1970s
Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic effort for an overcooked history lessonMonday, 17 February 2025
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers; sometimes an instant classic emerges. But to revive a music drama that hardly made waves back in 1977... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash SupergroupSunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017 reunion album featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. “... Read more... |
Blu-ray: GolemTuesday, 18 February 2025
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to this legend and to Gustav Meyrink’s unsettling 1914 novel, moving the... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Beggars Arkive - The Lurkers’ 1978 John Peel sessionSunday, 09 February 2025
On its own, the second session The Lurkers recorded for the BBC’s John Peel show on 18 April 1978 is arguably a curio, a footnote. Four tracks of bracingly straight-ahead Brit-punk with a headstrong freshness undiminished by time. But whatever the... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: New York Dolls - Showdown At The MercerSunday, 26 January 2025
“A band you’re gonna like, whether you like it or not.” The proclamation in the press ads for the New York Dolls’ debut album acknowledged they were a hard sell.At this point, in July 1973, the band was a New York phenomenon. There had been an anti-... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: American Baroque - Chamber Pop and Beyond 1967-1971Sunday, 05 January 2025
The descending refrain opening the song isn’t unusual but attention is instantly attracted as it’s played on a harpsichord. Equally instantly, an elegiac atmosphere is set. The voice, coming in just-short of the 10-second mark, is similarly yearning... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Music Reissues WeeklySunday, 29 December 2024
A reissue can be an aide-mémoire, a reminder that a record which has been off the radar for a while needs revisiting, that it deserves fresh attention.In that spirit, this column has looked at straight vinyl reissues of albums of varying styles,... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - X In Search Of Space, Doremi Fasol LatidoSunday, 22 December 2024
One of last year’s major joys was the box set version of Hawkwind's Space Ritual, an 11-disc extravaganza which made the great live album, originally issued in May 1973, even more great. Now the two studio albums which preceded it – X In Search Of... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: John Cale - The Academy in Peril, Paris 1919, Fear, Slow Dazzle, Helen of TroySunday, 01 December 2024
The return to shops of a consecutive sequence of five of John Cale's Seventies albums through different labels is undoubtedly coincidental. All have been previously reissued multiple times and none are scarce in any form. Anyone wanting any of these... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Magazine - Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use of SoapSunday, 17 November 2024
“Let's walk down memory lane the Magazine way. Let's regurgitate fifth-rate Low [the David Bowie album] period pieces. Let's plonk plonk plonk with ponderous sub-Pink Floydery. Let's do the wallpaper waltz. This is not pushing back the barriers. It'... Read more... |
Tucker Zimmerman, The Lexington, London review - undersung old-timer airs songwriting excellenceThursday, 07 November 2024
Tucker Zimmerman is singing a number called “Don’t Go Crazy (Go in Peace)”. At 83, he performs sitting down. Surrounded by support band Iji, who act as his pick-up, he approaches the song in a whispery, affable voice. At the start of his set he was... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered SinglesSunday, 03 November 2024
After the chart success of his second album, June 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, it was inevitable that any single had to represent Isaac Hayes in a different way to the LP. The album’s 12-minute version of “Walk on by” would not work as a seven-incher.... Read more... |
- 1 of 60
- ››
