Pop
What a great band Geese are
It’s a measure of Geese’s rise – their flight? – that, on Thursday night, the social media accounts of End…
Billy Strings’s extraordinary and exhilarating new album
It’s easy to get the wrong idea about bluegrass – to imagine that this flinty shard of American traditional music…
Festivals are destroying London’s great parks
You could have been forgiven for mistaking Hackney for the site of an El Alamein reunion the other Sunday. Victoria…
When did the Cure become universally beloved?
My, how other so-called legacy acts must envy the Cure. There are plenty of bands of 40 or 50 years…
The joy of Toto’s ‘Africa’
There comes a point in most bands’ lives at which their appeal has become too selective for them to sell…
A joyous opening to Edinburgh
The title of the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival is also the thesis statement for this year’s entire…
The court music of the ruling class
It would be difficult to do certain shows in the courtyard of Somerset House. One can’t really host anything too…
Is this really the best Charli XCX can do?
Of the three creative pursuits that give Charli XCX’s eighth album its title, the English pop star seems least interested…
Wet Leg have become a proper rock band
Everyone uses the word ‘indie’ to describe a style of music. And Pulp and Wet Leg are two bands that…
Confessions II gets thrillingly close to vintage Madonna
There comes a point in the career of any established artist when looking backwards seems to be the only possible…
The slipperiness of Harry Styles
For the first time at a gig, I spent much of Harry Styles’s show thinking about the maths. He’s cunningly…
It’s impossible not to be impressed by Metallica
The intensely ritualised choreography of the standard summer stadium show has one inbuilt structural issue, which is especially obvious when…
Is there anything sadder than a Scots Gaelic lament?
Sad songs hit harder, I find, when their meaning hangs just out of reach. Aside perhaps from the exquisite ache…
The liberating delights of Aldous Harding
The first thing I did after getting home from the Barbican the other week was google ‘Aldous Harding neurodivergent’. It…
None of McCartney’s new songs will trouble his setlist for long
On 30 May 1966, the Beatles released ‘Paperback Writer’ – a fortnight after ‘Paint It Black’ by the Rolling Stones…
The perfect jazz song to play at your funeral
The prospect of the new Paul McCartney album does not set my pulses racing, still less that of the Beatles…
The appeal of doom, stoner and sludge metal
It was odd, walking around Camden Town during Desertfest – the annual weekend-long celebration of doom, stoner and sludge metal…
Joy and melancholy from Tame Impala
About 15 years ago, I spoke to a relatively unknown neo-psychedelic musician from Western Australia called Kevin Parker. It was…
Rosalia’s O2 show was a landmark concert
If Olivia Dean is the girl next door, Rosalia is the girl next planet. Their shows in successive weeks at…
Compelling: Cowboy Junkies at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, reviewed
Anyone who was listening to independent music back in the 1980s and 1990s might find it surprising to learn which…
Big Thief is this generation’s R.E.M.
By the time Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief was born in 1991, Kim Gordon had already released seven albums with…
How good are the Rolling Stones’ alter egos, the Cockroaches?
Would you pay a tenner on the door to see the Cockroaches, the Fireman, Patchwork, the Network and Bingo Hand…
The joy of Belle and Sebastian
Do Belle and Sebastian have the most polite audience in pop? Normally when a pop singer leaves the stage to…
Unrelentingly entertaining: Basement Jaxx reviewed
How would you like your nostalgia served, sir (and it is usually ‘sir’): in mist-shrouded monochrome or crazed lysergic Technicolor?…
It’s time to redefine what we mean by classic rock
Classic rock used to be an American radio genre made up of bluesy guitar bands from the past. It spawned…
