fri 11/07/2025

1990s

Backstreet Boys, SSE Hydro, Glasgow review - 90s boyband showcase grown-up new material

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...

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We the Animals review - lyrical story of brotherly love and family trauma

“When we were brothers we wanted more: more volume, more muscles, us three, us kings.” So begins documentary-maker Jeremiah Zagar’s faithful but watered-down adaptation of Justin Torres’s autobiographical coming-out novel, set in the 1990s.Zagar's...

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Education, Education, Education, Trafalgar Studios review - politics and pupils, mayhem and music

It's the 2nd May 1997, the morning after the night that swept New Labour into power. We’re in the staffroom of a school somewhere in Britain and the teachers are jubilant. They've been glued to their TV sets for the results and have shagged and...

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Primal Scream, The Haunt, Brighton review - up-close, short, raucous and sweaty

Primal Scream have played in this city, in the recent past, at the 4,500 capacity Brighton Centre but tonight they’re in a venue which holds well under 400. A bananas atmosphere reigns when bands of their stature play intimate shows, and so it is...

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Beats review - Scottish boys seek rave

Achingly nostalgic for rave culture, Beats will likely appeal to anyone whose formative experience of ardent friendships and communal joy peaked in a transcendent musical setting with or without the help of Ecstasy.Director Brian Welsh’s Scottish...

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Andy Hamilton, Brighton Festival 2019 review - gently amusing night of reminiscence

Taking place at the Theatre Royal, Andy Hamilton’s show is entitled An Evening with… rather than a straight stand-up and mainly consists of the comedy writer/performer and gameshow regular answering audience questions. During the first half this is...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Pet Shop Boys - Inner Sanctum

Pet Shop Boys are never shy of producing stylishly conceived fan mementos. Coming not long after Faber & Faber’s hardback collection of Neil Tennant’s lyrics, this four-disc set is just such a slice of lovingly rendered memorabilia. After well...

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Take That, SSE Hydro, Glasgow review - capes and cameos in 30th anniversary spectacular

This year, says Gary Barlow, marks 30 years since five boys walked into a room in Manchester and auditioned for what would turn out to be the UK’s most successful pop act. It is fitting, then, that what they are billing as the Odyssey tour features...

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Mid90s review – rise of a skate gang tyro

There’s an admirable modesty in the way Jonah Hill has approached his first film as writer-director. The popular actor (Superbad, Moneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street) has taken a low-key indie approach to Mid90s, his gently humorous coming-of-age...

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CD: The Chemical Brothers - No Geography

The Chemical Brothers just keep on coming. No Geography could as well be called No Surrender. It’s the sound of two men approaching 50 but still keenly attuned to making feet move on the dancefloor. Partly made using old synths relegated to a dusty...

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CD: Norah Jones - Begin Again

There's a remarkable lightness to the way Norah Jones has glid through her career. She once told theartsdesk that even in her early 20s, faced with the global hyper success of Come Away With Me, “I think I was smart enough to know at the...

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CD: Sleeper - The Modern Age

While Oasis have so far resisted the temptation of the big pay-off that a Gallagher family reunion would ensure, plenty of other Britpoppers have been considerably less coy about getting back together since the heady days of the 1990s. We’ve already...

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