pop
Album: Cian Ducrot - Little DreamingThursday, 31 July 2025
Cian Ducrot cut his teeth on a blend of intimate singer-songwriter balladry and lowkey alt-pop, most of his debut album Victory sounding like a less personable Lewis Capaldi. There’s a modernity to Ducrot’s sound, though. The palette is... Read more... |
Sabrina Carpenter, Hyde Park BST review - a sexy, sparkly, summer phenomenonMonday, 07 July 2025
Has Sabrina Carpenter officially conquered London? A year after bestie and fellow Disney alumni Taylor Swift declared the “Summer of Sabrina” stateside, the army of fans clad in pink cowboy hats, bloomers and kiss transfers streaming into Hyde Park... Read more... |
Album: Lorde - VirginThursday, 26 June 2025
Lorde’s trajectory is continually fascinating. From the minimalist, sparse electropop of Pure Heroine to the similar but more grandiose production of Melodrama was a linear progression, but then came the acoustic... Read more... |
Album: Pulp - MoreFriday, 06 June 2025
While the Gallagher brothers scrabble around in the dirt for their rich pickings, an altogether more dignified experience is on offer from Sheffield. More is Pulp’s first album for 24 years, which is a sobering fact for those of us who... Read more... |
Album: Miley Cyrus - Something BeautifulFriday, 30 May 2025
A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but actually, perhaps I was wrong and Miley Cyrus deserves that title. Ever since her teens, she has consistently... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Slade in FlameMonday, 12 May 2025
Over the years Slade in Flame has been hailed as one of the greatest rock movies (albeit rarely seen or screened), up there with Perfomance and That’ll Be The Day.Like those films, it has grittiness running through it like barbed wire through a... Read more... |
Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played with youthful energySaturday, 10 May 2025
It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old dancefloor, and during the encore a pair of excitable, bouncing teenagers turned around and started bellowing... Read more... |
Album: Perfume Genius - GloryThursday, 27 March 2025
I can’t stop reading and re-reading the review copy I got of a new book, out next week. Liam Inscoe-Jones’s Songs in the Key of MP3: the New Icons of the Internet Age is one of those books where you’ll find yourself shocked that it didn’t... Read more... |
Album: Lady Gaga - MayhemSaturday, 08 March 2025
Just the other day I overheard one of my kids watching a YouTuber called Nathan Zed and was instantly gripped. It was called “How Trying Became Cool Again,” and focused on pop cultural moments like Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl show, Doechii... Read more... |
Album: Biig Piig - 11:11Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Is there such a thing as a boundary between pop and alternative any more? The presence of strange characters like Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish and Lola Young in the mega mainstream suggests not – and so does trajectory of Jessica Smyth aka Biig Piig... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2024: Everything Everything - MountainheadMonday, 23 December 2024
There are some years where my pick for album of the year is obvious; something stands out so clearly amongst the crowd, something that takes a hold and doesn’t relent for a sustained length throughout the year. For me, 2024 was not one of those... Read more... |
Album: The Cure - Songs of a Lost WorldThursday, 31 October 2024
Could melancholia be an elixir of creative youth? Or is it that sad people were never really that youthful, so age suits them? Certainly it seems that there was something in the water for so many of the foundational 80s indie bands who dealt in... Read more... |
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