Pop
The alluring mess of CMAT
The last time I saw CMAT – Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – was in the middle of a grey afternoon at…
David Byrne has done it again
The title of David Byrne’s most recent album and current tour is Who Is The Sky?. The phrase works two…
Morrissey is pop’s prophet of England
Morrissey is back. And he’s sassy as hell. At the O2 on Saturday night, the once-waifish Smiths frontman turned stocky…
Flexible and imaginative: Wednesday at the Roundhouse reviewed
How is it that two things that are fundamentally the same can be completely different? Two bands, each harking back…
U2’s childlike response to world affairs
Whither the protest song in 2026? In January 1970, John Lennon wrote and recorded ‘Instant Karma!’ in a single day…
Mumford & Sons are trolling themselves: Prizefighter reviewed
It is axiomatic that most artists spend the first few years of their career trying to achieve some level of…
Electrifying: Annie & the Caldwells, at Ronnie Scott’s, reviewed
Annie & the Caldwells are a long-running family gospel ensemble from West Point, Mississippi – father and sons playing guitar,…
Who stuck the great Emmylou Harris in a sports hall?
Somebody obviously thought it a good idea that Emmylou Harris play her last ever Scottish show in a soulless sports…
Why I will always have time for Bernard Butler
Bernard Butler has popped up a couple of times in this column, but not alone – once, with two fellow…
Zach Bryan is no Springsteen
There would, on the surface, appear to be little common ground between the wife of stuffy old Malcolm Muggeridge and…
Johnny Rotten’s still got it
Robert Plant and John Lydon were fixed in the public mind at the age of 20. Plant, a golden-haired lad…
What links Jeffrey Dahmer to the Spice Girls?
The path that links the Spice Girls to Jeffrey Dahmer – necrophile mass murderer of at least 17 men –…
Thom Yorke reminds me of David Brent: Radiohead reviewed
There were times watching Radiohead’s first UK show for seven years when Ricky Gervais came to mind. As Thom Yorke…
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,…
The rise of psychedelia
On YouTube – and I urge you to look it up – there is a magnificent piece of footage from…
No band should play Ally Pally
The last time Gillian Welch and David Rawlings played in London it was a different world: the world of David…
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,…
In defence of Mick Hucknall
Before Simply Red came on stage at the Greenwich peninsula’s enormodome, the screens showed a clip of a very young…
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…
Like Gabor Mate set to club beats: Lady Gaga, at the O2, reviewed
Lady Gaga’s show was to begin at 7.30 prompt, we were told. No opening act. And at 7.30 something did…
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.…
Suede turn their fine new record to mush at the Southbank
I think a lot about Wishbone Ash. A disproportionate amount. Partly because I have had to listen to them for…
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…
Britain’s loveliest, most thoughtful festival
The last weekend of August is my favourite of the year. That’s when I pootle down to Cranborne Chase to…
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…
