Music news

• Queens of the Stone Age review – gonzoid riffage and hellacious swagger

  19-11-2017 13:33 via theguardian.com
  Wembley Arena, London
  Tearing up the rulebook, rock’s last remaining outlaws create a visceral, vast and heavy sound that is scoured of machismo and full of wit You really don’t wanna make Josh Homme angry. But overzealous Wembley staff, training spotlights on an overexcitable audience, have only gone and done it tonight. “Security, these people can do whatever the fuck they want,” he drawls like John Wayne, if Wayne were 6ft 4in of hard-living rock hero, puffing on an il
  
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• Smith and Myers review | John Fordham’s jazz album of the month

  10-05-2024 08:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Red Hook Records
  In their album Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens the two musical soulmates impressionistically reflect on John Lennon, Albert Ayler and moreIn the 1960s, Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) became a beacon for artists seeking to play a new jazz that could often sound fiercely unfamiliar, but without losing the tradition’s communal vivacity – “joyous and pugnacious” was the Guardian&
  
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• Jonny Greenwood: ‘I’m still arsing around on instruments like when I was a kid’

  10-05-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Radiohead guitarist changed rock music, then conquered the world of soundtracks. But can he revolutionise the church organ with an eight-hour composition? Jonny Greenwood is in the studio in his Oxfordshire home, surrounded by a cornucopia of weird and wonderful instruments. He almost trips over a stray autoharp while walking around the room on a video call, showing me his pianos, his ondes Martenots, his recorders of different sizes, his guitars, a tambura, a steel-strung harp and any numbe
  
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• Dennis Thompson, drummer in rock band MC5, dies aged 75

  10-05-2024 03:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Thompson was the last surviving member of the group after the death of guitarist Wayne Kramer in FebruaryDennis Thompson, the drummer for influential Detroit rock band MC5, has died at the age of 75.Thompson, who was the last surviving member of the group after the death of guitarist Wayne Kramer in February, died in a Michigan nursing home on Thursday. He had been recovering after a heart attack in April, his son Chris McNulty told Detroit News. Continue reading...
  
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• Coldplay and Sting call for release of Toomaj Salehi, Iranian rapper sentenced to death

  10-05-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Leading cultural figures including Margaret Atwood sign statement in support of rapper who criticised Iranian regimeMore than 100 figures from the worlds of music, culture and human rights activism – including Coldplay and Sting – have signed a statement calling for the release of the Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi who has been sentenced to death in Iran after protesting in support of women’s rights.The 33-year-old, who was a vocal supporter of the Women, Life, Freedom movement i
  
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• Taylor Swift debuts new tracks as she returns to The Eras Tour

  09-05-2024 23:50 via theguardian.com
  
  Pop star thrills Paris crowds with songs from newest album The Tortured Poets DepartmentTaylor Swift has added her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, to an already packed setlist as she returned to The Eras Tour after a two-month break.Swift had described TTPD as “new works reflecting events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure”. In Paris on Thursday night she put it more
  
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• Spanish investigation into Shakira’s alleged tax evasion dropped

  09-05-2024 18:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Court says irregularities in Colombian singer’s 2018 tax return did not indicate intent to defraud A Spanish court has shelved an investigation into an alleged tax fraud by the Colombian pop star Shakira, putting an end to her legal woes in the country where she once lived.Prosecutors had opened the case in July, alleging she had used a network of companies, some in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6m (£5.7m) in 2018. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘The music industry is smoke and mirrors’: how DIY duo the Lovely Eggs are keeping the north weird

  09-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The psych-poppers have made records with Iggy Pop and launched their own TV channel, but their biggest challenge yet is taking shape in their home city of LancasterWalking through Lancaster on a sunny spring day, Holly Ross has a theory about her home town and its inhabitants. Once towering over the city was Lancaster Moor hospital, formerly the Lancaster county lunatic asylum, which was home to thousands of patients. “People were sent here from all over the place,” she says. “
  
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• ‘Coming out, it was like a veil was lifted’: Indigo Girls on homophobia, hope and their big Barbie moment

