The tedium of softboi rap
A male British rapper who is unafraid to show tenderness and vulnerability is not a particularly new phenomenon: Dave, Stormzy,…
Fionn Regan has gone method Worzel Gummidge
Watching the Mercury Music Prize on television last week, I remembered that Fionn Regan’s debut album, The End Of History,…
Has Taylor Swift been reading The Spectator?
The Last Dinner Party received quite the critical backlash when they arrived amid much fanfare in 2023. Posh, precocious and…
Uplift from an odd couple: James Yorkston & Nina Persson reviewed
Let’s hear it for the odd couples of popular music: Bowie and Bing. Shaggy and Sting. Metallica and Lou Reed.…
The problem with Chappell Roan
There is a downside to being fast-tracked into the position of this season’s newest pop sensation, and it became more…
Shambolic, spontaneously chaotic and combustible: the Lemonheads at SWG3 Galvanizers reviewed
Nowadays, when the default setting for live music is ruthlessly choreographed efficiency, there is a queasy kind of thrill in…
Ultimately hard to resist: Elbow reviewed
Our relationships with bands are often very like our relationships with people. Some are pure and lasting love. Some start…
Why I don’t get the blues
The Louisiana bluesman Buddy Guy is releasing a new album this week. It is called Ain’t Done With The Blues…
A theatrical one-woman show: Billy Eilish at the OVO Hydro, Glasgow reviewed
Like spider plants and exotic cats, certain artists are best suited to the great indoors. Lana Del Rey, for instance,…
No amount of discourse will make a good pop song into a great one
There is no higher calling than making great pop music, and no mechanism by which such an achievement can be…
Jarvis Cocker still has the voice – and the moves
For bands of a certain vintage, the art of keeping the show on the road involves a tightly choreographed dance…
Compelling: Little Simz’s Lotus reviewed
It is not uncommon for (predominantly male) music critics to invert the ‘great man/great woman’ dictum in order to suggest…
We’ve underestimated Francis Rossi
I have a friend who insists that had Status Quo hailed from Düsseldorf rather than Catford, they would nowadays be…
The powerfully disorienting world of Mark Eitzel
There’s a lot to be said for an artist making an audience feel uncomfortable. Richard Thompson used to say that…
The disturbing ambient music of William Tyler
One could argue that all musical forms are essentially incomplete until the listener joins the party, but ambient music seems…
Van Morrison is sounding better than ever
There is a website called setlist.fm which allows its users to vicariously attend pretty much any concert. Search the name…
Traditional music at its most graceful, ingenious and jaw-dropping
I was talking recently to a rock guitarist about the amount of music an audience hears during a typical concert…
Silly, moving and imaginative: Steven Wilson’s The Overview reviewed
Progressive rock never died. Whenever some grizzled punk soldier next appears on a BBC4 documentary relaying their version of that…
Shades of Berlin Bowie and Ian Curtis: Hamish Hawk, at Usher Hall, reviewed
I am a regular attendee at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh’s most ornate and venerable concert venue. On more than one…
The art of the anti-love song
Tracey Thorn released an album in 2010 titled Love and Its Opposite. When it comes to songwriting, it’s the ‘opposite’…
The maudlin, magical world of Celtic Connections
Is it possible to find a common thread running through the finest Scottish music? If pushed, one might identify a…
A new solo album by a former Beatle that – astonishingly – demands repeated plays
For artists lacking any obvious feel for the style, ‘going country’, similar to mainstream white artists dabbling in reggae in…
What a remarkably bad electric guitar player Bob Dylan is
Finally, a taste of the authentic Bob Dylan live experience. On the two previous occasions that I’ve seen Dylan, in…
Terrifically good value: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds reviewed
A few years ago, I received an early morning phone call from Nick Cave’s former PR, berating me for not…
Chrissie Hynde remains outstanding: the Pretenders, at Usher Hall, reviewed
A few hours before the doors opened for the Pretenders’ Edinburgh concert, Chrissie Hynde posted a message on her social…
