Music news

• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg review – Kasper Holten stages elaborate farewell

  12-03-2017 16:52
  
  Royal Opera House, LondonThe director throws everything and Bryn Terfel at a vivid Covent Garden finale, set in a gilded gentlemen’s club of song, that sometimes sits at odds with the dramaKasper Holten is going out with a bang. The final production of Covent Garden’s outgoing director of opera is of Wagner’s four-and-a-half-hour comedy, and it’s bigger than anything he has yet done here. Pretty much every musician the Royal Opera has on its books must be involved at some
  
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• Joni Sledge obituary

  12-03-2017 16:20
  
  Member of Sister Sledge, the group known for their huge 1970s hit We Are FamilyJoni Sledge, who has died aged 60 of unknown causes, was one of four siblings who banded together to create the music group Sister Sledge. Formed in Philadelphia in 1971, their career really lifted off after they were put together with the writer-producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (the masterminds of Chic). With the sisters, the prolific pair set about creating We Are Family (1979): it became one of their most
  
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• JLS Reform To Join Marvin And Rochelle Humes After The Couple Welcome Adorable New Baby

  12-03-2017 15:55
  
  Marvs and Rochelle are proud parents to their second daughter, Valentina
  
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• Kylie Jenner Stuns In Boots Made For Walking... As Rob Kardashian Walks Away From Renting Her Mansion

  12-03-2017 15:17
  
  The reality star has some hot new Louis Vuitton boots
  
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• Little Mix Celebrate Nickelodeon Award Win To Distract From Being Slated By Steps

  12-03-2017 14:46
  
  The girl band have come under fire from the older pop legends
  
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• The X Factor Is Going To Return With One Massive New Format Change This Year

  12-03-2017 13:48
  
  Get ready for a whole new show
  
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• De La Soul review – storming hip-hop past, present and future

  12-03-2017 13:28
  
  Roundhouse, LondonThe Long Island crew stage a joyful party with fresh tunes that defy any temptation to box them as a ‘heritage’ act“Where the party at? We want the party up here!” hollers genial MC Posdnuos, raising his hand above his head. Two songs in, the party is somewhere around waist-level – lukewarm, with potential. But then the Long Island legends’ nine-piece live band start vamping on Steely Dan’s Peg – the key sample within Eye Know, a
  
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• Liam Payne In Frantic Race To Complete Solo Debut Album Before He Becomes A Dad

  12-03-2017 13:16
  
  The 1D star is expecting his first child with Cheryl Fernandez-Versini
  
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• Calvin Harris And Rita Ora Have Finally Ended Their Bitter "Music Blocking" Feud

  12-03-2017 12:58
  
  We might now finally get a second album from Reets
  
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• Scotty T Embroiled In X-Rated Twitter War With Josie Cunningham

  12-03-2017 12:21
  
  Sensational claims have been made by Josie - who is famous for getting a boob job on the NHS
  
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• Vicky Pattison Admits I'm A Celeb Extra Camp Trolls Reduced Her To Tears

  12-03-2017 11:41
  
  The Geordie Shore beauty was unfairly targeted on the ITV spin-off show
  
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• The Weeknd review – a wolf in pop clothing

  12-03-2017 10:00
  
  O2 Arena, London
  Abel Tesfaye has risen from indie R&B brooder to chart-topping stadium-filler – but there’s still a darkness in his heartYou come expecting to see a Toronto megastar who has reshaped the sound of global pop. Instead, it’s a two-for-one deal. On this second of two sold-out shows, the Weeknd – Abel Tesfaye – comes packing extra star-power: a cameo from his former mentor Drake. Just two weeks after the final night of his own O2 run, Drake is here t
  
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• Jarvis Cocker: 'People fall in love with an illusion, something that’s never existed'

  12-03-2017 10:00
  
  For his first album in eight years, the former Pulp frontman was inspired by legendary LA hotel, Chateau Marmont. He discusses his fascination with Hollywood, his fears for France - and his desire to retreatOnce described as “arguably the fifth most famous man in Britain”, Jarvis Cocker knows more than most about illusion and celebrity. For the past decade, however, the former Pulp frontman has stepped back from centre-stage. It has been eight years since his last musical release, Fu
  