  08-05-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  With Margot Robbie belting out one of their songs on screen and an inspiring new documentary, It’s Only Life After All, the folk rock duo are gaining new recruits to their fiercely devoted fanbaseIn 1990, as her duo Indigo Girls were heading to platinum-selling success in the US, Amy Ray founded her own label called Daemon Records, formed as “a supportive network for each other within it, almost like a co-op,” she says. She internalised this “ecosystem idea” from Fu
  
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• Olivia Rodrigo review – raging rock opera from a gen Z powerhouse

  08-05-2024 12:21 via theguardian.com
  
  OVO Hydro, Glasgow
  Rodrigo’s second UK tour showcases a confident star at ease with all-out punk-rock and intimate pop alikeToilet sinks are streaked with purple glitter and lost hair ribbons decorate the foyer. Olivia Rodrigo has not yet arrived, but the Hydro already feels like a teen girl’s bedroom. On stage, Guts – the title of her Grammy-nominated second album – is spelled out by towering, melting candles. A soldout crowd, clad in homemade merch, scream when the T te
  
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• Drake’s security guard ‘seriously injured’ in shooting at Toronto mansion

  07-05-2024 20:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Guard was shot inside Drake’s home and had serious but non-life-threatening injuries, while the assailant fled in a vehicleA security guard at the mansion of Canadian hip-hop artist Drake has been “seriously injured” in a shooting outside the musician’s Toronto home.The victim, an adult male, was rushed to a Toronto hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries following the shooting early on Tuesday morning. Continue reading...
  
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• Guitar formerly owned by Prince could fetch $600,000 at auction

  07-05-2024 20:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Cloud 3 used at height of his stardom may beat estimate and become most expensive of late musician’s guitarsOne of Prince’s guitars used by the late musician on stage at the height of his stardom in the 80s and 90s is being auctioned later this month.The Cloud 3 guitar, which Prince wielded during tours such as Purple Rain, Parade, Sign of the Times, Lovesexy, and Diamonds and Pearls, is estimated to fetch between $400,000 (£320,000) and $600,000 but could beat this estimate to
  
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• ‘He growls death metal in his pants!’ The Eurovision 2024 bangers to watch out for

  07-05-2024 15:11 via theguardian.com
  
  From a man with a mullet letting off fireworks to a Slovenian witch, this year’s Eurovision has some of the wildest entries everThe bookies’ favourite, and you can see why. For one thing, it addresses a hot-button social issue – the lyrics deal with Nemo Mettler’s non-binary gender identity – that’s also very Eurovision-friendly. In 1998, Eurovision had a transgender winner, Dana International, 34 years before Kim Petras became the first transgender woman to t
  
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• ‘I feel super gassed’: Lady Unchained, the prison radio host playing inmates’ raps

  07-05-2024 13:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Hosted by poet and broadcaster Lady Unchained, Free Flow lets prisoners phone in their raps – and one has even recorded a single. We go behind the scenes of the show, which is up for three awards“It’s your girl, Lady Unchained, and you’re listening to Free Flow – the instrumental show where we play the beat twice so you can get your bars right!”It’s a rainy Thursday afternoon and I’ve just arrived at the secret London location of one of the homes o
  
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• ‘Blood is on your hands, Biden’: US rapper Macklemore gives support to Palestine and campus protests

  07-05-2024 13:05 via theguardian.com
  
  New track Hind’s Hall backs Columbia University protesters and characterises Israel as ‘a state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system’Chart-topping US rapper Macklemore has released a new track, Hind’s Hall, which gives robust support to Palestine as well as those protesting at US universities against Israel’s activity in Gaza.Hind’s Hall is named after the Columbia University building, renamed from Hamilton Hall by occupying student protesters to ref
  
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• ‘My bandmates looked like escaped prisoners’: farewell to queer punk icon Gary Floyd

