tue 19/03/2024

pop music

Album: Elbow - Audio Vertigo

On this, their 10th album, the melodious Mancunians started at the drum kit and built from there. This is no bad thing. The overall effect is wide-ranging, surprising and altogether more uplifting than either the delicious despairing ...

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Album: Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine

Ariana Grande is the seventh most-followed Instagram account in the world (nearly 400 million). She has worked in promotion and/or “brand ambassador” positions with Reebok, Givenchy, Apple and many others. She is a successful film/TV star (about to...

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Album: Bolis Pupul - Letter to Yu

This album starts on an extremely literal note. The whole record is themed around Belgian born-and-raised Bolis Pupul’s explorations of the Chinese side of his heritage after his mother’s death in 2008, and his regrets at not having done so when she...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Mark Eric - A Midsummer’s Day Dream

In June 1969, The Beach Boys released “Break Away” as a single. A month earlier, they had announced they were leaving Capitol Records, who they had been with since 1962. The split with their long-term label came after the band sued for unpaid...

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Cruel Intentions, The Other Palace review - uneasy vibes, hit tunes and sparkling staging

Transgression was so deliciously enticing. Back in the Eighties when I saw Les Liaisons Dangereuses in the West End on three occasions, life was simpler – or so us straight white men flattered ourselves to believe. Consent was for unproblematic...

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Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for Love

It must be kind of unreal living in the Stereolab universe.A band of geeky introverts, beloved of the type of hairclip-and-satchel indie ultras a friend of mine used to call “the Scooby Gang” for their tendency to resemble Shaggy and Velma, over the...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Lou Christie - Gypsy Bells

Lou Christie fancied offering some social comment. The lyrics of his May 1967 single “Self Expression (The Kids on the Street Will Never Give in)” tackled inter-generational conflict: “Papa I don't see things your way, Like choosin' my own religion...

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Just For One Day, The Old Vic review - clunky scenes and self-conscious exposition between great songs

So, a jukebox musical celebrating the apotheosis of the White Saviour, the ultimate carnival of rock stars’ self-aggrandisement and the Boomers’ biggest bonanza of feelgood posturing? One is tempted to stand opposite The Old Vic, point at the...

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Album: Jennifer Lopez - This is Me... Now

Whitney Houston once sang that “the greatest love of all is happening to me-ee-eee.” In 2024, however, the greatest love of all, at least in terms of sheer, outward-expanding volume, is happening to Jennifer Lopez (and, one must presume, Ben Affleck...

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Album: Chromeo - Adult Contemporary

A decade ago Canadian duo Chromeo had their biggest success with the single “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” and its parent album, White Women. However, it didn’t presage a move into the mainstream.For over 20 years, Chromeo’s wry-sexy, wordy electro-...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Scott Fagan - South Atlantic Blues

The album opens with “In my Head.” The lead instrument is an electric piano, over which a quavering, clenched voice sings. The closest comparison is Pearls Before Swine’s Tom Rapp, a similarly idiosyncratic singer. As the stately song unfolds,...

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Music Reissues Weekly: The Tornados - Love And Fury: The Holloway Road Sessions

In summer 2022, one of the year’s most significant archive releases was issued. The Telstar Story was an eight track 10-inch EP focusing on the aural side of how The Tornados’ 1962 instrumental hit “Telstar” was created by independent producer Joe...

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