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Andrew Smith: Totally Wired – On The Trail Of The Dotcom Swindle
Book Review by Pat Kane, The Independent, 20 September 2012
A high-energy romp through digital boom-and-bust has lessons for today ...
Report by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 28 August 1975
Where cycle sluts, tanktoppers and dedicated bumpers dance, dance, dance, stick poppers up adversity's nose and dodge surging roachers... ...
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 18 January 2001
From Radio Ethiopia to Dread Zeppelin...20 classics of Cod-Reggae ...
Git Down!! The 50 Funkiest Records Ever Made!!
Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, June 2001
ONCE UPON a time there was Funk. THE Funk. The Rhythm of the One. Now it's all four-on-the-floor hard-house and techy trance, dance-muzik devoid of ...
Hunter Thompson Pays a Visit to Babylon
Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, Rock's Backpages, 2015
HUNTER THOMPSON'S SUICIDE ten years ago this month should not have come as a surprise. His dark tales about riding with a biker gang, Mace-spraying ...
Is Acid's Mr Big Really All Bad?
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, November 1989
Twenty-three-year-old gambler and whiz-kid entrepreneur Tony Colston-Hayter has been called Acid's Mr Big, Acid's Mr Fixit and The Acid King by the tabloid press because ...
Julie Burchill: The 'Sweetest Girl'
Profile and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 2 November 1985
JULIE BURCHILL has torpedoed more sacred cows than a pop star has brain cells, though she likes (among other things) Sade and the Maker. Caroline Sullivan ...
Report by Rob Hughes, Uncut, January 2021
WHILE IT'S been a highly challenging year for the music industry – particularly in terms of cancelled tours, venue closures and a disrupted retail market ...
The iPod: Rise of the Machines
Report by Edward Helmore, Q, March 2005
This is the untold story of Apple's iPod — the gadget that ate the world and saved the music industry. We're all pod people now. ...
Report by Danny Goldberg, Billboard, 30 August 1969
BETHEL, N.Y. – About 400,000 rock fans gave peace a chance Aug. 15-18, and it worked. For them and the overwhelmed residents of this Catskills ...
Profile and Interview by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 24 April 1976
What’s squeaky-clean, exquisitely produced, Scandinavian and goes OOMPAH? The answer to the riddle is ABBA ...and here’s MICK FARREN to ask it. ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982
FOLLOWING IN the footsteps of Barbara Windsor, The Professionals' Martin Shaw and Crossroads' Benny Hawkins ABC are tonight making a Public Appearance at Sheffield's Top ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1990
"Just what are the East Germans who flock across the crumbled Berlin Wall spending their money on? While champagne and fresh fruit were once hot ...
Live Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 21 August 1976
THOSE PUZZLED by the Status Quo phenomenon should beware. AC/DC, from the same rock family, could wreak similar havoc, but they will only realise their ...
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1975
THOUGH IT SOUNDS like a song about a stale love affair, ‘How Long’ is the story of an English band struggling to stay together. ...
Adele, Duffy: Adele and Duffy are products of the age of X Factor
Comment by John Aizlewood, The Guardian, 4 January 2008
You can thank Simon Cowell for the results of the BBC's The Sound of 2008 poll. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1989
NOW ON to their tenth album and with sales of the previous nine topping 25 million in the States, Aerosmith are still just about unknown ...
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 3 July 1976
AEROSMITH HAVE GOT the whole situation psyched. ...
Aerosmith: This Way to Insanity
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, October 1998
"WHEN THE moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore." A rich and fruity baritone croons impressively from room 523 of the ...
Allman Brothers Band: Allman Brothers Reform For LP, Tour
Report by Richard Wootton, Melody Maker, 9 September 1978
THE FOUR SURVIVING members of the original Allman Brothers Band – Gregg Allman, Dickie Betts, Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson – have reformed for ...
The Animals: Animal Tracks - Newcastle's Brand Of Powerhouse Blues
Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1982
In 1963, the northern beat boom was being answered further south by a trend, centred on London, towards a more aggressive R&B: the sort of ...
The Animals: Animals: Sure, We're Really Animals!
Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express Summer Special, Summer 1966
THE TITLE 'ANIMALS' was given to the group by Radio Caroline chief Ronan O'Reilly, who felt it summed up the group's wild attitude to rhythm-and-blues ...
Adam & The Ants: Adam Ant: Metamorphosis of a Narc
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 July 1985
"I DON'T THINK I'm an intelligent person. But I think I have a common sense that allows me to have an instinct about what people ...
Adam & The Ants: Whip In My Valise: Adam and the Ants
Comment by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 December 1977
The angel Gabriel sent me to give you a little bit of sympathy...('Plastic Surgery') ...
Argent: First Get Yourself On The Telly!
Interview by Steve Turner, Cream, June 1972
WHATEVER GETS SAID about hit singles and Top Of The Pops, there's no denying that they still form the most powerful tonic that a British ...
Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading (A&M)*****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 31 July 1976
THE RECORD deck grunts and clicks, the turntable sidles to a halt and polysyllabic analysis should be flowing from the critic's pen but I'd just ...
Joan Armatrading: Front Door Woman
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 April 1983
DO YOU believe in romance? ...
The Associates: The Affectionate Punch
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 August 1980
RUMOURS have been dripping down from Scotland about a diverse horde of determined post Skids/S. Minds/Scars groups all ready to shift our attention. Positive Noise, ...
Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 8 March 1975
AIN'T IT just like the February sunshine to play tricks with the mind? Here I am, sat aboard the Long Island Railroad Express, rattling out ...
The B-52s: Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1998
HISTORY OF Athens perfect popsters with two new tracks. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 29 August 1974
ON ITS FIRST album, Bad Company – led by former Free singer Paul Rodgers and original Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs – resembles Free ...
Bad Company: Desolation Angels Have Gastric Juices, Too
Interview by Penny Valentine, Creem, June 1979
Bad Company flee Screaming From Reality ...
Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 28 June 1975
THIS ALBUM REPRESENTS Joan Baez's volte-face; after the years of diatribe and tireless dissemination of political views by every available channel, her records included, she's ...
Cream, Ginger Baker: Ginger Baker
Retrospective by Chris Welch, The History of Rock, 1982
PETER 'GINGER' BAKER had an enormous and profound effect on the course of rock drumming when his playing and personality first began to make an ...
The Band: A Melody Maker Band Breakdown
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 29 May 1971
FEW ROCK AND ROLL concerts can have been so eagerly awaited as those which The Band are due to play at London's Royal Albert Hall ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan & The Band: Knocking On Heaven's Door
Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 9 February 1974
THEY CHEERED and clapped and waved for fifteen minutes even though the house lights were up and 'Greensleeves' was playing through the PA system and ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan & The Band: Night of the Zimmerman
Report by Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 19 January 1974
CHICAGO, ILLINIOS – land of Lincoln, booming metropolis of the Mid-West, heart of Middle America. Not as sophisticated as New York, nor as small as ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan/The Band: Before The Flood (Asylum)
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, 29 August 1974
THROUGHOUT BOB DYLAN'S performances on this in-concert album there is evident an effort to match the material – nearly all from much earlier in his ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan: Before The Flood
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 29 June 1974
AN APPOSITE QUOTE from Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (the town preacher talking): "Oh Lord, can we truly accomplish this great task – or are we ...
The Bay City Rollers: Inside the Bay City Rollers' Camp
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 13 September 1975
"WHEN ANYONE slates us, you can bet they’ve never heard our own stuff – Derek is a brilliant drummer" ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson: The Beach Boys: I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 13 August 1977
"SOME KAHLUA, we need a coupla pitchers of milk..." "Send up a bottle of milk. O.K., cartons. Four cartons. And some honey. And a coffee. ...
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, July 1987
AND ONCE THE tumult and the shouting have died, and life returns to something resembling normality... Sgt. Pepper remains a central pillar of the mythology ...
The Beatles: What Causes Beatlemania?
Report by Eden, KRLA Beat, 9 October 1965
YOU'VE SEEN it hundreds of times before — in mob scenes at airports, in screaming crowds of fans at concerts, even in one's and two's ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Moody, Dazed & Confused, 1996
BECK’S OFFBEAT HUMOUR and devil-may-care demeanour usually leaves journalists baffled, and interviews that reveal very little. But this time Beck is unafraid to drop his ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Oz, July 1972
SINCE HIS LAST album, Beck has brought in an outside producer, Steve Cropper, no less. Unlike Rough and Ready, this one features some real songs, ...
The Bee Gees: The Bees Gees: From Down Under To Disco
Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1984
SINCE ENTERING POP MUSIC in the Fifties, the Bees Gees have had three careers on three continents, each more successful than its predecessor. The first ...
Profile by Charlie Gillett, The Alternative, 1 October 1970
AT THE TIME of his greatest popularity, 1955-59, there were several other singers who had more hits, were more often copied, and commanded higher fees ...
Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, April 1975
JANIS JOPLIN was an awkward Texan girl with a rough voice who became one of the major idols of the sixties 'counter culture'. Why? ...
Big Star: The Best of Big Star
Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, January 2000
Fourteen cuts from troubled pop-rack demigods' first two LPs, remastered, at mid-price ...
The Birthday Party, The Virgin Prunes: The Birthday Party/The Virgin Prunes: Ace Cinema, Brixton
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982
WITH CHANNEL 4's cameras peering over their shoulders, both sets of Wild Men of Pop felt a little inhibited. Mindful of television's cold, reducing stare, ...
Interview by Ben Thompson, ES, September 2000
THE VIEW FROM the roof garden of Björk's penthouse suite at New York's elegant Soho Grand hotel is almost too much to take in at ...
Interview by Andrew Smith, Ray Gun, May 1995
HER HOUSE IS set back from the street, on a wide avenue in Maida Vale. A pair of imposing, wrought iron security gates shield it ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994
FORBIDDEN PLEASURES ARE GETTING harder to find. What price true rebel music when disco, metal, mid-'70s pop and all the grizzled outlaws of yesteryear are ...
The Black Crowes, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV)
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2000
Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, July 1984
WHAT HAPPENS to hardcore bands when they get old? They turn into Hawkwinds, that's what. Redondo Beach's finest have let their skinheads grow out and ...
Black Sabbath: It's All Word Of Foot
Profile and Interview by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, 3 October 1970
THE BLACK SABBATH album Paranoid, slipped into your record shops a couple of weeks ago. No ballyhoo. The release was as quiet as it was ...
Black Sabbath, Girlschool: Black Sabbath/Girlschool: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Pete Makowski, Sounds, 24 May 1980
THE SABS are back. And after a series of false starts to their British tour due to drummer Bill Ward contracting viral pneumonia they are ...
Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzfest ‘97
Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, unpublished, 1997
THE UNEARTHLY NOISE that barrels over the pines and down Alpine Valley in rural Wisconsin last summer was a clear signal that the natural order ...
Bobby "Blue" Bland: Two Steps from the Blues: The Gospel According to Bobby 'Blue' Bland
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, From a Whisper to a Scream (Fontana Books), 1991
WHEN HOWLIN' WOLF left Memphis for Chicago in late 1952, Sun Records' Sam Phillips was left with a crop of younger blues singers who in ...
The Blasters: Non-Fiction (Slash)
Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983
OVER THE past three years, white American music’s been getting a real recharge from several California couples: John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X, Chip ...
Blondie: All Aboard For Funtime!
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, August 1977
FUN! IT'S A word which keeps coming back when you try and describe Blondie – live or on record. ...
Blondie, Debbie Harry: Debbie Harry: A Chat with the Punk Pop Queen!
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Daily Express, 2000
WHAT A difference a year makes. The last time I spoke with Debbie Harry she was gearing up for the release of the first Blondie ...
The Blue Nile: Paul Buchanan Phones Home
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995
WE'VE BEEN IN ALL sorts of places for a couple of years, just meandering around the world on a fairly frugal basis – America, Italy, ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 September 1978
IT COULD be just my fevered imagination running away with me, but right now it seems that Sandy Pearlman (wily old fox and Cult behind-the-scenes ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Tyranny and Mutation
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, April 1973
YOU MIGHT remember my brief mention of Blue Oyster Cult's new album in the heavy metal piece. That was after only one listen, however, and ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Night Of The Locusts
Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980
THE GOLDEN AGE of hotrod and dragster racing is over but the USA is still littered with its mythology. One such relic is Lebanon Valley ...
Blur, Oasis: Battle of the Bands — Old Turf, New Combatants
Overview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 22 October 1995
RIGHT NOW, the British music scene is convulsed with patriotic fervor. For the first time in over a decade, young British guitar bands are penetrating ...
Marc Bolan, T. Rex: Marc Bolan: Top of the Guitar Parade
Guide by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1972
BEHIND EVERY success story there’s a team of guitars. Marc Bolan decided to give his chosen few a taste of the publicity he’s been getting ...
Marc Bolan, T. Rex: The Cosmic Dancer: The Short, Brilliant Ride of Marc Bolan
Retrospective by Nicky Parade, Rock's Backpages, September 2001
IT IS LONDON, JANUARY 1970. A new pop decade has begun, and two of its budding stars are huddled together at the Trident recording studio, ...
Boomtown Rats: The Boomtown Rats (Ensign)
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 27 August 1977
OH CHRIST, what will we label them? Rock 'n' Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Pop/New Wave? All tags apply. But no one alone totally fits the ...
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979
ANOTHER YEAR, another record. Like Burroughs, David Jones, rootless, looks for unconventional commitment: Burroughs found it in junk, control-systems and predatory homosexuality; Jones found it ...
