Music news

• John Cooper Clarke: ‘I read Kerouac at 12 and figured I could improve on it’

  29-03-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The punk poet on finally getting JD Salinger, why he rereads the Bible, and growing up with Rupert Bear and BatmanMy earliest reading memory
  My earliest memories are of reading Rupert Bear, American comic books – Batman, Superman, Weird Planets, Creepy Worlds, Sinister Tales, Mad magazine, Kid Montana, Kid Colt: Outlaw and also Dick Tracy.My favourite book growing up
  The Buffalo Bill Annual, which contained the potted biographies of all the big hitters of the old west, inclu
  
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• On my radar: Billy Corgan’s cultural highlights

  08-06-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Smashing Pumpkins frontman on bonding with his son over Miyazaki, the genius of Mozart’s Requiem, and the world’s biggest Bozo the Clown collectionBorn in Chicago in 1967, Billy Corgan is the frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins. The band have released 12 studio albums, including Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts (2022–2023); he has also released music solo and with the supergroup Zwan. He owns the National Wrestling Alliance, and is the subject of US reality TV series Billy Co
  
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• Liam Gallagher/ Definitely Maybe 30th Anniversary review – 90s anthems still shake without their maker

  08-06-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Utilita Arena, Cardiff
  Noel may be absent, but so is the chaos of early Oasis, leaving Liam free to get the detail right in a volley of on-point anthems As a defining image, it’s an unexpected choice: a sizeable portrait of Burt Bacharach sits in front of the drum riser, drawing the eye as a giant digital clock counts back the years to 1994. A songwriter of classic pop who died last year at age 94, the US artist seems an unlikely totem for a band – Oasis – whose general disdain
  
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• Girls Aloud on public bullying, getting older and reuniting after the loss of Sarah Harding: ‘I keep expecting her to burst into the room’

  08-06-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  When their bandmate was diagnosed with terminal cancer, it was her dying wish that the tour would go on. Now, the biggest-selling British girl group of the 21st century are making good on their promiseCheryl has a wind problem. We’re meeting at rehearsals for Girls Aloud’s comeback tour, standing in what will later become the Gift Wrapped Kitty Kat VIP Zone – essentially a pit next to the stage named after a ludicrous lyric in their equally ludicrous 2004 single Love Machine. I
  
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• Taylor Swift review – as all-powerful as a pop star can be

  08-06-2024 00:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Murrayfield stadium, Edinburgh
  ​The audience is overwhelmed by an astonishing, risk-taking, strangely intimate extravaganza – and Swift in turn is overwhelmed by themAs Cruel Summer fades away and she surveys the audience, Taylor Swift looks startled. She clasps her hand to her chest and shakes her head in disbelief. They cheer louder. “That went straight to my head!” she exclaims, apparently unable to take in the vociferousness of their reaction.Of course, this is hokum
  
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• Céline Dion says illness has caused muscle spasms that broke her ribs

  07-06-2024 16:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Singer describes symptoms of stiff person syndrome, the rare illness she was diagnosed with in 2022, including a feeling of strangulationCéline Dion has said she has suffered muscle spasms so strong that her ribs were broken as a result, as she lives with the condition stiff person syndrome.Speaking in her first TV interview since the diagnosis, to Hoda Kotb on NBC News, Dion said: “I had broken ribs at one point, because sometimes when it’s very severe …” Kotb as
  
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• Guess who’s back? How Eminem is storming to the top of the charts again

  07-06-2024 14:46 via theguardian.com
  
  His new song Houdini is set to be the fastest-selling single of the year, eclipsing even Taylor Swift – despite being ignored by rap fans and radio stations alikeLast Friday, Eminem released his 62nd single, Houdini. Reviews were lukewarm to woeful. “Eminem loses the magic,” ran the headline in the New York Times, while website Stereogum went for the more straightforward “Eminem’s New Song ‘Houdini’ Is Really, Really Bad”, criticising everything fr
  
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• Surprise songs, secret guests and hidden details: the ultimate guide to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour

