pop music
Adam Sweeting
If you’re old enough to remember LPs and the lost art of reading sleeve notes (let alone writing them), this one’s for you. The titular session man is the fabled keyboard player Nicky Hopkins, whose teeming creativity and dancing digits left their indelible mark across an extraordinary swathe of records from the golden age of rock’n’roll.Among Hopkins’ most recognisable feats are his Jerry Lee Lewis-style romp through the Beatles’ "Revolution", contributions to several tracks on John Lennon’s Imagine including "Jealous Guy", rollicking ivory-tickling on George Harrison’s "Give Me Love", his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Mrs Bluebird” is one of the great singles. Released in May 1968, it is airy yet lush. The filigreed harmony vocals are like velvet, the rhythm is insistent but soft. Overall, there is a sense of distance; that what’s heard is not quite within reach. When a guitar solo comes, it is sharp but muted. This is archetypal American harmony pop – but with a distinct freeze-dried character.It was the top side of the third single by Eternity’s Children, and made 69 in Billboard’s singles chart. It got to 54 in the Cash Box ranking. A UK release of “Mrs Bluebird” suggested there was chance this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Leisure Process issued four singles between March 1982 and May 1983. Signed to Epic Records, the electropop-inclined duo was primed for success. Debut 45 “Love Cascade” was Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell’s record of the week. At the other end of the coolness spectrum, John Peel also played the single. A Leisure Process Peel session was recorded on 10 March 1982.Another factor feeding into the perception Leisure Process was ready for take off was the identity of their producer: Martin Rushent. He was integral to shaping British pop of the period. His work with Altered Images, The Human League and Read more ...
joe.muggs
It’s really interesting to see how Amy Winehouse’s legacy continues to reverberate – and not just through endlessly repeated iconography or the tragedy-for-sale machine that’s built around her but musically too. Even rapper Little Simz namechecks and musically nods to her, and her unique update of Billie Holiday’s tone has been passed on to one degree or another to singers like Lola Young, Yazmin Lacey – and especially Celeste.Not that Celeste is a copy of anyone by any means: her voice is very much her own with its own strengths and mannerisms, and her gothic cabaret-tinged style and Read more ...
Katie Colombus
After cancelling his Birmingham gig an hour before curtain-up due to illness, the anticipatory hype around whether Benson Boone’s London show at The O2 would actually go ahead was almost as electric as his infamous song. But a reassuring ping from the ’gram confirmed: it’s on. And indeed, it was.Two hours of rip-snorting kitsch-pop later, and any trace of illness or fatigue was well hidden. Somehow, Boone summoned the energy to bring full Bennie-style spectacle to a sold out arena in a show equal parts confetti-drenched musical dream and emo-tinged, power-grabbing balladry, delivered by a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Three of last year’s finest singles were by Luvcat, a classy-but-naughty Eartha Kitt-style bad girl steeped in burlesque-rock’n’roll spirit. In fact, she’s the wanton basque’n’fishnets persona that, during a decadent sojourn in Paris, possessed the soul of Liverpudlian singer Sophie Morgan.The question is, can she engagingly maintain this wordy, filmic conceit for a whole album? The answer is… yes.First, those singles, all golden and placed in sequence early on this 13-track set. Her debut, “Matador”, is a mariachi nightworld chanson of lust and vengeful rage; “He’s My Man” is a sinister Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Even in our garish online age, most celebrities and pop stars sensibly obfuscate the details of their private lives.Not so much Lily Allen. She seems to work through her issues by laying it all out there. No tabloid can pull a scoop if you’ve Tweeted everything already (as she did when announcing she’d hired female prostitutes on her Sheezus tour to spike Daily Mail revelations). Her 2018 memoir, My Thoughts Exactly, was eye-wateringly candid. It’s not just the juice she shares, but the way it makes her feel, why she reckons she behaves as she does. Our attention is drawn, but engaging can Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A curious mind, indeed. Outer space, and what may be there. Communicating with those in the hereafter. Spooks, vampires and other horror film perennials. The wild west. Deceased rock ’n’ rollers Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.Joe Meek’s preoccupations weren’t hidden. The records he produced and the songs he wrote reflected them. Much of his output was a form of musical autoportrait: auditory reportage expressing personal fixations. When he was at his commercial and creative peak in the early to mid Sixties, anyone could latch onto Meek’s obsessions via, say, a hit single like John Leyton’s “ Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Demi Lovato is impressive on many fronts. She’s a Noughties Disney tween star who’s become an outspoken activist in an America where it’s increasingly dangerous to be one. She’s lived a rollercoaster ride of a life, rampantly exploring sexuality, drink and drugs amid chaos, abuse and serious mental health calamities, and she’s overcome the worst of it.Alongside all that, unlike most of her Disney child star peers, she’s maintained a successful career, both as a film and TV actor, and as a singer who, for well over a decade-and-a-half, has consistently taken her albums Top 10 in the UK and US Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Lemonheads were one of the original punk-pop outfits and have been an on-off going concern for 40 years. However, singer, guitarist, bandleader and loveable slacker, Evan Dando’s well-documented relationship with Class A drugs also made them the kings of underachievement – even if there is plenty of gold to be found among their recordings that did see the light of day.In fact, it’s been almost 20 years since the band put out their last set of original songs, the excellent Lemonheads, even if there have been a couple of unmemorable discs of cover versions since then. However, it seems that Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Over 1965 to 1968 Brooklyn's Evie Sands issued a string of singles with classic top sides. Amongst them were “Take Me For a Little While,” “I Can't Let Go,” “Picture me Gone” and “Angel of the Morning.” For reasons which are tackled in the essay coming with I Can’t Let Go – the first-ever collection of Sands’ seven-inch A- and B-sides – all either charted low, or not at all.This is extraordinary and, from the perspective of 60-ish years later, inexplicable. These were fabulous soul-inclined pop records, and fabulous songs – as recognised by the extensive assortment of other, subsequent Read more ...
joe.muggs
A key part of Chrissie Hynde’s brilliance and longevity has always been her ability to keep multiple musical personas going at once. She’s the grizzled but urbane street poet in the Bob Dylan / Lou Reed mould. She’s the pop craftswoman, always in search of that three minutes of perfect sweetness, even through the punk years. And then there’s the one that creates the real alchemy, that elevates the other characters, and makes something greater than the sum of the parts: there’s Chrissie Hynde the unabashed romantic. That’s been expressed, of course, in her own songs like “I’ll Stand by Read more ...