Report and Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 26 May 1973
RAY FOX-CUMMING WATCHES THAT MAN STUN THE SCOTS IN ABERDEEN ...
David Bowie: Fifty Ways To Love Your Bowie: Half a Ton of Fave Daves
Guide by William Higham, Rock's Backpages, October 2002
WITH THE Bard of Beckenham on a critical high right now (and yes, new album Heathen IS his best in years), it seems an opportune ...
David Bowie: How David Bowie, Brian Eno Revolutionized Rock on Low
Retrospective by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone Online, 13 January 2017
Singer-songwriter, producer devised 'a new musical language' in Berlin with help from Tony Visconti ...
Boy George: The Boy Who Fell From Grace
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, September 1987
THE PRESS OFFICER has pleaded, in the nicest possible way. "You're not going to ask him about drugs, are you?" Maybe. Maybe not. In the ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Culture Club and George
Report and Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 23 December 1983
A TYPICAL SUNDAY afternoon in New York's Central Park. Horse drawn carriages sweep by full of tourists. Armies of joggers with headphones stream down every ...
Billy Bragg's Brave New England
Report and Interview by Mark Sinker, The Observer, 27 November 1988
2005 comment: Neil Spencer didn’t rate me or want to use me, according to Jon Savage – who told him (Sav told me) not to ...
James Brown, Valentines Park, Ilford
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1994
TEN MINUTES BEFORE JAMES BROWN IS DUE TO APPEAR ON AN English stage for the first time since his release from prison, there is an ...
James Brown: The Classic Soul of James Brown
Guide by Cliff White, Let It Rock, August 1975
It's White on Black. Cliff White examines the output of the sex machine inch by inch. ...
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, December 1993
HAS TIME STOOD STILL? Fifteen years on and Jackson Browne's running on empty again. He's out of love yet surviving, holding himself together but now ...
Jackson Browne: Jackson's Song For Everyman
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 17 November 1973
JACKSON Browne arrived half an hour late. He'd been figuring out how to repair the plumbing at his house, and had finally succeeded in getting ...
Jackson Browne, Laura Nyro: Laura Nyro: Laura's London Triumph
Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 February 1971
Laura Nyro/Jackson Browne: Royal Festival Hall, London ...
Jack Bruce: Tales Of A Brave Ulysses
Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 26 February 1977
"Jack's always been involved with these terrible bloody all-star bands. But now he's in an ideal position. He's older now and can surround himself with ...
Jeff Buckley: Grace (Legacy Edition) (Columbia)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, October 2004
Remastered version of the original 1994 album with second CD of outtakes/rarities and DVD of Grace vids and footage of Buckley in Bearsville, New York. ...
Tim Buckley: Live At The Troubadour 1969
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1994
HE WAS, ABOVE all, a beautiful boy. Sure, the album sleeves show those impossible good looks steadily thickening into manhood and by 1974's Look At ...
Johnny Burnette: Already Dead Keen to Come Back
Interview by June Harris, Disc, 21 April 1962
JOHNNY BURNETTE arrived in Britain at the end of last week for his tour with U.S. Bonds and Gene McDaniels, which opens in Glasgow on ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 August 1977
IT ALL DEPENDS whether you're a sucker for the Burning Spear Sound. It hasn't changed too much through all their Island albums, and certain key ...
Kate Bush: The Sensual World (EMI)
Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 14 October 1989
"WHEN LAUREN WAS a small girl, she would stand in the field and call the cats. One by one they would come to her through ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 22 November 1986
IT WAS Mark Smith of top pop group The Fall who, in a typical broadcast of dedicated anti-trendiness, announced that vegetarianism helped one leave the ...
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, August 1980
WHAT'S KATE BUSH doing in ZigZag? It's a fair chance that's the thought flitting through your noggin as you espy our rather tasteful cover. ...
Retrospective by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
Proto-punk, pure pop and other bites and scratches. Richard Cook assesses the career and impact of "the world’s first modern pop group". 1 April ...
Buzzcocks, Johnny Moped, Wire, X-Ray Spex: Buzzcocks/X-Ray Spex/Wire etc.: Running with the Ratpack
Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 16 April 1977
ROXY RATPACK, Saturday nite. Find a friend and stick close: sink or swim. Tony and Julie were right: a club full of 'Wild Boys' outtakes ...
Profile by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1971
But I was so much older then,I’m younger than that now. ...
The Byrds, Gram Parsons: Going Up the Country: The Byrds and Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, ICE, August 2003
THOUGH OPINIONS differ on who recorded the first country-rock album, there is no question that the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first one ...
David Byrne: Leicester De Montfort Hall, 7th July
Live Review by Andy Farquarson, Rock's Backpages, July 2002
AN INCONGRUOUSLY large stage dominates the tiny park which is the setting for a one-day festival at Leicester's De Montfort Hall. As two risers are ...
J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: Travel Log
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989
SOME ARTISTS set a style so distinctively their own they become immediately generic; as with The Ramones or Led Zeppelin, J.J. Cale's first album Naturally ...
Interview by William Higham, What's On, 14 November 1990
Musical bogeyman John Cale has a new album out with Brian Eno. He talks to William Higham about the new LP and when the chickens ...
Profile and Interview by Mick Gold, Melody Maker, 27 July 1974
JOHN CALE is sitting in a preview theatre, cowering in the shadow of the London Hilton to see a screening of this movie hes scored ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, July 1976
THIS IS ONE for hardened Can-atics, being basically a collection of snippets which haven't made it onto past Can albums. ...
Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, November 1972
THERE ARE TYPICALLY three schools of thought surrounding Captain Beefheart. The first love him and feel he can do no wrong. The second find him ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, July 1975
IT'S CERTAINLY LESS than revolutionary to admit you like the Carpenters these days (in ‘rock’ circles, if you recall, it formerly bordered on heresy). Everybody ...
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Music Week, 1995
HE’S BACK IN BLACK...again. And, as ever, he means business. Johnny Cash, the original rock'n'roll spectre lets loose the leashes with new album Unchained, covering ...
Johnny Cash: Pills'n'Thrills And Bellyaches
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, June 1991
HITCHING UP HIS blue jeans to give his hands something to do, country music's Greatest Living Legend smothers a cough before the familiar voice offers ...
Nick Cave: Rage Has Not Withered Him
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 18 March 2001
Nick Cave never thought he'd get past 40, but heroin and self-hate are behind him now. Married and "reborn", he writes nine to five in ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: Now for the Big Time
Interview by John Robb, Sounds, 10 November 1990
Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and the Inspirals have all been tipped to break the States, but THE CHARLATANS may have the best chance of all. ...
Charli XCX: Concorde 2, Brighton
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 25 March 2015
"BRIGHTON, put your fucking middle fingers up!" are Charli XCX's first words as she launches her first UK tour as headliner. Brighton needs no encouragement: ...
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 2 December 1978
THE TRICK experience, but hardly cheap at £8.50 a shot. Even so, it's worth it, as is evidenced by the fact that Flyover in Hammersmith ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 19 June 1975
WHILE IT'S DIFFICULT to picture anyone failing to be amused by the intentional ludicrousness of, say, dedicating an album to the revolution or making the ...
Alex Chilton: 19 Years: A Collection of Alex Chilton (Rhino)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, April 1991
IF ANY ONE PERSON is emblematic of the musical malaise of rock's cutting edge during the 1980s, it would have to be cult factotum Alex ...
John Cipollina, Man: Man: Maximum Darkness
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, January 1976
ONE OF THE undoubted highlights so far this year for all ZigZaggers has been the long-overdue visit of John Cipollina to these shores, and if ...
Eric Clapton: Danish Blues Power: Eric Clapton
Review and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 29 June 1974
"WE WANT Buddy Holly!... I AM Buddy Holly!" ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
UNLIKE THE Sex Pistols, the other great London punk-rock group had ambitions beyond delivering the short, sharp shock to the system suggested by the sudden ...
The Clash, Joe Strummer: Joe Strummer: Definitely Not Admitting Defeat Yet
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 24 September 1999
"I THINK GOOD manners will come back. In America, kids saw punk rock as a licence to be as rude as possible. I didn't like ...
The Clash: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 6 November 1976
A ROW OF PARKED Vivas, Consuls and Zephyrs indicated that the ICA had an audience a little different to the usual. It was "A Night ...
George Clinton: Some Of My Best Jokes Are Friends (Capitol)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 1985
IF THERE'S nothing more pathetic than an ageing crazy person, then why is George Clinton still able to make music as passionate, ...
George Clinton: Taking Funk Over The Hump
Profile by Simon Witter, i-D, May 1988
EXCUSE ME if I gush here, but this is a subject very close to my heart. In these days of political defeatism, sexual paranoia and ...
Joe Cocker: The A&M Years 1968-1976
Overview by Bud Scoppa, unpublished, 1982
BETWEEN THE YEARS 1968 and 1976, Joe Cocker recorded his first seven albums (all released on A&M). These recordings were composed of a wonderfully diverse ...
Cocteau Twins: Milk And Kisses (Fontana)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996
AN UNFORGIVABLE THING happened in 1994. The Cocteau Twins released arguably their finest album to date, Four Calendar Cafe, only to have it roundly ignored ...
Review by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, December 1992
THE CRITICAL REHABILITATION of the man they used to call Captain Mandrax is one of rock's more unexpected twists in recent years. ...
Leonard Cohen: Cohen's New Skin
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 1 March 1975
LOS ANGELES: "For a while, I didn't think there was going to be another album. I pretty well felt that I was washed up as ...
Review by Jim Irvin, The Word, June 2005
AS A STAUNCH advocate of pop music that's actually popular, that revels in its ability to make human connections, I can't begrudge Coldplay their unquestionable ...
Natalie Cole: The Unforgettable Ms Cole
Interview by Lucy O'Brien, The Guardian, 26 September 2008
Natalie Cole is the superstar's daughter who became a Black Panther, a cocaine addict – and a huge success in her own right. As she ...
Genesis, Phil Collins: Phil Collins: Genesis Of A Solo Career
Interview by Chris Salewicz, Creem, January 1982
SET IN THE STOCKBROKER belt 30 miles to the southwest of London, the Genesis studio complex is exactly what you might expect: several thatched, suitably ...
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, November 1976
I'VE BEEN LOOKING forward to this one for ages, same as I do every Ry Cooder album. Apart from the obvious quality of his music, ...
Report and Interview by William Shaw, The Observer, 7 July 1996
New York can lay claim to having invented rap, but LA has violently rewritten the rules. William Shaw charts an increasingly bitter rivalry ...
Coolio, Junior M.A.F.I.A., The Notorious B.I.G.: Notorious B.I.G.: B.I.G. Trouble
Report by Sonia Poulton, Muzik, October 1996
When the US hip hop elite hits the road, you expect sparks, right? When you put together names from the East and West Coast on ...
Alice Cooper: All Right, Son . . .Where's My Big Boy With Extra Sauce?
Interview by Barbara Charone, Creem, August 1977
ALICE COOPER is waiting for the man. He's even got a Coca-Cola in his hand. But where's the burgers? Alice Cooper is waiting. He's waiting ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, August 1972
IF YOU DON'T THINK Alice Cooper are the Rolling Stones of 1972, think again. In innumerable aspects – from the foremost importance of image to ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...
Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 1978
THE INSULT that made a man out of Mac(manus). As runs the hype: get sand kicked in your face (or whatever), keep on punching your ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe McDonald: Incredible! Live! Country Joe! (Vanguard)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Cream, June 1972
I like the coffee and I like tea,I like the sweetness that you give to me, Hey woman set your mind at rest,Home cookin' still ...
Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986
THE CRAMPS' rampant gurning and soft-focus sleaze has been shaped into an institution of sorts. Transcending and fusing tribal instincts – goth's dumb brooding and ...
Cream: "Nobody can replace Cream" — Ginger Baker
Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, April 1972
It seems that it’s not only the record-buying public that consider Ginger Baker to be the world’s top drummer. "I haven’t ever heard anybody who’d ...
The Creatures, Siouxsie & The Banshees: 10 Questions for Siouxsie Sioux
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, September 1998
Is it true that you split the Banshees because the Sex Pistols reformed? ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo's Factory
Review by Greg Shaw, Who Put The Bomp!, October 1970
WELL, THEY'VE finally done it. Creedence Clearwater has produced an entire album without a single poor song. And what's more, they don't all sound alike. ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 2001
FOR A FEW SEASONS as the '60s turned into the '70s, Creedence Clearwater Revival were the biggest band in the world, with their incredible US ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash/Daylight Again
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, March 2006
CSN WAS BORN of dissolution, the fruit of fragmenting times. They kicked off a second wave of post-Sunset Strip/British Invasion music, loose affiliations of longhairs ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: American Dream
Review by Tom Hibbert, Q, December 1988
It has been suggested that this LP is the result of the compassion of Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young–a bid to keep their ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Auburn, Washington, July 27th 2006
Live Review by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, 15 August 2006
"Do you think there are any Republicans here?" We are on the queue for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Freedom of Speech show, and the ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
EVERY FEW YEARS AN ALBUM IS MADE IN LOS Angeles of such wistful sunniness that it sets up shop on the radio for months on ...
The Cure: Taking The Cure With Robert
Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, 1 October 1987
"I put make-up on when I wake up. Some times, if I'm go-ing shopping, depend-ing upon what shop I'm going to, I wear it. If ...
