pop music
Thomas H. Green
If you’re between 12 and 15, The Vamps are big news. Ten million singles sales and 225 million YouTube views. That sort of big. They are, allegedly, not a boy band as they weren’t put together by one of Cowell’s televisual juggernauts. They also “play real instruments”, although I challenge anyone to come up with such software-amped earbud-candy in their garage. In any case, musical criticism is somewhat irrelevant, since the real purpose of this album is to act as a danger-free practice boyfriend for girls just starting to think about the real thing.The lyrics say it all: “Seven AM and you’ Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Say what you like about The Corrs, there was never any denying their talent – or the voice of raven-haired youngest sister Andrea, fronting the familial quartet with ferocity and grace. It’s why it’s so disappointing that White Light – the band’s first album in a decade – begins with egregious autotune and woeful EDM-by-numbers.As far back as “Runaway” (released in September 1995) the band always tried to pair the instruments and flourishes of traditional Irish folk music with whatever was happening in the charts – but given the extent to which contemporary pop is itself Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1973, alone and with an acoustic guitar, Marc Bolan recorded the revealing “This Is My Life”. Over its five minutes, a strummed elegy akin to the T Rex B-side “Baby Strange” evolves from a finger-picked blues. The lyrics name-check B.B. King, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode” and mention a visit to New York State, playfully rhymed with steak. “Everything I did when I was going to school was just an imitation of Carl Perkins singing ‘Don’t be Cruel’,” he sings, no doubt well aware the Elvis Presley hit did not figure in Perkins’ usual repertoire. Once Presley hit big, Perkins was firmly Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
As you all know by now, Friday is D-Day for Adele's new album 25, and part of the all-media Adelathon is Friday night's show on BBC One, Adele at the BBC. It's a mix of live performances and taped sequences linked together by chunks of interview with Graham Norton, and makes the perfect relaunch package for the reclusive superstar. It opens, aptly enough, with her performing "Rolling in the Deep".It probably won't surprise you to learn that a visibly excited Norton is not at his most critical. There aren't any questions about Adele's ill-starred songwriting collaborations with Damon Albarn Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Names can be deceiving: take Emilie & Ogden. Once you know that the name is not that of a traditional duo, but rather describes Canadian musician Emilie Kahn and her Ogden harp, it’s hard to escape the thought that the music will be syrupy-sweet, twee and incredibly precious. But while it’s true that Kahn’s instrumental palette lends itself to a certain delicacy, underneath is a steely gaze and core of fire.An example: the album’s title track on which Kahn sings of potential squandered – a path not taken or a bad relationship, it’s hard to say. It would be easy to descend into Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s one of the greatest rock songs of the Seventies. The production is dense and the churning guitars are thick with tension. Beginning with a minor-key riff suggesting a familiarity with The Stooges’ “No Fun”, the whole band lock into a groove which isn’t strayed from. The tempo does not shift. Rhythmically, this forward motion has the power of a tank stuck in third gear. The voice suggests John Lennon at his most raw. Two squalling guitar breaks set the Jimi Hendrix of “Third Stone from the Sun” in a hard rock context. Produced by former Hendrix co-manager Chas Chandler, it could be Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's something reassuringly resistant to modernity about Jeff Lynne. In much the same way that his cast iron Brummie accent and demeanour have remained unchanged despite decades in Los Angeles, so his music remains in a late 20th century interzone – its real concerns being the songwriting of the Sixties and the huge, glossy production values of the Seventies and Eighties.And so it is here. The songs and vocal delivery are full of shameless nods to his sometime fellow Travelling Wilburys Bob Dylan (“Ain't it a Drag”) and Roy Orbison (“I'm Leaving You”), as well as to Paul McCartney (almost Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Back in the early 2000s, it was rumoured that Ryan Adams had covered Is This It by The Strokes in its entirety. According to my extensive cataloguing of the career of Americana’s enfant terrible, only “Last Nite” ever surfaced (I have a live version, which opens with a couple of versions of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”), but the point is that Ryan Adams is no stranger to these sonic experiments. Which is why, as a huge fan of both artists I have found it both amusing and perplexing to watch the internet collectively lose its shit over Adams’ version of Taylor Swift’s 1989.The parallels between Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Coming to this, the second album from big-voiced, baby-faced David Gahan lookalike John Newman, I was keen to see how he’d progressed. After the occasionally satisfying blend of old soul and new production on Tribute, would Revolve allow him to evolve and perhaps hone his sound further?Not really, is the answer. His voice is great – let’s get that out of the way from the off. No complaints there, the voice can stay. However, having pulled in Greg Kurstin to work on his follow-up, the result is an album that has more to do with the incessant, pummeling and exhausting day-glo colours of Katy Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Considering that they have never been known for their sartorial elegance, Squeeze are looking pretty smart and stylish these days. Band leaders Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook took to the stage in Birmingham looking especially dapper, with Tilbrook looking like he’d just walked off the set of Miami Vice in his pink suit. This was matched by a slick set with a video screen that showed what were more like short films for each song than the usual concert projections, making it clear that while they might be veterans, Squeeze were still going to put on a show.But first up was the legendary Dr Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The City: Now That Everything’s Been SaidWith early 1971's Tapestry, Carole King released a worldwide best seller which belatedly recognised that as an interpreter of her own songs, she had no peers. King had made the jump from the writer of songs for others to successful singer-songwriter. Harry Nilsson had done it. So had Randy Newman. Jimmy Webb would too. All three were based in Los Angeles.She had moved there from New York in 1968. The new home of America’s music business had supplanted the city where she had written “The Loco-Motion”, “Pleasant Valley Sunday, "Will You Love Me Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Complaining about pop music sounding manufactured is something that, in these postmodern monoculture days, “serious” music fans are all supposed to be past by now. Certainly, since its US release last month, those who are paid to know better have been practically frothing at the mouth over the long-awaited third album by a third-placed 2007 Canadian Pop Idol contestant whose irresistible “Call Me Maybe” was the soundtrack to your summer a few years back. But while E•MO•TION crackles and fizzes in places with moments of pure pop joy, there are big chunks of this record that sound as though Read more ...