Music news

• MTV News Presenter: Zac Fox

  21-05-2017 20:14
  
  Everything you need to know about MTV News presenter Zac Fox.
  
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• Which Towie Star Is Planning To Star On Strictly Come Dancing This Year?

  21-05-2017 18:42
  
  The Only Way Is... the dancefloor?
  
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• The Great Escape review – Inheaven leave Brighton's new music shindig shaking

  21-05-2017 16:44
  
  Various venues, Brighton
  The annual seaside showcase brought spring showers and a robust offering of everything from buzzy rap and sardonic synthpop to sampled-fuelled rockWith its tiny, sweltering venues and obligatory backdrop of rain, the Great Escape doesn’t have all that much in common with the event it was modelled on: the sprawling SXSW, in Texas. Even so, Brighton’s annual new music showcase-industry convention draws impressive numbers, with everything from rising pop acts (G
  
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• Romance is dead – how sex killed the love song

  21-05-2017 15:30
  
  Pop hits are now less likely to be about love than at any time since the 1960s. But wasn’t love always a euphemism for sex, anyway?Name: The love song.Age: Many hundreds of years old. Continue reading...
  
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• Katy Perry Refuses To Deny Her Song 'Swish Swish' Is A Taylor Swift Diss Track

  21-05-2017 15:12
  
  The cat fight continues between the two pop babes
  
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• Hipermestra review – superbly sung UK premiere of Cavalli’s uneven tragedy

  21-05-2017 15:00
  
  Glyndebourne, Lewes
  Graham Vick and William Christie unite for a rare production of Francesco Cavalli that you’re unlikely to see better staged anywhere elseThe modern rediscovery of Francesco Cavalli has been rather fitful and piecemeal. The Venetian composer, a protege of Monteverdi, is known to have composed at least 32 operas, of which half a dozen are lost, and there are almost certainly more treasures to be found among the ones that have still to unearthed. Glyndebourne, having launc
  
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• Justin Bieber Is Over-sharing His Painful Eye Infection

  21-05-2017 14:42
  
  The Biebs wants everyone to know he is suffering
  
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• Did Russell Crowe Just Reveal That Ed Sheeran Is Getting Married?

  21-05-2017 14:08
  
  The Hollywood star is best friends with the Shape Of You singer
  
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• Metronomy review – winsome English funk that says please and thank you

  21-05-2017 14:01
  
  Brixton Academy, London
  Joseph Mount delivers his idiosyncratic brand of polite lounge-pop with bewitching precisionOn Metronomy’s last album, Summer 08 (2016), Joseph Mount reminisced about the time just before the breakthrough success of their second album, Nights Out (2008). In those intervening years, Mount has shifted from bedroom producer to playing sold-out Brixton Academy shows. This tour is a reminder to fans, and perhaps to Mount himself, that Metronomy are one of the most clever
  
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• Jade Thirlwall Might Be Playing Princess Jasmine In Guy Ritchie’s Version Of Aladdin

  21-05-2017 13:41
  
  But what does this mean for the future of Little Mix?
  
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• Iron Maiden review – metal mavericks embrace the dark arts of metal silliness

  21-05-2017 13:31
  
  Liverpool arena
  Steaming cauldrons and drum riser acrobatics … Bruce Dickinson and co’s languid brand of British heavy metal embraces all and shows no signs of rustWith ageing rivals from Black Sabbath to AC/DC having finally succumbed to metal fatigue, there are no obvious signs of rust on Iron Maiden. Granted, they are more venerable old men than new wave of British heavy metal, but they are still one of the world’s most popular bands, with a tour schedule that would give mu
  
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• Megan McKenna Rejects Her “Mental” Nickname And Reveals All Of The TOWIE Cast See Psychiatrists

  21-05-2017 13:08
  
  The reality star is hitting back at her critics
  
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• Is Harry Styles Being Lined Up To Be A Judge On The X Factor?

  21-05-2017 12:42
  
  Show bosses want the One Direction star to return to where his success began
  
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• Vicky Pattison’s Boyfriend Has Banned Her From Taking Topless Selfies

  21-05-2017 12:04
  
  The former Geordie Shore star is covering up on social media
  
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• Stevie Parker: The Cure review – intriguing and idiosyncratic

  21-05-2017 10:00
  
  (Virgin EMI)
  The Bristol-based singer makes a virtue of misery on this highly promising break-up albumThere should be a mutual support organisation for those exes who are the subjects of famous heartbreak albums. Oh, to be a fly on the wall if Adele’s ex (aka “Mr 21”) broke bread with the object of Sam Smith’s unrequited affections, (aka “Mr Lonely Hour”). It would be quite the gathering, if you included people like Britney Spears (the object of Justin Timberl
  
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• Ariana Grande review – pop it till it flops

  21-05-2017 10:00
  
  Genting Arena, Birmingham
  Ariana Grande hits so many big, raunchy climaxes it all starts to feel a bit flat, despite her undoubted giftsHow long can one 23-year-old woman sustain a state of ecstasy? After 90 minutes ear-deep in the opening night of Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman UK tour, the question gnaws.Over the course of three hit albums, Grande’s four-octave soprano has been confirmed as a force of nature, on a par with – but not actually similar to – Mariah Carey&r
  