  07-06-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As Eras reaches the UK this week, brush up on what to expect, from the likely setlist to the bewildering array of merch optionsIt’s certainly the biggest pop music tour of all time by revenue, and arguably also by the more nebulous measure of pop-cultural heft. We’re 97 concerts in, and Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has already grossed well over a billion dollars, generated nearly as many friendship bracelets, caused a series of massively viral fits of weeping and screaming and now
  
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• Dolly Parton announces Broadway musical: ‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll clap’

  06-06-2024 19:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Hello, I’m Dolly, a stage show inspired by the superstar’s life, will include her classics and new songsDolly Parton is heading to Broadway with the musical Hello, I’m Dolly.The star is writing new songs to go along with some of her past hits and co-writing a stage story inspired by her life – a stage show that she hopes to land on Broadway in 2026. Continue reading...
  
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• Charli XCX: Brat review | Laura Snapes' album of the week

  06-06-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Atlantic)
  Beyond the sleaze, grinding bass and it-girl in-jokes, the British visionary’s sixth album is a masterpiece that understands how a hard persona can offer protectionCharli XCX’s last album was designed to reach as many people as possible. Satisfying the contract she signed with Atlantic as a teenager, 2022’s Crash was a conceptual go-for-broke by a pop star who had made her name as a refusenik, save a few uneasy youthful flirtations with the mainstream. She swapped he
  
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• TV channels once championed music. Why have they given up so completely?

  06-06-2024 15:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Channel 4 has axed music video channels such as The Box and Kerrang! amid falling revenues. They were once vibrant and full of gems – and there’s very little to replace themYou may not live near a record shop or live venue, but if you want more music, chances are you own a television: this was the alluring promise of linear TV music channels, which, two decades after their peak period, came to a decisive end this week.Channel 4 have announced the closure of The Box, 4Music, Kiss, Mag
  
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• From pillowy pop to foot-stomping beats: The Supremes’ 20 best songs – ranked!

  06-06-2024 14:11 via theguardian.com
  
  Sixty years on from their first US No 1, Where Did Our Love Go, we rate the Motown group’s greatest singles – sung with and without Diana RossThe final Supremes album, Mary, Scherrie and Susaye, flopped on release and has been overlooked ever since. This is a mistake, as underlined by the impossibly euphoric, warp-speed disco of Let Yourself Go. For more of the same, check out the album’s equally fabulous closer Love, I Never Knew You Could Feel So Good. Continue reading...
  
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• Inside ∄ – the secret Kyiv techno club that ‘does not exist’

  06-06-2024 12:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Once predicted to rival Berghain, wartime has seen the queer-friendly club find new purposes as a bomb shelter and frontline fundraiser. But can it survive Ukraine’s new mobilisation drive?As Anastasiia Syradoieva awoke to the sound of air raid sirens and missile strikes in Kyiv on 24 February 2022, the first place she thought to seek shelter was ∄, the techno club housed in a former brewery she has run since its opening in 2019. “This building has survived two world wars,&rdqu
  
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• Taylor Swift is everywhere! Could I avoid her and her music for the whole month of May?

  06-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  She is bringing her Eras tour to the UK this week. But just how easy is it to steer clear of the world’s biggest pop star? The Guardian’s stage editor finds outPlaying Cluedo, I realise I’ve cracked. There’s something about my Miss Scarlett card – that glint in her eyes, the knowing smile. Or maybe this is what happens when you have spent an entire month on an impossible mission to avoid the planet’s biggest pop star. You see, hear, simply sense Taylor Swift e
  
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• Thirty Seconds to Mars review – Jared Leto gives half-empty arena his full attention

  05-06-2024 13:09 via theguardian.com
  
  O2 Arena, London
  The Hollywood actor may not be the world’s greatest rock star, but his committed, fan-friendly performance has charmThe first sense that this might not be the busiest show in the O2 Arena’s history comes in the concourses: no one is having to queue at the bar before the show. Inside, the top tier is closed, and the arena floor is bizarre: a packed back third, of general admission, and a vast golden circle that is barely a third full. It looks awful, and visitors to t
  
