album. Not only are there all the preceding offerings which must weigh heavily, there’s the practical issue that it has to be completed way before any seasonal release date. For those choosing to make one... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Matthew Herbert, Julia Holter, Miles Davis, Monotreme RecordsSunday, 09 December 2012
Herbert: Bodily Functions (Special Edition)Thomas H GreenMatthew Herbert is an electronic polymath whose career is fascinating whether you’re a fan of his music or not. Currently he’s working hard resurrecting the BBC’s iconic music and sound... Read more... |
CD: Nils Frahm - ScrewsSunday, 09 December 2012
Although he has been recording since 2005, it was his 2011 album, Felt, which set Nils Frahm apart from the ever-swelling tide of modern classical minimalists. It was so intimate, so subtle, it felt almost like it shouldn’t be shared. The follow up... Read more... |
