New Music Reviews
Regina Spektor, Royal Albert HallTuesday, 03 July 2012
Regina’s Spektor’s kooky New York piano gal shtick sure divides audiences. For every person who finds her a perfect antidote (I refuse to say adorkable) to all that’s mainstream and soulless, there is someone else who wants to punch her on the nose for singing “on the Braa-dio-uh-oh” instead of “on the radio.” Read more...
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Bob Dylan, Hop Farm FestivalMonday, 02 July 2012
Bob Dylan once described himself as ''just a song and dance man''. If the phrase was intended to debunk our veneration of him as the voice of a generation and to imply that he's just an old-fashioned entertainer in the great showbiz tradition, devotees have never believed him and have carried on seeking clues to the meaning of life in his work, campaigning for him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and generally treating his every utterance as if he's the Oracle. Read more... |
Tom Jones, Hammersmith ApolloMonday, 02 July 2012
It seems almost a lifetime since Tom Jones was a man in very tight clothes who did well in the clubs of Las Vegas. After the fallow years, his 1988 cover of Prince’s “Kiss” kick-started a tongue-in-cheek rehabilitation period that lasted a decade, right up to the unforgettable “whoowauh!” of “Sex Bomb”. But what happened next surprised everyone. Jones started to relearn his craft. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Searchers, This Ain't Chicago, The Spinners, Bronski Beat/CommunardsSunday, 01 July 2012
Kieron Tyler Read more... |
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 27 June 2012
It was the right venue. Frankie Valli is New Jersey royalty. He might not have been crowned, but appearing in The Sopranos is as good as any coronation. As he leaned into the audience, shaking hands, he spread his magic. Even Jimmy Page had come along for this rare London show by one of pop’s greatest, most distinctive voices. Read more... |
Sean Paul, Indigo2Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Sean Paul, the accessible face of dancehall, is back. It’s been 10 years since he rose to the big league with his 2002 breakout album Dutty Rock, and he recently released his fifth album Tomahawk Technique. His mix of dancehall rhythms, bhangra beats and old-school reggae with boyband-cheesy lyrics gave him temporary pop pin-up status during the early 2000s. He brought dancehall to an international audience, and ended up having a huge influence on American hip-hop. Read more... |
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Etihad Stadium, ManchesterMonday, 25 June 2012
When Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, the E Street Band’s charismatic saxophone player, died of stroke-related complications this time last year, there were those among us who wondered if we’d ever see the band together again. His on-stage interplay with Bruce Springsteen seemed to have become even more central to the greatest rock'n'roll show on earth since the band reformed proper in 1999... Read more... |
Van Dyke Parks, Britten Sinfonia, BarbicanSunday, 24 June 2012
“America treats its musical titans as disposable, and I’m not disposable.” Coming from anyone else, Van Dykes Parks’ declaration last night might have been self-aggrandising. Parks is 69, but he could have said this during any of the last four decades with no problem. He is a titan, and he is not disposable. Coinciding with the reissue of his first three albums, this concert reached back to 1968 and stopped off at all points from then on. And before too. Read more... |
MBC Korean Culture Festival, Indigo2Sunday, 24 June 2012
The rise of Korean pop (or K-pop, for short) in Europe has been steady; conceivably, all that’s needed for the common or garden music fan to become enraptured is one crossover artist. Countless new acts sprung up following the first wave of K-idols - G.O.D., SES, H.O.T., Shinhwa - and a new one continues to appear almost every week, unveiled after years of training. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Vanguard Records, Tony Blackburn, Lon & Derrek Van EatonSunday, 24 June 2012
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