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Patrick West
When pop wore its art on its sleeve
With the gradual disappearance of album art, we are losing far more than a few memorable images.
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| Wednesday 27 March 2013 |
Joe Jackson
Why should pop music have to be rebellious?
If you think pop and rock are a young man's game that oldies should steer clear off, you're just not a music fan.
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| Monday 18 March 2013 |
Patrick West
Does all pop sound the same to you?
If you’re over 30 and think pop music is bland or overly sexual, then face it: you have finally become your dad.
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| Friday 15 February 2013 |
Patrick Hayes
‘You need some obsession in life, or you’re dead’
Neil Young is considered the archetypal hippy, but his new autobiography reveals him to be an off-message car-loving fan of capitalism.
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| Friday 1 February 2013 |
Patrick West
Taste in opera: a
window to the soul
So, do you prefer the ‘absolute shit’ Wagner or the therapeutic Verdi? Your answer is likely to be very revealing.
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| Thursday 20 December 2012 |
Barb Jungr
The new insulting
c-word: cabaret
Singer and songwriter Barb Jungr laments how, courtesy of pop competition shows, ‘too cabaret’ has become the putdown du jour.
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| Friday 7 December 2012 |
Patrick West
Look at me and my old band t-shirt!
Declaring your love for some barely remembered group on your chest is a strange mix of narcissism, nostalgia and irony.
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| Friday 2 November 2012 |
Patrick West
A Band Aid for the failure of politics
It is a reflection of the decline of reasoned debate and the rise of celebrity that society pays attention to popstar politics.
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| Friday 12 October 2012 |
Promi Ferdousi
There is more to K-pop than ‘Gangnam Style’
Psy’s YouTube sensation is fun, but it's not a patch on the joys awaiting Western fans who want to explore Korean pop.
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| Wednesday 3 October 2012 |
Ed Barrett
A splendid time is still guaranteed for all…
ESSAY: As the Beatles’ back catalogue is reissued, Ed Barrett salutes the world’s most brilliant, inventive and humorous pop group.
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| Friday 7 September 2012 |
Patrick West
Delusions of a
desert-island castaway
Desert Island Discs is the perfect opportunity for posturing, preening and pretending to have read Proust.
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| Monday 6 August 2012 |
Stuart Derbyshire
Freewheelin’
with the truth
Why was US journalist Jonah Lehrer shamed for making up Dylan quotes and not for his cod-neuroscience?
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| Monday 6 August 2012 |
Patrick West
Beethoven’s
shock-and-awe riffs
Even cranked up to 11, Deep Purple aren’t a patch on Beethoven. But their music can be equally stirring.
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| Friday 22 June 2012 |
Patrick West
I know a song that will get on your nerves...
They get inside your head and refuse to leave. It’s time to recognise the irritating, human genius of advert jingles.
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| Friday 18 May 2012 |
Patrick West
Does it matter if you’re black or white?
The deaths of culture-defying musicians Adam Yauch and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn are a reminder of music's skin-tone sensitivities.
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| Tuesday 10 April 2012 |
Judith Ayers
The rappers giving the finger to fatalism
From the 1970s onwards, hip-hop artists have been penning anthems about refusing to accept their lot.
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| Tuesday 20 March 2012 |
Brendan O’Neill
Plan B's prole porn for the music press
The lauding of his new single 'Ill Manors' shows even youth culture has been colonised by the chattering classes.
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| Monday 19 March 2012 |
Frank Furedi
Bob Dylan and the birth of The Sixties
On the 50th anniversary of the release of Dylan's first album, Frank Furedi looks back at that decade of tumult.
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| Wednesday 22 February 2012 |
Patrick West
That’s for the American Revolution!
Cor blimey, guv, Adele’s only gone and shown them flash buggers across the pond what talent really sounds like.
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| Wednesday 4 January 2012 |
Patrick West
When instrumental music strikes a false chord
When music is used as a weapon, a shopping aid or an educational tool, we lose sight of its ability to move us.
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