Music news

• The Doors: London Fog 1966 review – embryonic sound of stars in the making

  08-12-2016 22:45
  
  (Rhino) Related: The Doors: 10 of the best Many of the countless Doors live albums are far from essential, but this one feels genuinely important. The recently discovered 1966 audience recording from a gig at the Los Angeles club London Fog captures the band in their lesser-known embryonic period. Their sound is already in place and Jim Morrison is on the verge of becoming the Lizard King, using the near-empty Sunset Strip venue to develop the necessary stagecraft to get his mojo rising. The var
  
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• The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini album review – colourful classical and contemporary collisions

  08-12-2016 22:30
  
  (Rough Trade)The word “collaboration” is used with such frequency in 2016 that it wouldn’t be so strange to hear someone who’d just made a sandwich to claim they were collaborating with the bread. But Icelandic songwriter Emiliana Torrini is a genuine example of an artist who enhances her output with her partnerships: from Gypsies in Córdoba to an experimental Berlin jazz band and an Icelandic symphony orchestra in Reykjavík, and now Belgian ensemble The Col
  
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• Avenged Sevenfold: The Stage review – stadium metallers make a forward leap

  08-12-2016 22:15
  
  (Capitol)Unexpectedly hurled into the ether at the end of October, The Stage has already been widely hailed as one of Avenged Sevenfold’s most convincing statements to date. As the one metal band of their generation with genuine stadium-filling potential on both sides of the Atlantic, the Californians could have been forgiven for repeating the thunderous, simplistic anthems of 2013’s Hail to the King, but instead they have blown the creative doors off, cramming an insane amount
  
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• Ultrasound: Real Britannia review – 90s indie crew with intriguing stylistic range

  08-12-2016 22:00
  
  (Classic Album Club) “I’m Don Quixote in a fetching onesie,” sings Andrew “Tiny” Wood on God’s Gift. It’s one of many lyrical zingers on Real Britannia, Ultrasound’s third album and the second since they reformed in 2010 after an 11-year absence. The crashing chords and soaring chorus of single Kon-Tiki would not sound out of place on a 90s Indie Anthems CD, while Asylum has a tinge of Inspiral Carpets’s This is How it Feels. But while there
  
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• Readers recommend: share your songs about finishing

  08-12-2016 21:00
  
  Make your nomination in the comments and a reader will pick the best eligible tracks for a playlist next week – you have until Monday 12 December As we reach the final month of the year and the chequered flag of 2016 edges into view, we’re looking for your songs on the theme of finishing.
  You have until 11pm on Monday 12 December to post your nomination and make your justification. RR contributor Sarah Chappell(who posts as AFictionHabit in the comments) will select from your recomme
  
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• Phil Cunningham: Christmas Songbook review – a cut above the yuletide usual

  08-12-2016 20:00
  
  (Vertical)The title might not sound too inspiring, but this is no run-of-the-mill folk Christmas album. Phil Cunningham is a veteran accordion player and pianist, a celebrity in Scotland thanks to his work with Silly Wizard and Aly Bain, and is joined here by a cast of distinguished compatriots, including Karen Matheson, John McCusker, Kris Drever (from Lau) and Eddi Reader. For the past decade, this folk supergroup have toured Scotland singing Christmas songs, and now comes the album. It’
  
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• Greg Lake obituary

  08-12-2016 19:50
  
  Key figure in 1970s prog rock as bass guitarist for Emerson, Lake & PalmerGreg Lake, who has died of cancer aged 69, first rose to fame with a brief stint in King Crimson before achieving colossal success with Emerson, Lake & Palmer during the 1970s. Lake was one of the key figures in the creation of progressive rock, and had no time for critics who said that the music was ludicrously overblown. “I know people think we’re pretentious, but it’s really a product of sophis
  
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• Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith: Night Hours review – powerful storytelling folk

  08-12-2016 19:45
  
  (Fellside)To be a great folk singer, you have to be a great storyteller, as Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith are clearly aware. Their second album is a selection of new songs and traditionals that is held together by the power of the stories, with an emphasis on the struggles of the working man (or woman). The duo are both fine singers and multi-instrumentalists, with Aldridge concentrating on banjo and Goldsmith on guitar, helped by the fiddle, accordion and pipes of excellent folk trio Teyr. T
  
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• Christian Wallumrod Ensemble: Kurzsam and Fulger review – from hymnal to mischievous

