New music
joe.muggs
The received opinion is that the music of the 2000s has been characterised by fragmentation, discontinuity, faddishness and a lack of coherent identity. And while that perhaps is true on a macro scale, within underground music completely the opposite has been the case: throughout the decade dance and electronic music underwent a process of consolidation, of putting down roots, and sounds new and old have been establishing or re-establishing themselves as fixtures on the cultural landscape.The decade began inauspiciously – the late-1990s explosion of superstar DJs and “superclubs” in a state Read more ...
robert.sandall
The point at which the, ah, Noughties revealed themselves to me as a decade in search of more than just a decent name arrived when Sky News' showbiz gofer phoned up to ask me to come on and blah about this exciting new band that everybody was talking about, Arctic Monkeys. I'd only heard their first single, “Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”; but that was OK with the gofer because what really interested Sky was how the band had achieved their popularity. Allegedly Arctic Monkeys, he said, were the first group who had built a following on the new social networking site MySpace.Never mind Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
The girls have produced the best pop of the Noughties: Kylie’s “Can’t get you out of my Head”, Missy Elliot's “Get Ur Freak On”, Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”, Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”, Duffy’s “Warwick Avenue” and Lady Gaga's "PokerFace" were just way better and more innovative pop music than that produced by the legion of blokey indie types (with a few honourable exceptions, like the Arctic Monkeys). This is without even mentioning M.I.A. whose "Paper Planes" was the sound of a whole new pop sensibility being born and triggered an extraordinary viral copycat video cult on YouTube. Or Bjõrk, who Read more ...
theartsdesk
theartsdesk received a New Year's gift last night when we were given a significant accolade from BBC Radio 5 Live. In Web 2009 with Helen and Olly, the station's podcasters and self-styled "internet obsessives" Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann recognised theartsdesk as one of the five "essential sites of 2009" in a series of awards to the "cream of weblebrity". The shortlist included such big names as Google Streetview and Spotify, the winner.Our category consisted of sites which "this year seemed to become entirely essential" and the presenters (pictured right) praised theartsdesk's " Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
A series celebrating musicians' birthdays. 30 December 1910: Enough of all the seasonal jollity. With any luck, yours was more real than forced. The other side of New Years is, for many of us, a certain existential panic. What happened to the last year? How did we do? How the hell did it go so fast? And, more scarily, though hopefully invigoratingly, how many more do we have left? Paul Bowles, best known as author of The Sheltering Sky, wasn’t a musician exactly, but was a musicologist (the peerless collections of the Moroccan music he recorded are in the Smithsonian). In 45 seconds, he Read more ...
theartsdesk
The morning after the day before has dawned. If you're not inclined to join the shopping queues, theartsdesk is happy to suggest alternatives. Our writers recommend all sorts of cultural things you could get up to in the next week.See Wicked. This smart, feisty show is not just for teenage girls (though heaven knows they’ll thank you for taking them) but will tweak at the imagination and tickle the funny bone of anyone who’s ever contemplated the back-story of The Wizard of Oz. Stephen Schwartz’s zingy score is one of the best to have come out of Broadway in the last decade and you really Read more ...
theartsdesk
As we all have only one shopping day left, theartsdesk hopes to make Christmas Eve a little easier by offering a few enlightened recommendations. From our writers on new and classical music, opera and ballet, film and comedy, here is a list of CDs and DVDs that we hope will enhance your 11th-hour shopping experience. Happy Christmas from all at theartsdesk. DVDsIn the Loop, dir. Armando Iannucci (Optimum)by Jasper ReesThe cinematic spin-off of The Thick of It seems destined to take its place as an enduring moreish classic alongside This Is Spinal Tap. It’s as if the film knows it itself Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It’s been a very good year for Beatlemania, with all the albums re-repackaged and the group going virtual in Rock Band. The BBC lobbed in their own Beatles season-ette, and one of the more striking images from their riot of documentary footage was of John Lennon escorting his Aunt Mimi up the steps onto the plane taking them to America, with her handbag and Sunday-best hat.That surely settles any debate about his real feelings for Mimi. She is depicted in Sam Taylor-Wood's absorbing film about Lennon’s teenage years as a stern exemplar of moral discipline, but driven by honourable motives and Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Tonight, 23 December, is a significant night for culture in Oaxaca, Mexico – it’s the Noche de Rabanos. The Night of the Radishes. Thousands of people descend into the zocalo to witness sculptures carved from extremely large radishes, especially grown for the occasion. It was certainly one of the most memorable Christmas exhibitions I’ve seen.Competition is fierce for the first prize and the spread in the morning paper. The prize was 13,000 pesos or about 700 pounds. Typical scenes sculpted are of the Nativity and other religious themes, but there are others depicting political or Read more ...
paul.bradshaw
As we gathered in St John’s Church in Waterloo last Thursday to hear The London Lucumi Choir perform, on the same day people in their thousands were making the pilgrimage to the Church of San Lazaro in Cuba. In that church, just outside Havana, pilgrims walk or sometime crawl the few miles to the Church, often bearing gifts of rum and cigars as penitence. It is a sign of the times that songs to the orishas – the deities that populate the Yoruba religious pantheon, who all have their own distinctive, trance-inducing rhythms – can also be heard in a Christian church in London. Our presence Read more ...
graeme.thomson
It was a month before Christmas and I was watching venerable folkies the Battlefield Band at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall. Halfway through their set they played “Robber Barons”, a new song about the nefarious medieval practice of German feudal lords charging exorbitant tolls on traffic travelling on the Rhine; as the verses mounted, it moved – seamlessly, like all good folk songs – to expose the habits of the unscrupulous bankers of the early 21st century.The message was clear: times may change, but we are still at the mercy of a different kind of robber baron, lining his own castle with silver Read more ...
glyn.brown
Ray Davies, that old curmudgeon, has said he’s not keen on touring alone since the demise of The Kinks. But he’s sorted that out for the moment by choosing to play alongside 45 new people – the members of the Crouch End Festival Chorus, with whom Davies has decided to reinterpret his hits. You’d think this could be undiluted lift-music hell: the Mike Sammes Singers trample everything you love. But though the album, named The Kinks Choral Collection as if the rest of the band are on it, is occasionally silly, the live result was wildly uplifting.The Chorus didn’t actually appear until the set’ Read more ...