pop music
Thomas H. Green
So theartsdesk on Vinyl reaches its 50th edition. That’s at least a novels’ worth of words. Maybe two! But we’re not stopping yet. The heat of the summer has arrived but the vinyl deluge hasn’t dried up, so check in for everything from Germanic electro to Scottish Seventies pop-rock to Japanese minyo music reimagined. And much more. All vinyl life is here. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHQuantic Atlantic Oscillations (Tru Thoughts)Will Holland – Quantic – has spent the past few years successfully indulging in his penchant for South American, living there and recording a multiplicity of releases Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Eight albums in, you can imagine why a singer-songwriter in the confessional vein of Ingrid Michaelson might be ready to look elsewhere for inspiration - and inspiration for new album Stranger Songs came from a curious place. Each of the album’s 11 tracks (Eleven, get it?) was inspired by Netflix’s Eighties-set sci-fi/horror smash Stranger Things - but don’t expect too radical a departure, because Stranger Songs gets its kicks from the series’ more universal themes of first love, friendship and teenage alienation rather than mysterious laboratories, monsters or The Upside Down.Opening track “ Read more ...
Chloe Allen
“I want to be just like P!nk,” a little girl screams as the lights begin to dim and the introductory music grows louder. It’s no wonder this leg of the Beautiful Trauma World Tour sold out in under 15 minutes. The whole stadium is packed full of adoring fans, in a sea of varying shades of pink, visiting from all over the UK and some further afield. A man takes to the stage offering an out-of-tune version of the 20th Century Fox intro sequence, gesturing towards a popular viral video shown onscreen.The pink satin curtain at the stagefront falls, the lights go up. P!nk is already onstage Read more ...
joe.muggs
Nineteen years, seven albums and untold side projects into their career, Hot Chip have for the first time enlisted outside producers: Rodaidh McDonald and French disco/house don Philippe Zdar. And it's worked. Over the course of the previous albums, the band had steadily evolved from ramshackle and rather self-consciously quirky writers and players to a far slicker operation. Notably this was informed by Alexis Taylor's broadening as a songwriter through various experiments and collaborations, and Joe Goddard's deep immersion in bittersweet deep house music, both solo and in 2 Bears – but the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 was issued by Warner Bros. in October 2003. Hitting shops in time for Christmas, it mixed hits like “Everybody Hurts”, “Man on the Moon” and “Orange Crush” with album and soundtrack cuts, and a couple of previously unissued tracks. Released as an 18-track CD, it was initially issued as double-disc set with the additional material drawn from B-sides, more film soundtracks and live performances. There was also a Europe-only double-album version featuring the core 18 tracks.That vinyl version has sold for between £40 and £220. At the time of writing, copies Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
They showed up with a 30+ song setlist, four costume changes and a floating platform, but the strongest moment of the Backstreet Boys’ tour was when they dispensed with all of that for an a cappella version of “Breathe”, from new album DNA.“Like we used to do it,” Howie Dorough explained. “Not a lot of people know we started out as an a cappella group.”More than a quarter of a century after their formation in Orlando, Florida, the Backstreet Boys’ live show draws more from their recent two-year Las Vegas residency than doo-wop or harmonies. Unlike contemporaries such as Take That who, a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Madonna is the queen of reinvention and Madame X, her 14th studio album, marks another new brilliant, bonkers chapter in her 37-year career. The 13-track CD (15 on the deluxe version) was inspired by a recent spell living in Lisbon, where she clearly imbibed the Portuguese diaspora's music. Madame X is stuffed with influences, with African drumbeats and Latin grooves to New York club sounds and big ballads, taking in a bit of Cape Verde batuque and Puerto Rican reggaeton too.It's a mixed bag: there are some bangers including “Come Alive”, which is made for live performance and will fill the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although Marty Wilde will forever be inextricably linked with the late 1950s British rock ‘n’ roll wave he rode, his career did not peter out as musical styles transformed. While he didn’t have the high-profile mutability of Cliff Richard or claim a niche like the moody Billy Fury, he was enviably chameleonic. Wilde adroitly embraced folk-rock, wrote late-Sixties hits for The Casuals and The Status Quo – “Jesamine” and “Ice in the Sun” are his – and even tackled glam rock in the Seventies with his Zappo alter-ego. With his son Ricky, he co-wrote daughter Kim’s 1981 hit “Kids in America”.The Read more ...
joe.muggs
Sadness abounds in Avicii's posthumous third album. In context, even the plaintive single syllable of the title is full of pathos. It reminds of the real person, the Swede Tim Bergling who as a teenager discovered he had an unerring ability to hit the commercial sweet spot with his dance productions, and rocketed to global giga-fame. There, in the heart of the seething spectacle of pyrotechnics, screaming crowds, private jets and oafish “EDM” culture was sad, lost Tim: socially awkward, unsure of his own abilities, worked relentlessly by a voracious industry and eventually drinking himself to Read more ...
peter.quinn
On one level it’s a paean to stylistic pluralism, on another it’s a love letter to his wife. First and foremost, though, Taller sees Jamie Cullum staking out new ground as a singer-songwriter, adeptly aided by his long-time collaborator and friend – the conductor, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Troy Miller.Propelled by a tight horn chart, strings, Miller’s crisp backbeat, plus a backing chorus that includes the stellar vocal talents of Brendan Reilly, LaDonna Harley Peters, Sharlene Hector, Sumudu Jayatilka, Xan Blacq and more, the title track’s compelling drop-out point at the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Jeanette’s “Porque Te Vas” is a prime example of a type of Europop which – beyond a brief flirtation around 1968 to 1971: think Clodagh Rogers – Britain had little time for. It’s not quite schlager, but still has the tell-tale martial rhythm. The singing voice conforms with the breathy stereotype still favoured in France. Like the best bubblegum pop, the melody and brass-studded arrangement are instantly hooky.“Porque Te Vas” is a fantastic single. Issued in Spain in 1974 by Jeanette it got wider exposure after being heard in the film Cría Cuervos, which was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Read more ...
Veronica Lee
They’re back and they’re looking and sounding good – and Spice Girls mania took over Dublin’s city centre for several hours before their concert yesterday. Hotels were booked out, every other woman I passed in the street was wearing a Spice Girls T-shirt or hat, and by mid-afternoon the whole city appeared to be moving as one towards Croke Park. Yet despite the fans’ enthusiasm, there’s always a worry that recreating a brand – as the Spice Girls became – from their mid-1990s heyday may make them seem dated or an irrelevance to a generation well versed in feminism and their own versions Read more ...