  08-12-2016 19:30
  
  (Hubro)Norwegian composer/pianist Christian Wallumrød has recorded solo and duo projects and one large-scale work with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra in recent years, but this is a return to his long-running Ensemble’s quietly hymnal, beautifully harmonised and occasionally mischievous music. The leader is stripping his sound down even further though, with the group now a quintet (trumpet, sax, cello, percussion, keys), albeit an adaptable one with a sound palette embracing much sonic
  
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• Christine Tobin: Pelt review – powerful collaboration with poet Paul Muldoon

  08-12-2016 19:15
  
  (Trail Belle)The Pulitzer-winning poet Paul Muldoon is fascinated by the links between poetry and song, and here he accepts an invitation from his jazz-singing, poetry-loving Irish compatriot Christine Tobin to explore those connections, in a mix of existing work and specially written lyrics. As on Tobin’s WB Yeats tribute, Sailing to Byzantium, there’s a patience and clarity to her handling of fine poetry, but there’s a tough, bluesy assertiveness to this album too. Zoological
  
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• Daniel Barenboim opens Berlin music academy for Middle East students

  08-12-2016 19:10
  
  Musician and conductor says school, which will take in 90 new talents from the region each year, is ‘attempt at creating peace through music’Daniel Barenboim has called it an “experiment in utopia”, a project that marks the culmination of the leading musician and conductor’s life’s work in bringing together musicians from the Middle East. The Barenboim-Said Academy, which opened on Thursday evening in Berlin, will offer 90 talented students from the Middle Eas
  
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• Bugge Wesseltoft: Somewhere in Between review – post-jazz explorations

  08-12-2016 19:00
  
  (Jazzland)Bugge Wesseltoft, the visionary Norwegian keyboardist, composer and producer, founded the Jazzland label in the 90s to document the avant-funky, post-Miles jazz world of young Oslo clubbers, and this double album celebrates 20 years of his New Conception of Jazz project, with singers Sidsel Endresen and Dhafer Youssef, saxist Joshua Redman, and guests from across jazz, world music and electronica. Though much of it is beats-based, Wesseltoft incorporates a swathe of idioms from soul-ja
  
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• 16 Lessons The Geordie Shore Lasses Have Taught Us About Sex

  08-12-2016 18:53
  
  Eating parsnip with a spoon always leads to forking. Or something.
  
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• FIF: Justin Bieber

  08-12-2016 18:40
  
  He's cleaned up his act, and he's our "f**k it!" Friday inspo this week!
  
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• Zoella Poses Topless For Blogosphere Magazine As She Talks Feeling 'Suffocated'

  08-12-2016 18:18
  
  What. A. Cover.
  
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• 21 Just Funny As F*** Tumblr Posts

  08-12-2016 17:49
  
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
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• Mick Jagger becomes a father for the eighth time at 73

  08-12-2016 17:43
  
  The Rolling Stones singer and ballerina girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 29, delighted by birth of their son in New YorkMick Jagger, frontman of the Rolling Stones, has become a father for the eighth time, his publicist has confirmed. The musician, 73, and his girlfriend, 29-year-old American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, welcomed their first son in New York on Thursday.Continue reading...
  
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• Greg Lake of King Crimson and ELP fame dies aged 69 – video obituary

  08-12-2016 17:37
  
  Greg Lake, one of the key figures in the prog rock boom of the 1970s, has died at the age of 69 on Wednesday. He was known as a third of the prog supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but first came to prominence as a founding member of King Crimson. For non-prog fans, Lake was best known as the maker of one of the UK’s most enduring Christmas hits, I Believe in Father Christmas Greg Lake, legendary prog rock bassist, dies aged 69
  Continue reading...
  
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• What To Buy The Girlfriend You've Only Just Started Dating For Christmas

  08-12-2016 16:57
  
  Because buying for ladies is HARD.
  
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• What To Buy The Boyfriend You've Only Just Started Dating For Christmas

  08-12-2016 16:57
  
  'Cos while you know his tonsils back to front, you don't know his prezzie prefs so well just yet.
  
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• Guitarist/singer Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer dies

  08-12-2016 16:57
  
  LONDON (AP) — Musician Greg Lake co-founded both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer — bands that helped define the sprawling, influential but often-maligned genre known as progressive rock.
  