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• Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator review – incredibly easy on the ear

  12-03-2017 10:00
  
  (ATO Records)Alynda Segarra draws on her Puerto Rican roots with a genre-bending album of anger, yearning and songs that just flowOn their sixth album, Hurray for the Riff Raff have come full circle, ending up where the band’s songwriter, Alynda Segarra, started off. If that sounds like a lacklustre plug for one of the albums of the year, it really shouldn’t be. The Navigator represents a return from years of wandering – or, as Segarra puts it: “I’ve been a hungry g
  
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• The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir review – the joys are many

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Nonesuch) Related: Stephin Merritt on his musical memoir: 'People who could be insulted, I cleared with them first' In his years as the Magnetic Fields, US songwriter Stephin Merritt has not shied away from concept. Following sprawling works such as 69 Love Songs, and an album of songs beginning with the letter “i”, the 52-year-old left-field troubadour has written a life in 50 musical vignettes, whose fun tropes include incorporating seven instruments in seven different combin
  
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• The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir review – quirky and joyous

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Nonesuch)In his years as The Magnetic Fields, US songwriter Stephin Merritt has not shied away from concept. Following sprawling works such as 69 Love Songs, and an album of songs beginning with the letter i, the 52-year-old left-field troubadour has written a life in 50 musical vignettes, whose fun tropes include incorporating seven instruments in seven different combinations. All the possible Merritts are on board, from stentorian intellectual chansonnier to giddy teenage New Waver – on
  
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• Sleaford Mods: English Tapas review – Brexit, BHS et al

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Rough Trade) Related: Sleaford Mods’ guide to modern Britain: ‘There is lots of pain’ There are glimmers of musical progression on Sleaford Mods’ ninth album: Jason Williamson sings the odd line, and there are even occasional choruses. But, pleasingly, for the most part it’s business as usual, which means Williamson venting his anger at everything from neoliberalism to the NME website, atop Andrew Fearn’s rudimentary beats. Given the social-chronicling nature
  
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• Nathan Fake: Providence review – vast, shifting soundscapes

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Ninja Tune)Throughout his fourth album, Nathan Fake deploys sounds that might cause some listeners to worry their audio equipment is about to self-destruct. Harsh, rubbery synths loop to vaguely maddening effect. Tortured, flanging synths on SmallCityLights recall a Prince CD skipping in the machine. One nagging effect on Radio Spiritworld sounds worryingly akin to bagpipes. Fortunately, Fake, who hails from Norfolk and has been exploring the pastoral fringes of electronic music for a decade an
  
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• Laura Marling: Semper Femina review – sexism and a newfound slinkiness

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (More Alarming)“Twenty-five years/ Nothing to show for it,” sings Laura Marling on Always This Way, continuing the theme of the quarter-life crisis begun on 2015’s fine Short Movie. Marling’s sixth album chafes against the sexist assumptions of Virgil (women are always fickle, goes the full quote of the title) but she gets the tattoo anyway; obviously, Marling also reserves the right to change her mind. There’s a new slinkiness to some of these songs, not least lead
  
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• Gilad Atzmon and Alan Barnes: The Lowest Common Denominator – review

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Woodville)This looks like an outlandish pairing, but if you ignore the usual misleading labels (Alan Barnes supposedly mainstream, Gilad Atzmon far-out), differences in style are trivial compared to the things they have in common. They are both phenomenal saxophonists, overflowing with inventive ideas and, equally important, the gift of communicating with an audience. When playing together, they make much comical play of being engaged in deadly conflict, but the spirited way they spark each oth
  
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• From Here: English Folk Field Recordings review – 17 intimate performances

  12-03-2017 09:00
  
  (Stick in the Wheel)Here’s a snapshot of English folk taken by two members of Stick in the Wheel, a recent and famously unvarnished London band. Their plan was to record assorted solo acts in situ – a kitchen, a garden, even a bank vault – and the outcome is a set of 17 intimate performances, many of them unaccompanied vocals, that attest to the simplicity, narrative drive and tenderness of folk craft. There are assured pieces from stalwarts Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden, bravura
  
