Pop
Avril Lavigne: Love Sux
Grade: B Yay, life just gets better and better. World War Three and now this. More petulant popcorn pre-school punk…
Playing hooky
One of the curiosities of modern pop’s landscape is that no one knows any longer how to measure success. An…
Such sweet sorrow
We gathered on a freezing Sunday night, inside a barrel-vaulted church designed in the 1890s by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to…
Black Country, New Road: Ants From Up There
Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…
Hardcore thrills
Even leaving aside its origins as prison slang, punk has always meant different things on either side of the Atlantic.…
A great leap forward
The single thing you don’t want when you are beginning a run of four shows in a prestige venue, with…
Mike Yarwood moment
Any artist who has habitually written or performed in character — from David Bowie to Lady Gaga — eventually arrives…
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Barn
Grade: A I have persisted in buying everything Neil Young releases since I first heard On the Beach as a…
The potency of cheap music
Christmas: the most vulnerable time of the year. I heard ‘A Winter’s Tale’ by David Essex on the radio the…
Ed Sheeran: = (Christmas edition)
Grade: C= My wife’s ill with Covid and demanding inexhaustible libations and difficult meals, which she will leave uneaten. The…
I saw a film today, oh boy
My late friend Alexander Nekrassov loathed the Beatles, which I used to think was a wantonly contrary position akin to…
The singing is the star
When I were a lad — back when you could buy the entire back catalogue of the Fall for thruppence…
The weird turned pro
Pop quiz time: which act was named Melody MakerGroup of the Year in 1975? The answer is not, as you…
Soul searching
No musician ever went bust overestimating the public desire to hear classic soul. Slapping on a Motown backbeat has revived…
Beach House: Once Twice Melody
Grade: B+ Everything these days devolves to prog — and not always very good prog. Where once synths were vastly…
‘Having the right answer is boring’
Graeme Thomson talks to the cult singer Joan Wasser about the robotic nature of pop, finding salvation in songwriting and Tony Allen
Oh dear, Abba’s new album is a bit of a dog: Voyage reviewed
Time has been very kind to Abba. No one back in the 1970s thought of them as geniuses. But they've even lost the talent for writing memorable tunes
Running on full and empty
The bigger the next big thing, the smaller the room you want them playing in. You want the people who…
The death of the live album
Next week The The release The Comeback Special, a 24-track live album documenting the band’s concert at the Royal Albert…
Morrissey remastered
Many of us who grew up loving the Smiths have rather shelved that affection in recent years. Many of us,…
The beautiful and damned
Nick Cave has always been drawn to parable and fable, but more than ever these days he is engaged in…
Hot metal and methadrine
They may no longer get many teenagers at their shows spending all their money on merchandise, then throwing up on…
Another Albion
As August unwound, the EIF settled into the cavernous gazebo that is Edinburgh Park, and things began to loosen up.…
Happy cross-pollination
This year we must love Edinburgh for her soul rather than her looks. The EIF should be commended for making…
Musical Medicis
The new music economy relies on cross-promotion and artists reaching out to different scenes. And the rise of streaming means…
