fri 11/07/2025

pop

The Beach Boys: Doin' it Again, BBC Four

“It’s an expression of our collective souls coming together,” said The Beach Boys’ Mike Love of his band, in this celebration of their 2012 50th anniversary world tour and recent album That’s Why God Made the Radio. Subsequent to the making of ...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: 10cc, Eric Clapton, Marc Almond, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers

 10cc: TenologyKieron Tyler10cc occupied a strange place. Balancing cleverness and humour, pop and the musically complex with an archness that was never far, they nonetheless managed to fix themselves, limpet-like, to charts. As this, their...

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CD: Alicia Keys - Girl On Fire

14 Grammy Awards, over 30 million albums sold, immortalised in song by Bob Dylan. It's hard to believe that Girl On Fire is only Alicia Keys's fifth studio album, such is the extent of her success. The singer-songwriter's previous release, The...

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Robbie Williams, O2 Arena

Frustratingly, the ramshackle rail service from Brighton deposits me at the crammed O2 20 minutes into Robbie Williams's set. After the eerie quiet of the airport-like walkways around the perimeters, the torrid atmosphere inside the gigantic arena...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Bill Withers, Massive Attack, Django Reinhardt, Diablos Del Ritmo

Bill Withers: The Complete Sussex and Columbia AlbumsKieron TylerThis box set is several cuts above the usual major-label, no-frills cheapo collection gathering together a selection of an artist’s albums. Produced with evident care, it’s a superb...

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CD: Céline Dion – Sans Attendre

Before approaching any Céline Dion album, a number of obstacles have to be navigated: the anticipation that over-singing is on the horizon, or the knowledge of her Trilby-like relationship to Svengali René Angélil. Most of all though, it’s the fact...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Blue Nile, The Seeds, Dan Penn, Frankie Goes to Hollywood

The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops, HatsGraeme ThomsonThe Blue Nile occupy a unique spot in the musical landscape. Formed in 1980 by Glasgow University graduates Paul Buchanan, Paul Joseph Moore and Robert Bell, four albums in 30 years...

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World Party, Royal Albert Hall

“A hurricane didn’t stop me getting here,” shouted Barry from Philadelphia, and there were plenty of hard core World Party fans for whom last night at the Albert Hall was a big deal concert – the first proper tour in 10 years, coming on the back of...

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CD: JLS - Evolution

From Elvis and Mick Jagger to the Spice Girls and, er, Chris Brown, pop music has often - whether covertly or overtly - been a fairly sexual medium. Listening to stuff you know your parents would hate is probably part of what fosters such tremendous...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Ennio Morricone, Rites of Spring, Hotlegs, Cults Percussion Ensemble

Ennio Morricone: In ColourKieron TylerThe recent release of Berberian Sound Studio raised the level of interest in Italian film soundtracks. From the moment Ennio Morricone’s compositions for the spaghetti westerns of the Sixties attracted attention...

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CD: Kylie - The Abbey Road Sessions

There is, of course, something inherently disagreeable in the notion that a great modern pop song is like some grubby Eliza Doolittle, secretly longing to be smartened up and made respectable by the tasteful accoutrements of strings, a sensible...

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Interview: 10 Questions for Rebecca Ferguson

Pop music has always been a cynical business. And yet, sometimes, I like to imagine an alternative universe somewhere before Simon Cowell made his millions and the reality television behemoth become the industry that it has become. The televised...

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