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• British prog rock musician Greg Lake dies of cancer

  08-12-2016 16:48
  (Reuters) - Greg Lake, the singer and bass player for British 1970s progressive rock groups Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and King Crimson, has died of cancer, his former manager said on Thursday. Lake, 69, who composed the hit song "I Believe in Father Christmas," died on Wednesday after what manager Stewart Young called "a long and stubborn battle with cancer." "Yesterday, December 7th, I lost my best friend to a long and stubborn battle with cancer. Greg Lake will stay in my heart for ever, as he
  
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• Beethoven: Complete Cello Sonatas and Variations CD review – here's how to make Beethoven's huge structures work

  08-12-2016 16:45
  
  Kirshbaum/Wosner(Onyx)Here are two musicians a generation apart, feeding off each other’s energy. Ralph Kirshbaum and Shai Wosner’s long tour of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano culminated earlier this year at London’s Wigmore Hall, where this album was recorded. Wosner keeps the piano line crisp and buoyant; Kirshbaum spins long, broad phrases that look convincingly into the far distance. Together they make Beethoven’s huge structures work, but the de
  
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• Boy George: ‘We’re all clinging to a rock, and some people have got a better grip than others’

  08-12-2016 16:30
  
  Nine years sober and back on tour, the Culture Club star talks about the power of positivity and why pop needs mysteryI can tell you from bitter experience that there are more relaxing ways of preparing for an interview with a legendary pop star than reading their memoirs and unexpectedly stumbling across a page where they explain at some length why they think you’re an arsehole. But there it is, or rather there I am, on page 133 of Boy George’s second autobiography, 2006’s Str
  
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• The 11 Stages Of PMS

  08-12-2016 16:26
  
  Stage 1: Emotions x 1594932020404
  
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• Neil Young: Peace Trail review – a political dream defaced

  08-12-2016 16:00
  
  Armed only with righteous anger, Neil Young punctures this knocked-together protest project with half-formed songs full of confused platitudesNeil Young is a man audibly proud of his work ethic. “I can’t stop working, because I like to work when nothing else is going on,” he sings at one point during Peace Trail, his 40th studio album (with a further eight live albums, three soundtrack albums, eight “archive” albums, 11 unreleased albums, and three with Buffalo Spri
  
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• BBCSO/Saraste review - courtly bonhomie to precision-crafted ecstasy

  08-12-2016 15:53
  
  Barbican, London
  A luxuriant new concerto by Diana Burrell was accompanied by a brisk account of Haydn’s The Hen and a driven, hyper-focused Firebird This was an uneven outing for the BBC Symphony Orchestra under its one-time principal guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Sandwiching Haydn’s Symphony No 83, The Hen, between the world premiere of a Concerto for Brass and Orchestra by Diana Burrell and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, the programme was a challenging as well as eye-catc
  
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• X-rated: who was the most hopeless X Factor winner?

  08-12-2016 15:39
  
  It’s the final of the 13th series of the talent-show-that-wouldn’t-die this weekend. Which cruise singer is now back singing on cruises and who was last seen turning on the Christmas lights in West Brom?Continue reading...
  
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• Danielle de Niese webchat – your questions answered on opera, sore throats and The Sopranos

  08-12-2016 15:28
  
  The classical star talked about making opera affordable, her heroes and whether she’d snog Elton John 2.28pm GMTOk guys! So they're chucking me out of the Guardian office now. Actually it's the webchat that's expiring shortly... but it's been so great to chat with all of you. Thank you for stopping by. There are a couple of people (DouglasBateman, wryobserver, dhc1970) whose questions I wasn't able to answer directly for two reasons: 1) time constraints, and 2) I actually had already answe
  
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• Charlotte Crosby Admits Her Mum 'Made Her Cry' About Her Weight As She Talks Exercise Addiction On MTV Asks - EXCLUSIVE

  08-12-2016 15:28
  
  Charlotte's been on an incredible weight loss journey over the past couple of years...
  
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• Emerson, Lake and Palmer founder Greg Lake dies at 69

  08-12-2016 15:24
  
  LONDON (AP) — Musician Greg Lake, a prog-rock pioneer who co-founded King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died. He was 69.
  
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• 7 Times Zoella Clapped Back In The Best Way Over Cray Cray Rumours

  08-12-2016 15:23
  
  Whether she's cheating on Alfie Deyes or posing topless, she's comin' for ya...
  
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• Charlotte Crosby Opens Up About The Future Of *That* Mitch Tattoo On MTV Asks: 'I Don't Know What I Was Thinking' - EXCLUSIVE

  08-12-2016 15:05
  
  Charlotte is hosting exciting new MTV show Just Tattoo Of Us with Stephen Bear...
  
