Category: Music
Fury and denunciations: when pop idol Marianne Faithfull took to the stage – and silenced her critics
Marianne Faithfull had to overcome a good deal of prejudice in her life. When, as a 21-year-old, she was cast as Irina in a 1967 [more…]
Madonna trying standup is no joke: she’s a natural comedian and genuine kook
New York’s famed Comedy Cellar has long been known as a testing ground for hot young talent. The Greenwich Village club hosted stand-ups like Ray [more…]
Melancholy, morphine and the Baader-Meinhof group: Marianne Faithfull’s 10 best recordings
Morning Sun (1965) Marianne Faithfull’s 60s releases were wildly variable, perhaps because she seems to have been beholden to the whims of producers who didn’t [more…]
Nao on fame, motherhood and living with ME: ‘I’ve had to work a lot on what my idea of success is’
Nao is trying to articulate how it feels to be on the verge of releasing a new album. When this thing that’s been yours and [more…]
Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking review – older and wiser
Having rather lost their way for a decade, the Manics rediscovered their fire on Send Away the Tigers (2007) and then 2009’s magnificent Journal for [more…]
Mike: Showbiz! review – a master rap craftsman building his own world
After a life spent bouncing between the UK and US – and, now, endlessly touring – New York rapper Mike’s delivery has the hazy fug [more…]
Cynefin: Shimli review | Jude Rogers’s folk album of the month
In the tiny kiln rooms of west Walian mills over a century ago, farmers would tell stories, read verse and sing songs through the night [more…]
‘Women’s rage is real. Mostly we turn it on ourselves’: Neko Case on songwriting, survival – and her mother’s faked death
When the singer-songwriter Neko Case was growing up in poverty in rural Washington, it did not occur to her to question her parents or their [more…]
Soul, sermonising and wrestling Satan: James Brown’s 20 best albums – ranked!
20. The Amazing James Brown (1961) If you want a roll call of James Brown’s formative influences, just check the covers on this album: Hank [more…]
Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory album review | Alexis Petridis’s album of the month
The last time the world heard from Sharon Van Etten, it was 2022. She was pictured on the cover of her sixth album, We’ve Been [more…]