The Cure: In Search Of El Dorado
Report and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, July 1987
EARLY IN THE evening of 27 March 1987 in Rio de Janeiro, Robert Smith is sipping tea in the air-conditioned cool of The Cure's luxury ...
The Damned: Music For Pleasure
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 26 November 1977
CATCHING SIGHT of the title in a news column, I wondered. 'Music For Pleasure'? Have the dervish-like Damned decided to junk all this credibility rubbish, ...
The Kinks, Ray Davies: Ray Davies
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 4 November 1967
THERE is something of the smoking volcano about Ray Davies. Six foot of suppressed quietly spoken, quietly smiling and quietly watching! It is what some ...
Miles Davis: London, Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983
MILES RUNS the voodoo down down down ... and here I am, somewhere way up in the high heights of the Odeon (gee I hate ...
Deep Purple: Breakfast of Champions: Deep Purple's Machine Head
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Circular, 29 May 1972
IF YOU'RE OVER 20, you needn’t read on. Unless, of course, you want to hear why Deep Purple are a good group – just like ...
Deep Purple: Empire Pool, Wembley
Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 20 March 1976
THIS REVIEW SHOULD have been written in the white heat of anger after seeing Deep Purple play at the Empire Pool, Wembley, on Friday night. ...
Sandy Denny: Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
BEGUN IN LA and finished in London, Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz may be Denny's finest hour. Kicking off with 'Solo', one of her trademark piano ...
Depeche Mode: Construction Time Again (Mute)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 27 August 1983
"LOTS OF surprises in store/This isn’t a party/It’s a whole lot more," sings Dave Gahan in ‘More Than A Party’. It’s a song from Construction ...
Depeche Mode: Hanover Garbsen Stadium
Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 19 June 1993
IN A marquee in the middle of a German field, Martin Gore is being cross-examined about the quasi-religious imagery of his lyrics by a frizzy-haired ...
Dexys Midnight Runners: Dexy's Midnight Runners: Don't Stand Me Down (Mercury)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985
YOU'D THINK three years silence might have dimmed the man's burning rage, but no, Kevin Rowland is back with a resharpened axe to grind. Chapter ...
Bo Diddley - Bo's a Lumberjack!
Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 8 February 1975
THE WHOLE THING about Bo Diddley was that he was by far the weirdest and craziest musician ever to come out of either blues or ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1991
THE REASONS FOR the six-year absence are well known: Brothers In Arms – the 15-million-selling album and 250-date world tour – banished an unassuming bloke ...
The Dixie Chicks: I Shall Be Free: The Blacklisting of Dixie Chicks
Comment by Dave Marsh, Harp, June 2003
IN CHRIS BUHALIS'S 'Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues', John Ashcroft declares questioning him un-American, to which the singer replies, "It's called a democracy. ...
DJ Hollywood, The Sugarhill Gang: The Sugarhill Gang: Freak of the Week
Report by Davitt Sigerson, Melody Maker, 15 December 1979
DESPITE A rhythm track that mangles Chic's 'Good Times' (they settled out of court), 'Rapper's Delight' by the Sugarhill Gang has been the season's biggest-selling ...
Donovan: Hurdy Gurdy Man Rolls Into Town
Live Review by Rick McGrath, The Georgia Straight, October 1971
TWO THINGS I found quite interesting at the Donovan Concert last Monday night. First, the Humble Minstrel of psychedelic folk music seems to be running ...
Interview by William Higham, New Musical Express, 1991
THE DOORS avalanche begins here! Word Up corners the band's drummer and chronicler JOHN DENSMORE, reviews his book and checks out an investigation into Morrison's ...
The Doors: The Morrison Legacy
Report and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 23 December 1978
JIM MORRISON'S body may lie a-moulderin' in his grave but his soul goes marching on. ...
Dr. Dre, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr Dre: Every Dogg Has His Dre
Report and Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 14 May 1994
They called him an "evil bastard", said he shouldn't be allowed in the country, that there would be riots outside his hotel and gigs. But ...
Nick Drake: Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, Pink Moon and Heaven Is A Wild Flower
Review by Martin Aston, Q, August 1990
RAISED BY UPPER-middle class parents in the Black Country, educated at public school and Cambridge, Nick Drake's life was never as comfortable as his upbringing ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 November 1980
"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, ...
Dr. Feelgood: Dr Feelgood: Down By The Jetty
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, July 1975
ROCK'N'ROLL LOUD, dirty, mean, raw, vicious rock'n'roll. That's what Dr Feelgood are all about and they never make any pretensions to the contrary. ...
Dr. Feelgood: Just What The Dr. Ordered: A New Guitarist To Replace Wilko In The Feelgoods
Report and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 7 May 1977
IT'S BARDOT'S, Canvey Island, formerly Cloud Nine, former weekly haunt of Dr. Feelgood. It's Thursday, almost midnight, and Wilko Johnson has well and truly joined ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1997
COMPARED TO his tremendous gigs at Ronnie Scott's a year or two ago, when Dr John was accompanied by a horn section that included Alvin ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, 8 June 1972
WIPE YOUR MIND clean of all you have ever heard and read about Dr. John the Night Tripper. If you knew that once he was ...
Duran Duran: We’re Big Boys Now
Interview by Steve Turner, Company, 1988
Simon Le Bon doesn’t look like a teen idol on this particular day. A T-shirt flaps around the top of loose black trousers, his hair ...
Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 3 September 1981
"HAVEN'T YOU heard? I'm a Fifth Columnist for the Year Of Disabled People. They've bribed me massively." ...
Ian Dury: It's Fairly Whassname…
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 25 February 1978
"WHICH WOULD you rather see; Kenny Rogers or Randy Edelman?" ...
Bob Dylan: Enter Good-Time Bob
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 3 October 1997
Bob Dylan: Bournemouth ...
Review by David G. Walley, Zygote, 1971
TARANTULA: twenty-five year-old visions of reality/letters to himself and posterity, now here in some other form from miracle xerox. Tarantula--visions of Aretha, soul singer in ...
The Eagles: Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, California
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 1994
THE BEST – AND CERTAINLY MOST SUCCINCT – REVIEW OF this, the opening night of the reunited Eagles' concert tour, came midway through guitarist Joe ...
Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, June 1973
THE BACK COVER photo may depict the Eagles as dead losers, but with DESPERADO it is clear that nothing is further from the truth. ...
Steve Earle, The Del McCoury Band: Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band: The Mountain
Review by Fred Dellar, Hi-Fi News & Record Review, May 1999
PREDICTABLY FOR the unpredictable Earle, his tribute to bluegrass mainman Bill Monroe contains no material actually penned by Monroe. ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth Wind & Fire: Gratitude
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 7 February 1976
PROOF AT LAST that EWF deserve all the acclaim that's been heaped on them in the last couple of years. ...
Review and Interview by Kit Aiken, Uncut, September 1999
THE SNAZZIEST, JAZZIEST dance crew of the period. Their ‘one world’ spirituality, sunny mysticism and conspicuous musicality makes them a real genre one-off. Never as ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Porcupine (Korova)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
PERHAPS IT WAS inevitable, even decreed in some heaven up "there". Maybe it’s just the third time unlucky. But if Porcupine isn’t good it isn’t ...
Eddie & The Hot Rods: Eddie And The Hot Rods: Woolwich Polytechnic, London
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 20 November 1976
EDDIE and the Hot Rods are turning into Heroes under our very eyes. ...
Dave Edmunds: Subtle as a Flying Mallet
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, December 1975
Perhaps you’re thinking it’s either premature or entirely unwarranted that a relative unknown whose sole claim to fame is a 1970 updating of Smiley Lewis’ ...
Elbow: Leaders of the Free World (V2)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, October 2005
Third album from Mancunian quintet, self-produced at the city's Blueprint studio. ...
Electric Light Orchestra: Light Years
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 1998
Mid-priced, 2-CD, 38-track collection of all their singles. ...
Electric Light Orchestra: ELO: Live in Philadelphia
Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 5 January 1974
WE ARE gathered together, ladies and gentlemen, for a recital by that promising septet of young British musicians who call themselves the Electric Light Orchestra. ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Greg Lake: Rock Will Go Back To Its Roots
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 3 August 1974
GREG LAKE'S London home is a rare and impressive sight. A light glows outside a town house in a quiet street that takes you back ...
Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 January 1976
EXPERIMENTAL AND AVANT-GARDE music, by its very nature, exists mainly in the fringe area of private pressings, such as the Musica or George Avakian productions ...
Brian Eno, Roxy Music: Another Glam World: Brian Eno’s Adventures in Roxy Music
Interview by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, June 2001
DP: What does the phrase "Glam Rock" mean to you? ...
Eurythmics: Be Yourself Tonight (RCA)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 4 May 1985
AMONG their assimilations, borrowings and treatments, Eurythmics remain outsiders. "I'm a looker, a viewer of things," said Annie Lennox. Their Sweet Dreams album nailed the ...
The Everly Brothers: Songs Our Daddy Taught Us
Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 6 March 1976
IN A QUIET sort of way, 1975 saw an Everly Brothers revival of sorts. Warner Brothers released their magnificent Walk Right Back With The Everlys, ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, 1 January 1972
AS FAR AS AMERICA is concerned, the Small Faces were notable for one single, 'Itchycoo Park', and one album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake; the former ...
The Faces: The Best Of The Faces (Riva)****
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 30 April 1977
"AAALRIGHT: HERE'S one you may well know, you may not know it; and if you don't know it, I really don't know where you bin." ...
Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, March 1993
DONALD FAGEN'S first album in 11 years, Kamakiriad, can be judged from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it marries tartly ironic lyrics with ...
Fairport Convention: Babbacombe Lee
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, April 1972
FOR THEIR SEVENTH album, Fairport Convention has presented us with a "concept" or "unified theme" LP (avoiding the oppro-briously-connotated term "rock opera"). ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Request, February 1999
AS MICK Jagger’s girlfriend she was among the great - and most tragic - consorts of rock’s decadent heyday. But then this Sister Morphine forced ...
Marianne Faithfull: Marianne Never Does What A Pop Star Should
Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 9 April 1965
SHE HAS a pert, child-like face which darts out at you from a cascade of fine, fair hair. The face seems to be concentrated into ...
The Fall: Mark E Smith: Not Falling, Soaring
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1991
MARK E SMITH'S REPUTATION precedes him like massed stormtroopers on the horizon. Fourteen years on, the Fall frontman still sets everyone on edge, either in ...
The Fall: Totally Wired — The Rough Trade Anthology/The Rough Trade Singles Box (Sanctuary) ***
Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, October 2002
Northern white crap that talks back meets west London liberals: early-Eighties Fall on Rough Trade ...
The Fall: The Wit And Wisdom Of Mark Smith
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 10 January 1981
DID YOU KNOW?That Andy Gill discovered all these pearls of wisdom – and more – while talking to The Fall. ...
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, 16 October 1971
THEIR MUSIC is both uncompromising and aggressive but like most musical hard men they have their other side and their latest album Fearless is likely ...
Faust: Return of a Legend: Munic & Elsewhere
Review by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, January 1987
MEPHISTO CALLING. Good news – Faust are back. Released from a devil's pact with silence, they're noisily celebrating the repossession of their souls. A new ...
Bryan Ferry: The Bride Stripped Bare
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 16 September 1978
I MUST confess myself horrified to recall, just as I was about to start this review, that my first ever album review was of Bryan ...
The Flamin' Groovies: Sneakers
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, October 1975
BACK IN the heady days of the late sixties when it seemed that for several precious months San Francisco became the rock music centre of ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Circus, November 1975
FROM LISTENING to Fleetwood Mac, you'd think this once-definitive British blues band was a Southern California pop group – and you'd be right. The three ...
Fleetwood Mac: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 28 June 1980
CROWDS, HOWEVER passive, make me unhappy. As Eli Wallach said on TV (The Magnificent Seven) last Sunday afternoon, "If God didn't want them to be ...
Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks: Stevie Nicks: Confessions Of A Rock Chick
Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 21 November 2003
CURLED UP on the sofa at Fleetwood Mac's Los Angeles rehearsal studios, Stevie Nicks looks every inch the ageing rock chick survivor. At her feet ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1985
I have a better title, except Malamud already claimed it: The Natural. John Fogerty's sound could never be pinned down to time or ...
Kim Fowley: International Heroes
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 July 1977
I REALISE it's getting to be an obsession, but what can I do? Even Viv Goldman, between bouts of trying to convince me to do ...
Peter Frampton: Frampton Comes Alive
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, April 1976
I MUST CONFESS before I go any further that I'm not very familiar with too many of Frampton's previous solo albums (I've only got one ...
Peter Frampton's Camel: A Galloping Success In The States
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 7 July 1973
PETER FRAMPTON made a flying visit to London last week. But the boss of Frampton's Camel couldn't stay long – too much excitement is happening ...
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 April 1985
"HALLO HAHMMERSMITH...we are U2!" Holly say. Some say, ha ha, very funny; I say, many a true word spoken in jest. ...
Essay by Amy Linden, The Source, 1998
THE SUBJECT is female singers, and we’re gonna make it easy on ya. ...
Aretha Franklin: Hey Now Hey (Atlantic)
Review by Bob Fisher, Cream, September 1973
IT'S BEEN HIP for mainstream rock critics to knock Miss Franklin for some time now, in much the same way the current vogue is to ...
