rock
mark.kidel
Few singers can channel bitterness, anger and pain as well as Lucinda Williams: she moves with ease from a fierce snarl to a sensual drawl, and from a naked show of vulnerability to a rocker’s raunch. As with Tom Waits, with whom she has sometimes been compared, there is something stylised about her vocal style, almost mannered. And yet, born performer and poet that she is, she channels archetypal emotions in a way that never feels forced.In her new album, a collection of very intense material, in which the personal and political seamlessly mix, she is joined once again by co-producer Roy Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Interviewed in isolation last week by Hollywood Reporter, music mogul Clive Davis revealed that he’s using his time “either by listening to the newest singles that make the charts or by watching hit music videos. First to be aware of them and then to keep my ears as current as they can be.”Just turned 88 and sequestered in Palm Springs, Davis was missing his family. He’d been due at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and then at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts, where he himself was to be honoured. Both events were of course cancelled but he needs to be “prepared Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
ZZ Top always seemed like a Texan version of Status Quo. It turns out, from watching this entertaining but hardly revelatory documentary, that is kind of what they are. Directed by Canadian Sam Dunn, best known for his 2005 documentary, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, the film follows Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard as they go from Hicksville also-rans to global megastars, while hardly changing their bar room blues boogie a jot.The hour-and-a-half documentary is good on their convoluted beginnings, clearly laying out their stints in various wannabe-Beatles/Stones 1960s outfits, with Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Their debut’s title was a disillusioned shrug, and for most of the 19 years since Is This It, The Strokes have continued with seeming reluctance, releasing new albums fitfully. But here they are, still riding the afterglow of Manhattan’s decadent energy in the season before 9/11 and Giuliani’s clampdown, and with producer Rick Rubin, career resurrection a speciality, on hand to tease out growth beyond the Television tribute act they once resembled.The New Abnormal is a diverse and mature sixth album, exuding worldly confidence as it dismisses the detractors, rivals and lovers of a time less Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Available in Britain now on YouTube for only a couple of days, Elton John’s iHeart Living Room Concert for America was put together in less than a week and was broadcast in the US on Sunday evening. In normal circumstances, the slot would have been occupied by the iHeart Radio Music Awards, which were to have been carried live from the Shrine Auditorium in LA.When the ceremony cancelled earlier this month, Fox execs wondered what they might replace it with – what would be appropriate given the encroaching horror? And if they could put something together, would the public be forgiving about Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Eddie Vedder’s maturing from a mumbling, suspicious victim-star of grunge into a wise elder statesman leading the last convincing big rock band has been heartening. This first Pearl Jam album in seven years rings sonic changes with the machine drums and electro beats of “Dance of the Clairvoyants” and ranges from industrial clank to Byrds jangle elsewhere, switching styles even during songs, as if down-time left them brimming with ideas, half-forgetful of the band they were thought to be. That doesn’t stop them relaxing into windmilling Who guitars on “Never Destination”. Grunge itself barely Read more ...
Liz Thomson
It’s almost unbearably poignant, on this black Friday evening in March 2020, to watch a documentary about Ready Steady Go! , “the most innovative rock ‘n’ roll show ever”, believes Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the second of its four directors who went on to work with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he!” – but he’s right. Nothing has surpassed it, certainly not Top of the Pops, BBC TV’s response to the programme which, based around the singles chart, eventually helped kill it.“The weekend starts here” was its (unofficial) slogan, though it wasn’t quoted in The Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The best place to start with Morrissey's new LP is the title track, which begins as a petty dig at the media: "I do not read newspapers/ they are troublemakers", the singer croons indignantly. But then, as the music builds and his anger mounts, Moz loosens up and his emotions flood out. The same dynamic is repeated throughout the entire album, with songs that alternate between mannered electro-pop and stirring, experimental rock. Opener "Jim Jim Falls", falls into the latter category, with pulsating, twitchy electronic noises that lead into sweeping melodies and dark lyrics about Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Elvis Costello is arguably – perhaps unarguably – the most enduring and genuine talent to emerge from the mid-Seventies pub and punk scenes, and his two-hour set on Friday night demonstrated that he’s still a compelling performer, full of energy and passion. The voice isn’t quite what it was, off-pitch at times, though it retains its distinctive timbre and vibrato.The artist formerly known as Declan MacManus had reinvented himself as Elvis just before Presley died, putting together one of the classiest bands of the day and proceeding to pour out a string of memorable songs which, for those of Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There is something enjoyably spikey about Halsey, even when she is adhering to pop convention. At one stage she told the crowd how good they looked, before dryly adding it was praise they wouldn’t have heard before. These are brave words when playing to a Glasgow audience. She is a pop performer possessing an actual personality, one that has survived the step up to playing arenas, and when she spoke during the encore of how her fans had helped keep her alive during tough times, it came with a raw emotion rarely present in big gigs.The New Jersey native was also very much the show here. Her Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Through previous archive releases or bootlegs, deep-digging Cream fans will already be familiar with much of what’s on Goodbye Tour – Live 1968. The legitimate 1969 album Goodbye Cream included three tracks from the 19 October 1968 Los Angeles Forum show, heard here in full. Another trio of tracks on this set, from a 4 October 1968 Oakland show, appeared on the 1972 Live Cream Volume II album. The 26 November 1968 Royal Albert Hall set has done the rounds in various forms. As for bootlegs, all the shows collected on Goodbye Tour have circulated in their complete form.What's new is Goodbye Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Stereophonics climbed out of Cwmaman in the South Wales valleys minus charisma, musical originality or excitement. They make rock music that is conservative and unriotous, offering comfort not commotion. And yet their solid, straightforward strengths, embodied in Kelly Jones’ gravel-flecked, smoothly powerful voice, confidently carry a two-hour set with 11 hit albums to draw from. “I try to make them as honest and true as I can, and then I play them to you people,” Jones says of his songwriting MO. Meat and potatoes can be a hearty, nourishing diet.Jones recalls ZZ Top, Zeppelin and the Read more ...