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• Simon Cowell launches search for new boyband – by highlighting potential solo career

  04-06-2024 18:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Music mogul aims to replicate success of previous charges One Direction, but acknowledges ‘high degree of risk’ in ventureNearly a decade on from the end of his blockbusting global phenomenon One Direction, Simon Cowell is going back into the fray to discover a new boyband.His campaign was launched in London with a billboard featuring a sunglasses-clad Cowell evoking Lord Kitchener’s 1914 recruitment poster with the words: “Simon needs you! Future megastars wanted for new
  
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• Kanye West sued for sexual harassment by former assistant

  04-06-2024 16:53 via theguardian.com
  
  Lauren Pisciotta says she is owed $3m after enduring intentional infliction of emotional distressKanye West and his Yeezy sneaker business are being sued for sexual harassment, breach of contract and wrongful termination by a former assistant of the rap star who claims she is owed $3m after enduring intentional infliction of emotional distress.In a lawsuit, Lauren Pisciotta alleges West – whose legal name is now Ye – sent her lewd texts and performed sex acts while on the phone with
  
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• In the key of 5G: the ‘dimensionalist’ who wrote a symphony for 1,000 phones

  04-06-2024 16:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Mobiles are usually hated at concert halls. But Huang Ruo wants Mancunians to start using theirs on the way in – and not stop. The Chinese-American explains why the sounds of rain and traffic are all part of the experienceSymphony concerts aren’t supposed to be like this. This week, the audience for the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s City of Floating Sounds will download an app and stand at one of four designated starting points on the streets of Manchester. Then they will selec
  
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• ‘I could eat that girl for lunch’: the sexually explicit queer female pop topping the charts

  04-06-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Billie Eilish is the latest artist to sing frankly about sex between women – without it being titillation for men. Artists from King Princess to Girli explain why it’s taken so long‘I could eat that girl for lunch / yeah she dances on my tongue, tastes like she might be the one.” So runs the chorus to one of the biggest pop songs of the year, Billie Eilish’s Lunch – the latest star to join a host of others singing about lesbian love, with lyrics full of tongue
  
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• Glastonbury announces full 2024 lineup, adding James, Tems, Squeeze and more

  04-06-2024 11:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Femi Kuti, Seasick Steve and Birmingham Royal Ballet among other artists added as festival announces full range of stage timesThe full lineup for Glastonbury 2024 has been announced, with new additions to the bill including indie icons James and Nigerian pop sensation Tems.Squeeze have been announced to kick off the festival at noon on Friday on the Pyramid stage, while the Birmingham Royal Ballet will open the stage on Sunday with their production Interlinked. Femi Kuti, Seasick Steve, Jamie We
  
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• Rapper Brother Marquis, member of 2 Live Crew, dies aged 58

  04-06-2024 10:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Musician earned platinum-selling success with group who overcame obscenity and copyright charges, and coined famous 99 Problems chorus lineMark D Ross, the rapper known by stage name Brother Marquis who was part of the group 2 Live Crew, has died aged 58 according to the group’s social media accounts. No cause of death has been given.Born in New York, Ross befriended the group’s DJ Mr Mixx when living in California and then joined the Miami-based outfit in 1986. He was present for th
  
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• It was all eco: Coldplay beats emissions target for world tour – via kinetic dancefloors and trains

  04-06-2024 06:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Band announces their carbon footprint after two years of touring is 59% lower than what was generated on their previous tour, thanks to some creative solutionsColdplay has announced that they have reduced their touring carbon footprint by 59% compared with their previous world tour – via some creative methods that include kinetic dancefloors that allow dancing fans to generate electricity, recyclable LED wristbands and the band travelling by train.On Monday the British band announced that
  
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• ‘If I lost this flute, it would be pretty tragic’: Shabaka, Corinne Bailey Rae and Nilüfer Yanya on their favourite instruments

