The Listener
Grimes has talent – but not for writing songs: Miss Anthropocene reviewed
Grade: B The old axiom no longer applies. In modern popular music, it is possible not only to gild a…
The rancid meanderings of a long-spent wankpuffin: Justin Bieber’s Changes reviewed
Grade: D– For my first review of popular music releases in 2020 I thought I’d deposit this large vat of…
The cult of Trifonov is doing the pianist no favours
Grade: B– Deutsche Grammophon have decided that Daniil Trifonov’s new Rachmaninov piano concertos with the Philadephia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin…
Woke slogans welded to incompetent grunge: Neil Young’s Colorado reviewed
Grade: B- Horribly woke boilerplate slogans welded inexpertly to the usual incompetent Crazy Horse grunge. Young and his pick-up band…
Patently insincere: Kanye’s Jesus is King reviewed
Grade: B– Kanye West has found Jesus Christ. Lucky old Christ. If I were Christ I’d have hidden out a…
Imagine ZZ Top stuck in a lift with Gary Numan: Sturgill Simpson’s Sound & Fury reviewed
Grade: A– The outlaw country genre has shifted a little over the decades since Waylon and Willie, with each proponent…
Proggery beyond parody: Iggy Pop’s Free reviewed
Grade: D+ Pleasant memories — of hearing ‘Raw Power’ for the first time and later the amiably shambolic chug of…
Great title – shame about the songs: Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell reviewed
Grade: B+ Get the razor blades out, Ms Misery is back. Only the truly affluent can immerse themselves in such…
Needed a shot of Stolichnaya: The Tchaikovsky Project reviewed
Grade: B+ I’m not sure about ‘Projects’. Aren’t those what ageing rockers produce, in a haze of sedatives, when their…
Reliably odd but the deranged proggery grates: King’s Mouth by The Flaming Lips reviewed
Grade: B- So a queen dies as her giant baby is being born. The baby grows very big indeed and…
Hideously tasteful elegies to useless country singers: Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars reviewed
Grade: B– The first Springsteen song I ever heard was ‘Born To Run’, back when I was 14. I clocked…
Much as I admire Morrissey’s refusal to conform, I don’t much like his music
Grade: B Rock stars who utter something a little gamey, something a tad right-wingish, are usually coerced by the lefties…
It made me want to go to sleep and never wake up: Vampire Weekend’s Father of the Bride
Grade: B– One of the things not to like about Vampire Weekend, other than their cloying preppiness, Ezra Koenig’s ingratiating…
Maybe the best thing this skag head’s ever done: Peter Doherty & the Puta Madres reviewed
Grade: A Old skag head’s back, then — older (40 now!), probably none the wiser, still a very good songwriter.…
Thick 12-year-olds listen to Ariana Granda, smart ones to Billie Eilish
Grade: A– If your 12-year-old daughter’s a bit thick, she probably likes Ariana Grande. Come on, dads — you’ve got…
Magnificently incoherent: Royal Trux’s White Stuff reviewed
Grade:A Royal Trux are back — kind of. Singer (if that’s what you want to call what she does) Jennifer…
The only way to avoid Ariana Grande’s drivel is to move to Iran
Grade: D Among the many reasons for moving to Iran is this vapid, talentless, derivative, hyperbolically oversexed drivel aimed at…
However irritating they are, the Dandy Warhols can write songs
Grade: A– I’m here to make you feel old. It’s now nearly 20 years since the pleasing, laconic, Stones pastiche…
It’s Christmas. You don’t want Götterdämmerung. You want a waltz-operetta
Grade: A– 1898: two Parisiennes and a housemaid secretly invite each other’s partners to the Paris Opera ball and… c’mon,…
1975 was a great year for pop – worthy of a better band than The 1975
Grade: C A derided year in pop music, 1975 — and yet a great one. The mainstream was horrible, but…
They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed
Grade: D+ I promise you this isn’t simply class loathing. Yer toffs have contributed to British rock and pop and…
The ideal album for getting rid of guests over Christmas: Yoko Ono’s Warzone reviewed
Grade: A+ Ooh, you can have some fun with this when the unwanted guests swing by this Christmastide. These are…
Laudably perverse – maybe album of the year: Cypress Hill’s Elephants on Acid reviewed
Grade: A+ Easily album title of the year, maybe album of the year. A true bravura offering from these supposedly…
What’s not to like about Christine and the Queens? Her music
Grade: B– Ooh goody — a parade to rain on! You wouldn’t believe the hyperbole expended by the rock critics…
Pretentious jowly mumrock: Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night III reviewed
Grade: C+ Mumrock. A lucrative genre, dating from the beginning of the 1970s, when Mums suddenly wanted something a little…