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Review by Wayne Robins, The Boston Phoenix, 21 May 2004
I’M THUMBING through the March issue of Uncut, the comprehensive and entertaining British music monthly, when I hit the front of the review section and ...
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, May 2005
CURRENTLY ATTEMPTING the almost impossible task of filling Freddie Mercury's shoes in a new-look Queen, it's hard to imagine Paul Rodgers landing any further from ...
King Crimson, Robert Fripp: A Chat with Mr. Fripp
Interview by Cynthia Rose, Viz, 1980
ROBERT FRIPP is a musician, theoretician, theologian and, as his colleague David Bowie (referred by Fripp as "Mr. B") points out, "probably the man with ...
Funkadelic, Parliament: Parliament: Live: The P-Funk Earth Tour
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 11 June 1977
"THEY SAY the bigger the headache the bigger the pill!" Dr. Funkenstein shouts. ...
Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (Charisma) *****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 19 February 1977
DEAR PETER, Hangin' round Times Square just the other day when some strange sounds caught my ear. Bundled up my leather jacket, tucked a can ...
Genesis, Peter Gabriel: Rhythm Of The Pete
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982
After the ambitious WOMAD Festival, the bailiffs cometh and PETER GABRIEL has decided to get himself out of hock – even if it means a ...
Rory Gallagher: Against The Grain
Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975
DO YOU realise that Against The Grain is Rory Gallagher's seventh album since he split Taste? ...
Rory Gallagher: Hammersmith Odeon, Lindon
Live Review by Mick Brown, Sounds, 29 January 1977
NOBODY PLAYS the blues anymore – not unless they're black and old. The blues tradition among young blacks has all but vanished in the mad ...
Gang of Four: Entertainment (EMI)
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 6 October 1979
THE Four are ambitious; and so they accept the process. ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, June 1998
THERE ARE surprisingly few bands like Garbage, bands operating in that shadowy, uncertain zone between the flesh of rock and the metal of techno. They're ...
Marvin Gaye: Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz
Review by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, 8 July 1985
The anguished life of Marvin Gaye ended on April 1, 1984, at the home in Los Angeles he had bought for his parents, when a ...
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 8 May 1976
A COUPLE of weeks ago our very own Mr. Murray suffered a bitter anti-climax after waiting nigh on two years to hear the latest ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: Bloodshot
Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, July 1973
EVER SINCE the first Butterfield Blues Band album I’ve been waiting and hoping for a group that could combine gut mangling excitement with instrumental virtuosity ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, November 1989
WHILE I DON'T think there is a single instance of great, enduring songwriting on this disc -- don't look for any Hall of Fame nominations ...
Generation X: The Marquee, London
Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 8 October 1977
ROCK ON Indeed.I've finally figured out, after all this time, why, despite the fact that lots of people whose opinions I respect hate them, I ...
The Go-Betweens: Go-Betweens Aim To Strike Public Chord
Profile and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Billboard, 14 January 1989
AT THE END of the day, what do good reviews really mean? In the case of the Go-Betweens, whose debut Capitol album 16 Lovers Lane ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1970
Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best performing bands in America, why their music touches on ground that most other groups ...
Grateful Dead: Dawn of the Deadheads
Report and Interview by David Gans, Headliner, August 1983
THE PSYCHEDELIC era is ancient history, and LSD is so far out of fashion that it probably doesn't even need to be illegal any more. ...
Al Green: Take Me to the River: Al Green with Davin Seay
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, November 2000
"Gen’lmen, we just havin’ church here." Six words which - directed at me and a fellow soul buff at the Full Gospel Tabernacle church by ...
Peter Green: Ronnie Scott's Club, London
Live Review by Keith Altham, MOJO, June 1998
THE FIRST time I ever reviewed Peter Green in concert, he was with Fleetwood Mac at the Albert Hall in the '60s; a lean, bearded ...
Al Green: Love, Happiness And Convictions
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 29 April 1975
2008 introduction: Known as the "Prince Of Soul," Al Green had built up a strong audience thanks to a string of hit singles and best-selling ...
Review by j. poet, Creem, February 1983
THE GUN CLUB plays for keeps. Their songs crackle like dry corpse skin turning to parchment under the caress of a rattlesnake belly. Jeffrey Lee ...
Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Danger Lurks Beyond The Doors
Profile by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 25 August 1991
No other rock band today provokes such polarised opinions as Guns N' Roses. For some, they are 'the most dangerous band in the world', heirs ...
Guns N' Roses, Izzy Stradlin: Izzy Stradlin
Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, March 2001
SHAKING THE notoriety gained following six years on the road with Guns N' Roses was never going to be the easiest of tasks. But Izzy ...
Daryl Hall & John Oates: Hall & Oates: H2O (RCA)
Review by Leyla Sanai, New Musical Express, September 1982
DARYL HALL and John Oates are potentially a formidable partnership. 'I Can't Go For That' was the slickest snappiest ditty the wrong side of the ...
Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1977
A CLASSICALLY CONCEIVED album for one such as myself – two songs by Parsons, one by the Louvin Brothers, a Rodney Crowell, a Mr. Guy ...
Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky
Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 3 May 1975
THIS IS AN album that has been quite eagerly anticipated, mainly because of the reputation Emmylou Harris built for herself with her participation as co-vocalist ...
George Harrison: My Walk-On in the Life of George
Memoir by David Dalton, Gadfly, 12 March 2002
"FIRST OF ALL," my friend Richard said, "he was a Beatle, how could he die?" They were immortal, weren't they? Gods, even if flawed. A ...
Debbie Harry: It's About Time, Isn't It?
Interview by Dave Rimmer, Q, December 1986
SO WHY, WE must ask, is Debbie Harry back right now, exactly? Has she brought out her brand new single, 'French Kissing In The USA', ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, Summer 2004
RBP: Not to suggest that Uh Huh Her must be entirely autobiographical – or "confessional" – but you don’t sound terribly happy in these songs. ...
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 12 May 1972
THOUGH SOMEWHAT quiet on the recording scene of late, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the original wildman of our music, is still attracting large audiences in the ...
Review by Jeff Walker, Phonograph Record, May 1972
IT'S BEEN an eternity since I've writhed to a record on a physical level, but I still recall fondly those stoned hours spent engrossed in ...
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 17 January 1976
IT'S ALL A far cry from Alfred Jarry. ...
Isaac Hayes: Chronicle/For The Sake Of Love
Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, 18 November 1978
IT'S MY CONTENTION that, whatever bizarre circumstances caused the flurry of lawsuits circulating round Isaac Hayes prior to the demise of Stax Records, and the ...
Richard Hell: The Return Of The Bug-Eyed Monster
Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 13 January 1979
RICHARD HELL AND GIOVANNI DADOMO VISIT THE BOAT SHOW ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Guitar World, 1998
Let’s get the paradoxes out of the way right up front: the blues was a musical space to which Jimi Hendrix would always return in ...
Essay by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 26 September 1970
THE IMPORTANCE of Jimi Hendrix as a musician was sometimes forgotten behind the man's sexuality and the flamboyance of his act and appearance. ...
John Hiatt: Bottom Line, New York
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Times, August 1990
A SKINNY troubadour with a throaty, abrasive growl of a voice, John Hiatt slides in to the American rock dream somewhere between Ry Cooder at ...
Steve Hillage: Motivation Radio
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 October 1977
When a guy sings to you "we've all been born together in this special place and time to raise the world," where does your humble ...
Report and Interview by Steven Rosen, Los Angeles Free Press, February 1973
FOR THE PAST five years it seems that the Hollies have been laboring under a Sisyphean curse. Every time they latched on to a silver ...
Buddy Holly: Why Buddy Holly will never fade away
Retrospective by Philip Norman, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2009
ON A BASIS OF simply counting heads, rock music surpasses even film as the 20th century's most influential art form. By that reckoning, there is ...
Alan Hull, Lindisfarne: Alan Hull 1945-1995
Obituary by Chris Ingham, MOJO, January 1996
WHEN I WAS 15 – AND FIVE YEARS AN EX-PAT GEORDIE – MY contemporaries idolised Strummer and Weller. I wanted to be like Alan Hull. ...
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 3 July 1982
LOVE'S THEME, YOUR MAGIC SPELL IS EVERYWHERE ...
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 16 March 1974
STEVE MARRIOTT – hair flying, jaw set at an aggressive angle, knees akimbo and arms flailing over his jutting guitar – is one of the ...
Ian Hunter, Mott The Hoople: Ian Hunter: Through the Glasses Darkly
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Creem, August 1975
THOSE SHADES! Oceans of mid-Atlantic green plastic bounded by translucent brown frames, black electrical tape wound in large balls around the tips to protect the ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985
I'VE GIVEN THIS some thought. Let's suppose – and it's not a weak notion – that four groups bond together the one significant play in ...
The Incredible String Band: Incredible String Band
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, March 1971
"The Beatles are British I suppose," said Bob Dylan in the first of his two post-accident interviews, "but you can’t say they’ve carried on with ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1983
A DREAM. I'm lounging on the balcony of a Beverly Hills hotel staring out over the pool when there's a knock on the door. In ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
"We're playing the same halls as before, we just get to go on a few hours later." ...
The Isley Brothers: Go For Your Guns (Epic)
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 9 July 1977
"YOU GET some writers saying, 'Why don't you do something like you did before?' They think they really want it but at the same time ...
Michael Jackson: Blood On The Dance Floor
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, July 1997
HISTORY IS written by the victors. Or, in our times, is remixed by the fashionable. ...
Michael Jackson: Out of His Life: Michael Jackson
Report by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 17 August 1984
BY NOW, of course, you’ve been told more than you could possibly want to know about Michael Jackson. Such has been the media saturation of ...
Millie Jackson: Odeons Birmingham And Hammersmth
Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 4 February 1978
Millie's preoccupations, said The Guardian, are sex, sex and more sex; can't argue with that. ...
Brian Jackson, Gil Scott-Heron: Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson: Winter in America (Charly)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, August 2005
A MASTERWORK of ghetto melancholia and stark political gravitas, Winter in America showcases Scott-Heron and Jackson at their most witheringly unsentimental but also their most ...
The Jackson 5, Diana Ross: Diana Ross: Diana! (BBC 2)
Film/DVD/TV Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 8 October 1971
MOTOWN'S MUCH-heralded first independent production centred on Diana Ross, proved to be all it was cracked out to be – and more! Screened on B.B.C. ...
Mick Jagger: Coming Under The Thumb: Mick Jagger
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, You, 20 September 1987
"You have to set an example," says the middle-aged father of four. But can this really be the drug-taking, rebellious, orgiastic Mick Jagger speaking? It ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 2 March 1993
HE MAY BE a wandering spirit, but Mick Jagger sure doesn't travel light. This simple fact of life informs both the major tragedies and minor ...
The Jam: Direction Reaction Creation
Review by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, May 1997
IF WE ACCEPT pop as the religion of youth in the last quarter of the 20th century, then there can be no more striking example ...
The Jam: London Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 31 December 1977
FRAGMENTATION STRIKES DEEP... as punk "culture" is guided firmly into several easily categorizable (and therefore easier controlled)/marketable segments(divided we consume), it's clean teen night. ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 14 April 1984
MOST EVERY year now Ms Jamesetta Hawkins – Etta to you – will at the behest of Dingwalls Boss (Goodman, that is) fly over ...
Jane's Addiction: Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco
Live Review by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, January 1998
Set list: Ocean Size/Ain't No Right/Then She Did/Stop/Three Days/Mountain Song/Summertime Rolls/Jane Says/Classic Girl/Chip Away/Ted,Just Admit it/I Would For You. ...
Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing At Baxter’s
Review and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 23 November 1967
Jefferson Airplane finally finished their third LP Halloween week after two months of off-and-on recording in Los Angeles. It’s called After Bathing at Baxter’s, has ...
Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship: Up The Revolution? F**k The Revolution!
Review and Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, October 1994
PLANEBRANES. THAT'S WHAT obsessive aficionados of Jefferson Airplane and all that venerable group's offshoots – Jefferson Starship, Starship (two different enterprises, confusingly enough), Mickey Thomas's ...
Jefferson Starship: Central Park, NYC
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1975
THEY MAY HAVE changed their surname, but Jefferson Starship have arrived at a conciliatory relationship with their past, and with mixed results. With Marty Balin ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: The Jesus And Mary Chain: Stoned and Dethroned (Blanco y Negro)
Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 13 August 1994
WHEN YOU ARE the Jesus and Mary Chain and your life is willingly bounded by certain influences – let's rise once more from our orthopaedic ...
Interview by Ira Robbins, Circus, 20 January 1976
"JETHRO RETIRE HURT!" blared the headline in a major British magazine just over two years ago, when a spokesman for the group announced an "indefinite" ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1972
JETHRO TULL's admirers are wont to believe that the lads are an inventive, entertaining, eminently witty, oft profound rock group, with a propensity for satire ...
Joan Jett: I Love Rock 'N' Roll (Boardwalk)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1982
IF ANY OF rock's male marauders (say Triumph, or Rush) opened up an LP with a stop 'n' start thumper about spotting a 17-year-old number ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1982
REMEMBER THE 70's? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the ...
Elton John: Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, January 1973
Elton John is a fast worker. He just about has to be because he allows himself only ten days to write and rehearse all the ...
Daniel Johnston: An Outsider's Songs of Pain and Longing: Daniel Johnston
Report and Interview by Chris Campion, Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2003
LOCKED ON his own in an Xfm recording booth, Daniel Johnston casually flips through the weathered ring binder that holds his songbook and begins to ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 12 February 1983
IT'S ALREADY well known how the great Casting Director in the sky limited women to a few suffocating roles in American popular culture: the mother ...
