rock
Barney Harsent
We live in a time of particularly polarised opinion, and Paul Weller remains a divisive figure. To some he’s the Changing Man, the Modfather, the Most Modernest Modernist that ever was. To others, however, he’s come to represent the very chromosome that turns perfectly good songwriting into "dadrock" and creates the sort of tuneful terrain on which Kasabian can flourish.While I’m not here to defend Kasabian, there’s a clear case to be made for Paul Weller. Forgetting for a moment the breadth of musical ambition he displayed in the Jam and Style Council years, recent(ish) albums have seen a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Kasabian are more musically exciting than a multitude of bands taste-making hipsters thrust our way, yet they’re universally derided by those sorts. The reason is their blokeyness. And it’s true, even the light, lovely, strummed ballad “Wasted” from their new, sixth album has (quiet) terrace-chant backing vocals. And anything singer Tom Meighan touches musters a certain Liam Gallagher belligerence. That, however, isn’t a good enough reason to dismiss them. For Crying Out Loud is full of tasty bits.For those familiar with Kasabian’s back catalogue, the album’s flavour is midway between 2006’s Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The simplest ideas are often the best. Here’s one – take AC/DC’s Tyneside-born vocalist Brian Johnson and get him to chew the fat with a list of fellow rock’n’roll veterans. Later in the series he gets to meet Sting, Nick Mason and Lars Ulrich, but for this first show (on Sky Arts) the guest was Roger Daltrey of The Who.The formula worked remarkably well. Johnson kicked it off by driving down to Daltrey’s old stomping ground of Shepherd's Bush in a battered Morris Minor (“that’s the first car I bought my missus,” Daltrey recalled). After a brisk tour of a few local landmarks from The Who’s Read more ...
Liz Thomson
From Muswell Hillbilly to Beverly Hillbilly, Ray Davies – Sir Ray – has long been infatuated with America and it must have been a great disappointment when the Kinks were banned from touring there in the mid-1960s. Then in the 1970s and Eighties they were reborn as a stadium rock band, criss-crossing the States and losing their audience back home.These days, Davies is a much-loved figure, drawing crowds at venues large and small, the power chords of those Sixties anthems recognisable to all and his quiet observational songs cheered to the echo. The centrality of the Kinks to popular music Read more ...
Guy Oddy
After a career that initially came to an abrupt end amid sibling fisticuffs on a stage in Canada during the dying embers of the Twentieth Century, the Jesus & Mary Chain have taken some time to ease themselves back into being a real going concern. Reforming a decade ago to tour their old material, it has taken until now for them to take the plunge and release Damage & Joy, their first new album in 19 years.Nevertheless, the wait has been worthwhile, as the reaction to tunes old and new from the crowd at Birmingham’s Institute duly confirmed. While the Reid brothers may have found a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
When a skiffle group called The Quarry Men played live in 1959, their repertoire included covers of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and “Sweet Little Sixteen”. The folk-based skiffle was becoming rock. In 1960, when the same band became The Beatles, they added Berry’s “Carol” and “Little Queenie” to their set.For their first radio broadcast, on 8 March 1962, the Fabs played his “Memphis Tennessee”. On 30 July 1963, they taped Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” for what would be their second album, With The Beatles. Their final live show, in San Francisco on 29 August 1966 opened with a scrappy run Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Listening to the Jesus and Mary Chain’s first album of new material in 19 years is like meeting up with an incorrigible old friend. Maybe there are a few more wrinkles and grey hairs but the original spirit is most definitely still there. Fuzzy, distorted guitars and a gallows humour may still predominate but maybe there is now also a certain maturity in the mix. Produced by Youth and featuring vocal contributions from Sky Ferreira, Isobel Campbell, Linda Reid and Bernadette Denning, as well as including a number of tunes that have been previously aired on Jim Reid solo projects, Damage and Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Laura Marling's new album is called Semper Femina - two words the singer-songwriter also has tattooed on her leg. It's Latin for "always a woman". Despite having the motto inscribed on her flesh, Marling claims to find it hard to write intimately about other women. Hence the singer describing her recent spell in Los Angeles as a particularly "masculine time" causing her now to look "specifically at women". Full marks for ambition, some might feel, but might she be overthinking it?If the underlying rationale can seem a tad laboured, the music is anything but. Fans will be familiar with Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Despite having been a rock star since the late Seventies, Chrissie Hynde seems to be an introverted, elusive sort of person. If this Arena profile was anything to go by, she lives as a virtual recluse, positively revelling in solitariness. Like the film, her last album was called Alone.“I spend all my time alone,” we saw her telling Sandra Bernhard, evidently a close friend. “I have nothing else to do. It’s my choice, I like it.” Well good for her, and it does mean she has plenty of time to pursue her recently-found passion for painting (which she’s pretty good at, too). But it didn’t really Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Another peripatetic global music update from theartsdesk's Peter Culshaw, hosted by Music Box Radio. This edition features forthcoming album releases from hard salsa revivalists La Mambanegra, a remix from heroic desert rockers Tinariwen and electro Tunisian stars Bargou 08. We go to Brazil for the adventurous Sāo Paulo singer Luisa Maita and preview new jazz tunes from Brad Mehldau and E.S.T. There’s a new track from rebel star Manu Chao. Out this month is the new album from Aurelio, already in various music to-look-out-for-in-2017 lists. His cool take on garifuna music from Beliza and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It’s been 12 months since the news guy wept and told us: David Bowie, ever out in front, became the first to depart in the year of musical mortality 2016. After the initial lamentations, the memorial tributes have been a mixed bag. Best was the life story stitched together for Radio 4 from a vast back catalogue of audio interviews. Less impactfully there was also the well-meaning misfire at the Proms, plus a messy Dadaist meta-biog rushed out by Paul Morley. Broadcast on what would have been Bowie’s 70th birthday, The Last Five Years is the best attempt yet to contextualise late Bowie in Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Context in rock is everything. Popular music is, after all, essentially a reaction to a moment in time. So, whilst in another year, an album like A Moon Shaped Pool may just have lurked in my top five, political circumstances propelled it straight to number one. It wasn't just that the piece was thick with feverishness and alienation. What really made it embody 2016 was the unmistakable whiff of fear. The album's emotional release began from the get-go. "Burn the Witch" was built on a series of rhythms that pulsated like a montage of Daily Mail headlines. Lyrics Read more ...