Pop
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…
In defence of Notting Hill Carnival
This isn’t going to be a piece celebrating the rich cultural tapestry of London’s Afro-Caribbean community, sombrely expressing the importance…
The Seeds are primitive but magnificent
Plus: am I the only person who finds M.J. Lenderman’s voice whiny?
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…
The terrifying charisma of Liam Gallagher
You’d have thought Wembley Stadium was a sportswear convention, so ubiquitous were the three stripes down people’s arms from all…
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…
Magnificent: Stevie Wonder at BST Hyde Park reviewed
The highs of Stevie Wonder’s Hyde Park show were magnificently high. The vast band were fully clicked into that syncopated,…
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,…
A delight: Sabrina Carpenter at BST Hyde Park reviewed
We all know, at heart, that economic theories of rational behaviour are rubbish. And that their application ruins so many…
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…
The political climate at Glastonbury was not especially febrile
Everyone who wasn’t at Glastonbury this year knows exactly what it was like: a seething mass of hatred and rabid…
Dua Lipa sparkles at Wembley – but her new album is pedestrian
If, as is said, there are only seven basic narratives in human storytelling, then there should be an addendum. In…
