Music news

• BRITs 2019: The 7 Best Moments From the Women Who Made the Show

  21-02-2019 00:20
  Female artists from the UK and across the pond absolutely stole the show this year...
  
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• Arooj Aftab: Night Reign review – all the heat and mystery of nocturnal life

  17-05-2024 09:15 via theguardian.com
  
  (Verve)
  Mercurial and moody soundscapes are infused with wistful romance in one of the Grammy-winning singer and composer’s most spirited records to dateFew singers can match the delicate warmth and quiet power of Arooj Aftab’s voice. Over the past decade, the Pakistani-American singer has released four albums that showcase her gossamer cadence in ever-quieter settings, from jazz to Sufi qawwalis and finger-picking folk. Her debut Bird Under Water in 2014 paired Urdu poetry with sita
  
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• ‘World domination is a big thing for me’: pop superstar Becky Hill on raving to the top – and her new album’s dark past

  17-05-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  She’s won two Brits and rivalled Dua Lipa and Adele for streams, but the public is still getting to know the ex-reality TV singer. She explains why snobbery has held her back, but trauma won’tBecky Hill Hill glides up on an ebike in full pop star clobber: leather flares, black strap top with enormous silver buckles, immaculately tousled hair, light green contacts that bestow a feline air. We were supposed to be meeting at her tour manager’s flat in London, so she seems slightly
  
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• Everyone’s Getting Involved review – tepid all-star Talking Heads tribute

  17-05-2024 08:10 via theguardian.com
  
  (A24 Music)
  Cult film company A24’s tie-in merch to its rerelease of seminal documentary Stop Making Sense sounds either like karaoke or disconnected from the source materialResponsible for indie hits like Midsommar, Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once, American film company A24 has created a vast lifestyle brand around its cultish reputation, flogging everything from branded shorts ($48) to a Hereditary gingerbread kit ($62). Now, following its rerelease of Jonathan Demme&rsqu
  
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• Billy Idol: ‘I stole the master tapes for Rebel Yell – and gave them to my heroin dealer’

  16-05-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Generation X punk turned arena rocker answers your questions on near-misses in Hollywood, his overlooked electronic period and how Marc Bolan helped launch his careerIs it true that you stole the master tapes to the Rebel Yell album during a spat with the record label? VerulamiumParkRanger
  It was because of the cover. I was saying: “There’s a flaw in this picture, and if we blow this up it will get worse.” The record company started to say: “We’re leaving it. It
  
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• Jimmy James obituary

  16-05-2024 15:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Soul and ska singer best known for his dynamic live performances with his band the Vagabonds in the 60s and 70sThe singer Jimmy James first arrived in London in 1964 as frontman of the Vagabonds, a Jamaican dance band booked to perform at West Indian clubs across Britain for six months. However, the band’s dynamic performances – they mixed ska and calypso with R&B and big band standards – quickly gained them a sizeable British fanbase, a residency at the Marquee Club in Soh
  
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• Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft review – still the great outlier of American pop

  16-05-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Darkroom/Interscope Records)
  On this deeply involving third album, Eilish once again breaks the rules for arena-filling artists: it’s subtle and understated, yet jars the listener with eerie show tunes and explosive noiseBillie Eilish’s third album opens with a track called Skinny. It features a hushed electric guitar figure supporting a lyric filled with very Billie Eilish topics: bitter recriminations about a failed relationship, body dysmorphia, depression and the pressures of fi
  
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• Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown review – long-awaited solo debut is a gripping study of ageing and loss

  16-05-2024 12:20 via theguardian.com
  
  (Domino)
  In the Portishead singer’s singular, astonishing soundworld, these songs sit in autumnal gloom but are occasionally dappled with warmth and lightNo one is ever going to accuse Beth Gibbons of over-exerting herself in the rapacious pursuit of fame: her solo debut arrives 22 years after her collaboration with Rustin Man, Out of Season, 16 years after the last Portishead album, Third, and 11 after it was first announced.In fairness, Lives Outgrown has a unique sound you suspect was o
  
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• Warren Ellis on Steve Albini, Mad Max and the best sandwich: ‘Whipped cream and banana on white bread’

