CDs/DVDs
joe.muggs
The formula is well established now. Take a hard-living, lately under-appreciated legend of music approaching the end of their life, give them a modern production sheen to highlight every crack and bit of grit in their careworn voice, stir in some lyrics of regret and redemption and Bob's your uncle. It worked spectacularly for Rick Rubin with Johnny Cash, and for XL Records' Richard Russell with Gil Scott Heron, and now Russell has teamed up with Damon Albarn to perform the same job on soul originator Bobby Womack.Unfortunately, the production isn't as modern or radical as it thinks it isIt' Read more ...
theartsdesk
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars 40th Anniversary EditionHoward MaleLet’s start with the bombshell. Yes, Ziggy is a landmark Seventies album but it’s not the masterpiece it should or even could have been, and no amount of remastering or repackaging can change that. For one thing, it simply doesn’t hold together as a concept album or rock opera. For another, the apocalyptic theme set up by the opening number “Five Years” is never followed through (and anyway, Bowie covered this whole area so much better on Diamond Dogs). Then there’s the sore thumb of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It has occasionally worked against Hot Chip that their first single – or, at least, the first to make any impact – was “Over and Over”. This 2006 song is such a perfect pop nugget, brutally reducing the appeal of club culture to a snappy yet celebratory couplet, that later work seemed wet in its shadow. Not that you’d know it from the music media adulation that attends the band. Consisting of five smart, geeky-looking blokes from London, they were quickly taken up by that same city’s taste arbiters, their clever electronic pop appealing to those observing the dance floor rather than on it.In Read more ...
graham.rickson
Five and a half hours of documentaries about beer and pubs. The temptation is to stock up on pork scratchings and consume the whole lot in one session, but this wonderful, handsomely-restored two-disc set is best savoured in several sittings. There’s a paradox in the fact that thousands of pubs have closed in recent years but the rate of alcohol-related illness has soared. We’re now getting more smashed than ever, but we buy our booze from Tesco and drink ourselves senseless at home.Roll Out the Barrel will make all but the hardest-hearted drinker shed a tear for what’s been lost, namely the Read more ...
David Nice
Only one of the five films in Artificial Eye’s selection is palpably a classic, a turning point in Ingmar Bergman’s early career. It’s flanked by curiosities spanning 11 of the master’s 59 years as a film-maker – two of them flaunting the beginner’s uneasy mixture of melodrama and realism, two later specimens making good use of the actresses who came to dominate his world. All have characteristic moments of intensity and will be welcomed by Bergman buffs keen to add to the substantial roster already available on DVD.The masterpiece is Sawdust and Tinsel, Bergman’s fantastical 1953 take on how Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“We’re back together, easy money”. For anyone feeling a wee bit cynical about The Beach Boys' reunion, that lyric – from “Spring Vacation” – is likely to push them towards full-blown contempt. Although That’s Why God Made the Radio is defined by missteps, it’s worth persevering to the end.The album reanimates The Beach Boys’ brand to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Given that they formed and released their first single in 1961, it must be the anniversary of the first chart hit, 1962’s “Surfin’ Safari”. Reunited are three originals - Al Jardine, Mike Love and Brian Wilson - and Bruce Johnson Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
BOAC, BEA, and Britannia: the recent past is so near and yet so far. All have now disappeared from the national consciousness but, in these two DVDs, the flagship planes of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways appear – in improbable colourways – bookending royal tours in stirring shots by British Pathé News or British Movietone as commissioned by the Central Office of Information, to be shown mostly abroad.So, too, the royal yacht sailing serenely into ports world wide, a safe haven and elegant entertainment venue for heads of state. The COI Collection Volume Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Ever since their original collaboration on 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young and Crazy Horse have made music that sounded as old as the hills. Primitive and funky, they reduce rock to its raw materials, without flash or frills or any chords more complicated than a G7. For this new project (their first together since Greendale in 2003), Young has assembled a batch of elderly folk songs and traditional ballads and processed their simple chord structures through the Crazy Horse blender.Folk music connoisseurs will recognise several of these, even if Young has given himself Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Bob Dylan talked, after his 1966 motorcycle crash, about having to learn to do consciously what he once did instinctively. That quote kept popping into my head as I listened to One Day I’m Going to Soar, the fourth Dexys album and their first for 27 years. On the surface everything seems to be in its right place: the vigorous horns, the virile fiddles. Old hands “Big” Jim Paterson, Mick Talbot and Pete Williams are back on board, aiding and abetting Kevin Rowland’s eccentric yelp, rambling monologues, wry humour and lacerating self-doubt. But somehow it doesn't quite add up.The primary Read more ...
theartsdesk
Everything But The Girl: Eden, Love Not Money, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, IdlewildJasper ReesCan it really be nearly three decades since the release of Eden defined the quintessential bedsit sound? Everything But The Girl are somehow ageless, a reality underwritten by this bloody wonderful set of reissues which tells the story of their quietly immense contribution to intelligent Eighties pop. There is also a clear narrative of their early progress from the undergraduate balladeering of Eden (1984), embellished and politicised in Love Not Money (1985), thrown entirely over for Ben Watt’s Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
At the age of 65, you would be forgiven for thinking that punk rock high priestess Patti Smith has every justification for winding down (the odd eccentric covers collection to keep the kids amused aside, of course). Indeed, her actions of the past couple of years - the highly-acclaimed memoir Just Kids, the self-curated musical retrospective Outside Society - bear all the hallmarks of an artist in reflective mode. Banga, Smith’s first new material since 2004’s Tramp, comes full circle in a sense: it was recorded at New York’s Electric Lady studios with many of the same personnel as were Read more ...
Emma Dibdin
What, honestly, is left to say about The Artist? For better or worse, Michel Hazanavicius' warm, wry, subtly audacious love letter to silent cinema dominated conversation, headlines and awards ballots for a good three months, during which time everything from rapturous praise to derisory jibes were tossed at its unsuspecting, perfectly coiffed head.But the important point is this: to dismiss the film, as many did once the inevitable backlash began, as "a simple story, well told", or worse as "a simplistic and predictable story, competently told", is to ignore the wealth of wit, specificity Read more ...