Music
She is a severely limited songwriter – and singer: Taylor Swift’s Reputation reviewed
Grade: D+ I was suckered in by the brio of Taylor Swift’s first big single, ‘Love Story’, despite the clunking…
Mourning glory
On the face of it, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds aren’t exactly a natural fit with the O2. Cave’s…
Vice and virtue
‘Can the ultimate betrayal ever be forgiven?’ screams the publicity for The Judas Passion, transforming a Biblical drama into a…
Age concern
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…
Mozart’s mischievous muse
If you were to compare Mozart to a bird it wouldn’t be the starling. Possibly the wood thrush or nightingale,…
The morality of conducting
Now he is the greatest figure for me, in the world. [Toscanini is] the last proud, noble, unbending representative (with…
His dark materials
Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…
His dark materials
Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…
Down – if not out – in Paris
Virginie Despentes remains best known in this country for her 1993 debut novel, Baise-Moi, about two abused young women who…
Jay-Z: 4.44
Grade: B – All criticism is pointless, I suppose, given the sheer magnitude of the Shawn Corey Carter machine —…
Let there be light
If you’ve never heard the John Wilson Orchestra, it’s time to experience pure happiness. Buy their 2016 live album Gershwin…
Beth Ditto: Fake Sugar
Boy is she fat, and getting fatter. I realise this is something we’re not meant to mention when talking about…
Match made in heaven
Tennis is best played with a wooden racket on a shady lawn somewhere close to Dorking. There is no need…
We want them not to give us what we want: Radiohead at the Roundhouse reviewed
Radiohead have been at the top of the musical tree for so long now that it’s easy to forget what…
Nothing sacrilegious about this British Library Punk show, says Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols
There have been many punk exhibitions over the years so I can’t help but chuckle at the ‘experts’ who are…
Meet the fans who risk death for heavy metal
We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports
The Heckler: love your music, Macca, just not sure about you
It’s slightly galling, after years of sticking up for Paul McCartney, to read a new biography of the bloke and…
‘Wanna come to Prince’s house?’
The untold story
Why we love unfinished art
An unfinished painting can provide a startling glimpse of the artist at work. But the common tendency to prefer it to a finished work is being taken to extremes, says Philip Hensher
Dull hipsters in broad daylight – why I’m done with today’s dance music
At 19, I dropped out of university to pursue a career as a rave promoter. I went into business with…
Aphorisms and the arts: from Aristotle to Oscar Wilde
The author of this jam-packed treasure trove has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000 and…
Phil Lynott, from Dublin teenager to rock'n'roll burnout
It’s often said that there are only seven basic plots in literature. When it comes to biographies of rock stars…
Joan Bakewell: on socks, fridge magnets, teddy bears and such stuff
I don’t know if this counts as name-dropping, but I recently interviewed a boyhood friend of Elvis Presley’s in Tupelo,…
At the going down of the sun
One of the epigraphs to Peter Davidson’s nocturne on Europe’s arts of twilight is from Hegel: ‘The owl of Minerva…
If we really cared about mental health, muzak would be a top priority
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