  12-05-2024 02:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Asked 10 random questions, the Dirty Three musician talks about watching bad TV with Marianne Faithfull, cleaning toilets and the best advice Albini gave himGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhat’s the worst job you’ve ever had?There was no worst, really. If you have to work, you have to work. I needed money. So I cleaned dishes at a strip club, I cleaned nightclubs. There’s something incredibly meditative about mopping in nightclubs; you have all the base elements of
  
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• Olivia Rodrigo review – shiny pop-punk with real guts

  11-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Ovo Hydro, Glasgow
  There’s no doubt the former Disney actor is a pro, but she’s also a deft, sincere songwriter who captures the viewpoint of a teen outsider to perfectionPop music made by child actors doesn’t often feature axe duels and headbanging. But tonight, during a song called Obsessed, gen-Z phenomenon Olivia Rodrigo, wielding an electric guitar, faces off against one of her guitarists, Emily Rosenfield, as the rest of the band build a grungy din around them.Pop vocalis
  
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• Will Oldham on Steve Albini: ‘He elevated the quality of the human experience’

  11-05-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The artist known as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy met the late musician as a 15-year-old fan, and became a creative partner and friend. He explains why Albini’s idealism is more needed than everI met Steve Albini in 1985, when I was 15 years old. Me and some friends had driven up to northern Kentucky to see Big Black perform at a club, which we had to create fake IDs for. Afterwards, Big Black, myself and a couple of other folks from Louisville all retired to the same apartment to slee
  
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• One to watch: the Belair Lip Bombs

  11-05-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The Australian quartet’s punchy, hook-packed songs combine immediacy and complexity in a way that recalls the StrokesLush Life, the 2023 debut album by Melbourne four-piece the Belair Lip Bombs, is the kind of punchy, hook-laden rock record that hardly gets made any more, straightforward in sound but borderline unassailable in its construction. Principal songwriter Maisie Everett, formerly of the garage rock trio Clamm, has a singular knack for writing earworm hooks: Lush Life’s firs
  
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• Martin and Roman Kemp look back: ‘I didn’t want a parent v kid relationship. I wanted us to be equal’

  11-05-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The musician and actor, and the DJ and presenter, on fame, football and dinner party debates with George MichaelBorn in 1961, Martin Kemp is an actor and musician, best known as the bassist for Spandau Ballet. His son, Roman, 31, is a TV and radio personality, presenting the One Show and hosting a show on Capital FM from 2014 to 2024. He made the documentary Our Silent Emergency, following the death of his friend and producer Joe Lyons, who killed himself in 2020. Roman lives in London, while Ma
  
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• Beabadoobee: ‘I don’t have time for death threats. I’ve got a mortgage to pay’

  11-05-2024 12:55 via theguardian.com
  
  A support slot on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and a Rick Rubin produced album has given the former TikTok-viral musician a new sense of self-confidence. Not even the internet trolls can stop herAbout a year ago, Beatrice Laus, AKA Beabadoobee, started taking ballet lessons. The acclaimed, perpetually TikTok-viral indie rock musician had been touring hard in 2022, and began to feel her body breaking down. Like most early-20s musicians – or twentysomethings in general – she was, at
  
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• Chaka Khan: ‘Someone said there were too many black people in our band. He put some white guys on stage with us’

  11-05-2024 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The singer on being impatient, mourning the death of the planet, and why sleep is her favourite thingBorn in Illinois, Chaka Khan, 71, joined the funk band Rufus in her teens and had hits with Tell Me Something Good and Ain’t Nobody. In 1978, she launched her solo career with the anthem I’m Every Woman. She has released 13 albums, won 10 Grammy awards and was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999, she established the Chaka Khan Foundation to help women and
  
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• Steve Albini obituary

  10-05-2024 19:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Frontman for ‘noise rock’ bands Big Black and Shellac acclaimed for his production of albums by Nirvana, Pixies and PJ HarveySteve Albini, the musician and frontman of the alternative rock bands Big Black and Shellac, who has died from a heart attack aged 61, was more widely known for his huge list of credits as a producer, or – as he preferred to be called – recording engineer, of albums by independent artists from the mid-1980s to the present.Notable recordings bearing
  
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• Kacey Musgraves review – sweet and salty country-pop magic

