pop
The Best Albums of 2017Tuesday, 14 November 2017
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.SIMPLY THE BEST: THEARTSDESK'S FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF 2017Alan Broadbent:... Read more... |
CD: Oli Rockberger - SovereignSunday, 05 November 2017
This fourth studio album from pianist, vocalist, songwriter and producer Oli Rockberger highlights his remarkable knack of marrying instantly memorable chorus hooks with captivating harmonies steeped in jazz, soul, gospel and R&B.Consisting of... Read more... |
CD: Niall Horan - FlickerSaturday, 21 October 2017
I have a confession to make. The first time I heard "This Town" – the debut release for Niall Horan's new album – I thought it was Ed Sheeran.Which gives an indication of the general level of acceptability of Niall’s first solo foray outside of 1D... Read more... |
Nick Mulvey, De La Warr Pavilion review - a band chasing the ecstaticFriday, 20 October 2017
British singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey’s new album, Wake Up Now, is one of the year’s finest. However, there’s a moment on the single “Myela”, a heartfelt Afro-Latin stomper protesting the plight of refugees, which can grate. The song suddenly stops... Read more... |
George Michael: Freedom, Channel 4 review - just a supersized commercial?Tuesday, 17 October 2017
You might expect a posthumous 90-minute documentary – and that’s before you insert the ad breaks – about one of the biggest stars in British pop music over the last 30 years to shed some light on how said artist became so huge, but also how his... Read more... |
CD: Beck - ColorsWednesday, 11 October 2017
Colors, the follow-up to Beck's meditative masterpiece Morning Phase, couldn't come as more of a contrast. It's a glossy, high-energy LP designed to make you dance, not think. The inspiration came partly from Pharrell Williams's mega-hit "Happy".... Read more... |
CD: Miley Cyrus - Younger NowSaturday, 30 September 2017
When Miley Cyrus released the deliriously patchy Bangerz in 2013 she was as over-exposed as any pop star has ever been, as I subtly pointed out at the time. Far less so now. Her only album in the interim has been a slightly tedious, flung-out drug... Read more... |
Sparks, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire review - age does not wither themFriday, 29 September 2017
It’s more than 40 years since Sparks appeared on Top of the Pops with “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us”, one of a handful of hits from the brothers Mael, Ron and Russell, who grew up in 1950s and ‘60s LA detesting the “cerebral and sedate... Read more... |
Neil Sedaka, Royal Albert Hall review - sparkly veteran defies the decadesWednesday, 20 September 2017
As pretty much everything but a plague of locusts is visited upon this grim old world, an evening in the company of Neil Sedaka is the greatest of pick-me-ups. At the Royal Albert Hall on Monday, as his UK tour drew to a close, the capacity audience... Read more... |
CD: Marc Almond - Shadows and ReflectionsSunday, 17 September 2017
In the UK, the best-known version of “Shadows and Reflections” is by mod band The Action, who issued it as a single in June 1967. At that point, the north London outfit had merged their predisposition towards soul with a taste for American harmony... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Susanne SundførFriday, 25 August 2017
Nine hours after meeting up in a Shoreditch courtyard to discuss her new album Music for People in Trouble, Norway’s Susanne Sundfør is on stage elsewhere in the district at a theatre called The Courtyard. It’s a sell-out and the room she’s playing... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: BlancmangeSunday, 20 August 2017
The Some Bizzare Album was released in January 1981. Compiled by DJ Stevo, it featured twelve unsigned acts he felt represented a fresh way of approaching pop – one enabled by the availability of synthesisers and rhythm machines. Stevo was playing... Read more... |