  07-05-2024 11:23 via theguardian.com
  
  In an interview shortly before his death last week, the frontman of the Dicks remembered how ‘defying anybody’ led to some of the best US punk of the 80s – and mayonnaise-filled condomsBetween its vitriolic hatred of cops, Nazis, the Klan and the bourgeoisie, and the ecstatic joy of losing oneself to gloryholes and porno stores, few punk albums sounded like the Dicks’ Kill from the Heart when it was released in 1983 – and as it gets reissued this month, few still do
  
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• ‘The truth was just too painful’: the highs and lows of Mama Cass

  07-05-2024 10:04 via theguardian.com
  
  The daughter of ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot has written a book to explore the tragically short life of her mother, from relentless fat-shaming to a myth about her deathOne of the most famous stories ever told about “Mama” Cass Elliot was a complete lie. It didn’t help that the singer herself repeated it in scores of interviews. As the spiel goes, Cass became the last singer hired for the Mamas and Papas only after she got smacked on the head by a pipe during a construction p
  
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• ‘I thought it was a speech by Kurt Vonnegut’: Baz Luhrmann on making Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

  06-05-2024 16:58 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Some kid had credited a column of life advice in the Chicago Tribune to the writer of Slaughterhouse-Five. It then spread on a new invention called the world wide web. I thought it would make a great spoken word song’In 1997, my music supervisor Anton Monsted and I decided to make a charity album with remixes of songs from my films. I was working on a new version of Rozalla’s rave banger Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good) that, for Romeo + Juliet, we had turned into an eccl
  
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• Dionne Warwick review – fascinating look back is a little short on songs

  06-05-2024 13:42 via theguardian.com
  
  The Glasshouse, Gateshead
  Talking through a brave career dating back six decades, the 83-year-old is singing much less, but when the hits come the magic is still thereIn 1962, 21-year-old Dionne Warwick sang the Burt Bacharach and Hal David-penned Don’t Make Me Over to launch a career spanning six Grammys and 100m sales. More than six decades later, the soul legend opens with it here – although at 83 her voice understandably sounds more frail and vulnerable, giving new and moving mea
  
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• Drake denies allegations by Kendrick Lamar of underage sex and harbouring secret child

  06-05-2024 11:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Drake says ‘I feel disgusted’ by allegations, as enmity between rap superstars deepens following weekend flurry of diss tracksDrake has denied allegations of child sex offences and of him harbouring a secret child, both levelled at him by Kendrick Lamar in recent days.The enmity between the rap superstars has escalated over a series of diss tracks in the past few weeks, culminating in a flurry of activity during the weekend with three tracks by Lamar and two by Drake. Continue readin
  
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• ‘People think it’s just for emo or gothic kids’: the Kenyan metalhead leading a new wave of African rock

  06-05-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Martin Kanja, AKA Lord Spikeheart, covers everything from colonialism to his grandmother in music that mixes African culture with metal. He hopes to help more artists like him break throughAs a teenager, Martin Kanja spent countless late nights listening to heavy metal on a local radio show. The furious riffs, shrieks, growls and distorted sounds drowned out his angst. “What drew me to the music was how it was so ‘physical’ – very present, very now – there was no sp
  
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• The Pogues review – triumphant tribute to energy and poetry of band’s early days

  05-05-2024 17:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Hackney Empire, London
  An inspired cast of guests from Nadine Shah to Jim Sclavunos stand in for the late Shane MacGowan in a raucous run-through of the band’s debut album and other highlightsWith late frontman Shane MacGowan replaced by a succession of guests, this 40th anniversary show for the Pogues’ debut album, Red Roses For Me, could so easily have been a pale imitation, glorified karaoke. And yet, it’s utterly triumphant. There are no overwrought speeches during this eve
  
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• Free Madonna concert draws crowd of 1.6m to Brazil’s Copacabana beach

  05-05-2024 16:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Area around Rio de Janeiro beach filled for several blocks as singer closes her Celebration world tourWith the world-famous statue towering over it from Corcovado mountain, Rio de Janeiro is well used to Christ the Redeemer. For one night only this weekend, it also had Madonna.More than a million people thronged Copacabana beach on Saturday night, turning its vast stretch of sand into a massive dancefloor for a free concert by the pop star as she completed her world tour. Continue reading...
  