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• When Greg Lake wrote to the Guardian about 'I Believe in Father Christmas'

  08-12-2016 14:24
  
  In 2005 the singer replied to a reader query to answer whether a rock star’s family could really survive on the royalties of one long-gone Christmas hitGreg Lake, who has died this week aged 69, wrote a letter to the Guardian in 2005 about his Christmas hit I Believe in Father Christmas, in answer to a reader question about the plot of a movie:In the film About a Boy, the man played by Hugh Grant never has to work another day in his life because of the proceeds he receives from a Christmas
  
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• Singer Rag'n'Bone Man wins BRITs Critics Choice Award

  08-12-2016 14:20
  LONDON (Reuters) - British singer-songwriter Rag'n'Bone Man has won the 2017 BRITs Critics Choice Award, following in the footsteps of Adele, Sam Smith and Ellie Goulding. The 31-year-old, whose real name is Rory Graham, will receive the prize in January, when nominations for the BRITs, Britain's annual top music awards, will also be announced. The singer recently debuted his track "Human" on the UK music charts. The song topped charts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. (Reporting By
  
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• It's Official - Fifth Harmony Win 2016 With YouTube's Most Watched Music Video

  08-12-2016 14:12
  
  Can you guess which one it was?
  
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• What To Buy Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig, Jack Howard And More YouTubers For Christmas

  08-12-2016 14:00
  
  Some xmas gifting inspo from all your faves.
  
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• Greg Lake, legendary prog rock bassist, dies aged 69

  08-12-2016 13:53
  
  Though he made his name with King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Lake also wrote one of the most enduring Christmas hitsWhen Greg Lake wrote to the Guardian about ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’Greg Lake, one of the key figures in the prog rock boom of the 1970s, has died at the age of 69. In a statement posted to Lake’s Facebook page, his manager, Stewart Young, said: “Yesterday, 7 December, I lost my best friend to a long and stubborn battle with cancer. Greg L
  
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• Jeremy McConnell Denies Stephanie Davis Pooed Herself While They Were On A Date

  08-12-2016 13:44
  
  Poo? Poo!
  
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• The Pass Exclusive Clip: Topless Flirting

  08-12-2016 13:14
  
  Watch an exclusive clip from The Pass, as Russell Tovey and Arinze Kene's footballing teammates get their shirtless flirt on...
  
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• Sia splits from husband Erik Anders Lang after two years

  08-12-2016 13:11
  
  Sia has announced her split from her husband of two years, Erik Anders Lang. The Cheap Thrills singer confirmed the news, saying: "After much soul searching and consideration we have made the decision to separate as a couple."
  
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• Miley Cyrus And Liam Hemsworth's Engagement Is Now Plagued With Split Rumours

  08-12-2016 13:10
  
  Whyyyyy. WHYYYYYY?
  
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• Get To Know: Bonzai

  08-12-2016 13:08
  
  We caught up with the Irish songstress to get to know a little bit more about her and her music...
  
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• Readers recommend playlist: your songs about disbelief

  08-12-2016 13:00
  
  Motörhead, Gary Numan, the White Stripes and a Tamil film classic make this week’s reader-curated theme playlist – as does an intriguing African EMF cover
  Here is this week’s playlist – songs picked by a reader from your suggestions after last week’s callout. Thanks for them all. Read more about how our weekly readers recommend series works at the end of the piece.
  Funny thing, belief. Most of the time, you don’t exactly choose it, you’re either con
  
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• Coco Teams Up With Shola Ama & Deep Green On 'Waters Run Deep'

  08-12-2016 12:44
  
  What a year it's been for Coco as he continues his winning streak with a collaboration that is music to our ears. This time he teams up with UK songstress Shola Ama as she blesses 'Waters Run Deep' with her timeless soft vocals alongside Coco's fellow Sheffield native, Deep Green.
  
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• Geordie Shore Spoiler Video: Why Aye! Kyle Christie Makes A Surprise Arrival For Holly Hagan's Birthday

  08-12-2016 12:36
  
  Don't miss brand new Geordie Shore: The Party Tour, Tuesdays at 10pm - only on MTV!
  
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• Stefflon Don Drops 'Real Ting' And Visuals To Match

  08-12-2016 12:23
  
  The Don is back after blessing her verses on some of the biggest UK rap and RnB tracks this year, working with Lethal B, Angel, and Krept & Konan.
  
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• Liam Payne 'Wants To Propose To Cheryl Immediately After The Birth Of Their First Child'

  08-12-2016 12:14
  
  Well that sure would be dramatic.
  
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• This Gross But Weirdly Satisfying Blackhead Squeezing Video Has Been Watched Over 22 Million Times

  08-12-2016 12:13
  
  Don't pretend you aren't secretly hooked on these.
  
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• Kim, Khloe And Kourtney Kardashian 'Block' Blac Chyna From Using Their Family Name For Business

  08-12-2016 11:25
  
  Things are getting complicated in the Kardashian camp.
  
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