Category: Music
‘We swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine’: Neil Tennant’s love affair with Russia – before the ‘cancer of Putin’
The journalist Andrey Sapozhnikov of Novaya Gazeta Europe, the independent Russian newspaper that now operates from Latvia in order to avoid censorship by Putin’s regime, [more…]
‘If all I cared about was a career, I’d make listenable music’: Joost Klein on Eurovision, scandal and having the last laugh
Joost Klein is arguably the first artist to triumph at the Eurovision song contest without actually performing in the final. In May last year, the [more…]
UK reggae pioneers Steel Pulse: ‘We told punk fans – you can pogo, but please don’t spit at us’
In the late 1970s, whenever young Birmingham reggae band Steel Pulse performed their song Ku Klux Klan, the group’s vocalists would theatrically wear white KKK [more…]
‘I cried about my breast cancer – but I didn’t throw a pity party’: Anastacia on hardship, hits and humour
After Anastacia had a double mastectomy in 2013, she began to joke about it. “It was wild to look at myself. I said: ‘My boobs [more…]
The Darkness review – retro rockers are still in acrobatically high spirits
Midway through the deliriously profane Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Justin Hawkins demands that the crowd claps along. Before you know it, the frontman [more…]
‘It sounds terrible but I listen to it 30 times a day’: how the Lumineers made Ho Hey
Wesley Schultz, songwriter, vocals, guitar After growing up in Ramsey, a small town in New Jersey, we moved to New York to try to make [more…]
‘Everyone knew who he was’: James Hamilton, the ‘eccentric aristo’ who catalysed British club culture
Norman Cook can remember the first time he met James Hamilton very clearly. “He was enormous,” he laughs. “Enormous and very well-spoken, called everyone ‘dear [more…]
‘You can yodel and don’t have to be conservative’: the Swiss feminist choir rewriting traditional songs
Elena Kaiser just wanted to yodel, and living in central Switzerland, that didn’t seem too much to ask for. “But as a woman you couldn’t [more…]
King Charles’s Apple Music playlist: are they really his favourite songs?
Over the years, the music tastes of King Charles have remained something of a mystery – not one anybody seemed in a tearing hurry to [more…]
‘Reopen these youth clubs’: Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso on nurturing young artistic talent
After the high of a record-breaking night at the Brits where his band, Ezra Collective, not only became the first jazz group to perform live [more…]
