The Listener
I’ve heard worse things — the death rattle of a close relative, for example: Kylie’s Disco reviewed
Grade: B– Uh-oh. Might have to be careful here, pull my punches a little bit. The editor is a big…
The sound of pop eating itself and throwing up: A.G. Cook’s Apple reviewed
Grade: A The future, then. The sound of pop eating itself, throwing up into a bag and then getting a…
More mimsy soft rock from Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman 2 reviewed
Grade: B– Time has been kind to Cat Stevens’s reputation — his estrangement from the music business and rad BAME…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Haunting and beautiful: Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus’s Songs of Yearning reviewed
Grade: A It has taken 33 years — during which time this decidedly strange Liverpool collective have put out only…
The last great purveyors of a vanishing art form: Green Day’s Fathers of All... reviewed
Grade: B+ It is an eternal mystery to me why Britain has never had much time for power pop, seeing…
Woke slogans welded to incompetent grunge: Neil Young’s Colorado reviewed
Grade: B- Horribly woke boilerplate slogans welded inexpertly to the usual incompetent Crazy Horse grunge. Young and his pick-up band…
Great title – shame about the songs: Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell reviewed
Grade: B+ Get the razor blades out, Ms Misery is back. Only the truly affluent can immerse themselves in such…
Needed a shot of Stolichnaya: The Tchaikovsky Project reviewed
Grade: B+ I’m not sure about ‘Projects’. Aren’t those what ageing rockers produce, in a haze of sedatives, when their…
Reliably odd but the deranged proggery grates: King’s Mouth by The Flaming Lips reviewed
Grade: B- So a queen dies as her giant baby is being born. The baby grows very big indeed and…
Hideously tasteful elegies to useless country singers: Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars reviewed
Grade: B– The first Springsteen song I ever heard was ‘Born To Run’, back when I was 14. I clocked…
Much as I admire Morrissey’s refusal to conform, I don’t much like his music
Grade: B Rock stars who utter something a little gamey, something a tad right-wingish, are usually coerced by the lefties…
Maybe the best thing this skag head’s ever done: Peter Doherty & the Puta Madres reviewed
Grade: A Old skag head’s back, then — older (40 now!), probably none the wiser, still a very good songwriter.…
Thick 12-year-olds listen to Ariana Granda, smart ones to Billie Eilish
Grade: A– If your 12-year-old daughter’s a bit thick, she probably likes Ariana Grande. Come on, dads — you’ve got…
Magnificently incoherent: Royal Trux’s White Stuff reviewed
Grade:A Royal Trux are back — kind of. Singer (if that’s what you want to call what she does) Jennifer…
1975 was a great year for pop – worthy of a better band than The 1975
Grade: C A derided year in pop music, 1975 — and yet a great one. The mainstream was horrible, but…
They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed
Grade: D+ I promise you this isn’t simply class loathing. Yer toffs have contributed to British rock and pop and…
The ideal album for getting rid of guests over Christmas: Yoko Ono’s Warzone reviewed
Grade: A+ Ooh, you can have some fun with this when the unwanted guests swing by this Christmastide. These are…
Laudably perverse – maybe album of the year: Cypress Hill’s Elephants on Acid reviewed
Grade: A+ Easily album title of the year, maybe album of the year. A true bravura offering from these supposedly…
What’s not to like about Christine and the Queens? Her music
Grade: B– Ooh goody — a parade to rain on! You wouldn’t believe the hyperbole expended by the rock critics…
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