Joy Division: University Of London, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 February 1980
I DIDN'T KNOW which way to turn. In every corner of the second floor of the anonymous university building there seemed to be some group ...
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 9 December 1978
THE LEAD SINGER sweats redly, tuffness of the strategic stud decorations unable to blind the look of uncertainty in his eye for the camera as ...
Thomas Jefferson Kaye, Bob Neuwirth: A Movie For David Geffen
Retrospective and Interview by Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Journalist, 1 July 1997
I. WHEN I TELL people that Bobby Neuwirth was one of the hippest men I ever knew, they say, "Who?" They want to know didn't I ...
Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Coconut Kid as Cruise Caruso: Kid Creole
Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 23 May 1981
KID CREOLE And The Coconuts release their second long player, title Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, in a couple of weeks' time. A 12-song 'concept ...
The Kinks: One For The Road (Arista)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 26 July 1980
WITH ITS predecessor Low Budget having finally catapulted The Kinks into the American Top Ten after what seems a lifetime of cult status, what could ...
The Kinks : Remembrance Of Kinks Past
Retrospective and Interview by David Dalton, Gadfly, March 1999
TAKE A LOOK at that face, the face of Ray Davies, it's the classic Dickensian mug, the face of a silent movie comedian, a vaudevillian, ...
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 17 April 1976
WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that the total eccentricity of approach, the gross make-up and the blanket heavy metal music would have eventually ensured that Kiss ...
Interview by Pete Makowski, Sounds, 13 February 1982
"What Alice Cooper was to dead babies and corpses, Kiss became to fire breathing and sadomasochism. With Kabuki-whitened faces, they leap on stage puking blood, ...
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 5 February 1971
THE NEW Year is only a month old yet already something of great note has occurred in the chart stakes in the States. Gladys Knight ...
Kraftwerk: Ralf Hütter – He's More 'Aaaaaah'
Interview by Simon Witter, Dummy, Spring 2006
2008 Note: When I met Ralf Hütter in London in early 2006, it was ostensibly to hear about the release plans Kraftwerk had for that ...
Lenny Kravitz: Come in, sit down, skin up…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993
Enter, why don't you, Lenny Kravitz's psychedelically appointed freak pad, where herbular smells prevail, outdoor footwear is outlawed and co-habitees number willowy blondes and cantankerous ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1975
SOME KEY ITEMS – a barrier breaking (‘first blacks’) performance at the Metropolitan Opera; the anthemization of ‘Lady Marmalade’; Nona Hendryx's proud lesbianism – have ...
Lambchop: Aw C'mon/No You C'mon
Review by Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, 1 February 2004
LIKE OUTKAST'S Speakerboxx/ The Love Below, the eighth album by Nashville's premier artisan country/ soul collective is a double-disc set designed to prompt endless speculation ...
Led Zeppelin Are Not Prefabricated
Interview by Keith Altham, Top Pops, 13 September 1969
WHEN is a hit single unnecessary? Apparently when it is a group like Led Zeppelin who have never released a single but have reached super ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 December 1982
THAT THERE is no appreciable difference between 'We're Gonna Groove' from 1969 and 'Wearing And Tearing' from 1978 – the opening and closing tracks in ...
Arthur Lee, Love: Arthur Lee: 'I've been black all the time,' admits controversial star
Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 17 May 1975
He also admits to a severe case of baldness. Otherwise it's still ARTHUR LEE, back in Britain with a new Love ...
Elvis Presley, Leiber and Stoller: Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller: By Royal Appointment
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, March 1995
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the greatest rock 'n' roll songwriting team of all time, have their songs celebrated in the musical Smokey Joe's Cafe ...
The Lemonheads: Lemonheads: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 19 June 1994
HOW HAS EVAN Dando managed to survive the Russian roulette games and hoop-jumping required of a heart-throb by the shark-infested music industry? How does he ...
John Lennon: Please, Your Majesty, Can Our John Have A Free Pardon?
Interview by Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 19 January 1974
Heavy breathing over the phone as ANDREW TYLER gets the lowdown from LENNON in L.A. Genius is police harassment, says the Walrus ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
BOTH OF THESE records are remarkable in some aspect, a sort of East-West five years after Butterfield and Allan Watts. Certainly, until this point, John ...
Level 42, Squeeze: Level 42; Squeeze: Crystal Palace, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1991
THE MICRO-economic indicators at Crystal Palace Bowl are contradictory: the touts are offering tickets at "less than box office price" but with the opening act ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: Live At the Star Club (Bear Family)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, November 1989
WHAT IS IT about Jerry Lee Lewis that so fascinates us and makes us love a character so inherently unlovable? He only had a handful ...
Linda Lewis, The Staple Singers: The Staple Singers/Linda Lewis: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 12 February 1974
IF ANYONE ever asked for a definition of soul, the best advice you could give them would be to go to a concert by the ...
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, 11 March 1972
DEFINING Lindisfarne's success is rather like pulling the wings off a butterfly at present but there seems little doubt after having seen them on stage ...
Overview by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, March 1975
Sailin' Shoes (Warner Bros K46156)Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros K46200)Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Warner Bros K56030) ...
Live Review by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 13 September 2000
THERE WERE THREE groups who vividly chronicled life in post-Woodstock America. The Band sought refuge from the psychedelic intensity of the period in the country's ...
Little Richard: Lewisham Odeon, London
Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 12 July 1975
THE DEBUT DATE of Little Richard's UK tour at the half empty Lewisham Odeon was little short of a disaster. Possibly the person least to ...
Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren (A&M)
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, February 1975
WELL, THIS IS more like it. Nils Lofgren, in his first solo attempt, has come up with a smashing album that restores him to the ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1977
MAYBE NILS LOFGREN always was sort of a dummy. But his heart was in the right place (on his sleeve), he was capable of inventing ...
Sleeve notes by Ben Edmonds, Elektra Traditions, 2001
June 1967. Peace and love wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and nowhere was this seen more clearly than under the smog-orange skies ...
Love: The Great West Coast Enigma
Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, April 1970
IN 1967, a record called Da Capo by a practically unheard-of Los Angeles group called Love appeared on the Elektra label. ...
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 25 February 1978
YOU KNOW how it is. You hear one word and you're tantalised into eavesdropping on the rest. Bars at receptions are a good place for ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Gimme Back My Bullets (MCA 2744)
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 31 January 1976
FOR SUCH A great continent, America has given the outside world very few real rock and roll bands. ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Memories Of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Rudge
Retrospective by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, 2001
LYNYRD SKYNYRD WAS MANAGED BY my friend Peter Rudge from late 1973. Rudge’s main pre-occupation at this time was The Who, for whom he’d worked ...
Madness: The Italian Nutty Brigade
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 25 October 1980
All aboard the trans-Europe express as Madness go from Rome to Amsterdam, by Paolo Hewitt ...
Essay by Ben Thompson, The Independent, May 2001
IN HENRY JAMES' 1873 short story ‘The Madonna of the Future’, the American protagonist visits the city of Florence, where he encounters a strange and ...
Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986
OF ALL CURRENT superstars, none has manipulated the apparatus of fame more astutely than Madonna. Like Prince, she recognized the virtue of a one-word name ...
Interview by Jon Savage, New York Rocker, April 1978
"Well I say what I mean/I say what comes to my mind" – 'Boredom' "Whatever makes me tick/It takes away my concentration" – 'Breakdown' ...
Magazine: Maybe It's Right to Be Nervous Now (Virgin, 3CDs) ****
Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 22 September 2000
FOLLOWING AN initial period of liberation, punk, like all revolutionary forces, soon substituted new orthodoxies for those it had blown apart. ...
Manic Street Preachers: This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998
FOLLOW-UP TO 1996's chart-topping Everything Must Go. Named after a line in a speech by miner's son and NHS founder Aneurin Bevan. ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rastaman Vibration (Island)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 1 May 1976
"Chase them crazy bald heads out of town" ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: The First Genius of Reggae?
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 24 February 1973
BOB MARLEY, slightly-built and quiet to the point of diffidence, is a leader. He's the master of Reggae, the man who's about to give it ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Burnin': Bob Marley and the Wailers take Britain
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995
Babylon is freezing. The Wailers arrive on a mission to ignite below-zero Britain. Thus begins the demise of the original band and the rise of ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
Two-CD set of mainly live jazz-folk genius from the early ‘70s to the mid-‘90s, with bonus DVD interview from last year. ...
John Martyn: Up To Date With John Martyn
Interview by Andy Childs, ZigZag, March 1977
ONLY SIX WEEKS or so gone, and already it looks as if 1977 is going to be a cracker of a year for rock music! ...
John Mayall: The Turning Point
Review by Loyd Grossman, Fusion, 17 October 1969
A TURNING POINT in British blues music may have been reached last May when Mick Taylor and Colin Allen left John Mayall's band. Following their ...
Curtis Mayfield: People Get Ready!
Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, March 1996
THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAVE SEEN THE BOX-setting of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Bob Marley and a fair few other giants of black ...
Curtis Mayfield: Where He's Been And Where He's Going
Profile and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Let It Rock, October 1972
AFTER SUCH COMMITTED, socially conscious compositions as 'This Is My Country', 'Mighty Mighty, Spade and Whitey' and 'Choice Of Colours' Curtis Mayfield believes the time ...
Maze: A Funk-Lite Labyrinth: Maze
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 27 March 1982
FRANKIE BEVERLY’S eight-man Maze could have come to Europe at any time in the last two years and met with the same phenomenal response they ...
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 16 August 1977
Maze are recognised as Capitol's premier jazz band; but they really cut right across the board and sell to disco, funk, pop and rock fans ...
MC5: MC5 - A True Testimonal (Future/Now Films)
Review by Lindsay Hutton, Rock's Backpages, November 2002
SEVEN YEARS in the making, this is a multi-dimensional boot up the jacksy to the increasing legion of lazy tosspots that compares anything with a ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, September 1971
WHENEVER I USED to say I liked the MC5, I would always preface the statement with some remark like "sure, I know they're a bunch ...
Paul McCartney: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, July 1991
I HAVE A MENTAL image of Paul McCartney that I carry in my heart like a mother's locket. It's one of those moody black ...
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle (Warner Brothers)
Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 6 March 1976
"THERE’S A song of Kate McGarrigle’s, which Maria Muldaur sang on her first LP, called ‘Work Song’, which is about all the old songs that ...
Roger McGuinn: Byrds Man Waits His Turn Turn Turn
Interview by Debbie Kruger, The Courier Mail, 9 April 1998
HEROES AREN'T ALWAYS hard to find. Roger McGuinn, founding member of seminal '60s group The Byrds, seems to make a career these days of being ...
Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 4 May 1974
"JEEZ, I HOPE the sound guy is straight tonight." said Al. "The guy who did it last night didn't have a clue. Might wind up ...
Malcolm McLaren: Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, and McLaren
Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Artforum, December 1984
MALCOLM McLAREN is a new sort of artist, your Barbarian Renaissance Man, the missing link between Leonardo and Conan. He has been the enfant terrible ...
Meat Loaf: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 1981
THEY'VE ASKED me to make this as short as the Loaf in question is large – but there’s a painful amount to be said. The ...
John Mellencamp: John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow (PolyGram)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 3 September 1985
NOW IS PROBABLY not the time for all good men to sing about their country. That's because most good men are bound to come up ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian, August 2001
ON MAY 28, 1998, Jonathan Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" of Mercury Rev sat rather dejectedly in a diner in Woodstock, New York, and talked about ...
George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
SOME THREE YEARS and 14 million copies later, George Michael follows up his solo debut Faith with an album that should prove to any lingering ...
Steve Miller Band: Recall The Beginning…
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 27 April 1972
WAY BACK in the Sixties, three bands in particular were responsible for recharging my rock fanaticism – Procol Harum, the Byrds, and the Steve Miller ...
Mink DeVille: Just Another Tough'n'Tender Street Poet Outta New Yawk
Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 13 August 1977
Now Spanish music plays in my hallway And the wind blows through my door And my mind is out on the corner And my eyes ...
Joni Mitchell Starring at Troubadour
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys Valley News, 24 January 1969
THE CROWD was larger, more expectant this time, as they waited for Joni Mitchell to mount the Troubadour stage Tuesday night and begin her return ...
Joni Mitchell: The Renaissance Woman
Interview by Robin Eggar, The Sunday Times, 11 February 2007
At last the times have caught up with Joni Mitchell – musician, artist and now inspiration for a ballet ...
Review by Everett True, Melody Maker, 2 September 1995
You may not know it, but you've already chilled to Money Mark's Starsky'n'Hutch keyboard grooves on the last Beastie Boys record. Now he's kickin' it ...
Zoot Money: The trouble with Zoot Money is that he can't get his hands on any
Interview by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 13 November 1965
ZOOT MONEY is the son of Oscar Money. Mr. Oscar Money is half Italian and works as a wine waiter in Bournemouth. "He speaks very ...
The Monkees: Instant Replay: Does Anyone Dare Remember The Monkees?
Interview by Harold Bronson, Coast, 1 September 1971
Here we come, Walkin' down the street.We get the funniest looksFrom everyone we meet. ...
The Moody Blues: Moody Blues: Saints Or Sinners?
Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 20 October 1973
SO THE Moody Blues have just finished then cathedral-rock tour of Europe and Britain – their first British dates for over a year. As usual ...
Report and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 8 March 1975
LOS ANGELES: In the last six months, he's jammed with Ray Manzarek at the Whiskey, played with John Sebastian at the Troubadour and recently, at ...
Van Morrison: Gonna Rock Your Gypsy Soul
Report and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 28 July 1973
"IT'S SHOWTIME, ladies and gentlemen! And here's the one you've been waiting for – the Caledonia Soul Orchestra with ... VAN MORRISON!" ...
Morrissey, The Smiths: The Year Of The Smiths
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, The Virgin Yearbook, 1984
GAY MEN PAVED pop’s way this year. With Boy George’s wardrobe fully open, all the closet cases came spilling forth: Burns and The Bronskis, Frankie ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 April 1991
"OH MANCHESTER, so much to answer for..." Contradiction has always been at the heart of Morrissey's mythologization of his hometown: this was nostalgia for a ...
Motorhead Guitarist Is Running On All Cylinders
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 10 October 1986
WURZEL BURSTON'S road to Motorhead qualifies as one of rock's more implausible success stories. Originally a drummer, Burston switched to guitar at the advanced age ...
Live Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1978
JUST GONE 7.30 and the punter queue is already half in. About a thousand punks, bikers, 'Awkwind 'Eadbangers and 48 hour fun-makers have turned up ...
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1971
THE OUTCOME of the battle has yet to be conclusively determined, but my scorecard gives the race for "The Most Beloved Rock And Roll Band ...
The Move: The Best Of The Move
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, May 1974
IF THER IS one band whose legendary attributes and entangled history need no longer be catalogued, that band is the Move. True, of all the ...
Maria Muldaur: Sweet Harmony (Reprise) *****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 28 February 1976
SALVATION HAS come down from the heaven's in the shape of Maria Muldaur's third album which finds the artist growing in leaps and bounds, moving ...
Review by Martin Aston, Q, January 1992
FACED WITH MY Bloody Valentine's formative fumblings, few would have predicted that this garage lurch could metamorphosise into the swooning melody crush that constituted 1988's ...
Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson Live (RCA)**
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 9 October 1976
WILLIE NELSON has been in country music for the better part of twenty years as a songwriter and performer, while, arm in arm with Waylon ...
Willie Nelson: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, The Independent, 5 April 2005
AT THIS LATE stage, attending a Willie Nelson concert is more a gesture of pilgrimage than anything else. Nelson, now 71, with a ponytail that ...
N.E.R.D.: N*E*R*D: Fly or Die (Virgin)****
Review by Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, 21 March 2004
IF ITS ILLUSTRIOUS predecessor – 2001's visionary soft-porn psychedelic soul masterpiece In Search of... – was anything to go by, the release of a new ...
Michael Nesmith: Ex-Beat Group Crazy In Weirdo Film Project
Interview by Mick Houghton, Sounds, 16 April 1977
MIKE NESMITH's career has taken a surprising number of twists and turns over the years, from writing songs for Linda Rondstadt in the early Sixties, ...
Randy Newman: The Devil Made Him Do It: Randy Newman
Interview by Roy Trakin, Addicted To Noise, 31 October 1995
"IT'S HARD TO keep a good man down" goes the refrain to one of the songs on Randy Newman's musical version of the Goethe tale, ...
New Order: The Best of New Order (London)
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1994
LESS A SUCCESSOR TO THE SUBSTANCE compilation than an update, The Best Of New Order takes a very short-term view of the group's career, reprising ...
New Order: Brixton Ace, London
Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 March 1983
THE OMENS WERE poor. Judging from the new single, 'Blue Monday', you could be forgiven for supposing that New Order are simply the latest Factory ...
New York Dolls: Up and Down in Paris and London: The New York Dolls trash Europe
Book Excerpt by Nina Antonia, Omnibus Books, 1998
An extract from Too Much Too Soon: The New York Dolls by Nina Antonia, first published by Omnibus Press in 1998. (208pp, currently available in ...
Nico: Drama Of Exile (Aura)*****
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 4 July 1981
TANGLED UP in myth, perspective gets shot all to hell. Even the official biographical sheet accompanying this album repeats the old chestnut that John Cale ...
Harry Nilsson: Son Of Schmilsson
Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, September 1972
WELL, WELL. Harry Nilsson has sure thrown a big pebble into the music puddle. There's not much to say about the things you hear in ...
Nirvana: With The Lights Out (Geffen)
Review by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 18 November 2004
POSTHUMOUS RELEASES FROM from departed artists often flail to do the impossible – to provide the music so violently and abruptly silenced by, say, Jeff ...
Nirvana: Take The Money and Run
Interview by Keith Cameron, Sounds, 27 October 1990
If any of the US underground bands are likely to break through into the mainstream, then it's got to be NIRVANA. Currently being courted by ...
The Notorious B.I.G.: Black Metropolis: Notorious R.I.P.
Obituary by Michael A. Gonzales, New York Press, 19 March 1997
THE CONCEPT of tragic irony is becoming all too popular in the hip hop nation; it has started to affect me on a personal level. ...
Ted Nugent: Divorce, Ted Nugent Style
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 May 1979
TED NUGENT (Hammersmith Odeon, second house): "There can come a time when you baby turns to you and says 'I'm splittin'' and you're so sad ...
Ted Nugent: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 12 March 1977
WE'VE HEARD a great deal lately about how Ted Nugent abjures drugs and alcohol. Perhaps that's his mistake. The occasional soul searching high might have ...
Gary Numan: The Principal Pleasure Of Being Gary Numan
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, June 1980
GARY NUMAN is a nice guy. Seriously. And what I want to know – and what he wants to know, too, though he's probably too ...
Laura Nyro: Union Chapel, Islington, London
Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1995
WHEN LAURA PLAYED MONTEREY, nerves and rushed rehearsals saw her flounder as the hairies waited for Hendrix. Tonight there are enough baldies in the pews ...
Live Review by Edward Helmore, sonicnet.com, 7 September 1996
Fresh from their MTV award performance, during which singer Liam Gallagher spat, swore and threw beer at the audience, Oasis came to this seaside stage ...
Sinead O'Connor: I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1990
ON THE FACE of it, Sinead O'Connor is an unlikely person to be setting such a cracking pace into the new decade. ...
Mike Oldfield: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Mike Oldfield Finds Out That Success Has Its Problems
Interview by Fred Dellar, Smash Hits, 10 January 1980
MIKE OLDFIELD strokes the tabby cat that sits on his lap. Though in the comfort of his own home, he's uneasy, unsure. It's a bad ...
Will Oldham: The Prince Of Darkness
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 12 March 2001
"I created Billy and let him take care of the performing. It's not me, Will Oldham, who gets up on stage." ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 30 April 1983
ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark are a triumph of packaging over content. The same principle that determines the lavishly striking sleeves by Peter Saville extends ...
The Only Ones: Even Serpents Shine (CBS)
Review by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 1979
SINGLES can often be deceptive signposts for forthcoming albums. When ‘You've Got To Pay’ slipped out a few weeks back, it didn't augur well for ...
Yoko Ono: Scream And Scream Again
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, September 1986
Yoko Ono: Beacon Theater, New York, May 22, 1986 ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982
I JUST played Buddy Holly's version of 'Rip It Up' to remind me, although Edwyn Collins gives the impression he is unfamiliar with such iconography. ...
Roy Orbison: The Complete Sun Sessions (Varese Sarabande)
Review by Gary Pig Gold, In Music We Trust, January 2004
FOR THOSE WHO may be only marginally aware of The Big O's 1950's recordings (ie: via Creedence's credible cover of 'Ooby Dooby' 'way back when), ...
Robert Palmer: Some People Like What I Do
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 November 1976
BRIGHT LIGHTS, big city...it's a reception in honour of the Staple Singers and the Meters at a club down in Greenwich Village, prior to their ...
Graham Parker And The Rumour: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 14 April 1979
WHILE NO ONE was looking, Graham Parker has nimbly and single-mindedly stepped through his inner tangles and finally balanced purpose with expression and also brought ...
Graham Parker: Journey To The Centre Of Your Spine
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 3 March 1979
A CONCRETE BARN with a stage at one end: cables, cases, dust. A hyper-active dog in the grip of irresistible sexual forces is scooting around ...
Evan Parker, Jah Wobble: Jah Wobble & Evan Parker: Passage To Hades (30 HERTZ)
Review by David Toop, The Wire, February 2001
PERHAPS THIS IS a disingenuous flash of hindsight on my part, but I'm convinced that when I heard Public Image Limited's first album, back in ...
Van Dyke Parks: Clang Of The Yankee Reaper (Warner Bros.)
Review by Penny Valentine, Street Life, 15 November 1975
ONE DAY I got this strange note from America. It said: "Thanks for the review of my single. It is the first good review I've ...
Van Dyke Parks: The Greatest Collaborator
Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, July 1999
VAN DYKE PARKS knows people who know. He always has. He has the CV of Woody Allen's Zelig, is in the corner of the picture ...
Gram Parsons: Another Side of This Life (Sundazed)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2001
Unheard mid-’60s folk recordings taped in Florida by Gram’s pal Jim Carlton. ...
Pavement: Mojo Rising: Pavement
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1995
WE SHOULD HAVE seen it coming, really. While other leading practitioners of lo-fi American rock – Beck, Sebadoh, Royal Trux, The Grifters, Guided By Voices ...
Pearl Jam: 'You, My Son, Are Weird!'
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993
They’ve a singer, Eddie Vedder, who makes Lou Reed look like a happy-go-lucky bloke; they’re vilified in the press and manically suspicious of The Biz. ...
John Peel: An Audience With John Peel
Interview by Nick Doherty, Jockey Slut, 2002
Celeb 1: Howie B: With this playlist culture, when do you decide what's going to be played on your radio show? ...
Penetration: Moving Targets (Virgin)****
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 14 October 1978
WE'RE NOT the same, you're not the same, they're not the same. ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1981
IT'S AN IRONIC twist of fate that Pere Ubu's latest visit to the UK should be prefaced by Rough Trade's reissue of the band's debut ...
Carl Perkins: 'Blue Suede Shoes'
Profile by Colin Escott, The History of Rock, 1981
One song rocketed Carl Perkins to stardom ...
Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: Pop-aganda
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 3 September 2004
Potemkin and the sound of a Pet Shop Boy ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: 10 Questions for Tom Petty
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, May 1999
What's your fascination with San Francisco? Two years ago you staged 20 shows at the Fillmore, and now you're here for seven days. ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty
Interview by Cynthia Rose, City Limits, 3 December 1982
With his 1976 debut album, Tom Petty became a rock star. It seemed he was cast in the classic mould – a hip young American ...
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1996
ON A STARRY SUMMER NIGHT at Bearsville Studios, New York, the four members of Phish are bracing themselves for the inevitable Grateful Dead question. ...
Pink Floyd: Echoes – The Best Of
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2001
GLOOMY BUGGERS, the Floyd. War, death, bitter childhood, alienation, indoctrination, madness, greed, vicious animal husbandry, imprisonment, old age and, inevitably, death. Hi ho, it's off ...
The Pixies Facing The Fire Squad
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 3 November 1990
The pixies are the best band on the planet. Discuss. ...
Robert Plant: Pictures at Eleven
Review by Mick Farren, Trouser Press, October 1982
IT'S ALWAYS HARD to know what to do when the drummer drops dead. The Who and the New York Dolls recruited new ones and pressed ...
Robert Plant’s Record Collection
Guide by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
BACK IN the Spring of 1968, things aren't looking too rosy for 19-year-old singer Robert Plant. His promising group The Band Of Joy have just ...
Poco: One Of The Great Mysteries Of Rock
Profile and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 29 September 1973
Five years and six albums after they formed Poco remain one of the great mysteries of rock and roll – a band who have lurked ...
The Pogues: The Sweet Smell Of Success
Report by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 28 March 1986
TODAY THE WORLD, TOMORROW THE WORLD ...
The Police: Nottingham City Hall
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 7 January 1984
RICHARD COOK’S extraordinary vision of The Police (NME, 2nd Dec.) prompts one to reconsider the profound difference between The Police – those awful sing-a-long-a-suicides ‘So ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1977
IT'S TWO O'CLOCK in the morning and I'm playing The Idiot for the fifth time running. Can't stop, it's so compelling...but very VERY strange. ...
Iggy Pop: Roseland, New York, NY
Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 11 April 1996
In 1967, when The Doors released their first LP, a young ex-drummer named James Osterberg formed the Psychedelic Stooges to voice the primal urges of ...
Pop Will Eat Itself: Canoe Dig It?
Report by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 6 October 1990
All Hands on Dick as Dave 'Chippolata' Harper of RCA goes canoeing with Pop Will Eat Itself done up in rubber in downtown Staines, home ...
Prefab Sprout: Catching Up with Paddy Mac
Interview by Chris Ingham, unpublished, November 1999
This is an unpublished interview with Paddy McAloon on the release of 38 Carat Gold: The Best Of Prefab Sprout. ...
Prefab Sprout: The Enchanter: Paddy McAloon
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, 1988
PADDY McALOON is an anomalous figure in the British Pop climate of the late '80s. One of our precious few songwriters of any worth, he ...