  02-06-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From a Japanese bamboo flute that is harvested and then cured to an unusual fretless zither and a blue Fender Strat, three performers tell the stories of the instruments they cherishA central figure of the London jazz scene, Shabaka Hutchings, 40, has been a member of bands including Shabaka and the Ancestors, and the Mercury-nominated Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming. He announced last year that he would no longer be playing the saxophone live. For his solo debut album, Perceive Its Beauty
  
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• Liam Gallagher review – Oasis frontman delivers Definitely Maybe in all its 90s glory

  02-06-2024 12:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Utilita Arena, Sheffield
  It’s an unashamed nostalgia fest, but what could feel business-like morphs into something more considered, with strings, singalongs and even a dedication to brother Noel ‘I haven’t got any fucking new ones for you, so it’s going to have to be an old one, all right?” proclaims Liam Gallagher at one point tonight, during a set that feels like a time capsule of 1994. Performing Oasis’s classic debut Definitely Maybe in full, the backdrop
  
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• Charli XCX: ‘Labels are desperate for artists to be liked, otherwise you’re bad, evil and wrong’

  02-06-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Straddling the underground and the mainstream, the pop star long felt like an outsider. She talks about finding her crowd, her ‘blunt’ new album, and the more complicated aspects of female friendshipYou used to get one shot in the music business: the wrong marketing, the wrong song and you’d never be heard from again. This was not the case for Charlotte Aitchison, better known as Charli XCX, who posted tracks on Myspace so long ago she invited comparisons to Kate Nash. Still ju
  
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• ‘I’m a fan of chaos’: Blondie’s Chris Stein on Bowie, Debbie Harry and 50 years in rock’n’roll

  02-06-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In his candid new memoir, the guitarist talks about the glory period of Parallel Lines and how addiction and loss altered his lifeRead an extract from Under a Rock by Chris SteinIn the late 1970s, in downtown Manhattan, the musician Chris Stein became friendly with a young artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Both men were a long way from the celebrated cultural figures they would become: Stein had just started to make some money as the guitarist of New York new-wave act Blondie, the band he co-founded
  
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• ‘She dominates our age’: how Taylor Swift became the greatest show on Earth

  02-06-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The record-smashing singer-songwriter wields creative, commercial and celebrity power like no one before. As her billion-dollar Eras tour lands in the UK, we trace the making of the Swift universeHow to write about the biggest, most written-about star in the world as summer 2024 approaches, and with it the arrival of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in the UK later this week? We could take cues from the normally level-headed New Yorker. But even they recently threw up their hands and pronounced Sw
  
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• ‘I’m bringing his music back to life’: the singer whose grandfather was silenced by the Holocaust

  02-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Roxanne de Bastion is honouring the memory of her brilliant Hungarian ancestor to keep his legacy aliveMy family has a piano. Its keys are weathered from touch. It has tiny marks on the top right corner where my dad used to gnaw at the wood with his baby teeth.I always knew this instrument to be special. It felt out of place in our otherwise modest family home (none of my friends had a battle-scarred baby grand in their living rooms, that’s for sure). Continue reading...
  
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• Sky Ferreira: ‘I’m always scared I’m gonna die, all the time’

  02-06-2024 02:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The pop auteur and actor talks sleepwalking, growing up on MTV and the constant pains of communication – in life, if not in musicGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhat was the first album you bought?It sounds like I’m lying but it was Fiona Apple’s Tidal. Obviously I loved the Spice Girls and stuff like that, and I remember having Lauryn Hill when I was a little kid – but it wasn’t really mine, it was my mum’s and I took it. Continue reading...
  
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• One to watch: Charlotte Day Wilson

  01-06-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The Canadian singer-songwriter cuts loose from Toronto’s thriving R&B scene with a subtle yet fun-loving second albumA uniquely atmospheric brand of R&B has been coming out of Toronto over the past decade. Harnessing jazz instrumentals, introspective lyricism and intricate vocals, local artists such as Daniel Caesar, BadBadNotGood and Mustafa have all released ambitious projects that put a fresh spin on the genre.Carving her own creative path within this community is Canadian produ
  
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