Rock
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…
Banal and profound, bent and beautiful: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis at Edinburgh Playhouse reviewed
Nick Cave has always been drawn to parable and fable, but more than ever these days he is engaged in…
Good noisy fun: black midi, at the Edinburgh International Festival, reviewed
This year we must love Edinburgh for her soul rather than her looks. The EIF should be commended for making…
The joys of musical comfort food
I’ve given up comfort food. I’m trying to shift lockdown pounds that have left me with the physique of the…
'Germans thought we couldn't play': Irmin Schmidt, of Krautrock pioneers Can, interviewed
Krautrock pioneer Irmin Schmidt talks to Graeme Thomson about taking risks, playing badly and ignoring the Brits
The songs are still as fresh and appetising as a hot loaf: The Lightning Seeds livestream reviewed
One thing about a streamed festival is that the toilets are better than at the real thing. The other thing,…
The mystery and romance of the cassette tape
May the gods of Hiss and Compression bless Lou Ottens. As head of new product development at Phillips, the Dutch…
The triumph of bedroom pop
A short history of lo-fi, by Robert Barry
'I like upsetting people': Steven Wilson interviewed
Michael Hann talks to the cult rock star Steven Wilson about why it’s harder to write a pop song than prog
Makes me nostalgic for an era when music was more than a click away: Teenage Superstars reviewed
In Teenage Superstars, a long and slightly exhausting documentary about the Scottish indie scene of the 1980s and ’90s, there…
A criminally underrated songwriter: Matthew Sweet’s Catspaw reviewed
Grade: A– The early 1990s were a lovely time for rock music: Beck, Sparklehorse, Sugar, Green on Red and Royal…
As pretty as anything he’s written in four decades: McCartney III reviewed
Grade: A- The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who…
Virtuosic but slight – always prog’s problem: The Pineapple Thief's latest reviewed
Grade: B– Of all the various subdivisions in that wheezing and crippled phenomenon that we call rock music, prog has…
There's scarcely a dull track: Deep Purple's Whoosh! reviewed
Grade: B+ Less deep purple than a pleasant mauve. Ageing headbangers will note a lack of the freneticism that distinguished…
The people who were idiots at gigs in early March are still idiots
Is the world ready for the return of live rock music? On the evidence of the first gig in London…
Ranges from the slight to the first-rate: Neil Young’s Homegrown reviewed
Grade: B+ Neil Young has been mining his own past very profitably for a long time now, disinterring a seemingly…
Dysfunctional music for dysfunctional people: The Public Image is Rotten reviewed
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
The festivalisation of TV
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
Contains the loveliest new song I've heard in decades: Bob Dylan's new album reviewed
Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…
In defence of Prince’s late style
In 1992 Prince released a single called ‘My Name Is Prince’. On first hearing it seemed appropriately regal. Cocky, even.…
Skates on the edge of parody: The 1975's Notes on a Conditional Form reviewed
Grade: B+ Just what you wanted. An opening track that matches banal piano noodling to an address by Greta Thunberg.…
Beautiful voice, pretentious album: Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters reviewed
Grade: C+ Where did they all come from, the quirky yet meaningful rock chicks who don’t have a decent song…
The musical benefits of not playing live
Many performers hated playing live. But freed from the stage they often made their best and wildest work, argues Graeme Thomson
Taylor Swift is fascinating – but you really wouldn't want to be her
There had been some question about whether Taylor Swift’s Netflix special would actually appear. Last year it seemed that the…
Grimly compelling: The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour reviewed
‘No matter what they take from me,’ sang Whitney Houston towards the end of a peculiar evening in Hammersmith, ‘they…
