progressive rock
Album: Gary Kemp - InsoloWednesday, 14 July 2021
Spandau Ballet started well, their slick, slightly angular pop-funk adding a certain something to early Eighties new romantic frippery. Later, especially with the success of global schmaltz-smash “True”, they lost what teeth they had, drifting into... Read more... |
An Oral History of Glastonbury Festival 1992Thursday, 24 June 2021
There is never one Glastonbury Festival. There are as many Glastonbury Festivals as there are people who attend. Thus it ever was, even back in 1992 when the capacity was only 70,000 (plus multitudinous fence-jumpers!). What follows, then, is a... Read more... |
Album: The Grid & Robert Fripp - LeviathanThursday, 24 June 2021
With his band King Crimson laid up, the only chance to check out Robert Fripp's guitar prowess lately has been in the Robert & Toyah's Sunday Lunch videos that husband and wife post on YouTube. Their popular weekly assaults on classic rock hits... Read more... |
1971, Apple TV+ review - rock'n'roll's golden year?Sunday, 23 May 2021
Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the... Read more... |
Music books to end lockdown: Sam Lee, Hawkwind, Dylan, Richard Thompson, and the Electric MusesFriday, 14 May 2021
It won’t be long now before concert halls and back rooms, arts centres and festival grounds fill with people again, and live music, undistanced, unmasked, and in your face, comes back to us. In expectation of this gradual reopening of the stage... Read more... |
Disc of the Day 10th Anniversary: the level playing fieldFriday, 19 February 2021
Theartsdesk is a labour of love. Bloody-mindedly run as a co-operative of journalists from the beginning, our obsession with maintaining a daily-updated platform for good culture writing has caused a good few grey and lost hairs over the years. But... Read more... |
Disc of the Day Celebrates 10 Years of Album ReviewsMonday, 15 February 2021
Ten years ago yesterday, on Monday 14th February 2011, one of theartsdesk’s writers, Joe Muggs, reviewed an album called Paranormale Aktivitat, by an outfit called Zwischenwelt. It was the first ever Disc of the Day, a new slot inserted into... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 61: Amy Winehouse, Krust, Motörhead, Extrawelt, Sade, Chase and Status and moreTuesday, 01 December 2020
Welcome to the penultimate 2020 edition of the world’s vastest, most musically wide-ranging, regularly posted, online vinyl reviews. This year vinyl boomed, especially in the wake of COVID-19, with gig-goers stuck at home but wanting new music. 2020... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Record label New Heavy SoundsFriday, 07 August 2020
New Heavy Sounds is one of Britain’s most exciting and undersung labels. Founded in 2011, they have consistently released music that boasts innovation, imagination and a strong female presence. The added sweetener is that this comes attached to... Read more... |
New Music Lockdown 6: David Gilmour, Taylor Swift, Prince, Bat For Lashes and BlossomsWednesday, 13 May 2020
As the music industry slips into the rhythm of lockdown, so the spigot slowly becomes untapped and events, livestreams and similar start to flow more steadily. This week a host of big names are up to a bunch of different stuff, all worth checking.... Read more... |
Album: Nightwish - Human II: NatureMonday, 13 April 2020
When it comes to new releases by Scandi rockers Nightwish, it’s not unusual to hear the well-worn phrase “I like their early stuff…” – usually referring to the mythical times when the band were with their first singer Tarja Turunen. Indeed,... Read more... |
Rick Wakeman’s Grumpy Old Christmas Show, Cadogan Hall review – solo piano and Yuletide nostalgiaSaturday, 07 December 2019
The cape, the banked-up synths and the glam have gone. Rick Wakeman’s Grumpy Old Christmas Show consists of just the man, his piano and his stories and jokes, mostly about Christmas and family. The music is partly from his new solo piano album... Read more... |
