pop music
Thomas H. Green
Swedish singer Tove Lo appeared at a time when female physical sexuality was being used as a raw, blunt weapon in pop, when porno chic reached an apex in music videos. Half a decade ago was the time of Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”, thus Lo’s overt displays of sexual bravado seemed part of the same and she had big hits with songs such as “Habits (Stay High)” and “Talking Body”. Her output since, however, has proved her sensual agenda to be more than a passing foible.The bisexual Lo has pushed for a more emancipated Scandinavian attitude to sex. Her last Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It’s now Edinburgh Fringe transfer season in London, but here’s one they made earlier: Cora Bissett’s Fringe First-winning autobiographical play from the 2018 Festival about her time in 1990s indie band Darlingheart. Though the broad shape of this tale is familiar, Bissett’s gig-theatre approach lends it a raw authenticity and engaging confessional quality.Bissett (pictured below) was still at school when she replied to an advert in the local Fife paper and became the lead singer of Darlingheart. She was driven less by musical ambition – though Patti Smith was already a favourite – more Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Charli XCX would make a cracking mixtape. I mean that not in the hip hop culture sense - although she’s knocked out a few of those in the five years since the release of Sucker, her last album proper - but like the mixtapes you used to make for your friends and crushes. There’s every chance that the 27-year-old Charli has never made a physical mixtape, but no matter: Charli, with its mixture of styles and guest features from across the worlds of rap, pop and hip hop, is her gift to you. And if you don’t love every track on it, that’s kind of the point: who universally adores their pals’ music Read more ...
Owen Richards
According to Metronomy maestro Joseph Mount, his first attempt of album number six was a much snappier affair. But it wasn’t until he broke from his self-imposed immediacy that it started connecting with him. In its final form, Metronomy Forever clocks in at 17 tracks of singles, instrumentals and soundscapes, and though it skirts close to double-album indulgence, you’re never more than one song away from a winner.The title Metronomy Forever refers to the never-ending nature of radio, and this airwave-skipping mindset has given Mount a toy box of genres and forms to play with. The preceding Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Original UK pressings of Slade’s Seventies mega-hit singles like “Coz I Luv You”, “Everyday”, “Gudbuy T’Jane” and “Mama Weer all Crazee Now” sell for between £1 and £5 if they’re in decent shape. If a copy is needed to listen to, there’s little need to fork out more than £2. On seven-inch, the real Slade rarities are their pre-hit singles and what they issued earlier as Ambrose Slade and The 'N Betweens.Slade, though, weren’t all about the UK. They were, for example, popular in the Netherlands where “Coz I Luv You”, “Everyday”, “Gudbuy T’Jane”, “Merry X-mas Everybody” and “Take me Bak ’Ome” Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's no knowing what to expect from Natasha Khan. Her most recent output has been furiously intense Thai and Persian psyche rock covers (as SEXWITCH in 2015) followed by torch songs full of shadow and eeriness (Bat For Lashes' 2016 The Bride). It rather felt from these two releases that she was happy cosmically dreaming on the margins – certainly in contrast to the strange pop promise of her early work, which prefigured the likes of Grimes and Lana Del Rey in many ways, and suggested someone with an eye on grandiose visions materially as well as mystically. But it turns out she Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Parisian outfit Caravan Palace have now had a career that’s lasted over a decade. They’ve not busted the British charts open (although they have had hit albums in France), but they’ve long been festival favourites with multi-millions of YouTube plays, and their UK profile has never been higher. Their new album dials back the manic dancefloor energy they sometimes emanate, yet succeeds as a wittily constructed, summery, electronic dance-pop concoction.Caravan Palace have long been associated with the dance music sub-genre electro-swing (a mash-up of swing jazz and club beats), an easily Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Apparently, Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford’s snare drum broke during the first song of their set at Woodstock Festival. On the new double album Live at Woodstock, it’s impossible to detect this happening. As “Born on the Bayou” progresses, the band’s forward motion is relentless and their dedication to the groove is undiminished during this and the remainder of a blistering, paint-peeling set. This percussion hiccup and an allied perception that it was a sub-standard show prevented the band’s leader John Fogerty from allowing CCR to be included in the subsequent live album Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
If there's a central motif to the sprawling, 18-track opus that is Taylor Swift’s seventh release - and it’s an album that references both Drake and Springsteen, so it's hard to pin down - it first emerges in track three, the title track. Stripped of pop theatrics, “Lover” trades in what Swift does best: hyper-specific details made universal enough for every first dance, delivered with enough earnestness to rehabilitate a word pulled straight from the headlines of a tabloid magazine. And then, the bridge, delivered with the cadence of a wedding toast: “swear to be overdramatic and true”.While Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The timing seemed odd. Sigrid is internationally successful. She’s Norway’s highest-profile musical ambassador since a-ha. Yet instead of headlining at 2019’s Øya Festival, she hits the stage at 6.45. Has she been demoted in favour of Tame Impala, who are given the final slot at 9.30?Then, as the crowd begins gathering in the natural amphitheatre before the Amfiet stage in the Tøyen park in Norway’s capital, it becomes clear. The timing recognises that some of her younger fans might not usually be up at 10 or later. Sigrid’s fan base is multi-generational, with her youngest admirers around Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The core paradox with powerpop is that most of those who sought to create the perfect guitar driven, hook-laden pop song failed to score hits. Come On Let's Go! – Power Pop Gems From the 70s & 80s is stuffed with the classy and memorable, but under a third of its 24 participants had any sort of chart profile. And, for 20/20 and Wire Train, it was fleeting and ultimately inconspicuous.Focussing on America, Come On Let's Go! covers the period 1972 to 1987 with one outlier from 1995 (The Rooks’ archly titled “Glitter Best”). The earliest track is The Raspberries’ hit “I Wanna be With You”. Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The perfect primer to The Regrettes comes towards the end of the colourful video for “I Dare You”, the bubblegum update to “Last Nite” by The Strokes that is the lead single from their second album. Teenage frontwoman Lydia Night delivers the title lyric for the first time in the song with a cheeky wink to the camera, but it’s so subtle - and her face is but one of four, off-centre on screen - that you’ll convince yourself you dreamt it. Besides, you’re but two beats away from the drums coming in again, kicking off another fizzy chorus about the all-consuming madness of first love.Now you, an Read more ...