Lana Del Rey does not really need to release an album. Due to the warp speed of the internet she’s had a whole career in a matter of months but it seems that we have already tired of her before Born to Die… has actually been heard in full. All this, after two songs: the

Remember when life was all banging up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door to a Richter scale level, wondering curiously about what exactly a Brian Moloko was and why he had a paper bag on his head while morosely subsisting on a diet of Nirvana and freshly formed tears? No? Well you’ll probably enjoy Pulled…

Do we really need a Gaga remix album? Wasn’t the head-spinning, unicorns-and-rainbows-in-a-can delight that was the original Born This Way… enough? Apparently not, apparently we need something that can be played in a hairdressers of a Saturday afternoon, for some Fade Streeter to cue up between stares and sighs at an ‘event’, for the BBC

In July we packed away our comedy beehive wigs and scrubbed off our felt tip pen tattoos because the joke just wasn’t funny anymore. The inky Id, our little black shadow that seeped forth from our mental diaries, who we listened to aching through speakers and headphones as the jet of night turned into the…

Seemingly inspired by the wonky rat-a-tat-tat of Nicola Roberts marching band and a dash of Toni Basil, Madonna is BACK BACK BACK!
She’s cheering her way back into our hearts after the try-too-hard disaster that was Hard Candy… by reclaiming giddy pop thrills from the plump hands of the young ‘uns with this fun, breezy

Remember when the EMAs mostly consisted of VJ Simone on the red carpet in some ludicrous latex affair being crushed by various members of Die Toten Hosen? She’d slur something terrifically intoxicating into the camera, it’d cut back to an unawares Ray Cokes having a scratch before finally treating us to Jovanotti and his three…

It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch. Whilst Cheryl was busy rhyming ‘bars’ with ‘cars’ hanging on the every monosyllable of charisma void, triangle of cheese head Will.i.am, back combing her barnet into the size of Ohio, and generally living out the plot to a terrible rom-com much to the tabloids glee,seemingly unassuming…

Yes, MTV still hold award ceremonies no, not for ‘Best Pregnant 16 Year Old’ , ‘Most Vacant Stare (Hills Cast Special)’ or “Negative Stereotype of the Year” but for actual music videos, y’know the ones they never show anymore…
The VMAs are supposed to be ever so controversial, ever so punk rawk. It’s the anti-awards…

With the newly invigorated penchant for white blazers, gold jewellery and spongy slip-on loafers infecting many a callow youth these days it’s no wonder the universe has vomited up the soundtrack to match it. The hazy melodic pop classicism of this year’s golden boy Twin Shadow, and now the arrival of the equally fugged-up debut…

Since Beyoncé shimmied her shiny legs up and down the stage at Glastonbury there has been a worrying rustle throughout broadsheet land and the chatter of music elitists alike: is pop now ‘legitimate’? Is it okay to snack on the silly fluff in between your guitar/keyboard-crunching meals? It’s this terrifyingly misguided, empty-headed belief that resigns…

Sandwiched between the hysteric glamour of their debut and the breezy listening of Coming Up is the dark core of Suede. Dog Man Star… arrived as the unwelcomed antithesis of the ‘London Fields’ brandishing barrow boys squealing about their nights of oikish debauchery. It was a telescope on a bitter world, one threaded with blood,

So this is it. An album that has arrived in a chaotic whirlwind of over-digested, over-wrought, over-thought opinions. Every note, lyric, dance move, visual presentation pored over, to be subjected to such intense scrutiny it became farcical. ‘The album cover is terrible!” (Hee-Hee!). ”The lead single is silly’ (Ho! Ho!). “She can’t dance!” (Arf! Arf!).…

Would the Manics of old have charged the stage on a night like this, with Garda helicopters buzzing overhead to the strains of ‘Repeat’? Probably. If they tried it in Bangkok with Nicky Wire doing scissor kicks dressed like a cracked-up Hilda Ogden in front of armed Thai guards then Dublin would have been a…

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Gruff Rhys – ‘Honey All Over’ (Turnstile Records)
No, the title is not a comment on his dulcet tones or a naughty statement about (ahem!) love juice a-la Mariah at her most minxy. Although if this tune had reached its intended musical destination of one Britney Jean Spears (true story), Lord…