thu 06/02/2025

pop music

Music Reissues Weekly: You Got Me Hooked! - More Marylebone Beat Girls

After co-fronting Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer, Elkie Brooks first charted as a solo artist in 1977 with “Pearl’s a Singer.” Yet there was more to her musical past than the 1971 to 1974 spell in the blues-rock outfit. Her contributions to You Got...

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Album: The Weeknd - Hurry Up Tomorrow

The Weeknd is a global megastar, one of the biggest music sensations of the age. Last year, his compilation, The Highlights, was the second best-selling album in the world, and he has 27 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, which is a...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 88: Violent Femmes, Ringo Starr, ARXX, Dexter Gordon, Black Star, Dennis Bovell and more

VINYL OF THE MONTHBuñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)This is a balls-out punk rock’n’roll mess, grunge that’s eaten the hash-cake then swigged a pint of Bourbon at high speed. Buñuel is Eugene S Robinson of San Francisco noiseniks Oxbow,...

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Album: Gary Kemp - This Destination

If I’d listened to this blind, I would have absolutely no idea who it was by. This isn’t the voice I remember on those Spandau backing tracks. In fact, it’s a sound straight from mid-80s soft rock. If that makes you feel queasy, step away now....

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Music Reissues Weekly: The Twilights - Twilights Time The Complete 60s Recordings

On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after boarding they learned their sixth single, “Needle in a Haystack,” was an Australian number one. There was...

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Music Reissues Weekly: American Baroque - Chamber Pop and Beyond 1967-1971

The descending refrain opening the song isn’t unusual but attention is instantly attracted as it’s played on a harpsichord. Equally instantly, an elegiac atmosphere is set. The voice, coming in just-short of the 10-second mark, is similarly yearning...

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Albums of the Year 2024: The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstasy

Does absolutely everything have to get more difficult with each passing year? Apparently so. The amount of time I’ve spent deciding which of the many truly excellent albums I’ve reviewed this year should get the ‘top prize’ has, frankly, been...

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Best of 2024: Music Reissues Weekly

A reissue can be an aide-mémoire, a reminder that a record which has been off the radar for a while needs revisiting, that it deserves fresh attention.In that spirit, this column has looked at straight vinyl reissues of albums of varying styles,...

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Travis, OVO Hydro review - a Christmas night out with some regrets

Travis arrived onstage with the theme tune from classic sitcom Cheers as an accompaniment. The cavernous OVO Hydro might not be a place where everyone knows your name, but a Glasgow homecoming by local lads made good certainly tapped into a festive...

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Albums of the Year 2024: Amelia Coburn - Between the Moon and the Milkman

I’ve known for some time that Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom’s Never Work is my Album of the Year. This lividly witty, no-filler take-down of workplace servitude arrived on vinyl in May. The creation of two Canadian indie-folkies (from The...

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Vampire Weekend, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a mixture of brilliance and self-indulgence

When Vampire Weekend arrived onstage they numbered only three and were bunched together at the front with a large curtain draped behind them, obscuring their backdrop. By the time this marathon set ended two and a half hours later, they’d more than...

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Music Reissues Weekly: John Leyton - Lone Rider The Holloway Road Sessions 1960-1962

For John Leyton, it was third time lucky as far as his singles were concerned. The actor’s manager Robert Stigwood teamed him with producer Joe Meek, but Leyton's first two 45s – August 1960’s “Tell Laura I Love Her” and October 1960's “The Girl on...

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