Pop music
Was Cat Stevens the inspiration for Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’?
The pop pin-up of the 1970s certainly suggests so – and, judging by his ‘official autobiography’, still finds himself endlessly fascinating
Across the universe – John and Paul are in each other’s songs forever
The Lennon-McCartney collaboration was one of genius from the start – and even in later years their songs continued to speak to one another, says Ian Leslie
The greatest British pop singer who never made a hit single
The musician known as Lawrence has spent four decades chasing fame, and the quest itself has made him a superstar – albeit at street level
Abba’s genius was never to write a happy love song
Benny and Björn may have composed some of the catchiest tunes ever, but even their bounciest melodies are ballasted with melancholy
Nothing satisfies Madonna for very long
Her ‘rebel’ life, as told by Mary Gabriel, has been a frenzied churn of friends, lovers, mentors and collaborators, vital to her for a year or two and then discarded
The Prefab Four
Monkeying around on TV vastly increased the group’s sales and popularity but prevented them from ever being taken seriously, says Tom Kemper
Three’s a crowd
Calling themselves the Bee Gees spelt trouble from the start for the very disparate Gibb brothers, says Craig Brown
Happiness is a warm gun
‘Better use your sense,’ advised Bob Dylan: ‘take what you have gathered from coincidence.’ John Higgs is a master of…
Rock till you drop
What do the following individuals have in common: a political activist from Suffolk; a chartered psychologist from Oxfordshire, who enjoys…
Girls behaving badly
Saying you don’t like Bananarama is like saying you don’t like summer or Marilyn Monroe — a sure sign of…
The escape artist
Arena: The Changin’ Times of Ike White (Monday) had an extraordinary story to tell — but one that, halfway through…
David Bowie: the boy who never gave up
A few years ago Will Brooker spent 12 months pretending to be David Bowie. For several weeks he dressed up…
The other half of Wham!
Have you heard the story about the time that Andrew Ridgeley, the 1980s heart-throb, refused to answer the door to…
According to BBC4, what was one of the ‘most important inventions in modern music’?
Here’s a tricky quiz question for you. What word completes this sentence from a BBC4 documentary on Friday: ‘The world…
Ignore Lily Allen’s sub-adolescent politics – her new album is brilliant
Grade: B+ Here we go again, then, I thought — another gobbet of self-referential, breast-beating respec’ me bro sputum against…
Pete Waterman on hits, HS2 and gay clubbing
One of the members of the government’s HS2 Growth Taskforce is remembering the first time he went to a gay…
Amazing Grace
In the first scene of this distinctly odd documentary, Grace Jones meets a group of fans, who squeal with delight…
Mourning glory
On the face of it, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds aren’t exactly a natural fit with the O2. Cave’s…
Northern rock
A fortnight ago, the debut album by a young British guitar band entered the chart at No. 6. You might…
The National: Sleep Well Beast
Grade: A– There are plenty of websites where fans try to discern, without any success, what in the name of…
The listening project
As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…
Arcade Fire: Everything Now
Grade: D+ Well, this is truly awful. Perhaps the worst album by a major band since Mardi Gras by Creedence…
His dark materials
Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…
His dark materials
Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…
Northern overexposure
Manchester isn’t downtrodden, whatever Andy Burnham says. Quite the opposite, in fact
