pop
CD: Paramore - ParamoreMonday, 08 April 2013
Paramore’s fourth album picks and chooses from so many genres that, first time around, I thought that I had accidentally begun to play it on shuffle. Its opening two tracks make an incongruous pairing: the seemingly light-hearted “Fast in My Car”,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Simple Minds, Klaus Dinger, The Primitives, Transvision VampSunday, 31 March 2013
Simple Minds: Celebrate – The Greatest Hits +Of all the bands which surfaced in 1977 in response to punk, Simple Minds occupy a singular status. Despite line-up changes, they have never split up. After their 1982 success with “Promised You a Miracle... Read more... |
CD: Justin Timberlake - 20/20 ExperienceFriday, 15 March 2013
You really don't need the context on this, do you? Event album, comeback, cheesy title, blah blah – it's all there splattered all over the internet if you really want it. I'll just cut to the chase and say: I love Justin Timberlake's music, and I'm... Read more... |
Farewell Kenny Ball, 1930-2013Thursday, 07 March 2013
The death today at age 82 of trumpeter Kenny Ball makes him the first of the big three chart regulars of Britain’s trad jazz boom to pass away. Both Acker Bilk and Chris Barber are still with us. It’s easily forgotten, but trad actually was bigger... Read more... |
CD: Petula Clark – Lost in YouSunday, 24 February 2013
“Cut Copy me”, the opening track of Petula Clark’s first British studio album in six years, is beautiful. It could have been created by Saint Etienne at their most melancholy. Her voice almost a whisper, it’s the sound of shadows and uncertainty... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Factory Records, Dave Edmunds, Keith WhitleySunday, 24 February 2013
Crispy Ambulance: The Plateau Phase/The Durutti Column: LC/The Names: Swimming/The Wake: HarmonyPre-Madchester and before New Order’s breakout single “Blue Monday”, Manchester’s Factory Records was hard to penetrate. This quartet of reissues does a... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Conny Plank, Pied Piper, Jean-Luc Ponty, Cliff RichardSunday, 10 February 2013
Various Artists: Who’s That Man – A Tribute to Conny PlankThe list of acts Konrad Plank worked with is a Hollywood Walk of Fame of Krautrock. As an engineer or producer he was behind seminal albums by Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf and... Read more... |
CD: The History of Apple Pie - Out of ViewMonday, 21 January 2013
A confession: for much of this debut album from London fuzz-pop fivesome The History of Apple Pie, I have little to no idea what vocalist Stephanie Min is on about. Sweet and half-whispered, floating above crunchy bass and tuneful guitar riffage, it... Read more... |
CD: Solange - TrueWednesday, 16 January 2013
Writing about True without naming the elephant in the room was always going to be a challenge, even if the younger Ms Knowles’ next move had built on the more experimental sounds of her earlier work or “Stillness is the Move”, her 2009 collaboration... Read more... |
Art Rock: The best and worst songs about artistsTuesday, 08 January 2013
That ultimate art rocker David Bowie is 66 today. The Victoria & Albert Museum is opening with a major survey of Bowie the style icon this spring. What’s more, he’s just released a new single, with an album following in March. Fittingly, for an... Read more... |
Reissue CDs: The Best of 2012Sunday, 30 December 2012
Can’s The Lost Tapes towers over any of the other reissues theartsdesk has covered this year. Although not strictly a reissue – it collected unheard recordings from tapes which had lain in the band’s archive – it rewrote the story of the seminal... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The House of Love, The Clarke & Ware Experiment, Interpol, T. Rex, The Smashing PumpkinsSunday, 02 December 2012
The House of Love: The House of LoveKieron TylerAfter The Jesus & Mary Chain, The House of Love were Creation Records’ next most-likely sons. Their melodies had an epic sweep, they had a top-notch songwriter in Guy Chadwick and, with Terry... Read more... |