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• The Unthanks: The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake review – a natural fit

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (RabbleRouser)The mother of the gifted, tragic songsmith Nick Drake has become revered in her own right following the 2013 release of songs she recorded in the family drawing room in the 1950s. Following covers by Eliza Carthy and Tracey Thorn comes this fourth album in the Diversions series from Tyneside’s folk family, mixing Molly Drake’s songs with readings of her poems by daughter Gabrielle. Drake’s songs, often as brooding and melancholic as her son’s, are a natural
  
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• (Sandy) Alex G: Rocket review – disengaged and disappointing

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Domino)Before his parenthesised semi-rebrand, the prolific artist formerly known as Alex G had released seven albums of Pavement-influenced lo-fi bedroom indie that, although patchy, had plenty of instances of songwriting gold. Rocket, however, is a disappointment. While there’s an easy-going charm to Proud and Guilty, and galloping instrumental Horse is pleasingly unhinged, for the most part these songs are frustratingly gossamer-light, drifting out of the consciousness almost as soon as
  
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• Pumarosa: The Witch review – a surprisingly magnetic debut

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Fiction)London five-piece Pumarosa don’t sound like much else that’s around, sporting a flamboyant tendency to space-rocking, electronically garnished epics. They build with skill, too, on the grungey Honey and the rolling Lions’ Den, the slow-burning title track and the pulsing, hedonistic, brass-flourished Priestess, which recalls Foals at their most fluid and funky. Slighter songs such as the Britpoppy My Gruesome Loving Friend or the trip-hoppy Barefoot aren’t as arr
  
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• Nick Hakim: Green Twins review – superb psychedelic soul debut

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (ATO)The prog rock-style cover of Nick Hakim’s debut indicates that he is no ordinary soul singer. Like New York’s answer to Lewis Taylor, the cult British 90s singer-songwriter, Hakim drifts between genres and moods, displaying a soft spot for shadowy beats, Shuggie Otis, hip-hop and the early 70s, when psychedelia was embraced by R&B. His voice, like the music, has a dream-like quality, whether mulling over his girlfriend’s resemblance to God (the rapturous Bet She Looks
  
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• Jørgen Emborg Quartet: What’s Left? review – newcomer Mathias Heise makes his mark

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Stunt)Jørgen Emborg has been compared to Keith Jarrett, although I don’t hear much resemblance. What does stand out in these 10 pieces by the Danish pianist-composer is an attractive tunefulness that’s not as simple as it sounds on first hearing. His beautifully integrated quartet features a young newcomer, Mathias Heise, who plays the chromatic harmonica with the pinpoint articulation of a flute. The unison passages between him and Emborg on a tricky number such as That&rsqu
  
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• Faith Evans and the Notorious BIG: The King & I review – plundering the graveyard

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Atco)Biggie’s active career lasted less than three years, yet his estate still wanders the graveyard with a spade and a spreadsheet. Ex-wife Faith Evans might deliver some impressive vocal performances, but her careful curation of his legacy utterly misses the point. Biggie was a monstrous, visceral mix of trash and class, sex and death, tragedy and comedy. He was never boring, unlike this compilation of tired productions and mawkish interludes. Duets should be meetings of equals. Instead
  
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• Aldous Harding: Party review – New Zealander’s hypnotic second album

  21-05-2017 09:00
  
  (4AD)Americana might need a new name, so many sterling exemplars have been rolling in off the South Pacific: Nadia Reid and Julia Jacklin, for two. The latest is Aldous Harding, whose second album of hypnotic folk flowers into something far more opaque and artistically evolved. Producer John Parish’s long association with PJ Harvey is a reference point, but Harding is her own woman, an arresting vocalist whose mannered deliveries – from chanteuse to jazzy – and intense themes d
  
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• Mozart: Gran Partita CD review – a virtuosic live recording

  21-05-2017 08:25
  
  LSO Wind Ensemble
  (LSO Live)Mozart’s glorious Serenade No 10 for wind, the “Gran Partita”, is not so easy to programme: it lasts nearly 50 minutes, is in seven movements and requires 13 players. So finding a rewarding performance on disc is all the more vital. This debut CD from the LSO Wind Ensemble, recorded live at LSO St Luke’s in 2015, does the trick, with style and vigour. With principals such as Olivier Stankiewicz (oboe), Andrew Marriner (clarinet) and Tim Jones (
  
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• Leclair: Violin Concertos CD review – elegant French baroque

  21-05-2017 08:20
  
  Fabio Biondi (violin, director), Europa Galante
  (Glossa)Poor Jean-Marie Leclair had little success with his single opera, then split up from his wife, moved to a dangerous part of Paris and was murdered in 1764, probably by his nephew with whom he had fallen out. Yet you could not guess any of that from these smiling, effective concertos, in which the prevalent style of Vivaldi is softened by a lovely French sensibility. In place of the hectoring arpeggios and insistent rhythms of the Italians a
  
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