rock
Owen Richards
Picking the best album at the end of the year is always unfair on the early releases. Recency bias means the newer albums carry more excitement. Better Oblivion Community Center's self-titled debut would be a major contender if it had released in September as opposed to January. It feels like part of the furniture now, a testament to the songwriting of Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. The same goes for Titanic Rising from Weyes Blood, a sweeping epic of melody and melodrama.We've had some big hitters delivering their best work this year. Vampire Weekend's Father of the Bride refreshed Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Leonard Cohen’s death, just as Trump finagled his way into the White House, was the cruellest of blows. Now more than ever we need his bitter, witty, ironic commentary and wry observations, his wonderful words delivered in that bottomless “golden voice” which on this, his final posthumous album, is deeper than ever. There are many who came late to Cohen, the man lampooned in the 1970s and ‘80s as “Laughing Lenny” and “Captain Mandrax”. I was in my early teens when I first knowingly heard him, and I was entranced. I might not always have understood what he was singing about but I knew it was Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
Liam Gallagher knows exactly how "fucking fantastic… and fucking shit I am", and proceeds to tell us so for 85 minutes. This 10-year documentary project came about as a result of director Charlie Lightening’s friendship with Gallagher, formed as Oasis came to a predictable halt. It seeks to be mildly critical, although the only person vaguely putting the boot in is current girlfriend/fiancée/soon-to-be-third-wife Debbie Gwyther – now also his manager – who describes him as "impulsive and a bit silly", and "like a toddler". Otherwise, it’s up to the other brother, Paul Gallagher, and ex- Read more ...
howard.male
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had every intention of making Songs Of Our Native Daughters featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell and Amythyst Kiah my Album of the year. It’s a solid work of great beauty, elegance and substance. But you can read my thoughts on it elsewhere on The Arts Desk. And the album is number eight in Rolling Stone’s Top 40 of the year, as well as being Iggy Pop’s personal album of the year, so more waffle on it from me is neither here nor there. Whereas the still relatively unknown Louisiana pop group Seratones may still be new enough to this game Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
Once upon a time – before the nation’s schism – an indie band with dubious reputation espoused the virtues of Albion and invited us on the good ship Arcadia to travel to this Utopia. Things are a bit different now.Unfashionably nostalgic and romantic, preposterously self-indulgent and adolescent, do The Libertines really have any relevance in this brutal post-truth age? Maybe they’re just what we need when the concept of Britishness is being so fiercely fought over? They make their entrance to the ironic strains of Vera Lynn’s “White Cliffs of Dover” just 10 days after the pro-Brexit Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In June 1978, the still-extant independent label Cherry Red issued its first record. The seven-inch featured three slices of terse, Buzzcocks-ish art-punk by The Tights. The band were from Great Malvern, Worcestershire – as was the label. They only made one more 45 but Cherry Red – named after a Groundhogs song; the label was founded by local concert promoters – was built to last. Later, Great Malvern spawned Stephen Duffy’s Lilac Time and Blessed Ethel. Jenny Lind and Edward Elgar were local, but this seemed to be it as far as it went for entries on the rock ’n’ roll map.Surprisingly, Cherry Read more ...
Liz Thomson
I can’t look at Rod Stewart without thinking of Barbara, one of the naughtier girls in my third-form class at East Barnet Senior High School. She was tiny, and obsessed with him, her hair cut like his. “Maggie May” was number one, playing from tinny trannies in lunchbreak. It was from Every Picture Tells a Story, the album that established Stewart’s solo career. Barbara was in seventh heaven. I occasionally wonder what happened to her and kept an eye open at O2 where Hot Rod was playing the second of three dates with the RPO before heading home for Christmas.Sir Rod, as we must now call him, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Season’s greetings, vinyl junkies. It’s unfortunate things grew so stinky just as we headed towards the one time when Britain downs tools and disappears to the enjoy itself for a week or two. But let’s try for good will towards all. To help along the way, theartsdesk on Vinyl Christmas 2019 Special takes itself not very seriously, and offers up a selection of cheese and biscuits, alongside a jamboree lucky dip…Diana Ross Wonderful Christmas Time (Universal)Back in 1994, the original version of this was a single album entitled A Very Special Season which was Diana Ross’s penultimate Top 40 Read more ...
Owen Richards
Not all One Direction solo albums are created equally, and after Liam Payne's public ostracization for LP1, all eyes are on Harry Styles. His self-titled debut earned some baffling comparisons to David Bowie, so what to expect next?Fine Line is akin to a seasonal selection box, picking the sweetest styles from across the genres. A bit of precision art pop here, a touch of dramatic blues rock there, a sprinkling of calypso on top. It certainly isn't comfortable staying still. Single "Adore You" owes a heavy debt to The 1975 by way of Simply Red, but still works thanks to an irresistible chorus Read more ...
Guy Oddy
No-one needs to be told that 2019 was a year which saw the UK, USA and many other countries looking somewhat at unease with themselves. Inevitably, this filtered down into much of the music that was produced under these conditions. Even Peter Perrett – a man not known for his political pronouncements – sang of how “The so-called Free World stands for evil incarnate” on the storming “War Plan Red” from his superb second solo album, Humanworld.The album that really held up a mirror to 2019, however, came from Imperial Wax, the band predominantly consisting of the remaining members of the Fall’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“Trance boogie,” states My Baby frontwoman Cato van Dijck before submersing herself in the rising tribal rhythm of “Sunflower Sutra". Trance boogie is, indeed, what My Baby do. The song is decked with floating flecks of glissando guitar from virtuosic New Zealand bandmate Daniel Johnston on the other side of the stage. “Sing with me, brother,” Cato demands with a smile and behind his drum kit her sibling Joost leans into his microphone and harmonises. Behind it all is a housey four-to-the-floor beat, but their sound is all organic groove.The van Dijcks are Dutch and the band hails from Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
As the number of sweaty bodies increased towards the front of the Barrowland stage, IDLES singer Joe Talbot had a direct message. “Keep safe” he implored on several occasions, like a concerned dad warning his kids, or perhaps a shepherd guiding his flock. For all that IDLES are a rowdy, raucous live band, there is undoubtedly a caring side too, evidenced throughout a night that was part rock gig, part good time party, and occasionally a wayward turn into a karaoke club.For all that there is tedious debate regarding the band’s authenticity (a decision earlier this week to launch their own beer Read more ...