albums

Can everyone please shut up about Maria Callas?

4 November 2023 9:00 am

Rupert Christiansen on the cult of Callas

The case against re-recording albums

28 October 2023 9:00 am

In 2012, Jeff Lynne released Mr Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra. Except it wasn’t. It was…

Roisin Murphy: Hit Parade

30 September 2023 9:00 am

The best new album I’ve heard this year: Being Dead’s When Horses Would Run reviewed

9 September 2023 9:00 am

Grade: A– The point of a sudden, abrupt change in the time signature and instrumentation of a song is to…

An album of not terribly happy ballads: Blur’s The Ballad of Darren reviewed

22 July 2023 9:00 am

Bands that have hung around, or gone away and come back again, occupy an increasingly sizeable percentage of pop’s bandwidth.…

Let’s hear it for the lesser-spotted nepo daddy

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Rob Grant releases his debut album, Lost at Sea, this week. A 69-year-old millionaire and former ad man, furniture exec…

In praise of goths – the most enduring of pop subcultures

27 May 2023 9:00 am

Michael Hann on the most enduring of pop subcultures

Heartfelt but bland: Ed Sheeran’s – (Subtract) reviewed

13 May 2023 9:00 am

Whether by accident or design, the mathematical theme of Ed Sheeran’s previous album titles (+, ×, ÷ and = respectively)…

In defence of country-pop

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Sam Kriss on why country-pop is the most modern music there is

As good, and inventive, as modern rock music gets: Black Midi's Hellfire reviewed

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ The difficult question with Black Midi was always: are you listening to them in order to admire them,…

An intense slab of religiosity: Nick Cave's Seven Psalms reviewed

16 July 2022 9:00 am

 Grade: B There has always been a seriousness and intelligence about Nick Cave quite at odds with that which usually…

Humour, sweetness and sincerity: Father John Misty's Chloë and the Next Twentieth Century reviewed

23 April 2022 9:00 am

 Grade: A– In which Josh Tillman reimagines the whole back catalogue of 20th-century American pop music (except for rock), tilting…

The awfulness of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has always felt weirdly personal

16 April 2022 9:00 am

Squaring up to the prospect of a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, I’m reminded of a vintage quote by…

No one should be doing indie rock at 43: Band of Horses's Things Are Great reviewed

2 April 2022 9:00 am

Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…

See this Russian hip hop star before they arrest him: Oxxxymiron's Beauty & Ugliness reviewed

26 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ I was going to review hyperpop chanteuse Charli XCX’s album this week, but it was such boring, meretricious,…

Fabulously boring: Weather Station's How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars reviewed

12 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…

Too neat but it has hooks aplenty: Avril Lavigne's Love Sux reviewed

5 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: B Yay, life just gets better and better. World War Three and now this. More petulant popcorn pre-school punk…

Pretty astonishing: Black Country, New Road's Ants From Up There reviewed

19 February 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…

Has the whiff of Spinal Tap: Jethro Tull's The Zealot Gene reviewed

5 February 2022 9:00 am

Grade: C+   I bought the ‘seminal’ Jethro Tull double album Thick as a Brickfrom a secondhand shop when I…

A story of reflection and self-discovery: Anaïs Mitchell's new album reviewed

22 January 2022 9:00 am

Any artist who has habitually written or performed in character — from David Bowie to Lady Gaga — eventually arrives…

Lovely and wistful: Neil Young and Crazy Horse's Barn reviewed

15 January 2022 9:00 am

 Grade: A I have persisted in buying everything Neil Young releases since I first heard On the Beach as a…

In praise of seasonal chart fodder

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Christmas: the most vulnerable time of the year. I heard ‘A Winter’s Tale’ by David Essex on the radio the…