pop music
Thomas H. Green
Symphonic pop of the Electric Light Orchestra variety is a hard thing to pull off and even when it succeeds it’s very much an acquired taste. When Max McElligott – AKA Wolf Gang - first appeared a couple of years ago with an EP on the Neon Gold label, he seemed have the balance between opulent and poptastic just about right. It had a blustery chamber-pop charm and was, at the very least, a promising opening shot. His debut album, though, has pushed the boat out too far. It is over-enamoured with its own lusciousness, a precision Crufts-groomed show poodle of an album wearing diamante Read more ...
Russ Coffey
They’ve called the tour "The Hits - Stripped Back". But they weren’t all hits. More importantly, they weren’t merely stripped back either. They’d evolved. The band’s ability to write quality anthemic indie rock is undeniable. But so is the fact that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish them from a slew of other bands with awkward names and characterful voices, like Feeder or Embrace. Or Elbow. And Elbow have stolen the market share. So where does this leave Athlete? It leaves them taking a step back from the pop game, and getting excited about the sonic possibilities of making music together. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The nominations for the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize were announced earlier today. Beyond PJ Harvey and Elbow having won before, nothing wildly surprising cropped up.Here they are:
Adele: 21Anna Calvi: Anna CalviJames Blake: James BlakeElbow: Build a Rocket Boys!Everything Everything: Man AliveGhostpoet: Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy JamPJ Harvey: Let England ShakeKaty B: On a MissionKing Creosote & Jon Hopkins: Diamond MineMetronomy: The English RivieraGwilym Simcock: Good Days at Schloss ElmauTinie Tempah: Disc-Overy
The prize will be announced on 6 September
david.cheal
Latitude: this four-day event in the attractive environs of Henham Park, near Southwold, is, as its slogan says, “more than just a music festival”. Quite so. But how to review such a groaning cultural smorgasbord? This year, rather than delivering an indigestible wodge of words, I thought I’d take a slightly different approach; thus my account of my four days in Suffolk is divided into thematic sections which correspond only roughly to the festival’s own creative categorisations. So here we go.
Latitude’s organisers are still struggling with the water thing. Although work has been Read more ...
Russ Coffey
His daughter may be Hannah Montana and he may have set country music sales records but, worldwide, Billy Ray Cyrus will never escape his mega-hit “Achy Breaky Heart”. Although that was a novelty record, it epitomised everything people find preposterous about America’s red states. Which is why, outside of America’s heartlands, most people find it difficult to take Cyrus seriously. It's something he finds very frustrating.I’m American is Cyrus’s “patriot” album. It’s all about troops and home and stars and stripes. It’s full of girls left behind, and parents’ war records. Just the sort of Read more ...
Russ Coffey
His daughter may be Hannah Montana and he may have set country music sales records but, worldwide, Billy Ray Cyrus will never escape his mega-hit “Achy Breaky Heart”. Although that was a novelty record, it epitomised everything people find preposterous about America’s red states. Which is why, outside of America’s heartlands, most people find it difficult to take Cyrus seriously. It's something he finds very frustrating. I’m American is Cyrus’s “patriot” album. It’s all about troops and home and stars and stripes. It’s full girls left behind, and parents’ war records. Just the Read more ...
joe.muggs
“It's like an advert for American Apparel,” said my companion a song into the set – and she had a point. The elegantly poised electropop of Little Dragon is so sharp, so cool, so impeccably internationalist in its outlook and presentation that, taken in small doses, it would be perfect for any brand targeted at affluent hipsters. But while their antics on stage, and especially those of singer Yukimi Nagano were admittedly a brand manager's dream at any given moment, over time they proved to be something much more interesting.'Pleasingly for a crowd so dressed up, they appeared extremely Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As subtlety in popular music becomes increasingly worshipped by heritage-led taste arbiters, we should relish proper shouty moron tunes. Few come more shouty and moronic than LMFAO, a Los Angeles duo named after the text abbreviation for "Laughing my fucking arse off". They comprise Berry Gordy's youngest son Skyler (AKA Skyblu) and his grandson Stefan Gordy (AKA Redfoo), renowned for goon club anthem "I'm in Miami, Bitch". They claim their second album is "more refined" - but it isn't unless your idea of refined is pole dancing to Limp Bizkit.A decade ago the hard house sound Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Kew the Music - the umbrella name for a series of outdoor concerts - did not look promising upon first arrival and, indeed, for quite some time afterwards. It was clear as soon as I walked through the gates that this was a day out for monied London, not the usual gig environment. Before the stage, in front of Kew Gardens' Victorian Temperate House, a large section of grass had been sealed off for those with pre-booked picnicking space and everywhere about people sat with hampers swigging half bottles of Veuve Clicquot and using cocktail sticks to pluck exotic varities of marinated Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The musical identity of Midlands town Stourbridge is largely defined by Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wonder Stuff, a trio that charted with varying degrees of wackiness in the late Eighties to mid-Nineties. The Voluntary Butler Scheme, the recording identity of fellow Stourbridgian Rob Jones, shares their leaning towards wackiness, but it’s more surreal, less surface. He’s also way more interesting musically. Second album The Grandad Galaxy is a musical rummage through a jumble-sale mind.Jones is closer to Davyhulme absurdist Jim Noir than any of his local predecessors. Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It’s not so much cultural differences that have hindered Death Cab for Cutie’s UK profile, it’s more the difficulty of making a name when “there just couldn’t be less scandal surrounding the band”. Or so guitarist Chris Walla feels. In the States their beautiful, emotionally muted music goes platinum and is featured in huge shows like the OC. But just as US audiences were hard to persuade of the charms of Pulp or Suede, so Death Cab’s strangely moving introspection has been here, by and large, niche. You’d never have known it, though, from the legions of fashionably dressed devotees at the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
French interpreters Nouvelle Vague have a seemingly unsustainable path. Reinterpreting Anglo songs of the post-punk and new wave eras in unlikely semi-easy-listening settings (bossa nova, reggae, country and bluegrass) would appear to bring diminishing returns. But on their last album, 2009’s 3, they went gently Gallic, covering “Ça plane pour moi”, originally by Belgium’s Plastic Bertrand. Fourth time out, it’s all Francophone.Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux’s first three Nouvelle Vague albums mainly featured lesser-known female Franco singers (notably Camille and Mélanie Pain – some original Read more ...