pop music
joe.muggs
Katy Perry occupies an odd position. By some measure the biggest pop star in the world over the last decade, with streams in the billions, she’s always been an awkward mix of old-school razzle-dazzle showbiz hucksterism, knowing sass and awkward vulnerability.And while she often appears likeable and self-aware, there’s a piercing desperation – lyrically and sonically – to so much of her work that clearly assists it in cutting through the noise and babble of information overload culture, but all too often makes it not actually that pleasant to listen to. Her songs tend to embody the sad cycle Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A skim though the track listing confirms that this is no typical soul compilation. Actress and some-time pop singer Connie Stevens crops up. So does Johnny Mathis. Such seeming quirks are fitting as Thom Bell was never a typical arranger, producer or songwriter. There’s much more to the story than the timeless O’Jays and Stylistics hits he created for Gamble and Huff’s label Philadelphia International Records.Ready Or Not – Thom Bell's Philly Soul Arrangements & Productions 1965–1978 collects 23 tracks which Bell arranged, produced or wrote, or any combination first two and the last. The Read more ...
joe.muggs
Some of the greatest acts of all time are the ones which find a sound and never need to alter it. Motörhead, Dinosaur Jr, Status Quo... and in the electronic world, Switzerland’s finest, Yello. It’s over 40 years since they first set millionaire playboy and conceptual artist Dieter Meier’s maniacal cackle to music, and 36 since he and former truck driver Boris Blank settled into their status as a duo, codifying their formula of Meier’s dada scatting over zippy electropop with their first hit “Bostich”. Their louche and high tech style would become a foundational influence on global club music Read more ...
joe.muggs
There’ve been plenty of global breakout successes from Nigeria in the past decade; D’banj, Davido, Wizkid and more – but by far the most recognisable to the international audience is Damini Ogulu aka Burna Boy. And doesn’t he know it. His last album was called African Giant, and this one – his sixth – plays on that, depicting him on the cover in cartoon form as a titan, striding over modern roads and ancient monuments. Everything about it radiates confidence before you’ve even hit play – and that includes the tracklist, which very notably doesn’t include any US megastars, unlike most of his Read more ...
joe.muggs
Music awards shows are a strange beast: part window display, part industry conference and part party. Especially if you don’t have Brit Awards or Mercury Prize budget to create a whizz-bang spectacle, the ceremonies can be an interminable pileup of attempts to earnestly celebrate both musicians and behind-the-scenes figures, in front of a room full of increasingly drunk and impatient people.The pandemic, though, requires something different. With the announcements and performances on a live video stream, and extra interviews and video clips on an app, the Association of Independent Music had Read more ...
joe.muggs
This documentary is bittersweet viewing on quite a number of levels. First, it’s got all the glory and tragedy of the most compelling music stories: a Liverpool band struggling from humble beginnings, trying to find an identity, fraternity and fallings-out, coping with huge success and its aftermath – not to mention sex, drugs, mental illness and death. On top of that there’s a constant layer of narrative about the endless pressures of racism on black British musicians, told brilliantly both explicitly and in the micro-details of 1960s and '70s life.Maybe most devastating thing of all, though Read more ...
Barney Harsent
After 2016’s A Shot in the Light, DJ, producer and Disco Halal labelrunner Chen Moscovici has leaned full-tilt into synth-pop and, with Time Slips Away, has created a collection that’s both carefully placed and cleverly paced. Alternating between solo tracks and collaborative songs, the album is stuffed full of vocal hooks and earworm moments that have long been hinted at in the producer’s past work but never been this fully realised.That’s not to say that fans of Moscoman’s more four-to-the-floor outings need to look elsewhere for their fix, there’s plenty here that fits the bill. Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s been a hell of a four years for Glass Animals since their last album How to Be a Human Being, from a well-deserved Mercury nomination to drummer Joe Seaward requiring neurosurgery after a near-fatal bicycle accident. But while Human Being was leap forward in writing and production, new release Dreamland is a more subtle development. This is music designed to float on a sunlit pool to, though given lockdown restrictions, you may need to get creative with an air bed and your home lighting.It’s an album that takes its title to heart, building hazy soundscapes punctuated with drum machines Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It was Alison Ellwood who directed 2013’s History of the Eagles, and now she’s at the helm of this new two-parter on Sky Documentaries, telling the story of the Los Angeles music scene from the mid-Sixties to the early Seventies. The musicians’ community in the streets and meandering side roads off Laurel Canyon Boulevard was a hive of artistic activity encompassing among others The Byrds, The Monkees and The Turtles, Love and The Doors, Crosby Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, the Mamas & the Papas, Jackson Browne and the Eagles. Frank Zappa lived here too, and even the Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
When she announced her “surprise” 8th album on social media this week, Taylor Swift described its subject matter as a combination of “fantasy, history and memory” told with “love, wonder and whimsy”. For the listener, this hits home around track three. “The Last Great American Dynasty” tells the story of Rebekah, a “middle-class divorcée” who marries a heir to the Standard Oil fortune and spends her widowhood - and inheritance - on boys, ballet and annoying the neighbours of her Rhode Island mansion. And then? “It was bought by me,” sings Swift, turning the song’s misogynist refrain of “who Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Everyone keeps upping their game with what and how they’re presenting music in these unwelcome times, and this week sees a red hot selection on offer. Below is a cross section of the best that’s out there to see, hear and get involved withTomorrowland Around the WorldAs the weeks pass, new standards are being set for the presentation of music online. Nowhere more so than with epic European EDM festival Tomorrowland. Working with experts in 3D design, video production, gaming and special effects, they will be presenting eight stages, each one with a landscape equivalent to around 10 square Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I have had an obsessive-loop Dixie Chicks tune for every eventuality of my life so far – “Ready To Run” for a big break up; “Wide Open Spaces” for road tripping; “Cowboy Take Me Away” for whimsical love affairs; “Not Ready To Make Nice” for general rage and “Travelin’ Soldier” for a good old cry.With the release of their 8th album, some 14 years after the last, I am wondering if there is a fitting sound for unkempt-hairy-make-up-lacking-global-pandemic-PJ-wearing-lockdown-lacklustre. And I’m delighted to say, that of course there is. Not only have the 13 time Grammy winning group produced an Read more ...