tue 16/09/2025

New Music Reviews

Barenaked Ladies, Roundhouse

Markie Robson-Scott

Lead singer and frontman Ed Robertson launches into a BNL-in-London rap, extolling the Roundhouse, “where they used to turn trains”, as well as the glories of Camden Market’s liquid-nitrogen ice-cream bar.

Read more...

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

james Woodall

It could be a book, film, TV or radio piece, essay or exhibition. If it’s about or based on The Beatles, the question is always the same: how on earth can anything new be said? In the case of Ron Howard’s Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, surprisingly quite a lot, is the answer.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: The Beach Boys

Kieron Tyler

The Beach Boys signed with Capitol Records on 24 May 1962. Early the next month, their first single for the label became “409”/”Surfin’ Safari”. It was not their debut release. The “Surfin'”/ “Luau” single had been issued in November 1961 by Candix.

Read more...

theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 20 - Ramones, Freddie Mercury, Pet Shop Boys and more

Thomas H Green

Once again theartsdesk on Vinyl returns to offer a round-up of the very best available on plastic, covering every style imaginable and, this month, a few that have to be heard to be believed. From albums to 7” singles to boxsets, all vinyl life is here. The ultimate vinyl reviews selection.

Various Eleven into Fifteen: a 130701 Compilation (130701)

Read more...

Prom 61: Kamasi Washington

Matthew Wright

Californian saxophone phenomenon Kamasi Washington is never knowingly understated. He rocked up for his Proms debut on Tuesday night having led a vast musical entourage on tour across Europe all summer, and delivered an ecstatic, if occasionally verbose, statement of intent. There were problems with both the performance and one or two of the compositions. But as a live experience, it was, in places, euphoric. Only a determined curmudgeon could leave without a grin.

Read more...

Björk Digital, Somerset House

Tina Edwards

Australia and Japan were first to host Björk Digital, but it lands at London’s Somerset House with fresh, never-before-seen work. The immersive virtual reality exhibition collates several digital- and film-based works born from Björk's critically acclaimed album Vulnicura.

Read more...

theartsdesk at Shambala Festival 2016

Caspar Gomez

The Short Version

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Judy Henske & Jerry Yester

Kieron Tyler

In 1969, a tranche of American musicians looked back to the country’s past for inspiration. Bob Dylan followed John Wesley Harding with Nashville Skyline. The Band’s eponymous second album hit the shops. The Flying Burrito Brothers debuted with The Gilded Palace of Sin. The rootsy was a default. But choosing to draw on country and Appalachian traditions did not have to mean playing it straight.

Read more...

Prom 49: Quincy Jones Prom, Royal Albert Hall

Andrew Cartmel

As I waited outside the entrance to the Royal Albert Hall, someone leaned over to me and said: “My cocaine is to your left.” I glanced in that direction and realised they’d actually said “Michael Caine is to your left”, and indeed he was, on his way inside to hear a prom devoted to music by his old friend Quincy Jones.

Read more...

Reissue CDs Weekly: Betty Davis, Jeanette Jones

Kieron Tyler

Despite their different paths in the Seventies, the final years of the Sixties saw parallels between Betty Davis and Jeanette Jones. Both soul singers had significant backing from music business insiders. Late in the decade, each had a discography limited to one unsuccessful single. They worked as models.

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Blu-ray: The Sons of Great Bear

Westerns had long been popular with German cinema audiences, some of the most successful being early 1960s West German adaptations of novels by...

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues review - comedy rock band f...

That difficult second documentary – or if you will, “rockumentary” – seems to have been especially challenging for...

Tosca, Welsh National Opera review - a great company reduced...

So it’s come to this: WNO’s autumn season reduced to two operas, a Tosca borrowed from Opera North and a revival of their own Candide...

Not Your Superwoman, Bush Theatre review - powerful tribute...

The Bush is likely to continue its fine recent run of hit plays, with this funny, poignant, culturally authentic and beautifully acted two-hander...

Music Reissues Weekly: Robyn - Robyn 20th-Anniversary Editio...

Sometimes, record labels don’t like what those on their roster have recorded. Such was the case with BMG Sweden and Robin Carlsson who, as Robyn,...

Album: Twenty One Pilots - Breach

For the past decade, the Ohio alternative superstars Twenty One Pilots have cultivated a deep lore starting with 2015’s Blurryface, and...

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale review - an attemptedly eleg...

It can be a hostage to fortune to title anything “grand”, and so it proves with the last gasp of Julian Fellowes’s everyday story of...

BBC Proms: Ehnes, Sinfonia of London, Wilson review - aspect...

Critics (including this one) casually refer to John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London as an all-star outfit, an army made up of generals. This week I...

Album: Ed Sheeran - Play

“It’s a long way up from rock bottom/There’s been times I felt I could fall further.” So runs the opening line of Ed Sheeran’s eighth studio album...