  10-05-2024 13:33 via theguardian.com
  
  O2 Academy, Glasgow
  The Texan star transfixes with her crystal clear voice and flawless band, balancing airy verses on the healing beauty of nature with a dash of darkness‘Looks like you came to party!” teases Kacey Musgraves, radiant in a white dress and matching cowboy boots. With a gentle wave, the Texan country star tells us to take it easy. Tonight’s showcase for her introspective sixth album Deeper Well is all mellow magic – but for every airy verse about the healin
  
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• Les Savy Fav: Oui, LSF review – New York post-punk oddballs make restrained return

  10-05-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Frenchkiss)
  The veteran five-piece’s first album in 14 years has flashes of the old thrill, but doesn’t quite hit earlier heightsA thrilling live proposition since the late 1990s, due in large part to the stage magnetism of frontman Tim Harrington, the New York-based post-punk five-piece Les Savy Fav never quite managed to distil that magic into equally essential albums until 2007’s less abrasive, more melodic Let’s Stay Friends, before hitting a peak with 2010’s R
  
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• Elbow review – a charged night of insatiable yearning and rollicking laments

  10-05-2024 12:41 via theguardian.com
  
  O2 Arena, London
  Beaming, big-hearted and benevolent, Guy Garvey charms with stately songs of heartbreak, unafraid of uneven time signatures and heavy-metal thudElbow looked for a while to be settling into a mellow, beatific serenity. Their last album, 2021’s Flying Dream 1, was a winningly gentle affair, its delicate tracks seemingly competing between themselves to be the most soothingly romantic. You idly wondered if the band were easing into a benign dotage.This impression was spectacul
  
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• Kings of Leon: Can We Please Have Fun review – polished but tired

  10-05-2024 12:30 via theguardian.com
  
  (Polydor)
  The Nashville rockers still sound great, but their lyrics seem bereft of ideasCan We Please Have Fun is such a horrible phrase. It adheres to the Nashville rockers’ favoured five-syllable album title structure, if that’s important to you, but is prickly and passive-aggressive coming from four middle-aged men. Its intended message feels like inane boosterism given the state of the world; further proof of the quartet’s unending insularity. And why should rock be fun any
  
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• Yaya Bey: Ten Fold review – a free-ranging tribute

  10-05-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Big Dada)
  Bey’s latest, written in mourning to her rapper father Grand Daddy IU and featuring his voice, includes catchy dancefloor bangers alongside soulful odesNew York artist Yaya Bey should be far better known than she is. Her 2022 album Remember Your North Star riffled through genres from R&B to reggae with aplomb, packing in nagging hooks, easy humour, and emotional reckonings with exes and her estranged mother. While she was touring it, Bey’s musician father died. “
  
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• ‘Full of secrets and promises’: Dusty Springfield’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!

  10-05-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Sixty years after her debut album, we rate the pop singer’s best tracks, from a song recorded in a stairwell to a Pet Shop Boys collaborationIt’s closer to a show tune than soul, but Dusty Springfield kept singing Quiet Please live during her wilderness years for a reason. The version from 1979, the year Springfield’s UK tour was cancelled due to poor sales, is particularly freighted: “She may not be the latest rage, but she’s singing and she means it … give
  
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• Dehd: Poetry review – a sparkling dialogue with rock’n’roll history

  10-05-2024 09:30 via theguardian.com
  
  (Fat Possum Records)
  The Chicago trio go back in time and dip into big-chorused Americana, slacker indie and vintage soul – all with real feelingChicago rock band Dehd’s music is two things: mercilessly catchy and meticulously camp. The trio’s biggest hit to date – 2022’s Bad Love – was a smoke machine-fogged rush of instant-singalong glam. Now, their fifth album arrives in a swirl of bratty pop-punk: opener Dog Days’ stop-start guitars accompany pouty p
  
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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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• ‘I can’t take Michael Bublé seriously’: Mick Harvey on songwriting, staying straight and ‘survivor’s guilt’

  09-05-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As he releases his first solo album in a decade, Nick Cave’s former right-hand man reflects on ageing well – and his peers who weren’t so fortunateGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailMick Harvey is looking back on the show reel of his life. It’s the video for his song When We Were Beautiful and Young, where startlingly intimate images – of his parents, back yard cricket, through to lifelong partner, Katy Beale, and their children – are mixed with footag
  
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