albums
Taylor Swift’s new album is exhausting
How to explain the supercharged star power of Taylor Swift? An undeniably gifted artist, Swift’s albums 1989, Folklore and Evermore,…
Can everyone please shut up about Maria Callas?
Rupert Christiansen on the cult of Callas
The case against re-recording albums
In 2012, Jeff Lynne released Mr Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra. Except it wasn’t. It was…
The best new album I’ve heard this year: Being Dead’s When Horses Would Run reviewed
Grade: A– The point of a sudden, abrupt change in the time signature and instrumentation of a song is to…
Let’s hear it for the lesser-spotted nepo daddy
Rob Grant releases his debut album, Lost at Sea, this week. A 69-year-old millionaire and former ad man, furniture exec…
In praise of goths – the most enduring of pop subcultures
Michael Hann on the most enduring of pop subcultures
Heartfelt but bland: Ed Sheeran’s – (Subtract) reviewed
Whether by accident or design, the mathematical theme of Ed Sheeran’s previous album titles (+, ×, ÷ and = respectively)…
In defence of country-pop
Sam Kriss on why country-pop is the most modern music there is
As good, and inventive, as modern rock music gets: Black Midi's Hellfire reviewed
Grade: A+ The difficult question with Black Midi was always: are you listening to them in order to admire them,…
An intense slab of religiosity: Nick Cave's Seven Psalms reviewed
Grade: B There has always been a seriousness and intelligence about Nick Cave quite at odds with that which usually…
Humour, sweetness and sincerity: Father John Misty's Chloë and the Next Twentieth Century reviewed
Grade: A– In which Josh Tillman reimagines the whole back catalogue of 20th-century American pop music (except for rock), tilting…
The awfulness of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has always felt weirdly personal
Squaring up to the prospect of a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, I’m reminded of a vintage quote by…
No one should be doing indie rock at 43: Band of Horses's Things Are Great reviewed
Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…
See this Russian hip hop star before they arrest him: Oxxxymiron's Beauty & Ugliness reviewed
Grade: A+ I was going to review hyperpop chanteuse Charli XCX’s album this week, but it was such boring, meretricious,…
Fabulously boring: Weather Station's How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars reviewed
Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…
Too neat but it has hooks aplenty: Avril Lavigne's Love Sux reviewed
Grade: B Yay, life just gets better and better. World War Three and now this. More petulant popcorn pre-school punk…
Pretty astonishing: Black Country, New Road's Ants From Up There reviewed
Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…
Has the whiff of Spinal Tap: Jethro Tull's The Zealot Gene reviewed
Grade: C+ I bought the ‘seminal’ Jethro Tull double album Thick as a Brickfrom a secondhand shop when I…