1990s
Reissue CDs Weekly: Kitchens of DistinctionSunday, 12 March 2017
Albums are not meant to be heard this way. Collecting a band's output in one package inevitably obscures that what’s being heard might have been recorded and released over years. The listening time may be five or six hours, but eighteen months could... Read more... |
Lost in FranceWednesday, 22 February 2017
Pulling together a music documentary strikes me as a simple enough concept. Gather your talking heads in front of a nice enough backdrop, splice with archive footage in some semblance of a narrative order and there you go. There’s no need to, say,... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Crying GameTuesday, 21 February 2017
Does a review of a 25-year-old film need a spoiler alert? Much of the success of The Crying Game – its 1992 release earned both six Oscar nominations and huge box office returns (although not enough to save its producers from bankruptcy) – is... Read more... |
CD: Right Said Fred - Exactly!Thursday, 16 February 2017
Right Said Fred, in the wave of global fame that followed their 1991 mega-smash “I’m Too Sexy”, were unlikely celebrities. The two shaven-headed Fairbrass brothers seemed to have accidently wandered into pop and were laconic, likeable stars. There... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Glass ShieldFriday, 20 January 2017
Charles Burnett is one of the neglected pioneers of African-American film-making. He first won attention back in 1978 with his poetic, powerful debut film, Killer of Sheep. Acclaimed by critics and respected by his fellow directors, Burnett has... Read more... |
The Kite Runner, Wyndhams TheatreWednesday, 11 January 2017
Khaled Hosseini's 2003 bestseller ticks all the boxes as an A-level text. A personal story with epic sweep, it interweaves the bloody recent history of Afghanistan with a gripping family saga. Its treatment of racism and radicalism is timely. Other... Read more... |
Art, Old VicThursday, 22 December 2016
I avoided seeing Art when it was first staged in 1996, even though Matthew Warchus’ production created a huge buzz and won an Olivier Award for Comedy. (On receiving the award, Yasmina Reza joked that she thought she’d written a tragedy not a comedy... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Super Furry AnimalsSunday, 20 November 2016
In 1996, the NME ranked Super Furry Animals’ debut album Fuzzy Logic as the year’s fourth best. It sat between Orbital’s In Sides (number three) and DJ Shadow’s Entroducing. Beck’s Odelay took the top spot and Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: REMSunday, 13 November 2016
Good grief, was Out of Time really 25 years ago? This was the seventh studio album from the li'l ole band from Athens, Georgia, and the one with which they finally cracked open the mainstream international market. This was when people still used to... Read more... |
Shopping and F***ing, Lyric HammersmithThursday, 13 October 2016
Playwright Mark Ravenhill’s 1996 Royal Court debut was not the decade’s most shocking piece of theatre, but its title was, and still is, certainly the most annoying for producers and publicists. Under a Victorian law – the Indecent Advertisements... Read more... |
Oasis in Their Own Words, BBC iPlayerMonday, 03 October 2016
Trying to pip the release of Mat Whitecross’s documentary Supersonic to the post, this brief hack through the BBC’s archive throws together a galloping overview of Oasis’s rise and fall, narrated by their own interviews and quotes. Arguably Oasis... Read more... |
Björk, Royal Albert HallThursday, 22 September 2016
I'll be straight: I wasn't sure what to expect at this show, because I've never been a Björk fanatic as such. I loved – and saw live – The Sugarcubes as a teenager, I've raved to her Nineties Debut and Post era tracks, and I've enjoyed plenty... Read more... |