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• Patience, Pirates and premieres review – lovesick maidens and International Women's Day

  12-03-2017 08:25
  
  Hackney Empire; Coliseum; St Martin-in-the-Fields; Wigmore Hall, London
  ETO miss a trick with their G&S debut, ENO’s Pirates finds its mojo, and that annual moment in the limelight for non-male composers…The chance collision of budget day and International Women’s Day last Wednesday was a satirist’s dream. What merciless fun WS Gilbert, the writing half of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta duo, would have had. A sly dig at Essex boy Philip Hammond here, a savage swip
  
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• Elgar: Symphony No 2 CD review – lyricism and angst

  12-03-2017 08:20
  
  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Petrenko
  (Onyx)Talking about his Symphony No 2, Elgar said “it was absolutely correct to say the whole thing represents the ‘passionate pilgrimage’ of a soul”. There’s a terrible struggle in the grand opening movement, lurching back and forth between soaring, whooping melody and poetic introspection. Vasily Petrenko displayed a perceptive understanding for Elgar in his disc with the RLPO of Symphony No 1. Here again, flexibilit
  
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• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the music of the Reformation CD review

  12-03-2017 08:15
  
  Vox Luminis, Bart Jacobs (organ)/ Meunier
  (Ricercar) (2 CDs & book)Martin Luther’s 95 theses fulminating against religious abuses appeared exactly 500 years ago; he began the Protestant Reformation whose music these thoroughly researched CDs and handsome book explore in detail. We are guided through the seasons of the church year and the foundations of the Lutheran liturgy in the company of composers, from Luther himself, Schein, Scheidt and Praetorius to the little-known Steffens and
  
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• James MacMillan: Stabat mater CD review – profoundly moving

  12-03-2017 08:10
  
  The Sixteen, Britten Sinfonia/Christophers(Coro) Related: Turning a 13th-century hymn into a modern-day elegy for war and loss James MacMillan’s masterly Stabat mater represents the culmination of a remarkable commissioning project from John Studzinski’s Genesis Foundation. Two years ago, the Sixteen released three new settings of the 13th-century Marian lamentation, each composer mentored by MacMillan. Now comes his own, after its acclaimed premiere last autumn. It’s a devasta
  
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• Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Where Are They Now?

  12-03-2017 04:23
  
  Here's what all your Sunnydale faves are up to now...
  
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• Joni Sledge, member of the group Sister Sledge, dies aged 60

  12-03-2017 02:35
  
  The singer, known for the 70s disco anthem We Are Family, was found dead in her home in Phoenix, ArizonaJoni Sledge, who with her sisters recorded the defining dance anthem We Are Family, has died, the band’s representative has said.Sledge, 60, was found dead in her home in Phoenix, Arizona, by a friend on Friday, the band’s publicist, Biff Warren, said on Saturday. A cause of death has not been determined. Continue reading...
  
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• She’s turning 100, and there’s still never been a dame quite like Vera Lynn

  12-03-2017 01:04
  
  The appeal of the girl from East Ham who became the forces’ sweetheart refuses to dieFor practically all my professional life, I have met and written about show people. Big stars, too, like Fred Astaire and Gregory Peck. But none of those experiences ever compared with being with Vera Lynn.Only weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room of a house in a leafy road in East Sussex, talking to a woman who, as a young child, I had heard singing We’ll Meet Again seemingly every time
  
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• Amy Winehouse, me and those tattoos: ‘I’ll never do that pin-up image on anyone else’

  12-03-2017 01:04
  
  The artist who inked Amy Winehouse’s favourite body art tells the story of their friendshipThat dark beehive of hair and the heavy, feline eye makeup are now a recognisable visual shorthand for Amy Winehouse. In the few years since her death, Winehouse has become both a stylish motif and a symbol of doomed talent – up there with James Dean or Kurt Cobain – aside from the musical legacy of her songs.Yet for Henry Hate, the London tattoo artist who got to know Winehouse well, it
  
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