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• Keane review – note-perfect return with added emotional wallop

  05-05-2024 12:43 via theguardian.com
  
  First Direct Arena, Leeds
  TikTok phenomenon Somewhere Only We Know inspires much hugging and joy, but the band led by a revived Tom Chaplin are more than just a one-hit wonderAfter the chart-steamrollering success of their 2004 debut album Hopes and Fears, singer Tom Chaplin’s drug and alcohol addiction meant things had gone badly awry by the time Keane took an “indefinite hiatus” 10 years ago. However, here they are, packing out arenas at least partly due to the startling seco
  
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• Dua Lipa: Radical Optimism review – a banger-filled missive from dating land

  04-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Warner)
  Talk of a new musical direction proves unfounded as the Grammy-winning singer’s third album shares more retro-inspired dance pop and lessons from her love lifeDua Lipa’s last album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia, moved the cultural dial. Released into the pandemic, it was ubiquitous, neon-hued and life-affirming, winning two Brits and her third Grammy overall, confirming Lipa as an international superstar. It also kicked off a disco revival boom echoed through numerous other
  
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• Unknown singer stands in for Olly Murs at last-minute as Take That support in Glasgow

  04-05-2024 14:25 via theguardian.com
  
  Daniel Rooney stood in at 30 minutes’ notice on Friday night when Murs’ flight from London was cancelledA Scottish singer has said he is “still on a high” after being plucked from obscurity to replace Olly Murs as the opening act for Take That at the last minute.Murs was due to open for Take That at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on Friday but had to pull out after getting stuck in London when his flight was cancelled. Continue reading...
  
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• Sabrina Carpenter: how the Espresso singer became a piping hot pop prospect

  04-05-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  She’s set to depose Taylor Swift from No 1 and has the most-streamed song in the world this week – the culmination of a decade of slow-burn successCapped with one of the most brilliantly nonsensical chorus lines in pop history – “That’s that me, espresso” – Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso is the most streamed song in the world this week, deposed Taylor Swift as the UK’s No 1 single yesterday and is shaping up to be the critics’ pick for th
  
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• One to watch: Fat Dog

  04-05-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  With a riotous sound part Nine Inch Nails, part Depeche Mode, the south London five-piece are shoo-ins for a mainstage festival slotSouth London-based Fat Dog are the latest band signed by Domino, the label behind acts such as Wet Leg, Arctic Monkeys and Hot Chip. Formed during lockdown, the quintet have built a word-of-mouth reputation thanks to their boisterous live performances: moshpits are commonplace, and drummer, Johnny “Doghead” Hutchinson, plays in a latex dog mask. Their mu
  
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• Keane’s Tom Chaplin and Tim Rice-Oxley look back: ‘Long friendships are like a marriage. You have to adapt to each other’s madness’

  04-05-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The founding members of the band on early gigs, a magical brush with a Beatle, and being lifelong friendsTom Chaplin and Tim Rice-Oxley are childhood friends and founding members of Keane, a group from Battle, East Sussex. The band formed in 1995 and released their debut album, Hopes and Fears, in 2004. It won them a Brit award, and became one of the bestselling albums in UK chart history. The band took a hiatus in 2013, with Chaplin releasing a solo album and Rice-Oxley forming side projec
  
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• Sharleen Spiteri: ‘I love getting old – I love the freedom it allows you’

  04-05-2024 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The Texas singer on her crush on Emma Stone, a faux pas in France, and why the news makes her cryBorn in Scotland, Sharleen Spiteri, 56, worked as a hairdresser before forming Texas with Johnny McElhone aged 17. They went on to have hits I Don’t Want a Lover, Say What You Want and Inner Smile. Last year they released The Very Best of 1989-2023 and played Glastonbury. This March, Texas released The Muscle Shoals Sessions with Spooner Oldham, and in September there will be a UK arena to
  
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