CDs/DVDs
Russ Coffey
Being arty, in pop, is generally considered a good thing. When it comes to being clever, though, things are less clear. Three-minute songs are, after all, mainly about feelings: about how much you’ve lived rather than how much you've read. Which brings us to FFS, the collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks. Few musicians are as culturally-literate as the LA veterans, nor many as clever-clogs as the Scottish hipsters. How, then, does this musical partnership sound?From the off there’s a sense that both sets of artists enjoy being members of pop's intellectual elite. Ironic titles like Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Almost a decade ago, I went to a disappointing festival in Holland. Driven to distraction by the crowd – a sixth-form disco stuck between the third and fourth circles of Dante's inferno – I, on the advice of a friend, went to see Muse. Their theatrical pomp and overblown, muscular attack took the top of my head off and replaced my brain with a great big lump of wallop.The news, then, that their latest album, Drones, is a concept set to become a musical makes perfect sense. It also explains the, at times, over-expository lyrics and the big theme slapped on the front. Fans of Banksy will think Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Despite its 19th-century setting, John Schlesinger’s film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd – released to cinemas in 1968 – is a very Sixties film. Amongst the themes of the novel which resonated then are class differences, female self-determination, the guises adopted to steer perceptions of the self and repression: all very relevant in 1960’s Britain as society sought to re-invent itself. Casting the then-hot Julie Christie and Terence Stamp further stressed the film was of the moment. As Frank Troy, Stamp could have been a poster boy for the voguish nostalgia embodied Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The 1990s were a great time for electronic dreamers. Before social networks and cat videos and tedium there was a sense of romance about “cyberspace”. This “virtual universe” seemed to have the potential to be cosmic, narcotic and exciting. There were even “brain machines”! It felt like we might meet a benevolent version of The Lawnmower Man around the next corner. Boosting this sense of possibility was a newish sound called “techno”, and futurist acts with sci-fi music and shows. Chief among them were Orbital, Future Sound of London and Leftfield. The last of these, a London duo who brought Read more ...
Guy Oddy
As Britain stares down the barrel of another five years of austerity, it’s disappointing that so few of the country’s musicians have anything to say about the very bad times that are heading our way. Slaves, however, have very definitely got something to say about the state of the world and Are You Satisfied? is the roar of a generation that knows that no-one is coming to save them.“The Hunter” sets out Slaves’ stall with equal parts social observation and wild hedonism. Isaac Holman’s thumping beat and Lauire Vincent’s menacing guitar back a chant of “It’s reckless and it’s pointless but it’ Read more ...
graham.rickson
Any parent, or anyone who's ever stood in front of a class needs to watch Whiplash. In a film brimming over with ideas, the recurring question is whether or not your pupils will ever achieve greatness if you overpraise them. As JK Simmons's Terence Fletcher explains, the most harmful words in the English language are “good job”. He refers to an inexperienced Charlie Parker having a cymbal thrown at him by an angry bandmate, and the first major shock in Whiplash comes when an enraged Fletcher hurls a chair at student drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) during a rehearsal. Fletcher's Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
That How Big How Blue How Beautiful is as much a mission statement as an album title will come as little surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with either Florence Welch or her pop juggernaut of a voice. With new producer Marcus Dravs – known for his work with the arena-filling stadium rock likes of Arcade Fire and Coldplay – on board, rumours that the album would showcase a subtler change in direction were always going to turn out to be exaggerated. But on the strength of some of the finer moments on Welch’s third album – and there are many of them – anything else Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Merle and Willie – these kind of senior country summits can either be a bit of a coaster, all well and good underneath your tumbler of Bourbon, or actually something to write home about. Keep this one away from the liquor. It’s produced by Buddy Cannon, who's worked with Willie Nelson on five albums since 2008, including last year's excellent Band of Brothers, and is co-writer on four more late-period Willie Nelson tunes – small, well-turned gems that continue to make the world a better place by being here, and collaborated on by text messaging, according to an interview in The Tennessean. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Marvin Gaye: Marvin Gaye 1961–1965On single, Marvin Gaye’s earliest years were defined by a head-long rush beginning with his fourth 45, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow". After that, future classic followed future classic: "Hitch Hike", "Pride and Joy", "Can I Get a Witness", “How Sweet it is (to be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar" and more. The years 1962 to 1965 were a musical goldmine for this multi-faceted singer and songwriter.On album, Marvin Gaye’s earliest years were somewhat more complex. Where his label Tamla (odd issues came via related imprint Motown) went for the direct and Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The Darkness, despite their current sober lifestyle, claim to be back with music that makes “women weak at the knees and men shit their pants”. If only. The lorry loads of booze and cocaine may be a thing of the past, but also, it seems, is their muse. Somewhere along the way, the boys have forgotten what people love about them. And for all the industrial riffs and squealing vocals, Last of Our Kind doesn’t actually offer much in the way of fun.Ironically, trying to sound less like a parody, has, if anything, made the band even more cartoonish. Before the heavy-grinding “Mudslide”, for Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Wild is solid, but Reese Witherspoon wasn’t necessarily the best choice to play a woman who took a 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail – from the Mojave Desert to the Bridge of Gods, which links Oregon to Washington State – to banish her demons. Considering Witherspoon's chipper personality, can-do spirit, fabulous smile, and natural aura of resilience, her casting loaded the dice. Were we expected to believe her character would sobbingly abandon her trek a third of the way through, or, for that matter, not find transcendence and a handsome, laid-back guy (Michiel Huisman) to Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There has never been any doubt of Jamie xx’s skill as a producer. Since he first appeared with the spectral, soundscaped atmospherics of The xx, he has remixed artists such as Adele and Eliza Doolittle but his work on Radiohead and Four Tet, as well as his Gil Scott-Heron remix album, seemed to show more clearly where his heart was at. While this music had polish and beauty, even an occasionally ethereal flavour, there was something shy and cerebral about it. It was only his contained, tension-building club and festival DJs sets that let audiences know this was a man who loved the dance Read more ...