Elvis Presley: He Made Old Men's Blues Sound Young: Remembering Elvis
Comment by Michael Gray, Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2002
WE REMEMBER his ignominious end, and the cavalcade of white Cadillacs driving through Memphis for his funeral 25 years ago this month, but mostly the ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, June 1990
CHRISSIE HYNDE CAN certainly never be accused of flooding the market: barring a Best Of, Packed is only The Pretenders' fifth album in 12 years. ...
The Pretenders: Sheffield University
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
Duty Now For The Past? ...
The Pretty Things: Pretty Things: Silk Torpedo
Review by Alan Betrock, Phonograph Record, January 1975
THE PRETTY THINGS are back, and this time, with a new label and expected tour, can realistically be expected to enter the American top-40 album ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1 June 1991
BOBBY GILLESPIE reckons that his new single, 'Higher Than The Sun', will revolutionise pop in the Nineties in the same way as the Pistols' 'Anarchy ...
Prince: The Best of the Patchy Years
Guide by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1997
IN MANY WAYS the ultimate ‘80s self-made man, Prince spent the decade inventing and reinventing himself. The scope of the man’s ambition was mindboggling; the ...
Prince: The Wit & Wisdom Of Prince Rogers Nelson
Comment by Bill Holdship, Creem, July 1985
HE'S DEFINITELY AN American superstar – one of the most important of the '80s – and his ascent still appears to be just above ground ...
Procol Harum: On The Road with Procol Harum
Interview by Harold Bronson, UCLA Daily Bruin, 11 November 1971
"DIABOLICAL," KEITH REID whispered, resting in a chair at a San Diego nightclub that someone described as looking like a reconverted bowling alley. He was ...
Procol Harum Triumph Over Worms
Report and Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 19 February 1977
That seems to be the gist of it. Like, if you're attacked by worms, here's some good news from a bunch of lads who've suffered ...
The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 7 August 1997
RARELY HAS a pop trend been so shamelessly spoon-fed to America as the hold-all genre dubbed "electronica". Rarely, indeed, has the music industry tried so ...
Professor Longhair: Ronnie Scotts, London
Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 15 April 1978
I HAVE immense admiration for Professor Longhair ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Request, 15 April 1990
IN THE 1960s, youthful poets, inspired by radical politics and Woody Guthrie, took up acoustic guitars to deliver topical commentary in a folk music setting. ...
The Psychedelic Furs: Psychedelic Furs: Feels Like The Furs Time
Interview by John Mendelsohn, Creem, January 1982
IN 1977, DURING the so-called Summer of hate, yet another refugee from a London art college got fed up with silk-screening "advertising crap" and resolved ...
Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: The Flowers Of Romance (Virgin)
Review by Jon Savage, The Face, April 1981
A typically caustic, sardonic title: the thorn in the rose. If much of the current chart has much of the grace and flow of 1966 ...
Public Image Ltd.: The Odd Combo
Interview by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 16 June 1979
Danny Baker goes on the PiS with PiL ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1998
JARVIS COCKER is that most British of pop creatures, the Nerd-as-Superstar. Like the young Morrissey, he’s the spindly misfit, the scrawny mis-shape who outwitted the ...
Pulp: Non Stop Erotique Cabaret
Report and Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 4 June 1994
"I WAS WONDERING", says Jarvis Cocker. "There was a baboon in the top floor of a flat behind where we played in Paris last night." ...
Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1983
How Quatrophenia conquered the UK "SUZI QUATRO MADE A WELCOME CHANGE from the wimpy, folksy girls who were rock’s only other female representatives at ...
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, May 1974
SUZI QUATRO is a real cutie, rootie tootie, not sweet hog honey like Linda Ronstadt but a tight roller derby queen with juice and enuf ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1979
FOR A FEW weeks in 1978, an FM radio station in New York City was trying, earnestly and imaginatively, to create rock 'n' roll counter-programming. ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975
HAVING BEEN duly, uh, blown away by the opening tracks on their previous two albums, I prepared to savor the first cut on Queen's Sheer ...
Quicksilver Messenger Service: Solid Silver
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, February 1976
WELL, THE GREAT name of Quicksilver Messenger Service is resurrected yet again, this time with perhaps more credibility than on previous occasions. A sticker on ...
Radiohead: 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' and the Poetry of Perspective
Book Excerpt by Tim Footman, Chrome Dreams, 2007
Excerpt from Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album ...
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, 1997
DESPITE THE best efforts of such explosive talents as Suede, Polly Jean Harvey and the Manic Street Preachers, 1992 was not a great year for ...
Radiohead: Sound and Fury: Radiohead
Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, The Observer, 1 October 2000
IN THE EARLY '90S, you knew you'd arrived as a rock group the day you made it on to MTV and the Beavis & Butthead ...
Bonnie Raitt: The Bonnie Raitt Collection
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, September 1990
THE RELEASE OF this 20-track retrospective of her nine Warners albums must be sweet revenge for Bonnie Raitt. ...
Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate (Warner Bros.)
Review by Penny Valentine, Street Life, 1 November 1975
BONNIE RAITT is an intriguing talent, firmly rooted in the music of men like Otis Rush and Fred McDowell whom she met and worked with ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1976
"I don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youSo why you wanna walk around with ...
The Ramones: Rock'n'Roll High School (Sire Import) ****
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 7 July 1979
THE ERA of the compilation is upon us, and this soundtrack album of smarties and arties is another rapid fire job, featuring the next best ...
Phil Spector, The Ramones: End of the ‘70s: the Ramones Get Spectorized
Book Excerpt by Everett True, Omnibus Books, Fall 2002
An extract from Hey Ho Let’s Go – The Story of The Ramones by Everett True, published by Omnibus Press in 2002. (344pp, currently available ...
Review by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, September 1974
IT'S A TEEN-CLUB midsummer Saturday night at Papa Joe'sParlour-pizza, pinball, pretzels, and pop-available without I.D. Raspberries, with no fewer than three Top Forty hits in ...
Raspberries: The Raspberries: Raspberries
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, 6 July 1972
RASPBERRIES opens with the finest burst of lightweight English rock I've heard all year, a raunchy 16-bar guitar intro, and followed by a verse that ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Uncle Sam's Revenge: Red Hot Chili Peppers at London’s Dingwalls
Live Review by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 14 September 1985
FROM THAT catastrophe-fraught fusion chamber where funk meets guitar noise comes the world’s most crazily perfect punk-funk band, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Tonight Husker ...
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
"I FIRST MET HIM IN 1962," SAYS STEVE Cropper who co-wrote two of Otis's hits, 'Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa' and 'Dock Of The Bay', ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Freaky and Stylish: When the Chili Peppers Met Dr. Funkenstein
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, 'Fornication' (Omnibus Press), 2004
By 1985 the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band in trouble. Their self-titled debut album, released the year before, had been a disaster, and ...
Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, May 1974
AND IT CAME TO PASS in the 1970's that rock culture began to doubt whether it existed at all, and every time that two or ...
Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, 18 May 2000
THE PREMIER PARAGON OF subterranean New York cool’s post-Velvet Underground career has never been anything other than unpredictable. For every Berlin there’s been a Metal ...
Terry Reid: Still Making Waves
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, 15 December 1978
SANTA MONICA — Suppose for a moment you're a member of some English supergroup in the midst of a 30-city tour of the United States ...
R.E.M.: Automatic For The People
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1992
MILLIONS HAVE BEEN waiting on the new R.E.M. album, and almost none of them is barmy. ...
R.E.M.: Rock Reconstruction Getting There
Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, September 1985
FABLES OF YEARS spent on the road. Decadent tales of groupies and drugs and arrogance and misspent lives near the top. You won't find any ...
The Replacements: Replacements: Pleased To Meet Me
Review by Ira Robbins, Creem, August 1987
LIKE SOME STRAY dog you find in an alley, Minneapolis's Replacements are a scruffy mongrel of a band: uncontrollable and ugly, but somehow irresistable. You ...
Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 12 April 1975
IN WHICH CHARLIE Rich, understandably exhausted after a twenty year struggle to Make It, manages to record one side of an album and then runs ...
Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1983
CLIFF RICHARD HAS DONE MUCH more than merely survive on the British pop scene. He remained a chart act and pin-up in the Eighties, still ...
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1997
KEITH RICHARDS says he’d never thought of making a solo album until Mick Jagger announced that he didn’t want to tour to promote the Rolling ...
Jonathan Richman: In Love With The Modern World
Profile by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 17 September 1977
On the eve of Jonathan Richman's first British tour, Ian Birch traces his career ...
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers: Jonathan Sings
Review by Bill Black, Sounds, 30 June 1984
IT'S BEEN a long time since Jonathan Richman's last album, Back In Your Life, and apart from the release of some interesting Kim Fowley produced ...
Tom Robinson Band: Tom Robinson: Right On, Mister!
Profile and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, June 1978
THE ABILITY TO walk into a room and make someone you've never met feel like they've known you for years is called 'charm.' The ability ...
Tom Robinson Band: Tom Robinson: Staying True
Profile and Interview by Simon Frith, The Observer, June 1986
THEY MET AGAIN, after all these years, in a hotel corridor in Manchester, John Lydon and Tom Robinson, the yin and yang of punk politics. ...
The Rolling Stones: This Is A Stone Age!!
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express Summer Special, Summer 1966
THE ROLLING STONES are a five-man revolution in the pop world. When they first appeared on the disc scene in 1962 they proceeded to defy ...
The Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood: Ronnie Wood: New Stone Tries a Solo
Report and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, July 1979
WHEN TP FIRST interviewed Ron Wood, back in the fall of 1974, the Faces' guitarist and ex-Beckite was more than happy to answer questions about ...
Linda Ronstadt: Living In The U.S.A.
Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, 30 September 1978
OVER HER PAST few albums and, curiously, ever since she won a wall full of awards, something has been happening to Linda Ronstadt's "interpretative" powers. ...
Linda Ronstadt: The Linda Ronstadt Coverup!
Interview by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, November 1974
IN 1970 DAN Wakefield, who had just published his first novel, Going All the Way (a heartbreakingly hilarious chronicle of America's dismal sex life in ...
Roxy Music: The Sound Of Surprise
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 1 July 1972
PAUL THOMPSON's tom-toms ground slowly to a shuddering halt as Eno's synthesiser simulated the sound of Firestone Wide Ovals being pushed past their limit around ...
Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 12 November 1977
THE HOUR OF MY VINDICATION is at hand. I'm sitting in the lobby of a London hotel waiting for the Runaways to descend from their ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, September 1976
OOWHEE!! This platter boasts one of the most fetching sleeves I've had the pleasure to mas...ogle at. On the front the glitteringly attired Cherie casts ...
Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything?: 30 Years On
Interview by Rob Steen, unpublished, December 2001
I RANG TODD in his Maui studio in December 2001, while he was remixing Something/Anything? for 5.1 Surroundsound. ...
Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star (Bearsville)
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 14 April 1973
A MAZE. A truly amazing album. That might well have been the subtitle of this latest excursion into the land of magic from henna-haired hero ...
Rush: Breaking Into America… Canada's Answer To The New York Dolls?
Report and Interview by Michael Gross, Circus Raves, November 1975
DETROIT'S MICHIGAN PALACE was full to the brim. Though the rock 'n' roll style of the early '70s has faded into a rebirth of hippiedom ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1977
HEY! THIS IS a nice surprise! Almost out of nowhere comes this rip-snorter of an album when all we'd had from The Saints before was ...
Santana at The Tabernacle, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2000
WHEN THE ENTRANCE to the gig is bathed in the harsh glare of high wattage floodlights like the Academy Awards walkway, and you have to ...
Review by Mick Brown, Sounds, 15 October 1977
THIS IS THE album that should have been called 'A Period of Transition'. Not that it has anything to do with Van Morrison, but it ...
Leo Sayer: Endless Flight (Chrysalis)*****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 30 October 1976
I WAS prepared to hate this album. The diminitive song and dance man had begun losing his inimitable glow. Another Year needed stronger polishing while ...
Scritti Politti: Everything's Gone Green
Retrospective by David Stubbs, Uncut, December 2001
David Stubbs on Scritti Politti's subversive pop-soul masterpiece, Songs To Remember ...
Bob Seger: Back in '72 (Palladium / Warners)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1973
BOB SEGER'S 'Rosalie' is so strong it could break you in half. But it is the only song here that is close to what I ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1983
THERE'S A NEW furrowed-brow earnestness now emerging in American rock 'n' roll, a grainy neo-realism that depicts workaday lives in ways that were once the ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
THE RECORD INDUSTRY is waking up. In October there were rumours about huge deals on the horizon, and Polydor look set to be the first ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
NEARLY 15 YEARS after John Lydon quit the Sex Pistols, effectively ending them bar a few final pranks, his subsequent band, PiL, find themselves no ...
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 11 February 1978
"ELLO MUSH...this one's all about getting' yer 'ead kicked in." ...
Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin’ Simon
Review by Charlie Gillett, Let It Rock, August 1973
Paul: middle class rock, O.K.? ...
Simon & Garfunkel: Simon And Garfunkel: Live From New York City, 1967
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, September 2002
NEITHER AS gritty as Dylan or as political as Ochs or Baez, Simon And Garfunkel's folk-rock style had a cool, preppy awareness and an alluring ...
Nina Simone, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 10 December 1977
YOU CAN'T keep tabs on everybody all the time. It wasn't until this concert was announced that I realised there hasn't been much heard from, ...
Nina Simone: To Love Somebody/Here Comes The Sun/Emergency Ward/Black Gold/It Is Finished
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 2002
EUNICE WAYMON never intended to be a pop singer. Her ambition was to be the first great black female classical pianist. She took up playing ...
Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982
ONETHIS RECORD is something of a glow. Whatever your preference you will find it memorable and instructive. Find its qualities and fix your place. Be ...
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 1984
IT HAS to be said that this plumpish, carrot-mopped bloke stomping around like a kid in a playpen hardly looks the part of STAR. And ...
Frank Sinatra: The Capitol Years (Capitol)
Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, January 1999
Box set featuring all twenty Capitol albums 1953-61 plus rarities disc ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie And The Banshees: The Unacceptable Face Of '78
Interview by Jon Savage, Sounds, 24 June 1978
'Overground – from abnormalityOverboard – for identityOverground – for normalityOverboard – on identity'– 'Overground' ...
Slade: Slade In Flame (Polydor)
Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, February 1975
Some things I'm sure of: Noddy Holder is a great rock singer, up there with the best of British, with John Lennon, even. And Slade ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, 12 October 1972
DESPITE WHAT you may have heard of "skinhead rock" or "Seventies teddies", Slade is exactly the opposite of a gimmick band. You’ll not find synthesizers, ...
Percy Sledge: The Best Of Percy Sledge
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 13 December 1969
PERCY SLEDGE is here for a three-week tour, and to coincide with it Atlantic have released a single, 'True Love Travels On A Gravel Road', ...
The Slits: Holland Park School, London
Live Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, January 1978
I BURBLED MY feelings about The Slits for four pages in ZZ75 last July, and happily that resulted in crazed Radio One producer and Zigzag ...
Sly & the Family Stone: Sly and the Family Stone: Bournemouth Opera House
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 2007
YOU'RE A LIFE-LONG fan of a band that fell apart long before you were old enough to see them play. Suddenly, you hear that the ...
Sly & the Family Stone: Sly Stone: Small Talk
Review by Pete Wingfield, Let It Rock, November 1974
BY SLY'S SLUGGISH standards, it's not that long since the last album, Fresh; maybe married life has given him a creative surge. ...
The Small Faces: Small Faces Thought ‘Sunday’ Too Much Of A Joke
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 4 May 1968
ONCE more unto the magic cave – better described as Andrew Oldham’s emporium from whence all things Immediate happen – and the office where I ...
The Small Faces: 'Itchycoo Park'
Retrospective and Interview by John Pidgeon, Record Hunter, March 1991
The first Small Faces single written by Marriott and Lane, 'I Got Mine', flopped on release as the follow-up to 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It' ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1998
BILLY CORGAN certainly had his work cut out for him after 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. ...
Patti Smith: At Last, The Lower Manhattan Show
Report and Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 22 May 1976
Patti Smith at the Roundhouse, facing fans, friends, fungoids and straightforward weirdos – Britain's first live chance of checking out the 'legend'. MILES went as ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, January 1998
PATTI SMITH, the cultural dynamo who claims to have "several decades left in me yet" is never one to court convention. With no plans to ...
The Smiths: Fox Theater, Detroit
Live Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, December 1986
IT ALL BOILS down to the collapse and decay of the British Empire. You could blame it on Margaret Thatcher. Or on Joy Division. Or ...
Soft Cell: Soft See Cell Warfare
Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, January 1982
The Soft White Underbelly of Soft Cell ...
Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 21 March 1981
MARC ALMOND has never quite been able to live down our scathing pic caption which accompanied the review of the landmark Some Bizzare Album. ...
Soft Machine: The Soft Machine: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 July 1976
IT WAS a surprise to see so many people in the heat and the gloom of the Hamersmith Palais to see Soft Machine, because in ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, September 2005
BACKSTAGE AT V Festival, the queen mother of punk rock shelters from the punishing sun. With her dirty-blonde hair and boho-bag-lady chic, Kim Gordon cuts ...
Interview by John Robb, Melody Maker, 24 August 1991
As they prepare for their appearance at this weekend's Reading Festival, Veteran art rock terrorists talk to Johnny Robb ...
Spandau Ballet: Last Dance Of The New Romance: Spandau Ballet’s Diamond
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 March 1982
IT SEEMS like Spandau Ballet are having trouble, and they're not sure how to face up to it. The concept of Spandau has grown ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, July 1982
SPARKS' HIT STREAK in the mid-'70s produced America's best Anglophiliac rock ever – so good, in fact, that English teenyboppers made them tops of the ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
YOU REMEMBER the scene from Hollywood: overnight the lovable brat grows up into the most compelling person in the room. Suddenly – you're beautiful! ...
Interview by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, December 2013
I LISTENED to some of it in my youth, but spent most of my post-teenage years trying to avoid this crap: pandering, patronizing, mono-dimensional, unimaginative ...
Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 1997
THE CULMINATION OF A SEVEN YEAR mission to empty his crowded mind onto tape, Ladies And Gentlemen...is Jason Pierce's clamorous meisterwerk. A record that's splendidly ...
Report and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 16 March 1974
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN was confined to the boardwalk life on New Jersey. He lived over a drug store "in all the craziness of downtown", prayed for ...
Bruce Springsteen: Talking To The Boss
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Vox, September 1992
FOLKLORE TELLS us there was a time, about 25 years ago, when meeting the stars was a simple matter. You just had to hang out ...
Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 6 August 1977
THE ALBANY is one of those places – and there aren't many – that can get packed to the rafters, sweaty and messy, and still ...
Ringo Starr: Blast From Your Past (Capitol)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, March 1976
IT'S HARD TO figure our just what constitutes the biggest detriment to a healthy music scene these days; the dearth of flesh & blood artists ...
Status Quo: 'We're Not Musicians — We're Players!'
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 10 January 1976
STRIDING into his road-manager's sitting room, Francis Rossi quips, "no comment " and then spins on his heel as if a fast retreat is on ...
Steeleye Span: Making Sense Of Original Sin...
Report and Interview by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 20 December 1975
IN BRITAIN we voted to stay in. In Eire and Denmark they voted to go in. In Norway the public answered the call to European ...
Steeleye Span: So Who ARE These Limeys Playing Folk Music?
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973
IT TAKES approximately 11 hours to fly from London to Los Angeles. You get off the 'plane, and the heat fills your lungs like a ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 23 May 1974
STEELY DAN is the most improbable hit-singles band to emerge in ages. On its three albums, the group has developed an impressionistic approach to rock ...
Steely Dan: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 1996
THEY QUIT TOURING IN '74; broke up in '80. Now the arch hipster auteurs of literate, cynical, smart-ass rock jazz – the creators of some ...
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 22 May 1971
You're very rare in music today in that you managed to virtually disappear for two years when you were ill and then came back ...
Cat Stevens: Buddha And The Chocolate Box
Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, May 1974
ON THE COVER of Cat Stevens' new album is a Japanese buddha of the Heian Period. On the back is a koan or parable depicted ...
Profile and Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 21 August 1976
ROD STEWART has never been predictable. As a songwriter he thrives on controversial topics. Sandwiched between more conventional songs like 'Maggie May' or 'You Wear ...
Rod Stewart: Never A Dull Moment
Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, November 1972
ONE CAN ALWAYS COUNT on Rod for superb vocalizing, but his recordings sometimes slip because of the spottiness of the material, from marvelous to mediocre. ...
Stephen Stills: Behind The Malicious Rumours
Interview by Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973
EVER SINCE he wrote 'For What It's Worth' Stephen Stills has had his share of criticism. And oddly enough it's often been more personal than ...
Stephen Stills: Crazy After All These Years
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
MR STILLS and I are watching a video of some playing by Crosby, Stills And Nash. The composer leans back in his chair, a whisky ...
Sting: I Ask The Questions by Sylvie Simmons: Sting
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996
STING – pop star, actor, philisopher , father, Rover car salesman and generally all-round bit of a god – is trying to steal my job. ...
Review by Dave Rimmer, Q, November 1987
"WITHOUT FREEDOM FROM the past," sings a typically philosophical Sting on one track called 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', "things will only get worse." ...
The Stone Roses: Island of Lost Soul: The Stone Roses at Spike Island
Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, 1990
Sun, sea water and cement factories. Not your idea of Ibiza perhaps, but according to our resident mad Manc John Robb, this is the start ...
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, November 1976
AMONG THE hordes of bands currently playing London's pub and club circuit, the Stranglers are leading contenders to break out and hit unsuspecting mass audiences ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, March 1982
WANT TO FEEL prematurely old? This, if you can believe it, is the Stranglers' seventh British album. While most alumni of the '77 punk explosion ...
The Strawbs: Jacks Out For The Strawbs
Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, August 1973
THE BEST, and possibly only, way of breaking in a new band is to retreat into the country, converge on the local inn and set ...
The Strawbs: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 January 1976
AFTER AN ABSURDLY dramatic entry, this much loved male sextet took their places with a white suited Dave Cousins in the limelight. ...
The Strokes: Monarch, London, February 7
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2001
U2 WERE rocking the Astoria across town, but the hotter ticket by far was this New York five-piece who sound like pure 1969 Live Velvets ...
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, December 1993
"HELLO! WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE?!" asks Brett Anderson rhetorically, staring at the fluff he has just removed from his ear. "I haven't taken these ...
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 1 June 1985
DUE TO an allergy to cats, Martin Rev is forced to huddle next to an open window in manager/producer/believer Marty Thau's feline thronged apartment. ...
Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1979
‘HOT STUFF’ just isn't that terrific a record, no matter what the charts or current critical backlash dogma say, and it doesn't do any good ...
Super Furry Animals: Power To The Furries! Gruff Rhys Speaks
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, July 2003
Welsh wunderkinder the Super Furry Animals return this week with the fabulous Phantom Power. Cardiff’s furriest bard talks to Barney Hoskyns about love, war and ...
Supergrass: In It For The Money (Parlophone)
Review and Interview by Max Bell, MOJO, May 1997
IT SEEMS UNLIKELY THAT SUPERGRASS will ever scale the wails of hype built around those British bands whose media inflated self-importance exceeds their artistic merit. ...
Interview by Steven Rosen, Sounds, 15 May 1976
SUPERTRAMP HORNMAN and funnyman John Helliwell gazed longingly out the A&M Records publicity office window at the burgundy Dino Ferrari. ...
Review by Gary Sperrazza!, Phonograph Record, February 1975
FOR A BAND prophesied to be one of the major forces in pop in the Seventies, the Sweet still remain the most misunderstood band of ...
Sweet: Sounds Girl In Sweet Nude Bathing Horror
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 19 June 1976
THE ERSATZ raunch, bump and grind of 'The Stripper' blares out over the Sportshalle in Cologne. Thousands of minute German teenyboppers are creaming in excitement ...
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1999
AFICIONADOS OF clean, clever, honed American pop have had to make do with meagre rations of late. Thank God that 1999 has at least produced ...
Taylor Swift: Apple royalties U-turn: is Taylor Swift the most powerful woman in music?
Report by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 22 June 2015
Viewed as an advocate for artists and a game-changer, almost no other pop star could have made the corporate behemoth roll over. ...
Talking Heads: Still Making Sense?
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Q, April 1988
Talking Heads were once unconventional art-school types looking for an audience on the underground rock circuit. Now they’re unconventional multi-media types who convene annually for ...
Talking Heads: The Rock Garden, London
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 21 May 1977
WHY NOT somewhere that can handle crowds properly, like the Nashville? Why on earth were Talking Heads put on at the Rock Garden? Do answer ...
Tangerine Dream: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 26 June 1976
T-DREAM HAVE BEEN described as everything from 'the most advanced development of progressive rock' to 'electronic muzak'. The band generates controversy probably because people are ...
James Taylor: Universal Amphitheatre, LA
Live Review by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 16 August 1975
JAMES TAYLOR'S UNIVERSAL Amphitheatre gig, though predictable at times, established new beginnings for the folkster as he returned to the Southland for the first time ...
Teenage Fanclub: The Forum, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1996
ONE HESITATES TO USE the word "heartwarming" about the endurance of the unassuming Scotsmen who go by the name of Teenage Fanclub, but at a ...
Television: Prime Time: Television
Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1983
THE RULES OF punk/new-wave music laid down in 1976-77 stated that bands should avoid displays of technical virtuosity, should profess a loathing for rock’s history ...
Television: The Blow Up (ROIR)
Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 11 December 1982
BACK IN the mid-'70s then-rock journalist Patti Smith penned the following valentine to Tom Verlaine's Television: "Boycott rock and roll on TV – who wants ...
Ten Years After: Alvin Lee On The Hassles Of Being A Success
Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc and Music Echo, 25 March 1972
ALVIN LEE is currently suffering from a surfeit of everything. He's had too much touring, too much hype, too much idolatry. Nowadays the band can't ...
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1978
CHANCES ARE GOOD that this time last year you had never heard of Thin Lizzy, let along heard them. Young veterans of the British music ...
Interview by Joe Matera, Australian Musician, Spring 2003
HE'S ALREADY ACHIEVED more as a songwriter and instrumentalist than most musicians could do in a lifetime. His sound is familiar, with ties to practically ...
Richard Thompson: Hand Of Kindness
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983
From a maker of acclaimed albums, something that is more of the same, as dependable as any itching in the heart, toothache, telephone bill: it ...
Richard and Linda Thompson: Richard & Linda Thompson: Hokey Pokey
Review by Jerry Gilbert, ZigZag, September 1975
THE SINGULAR most remarkable aspect of this album is its manifestation of Richard Thompson's capacity to absorb. And if that sounds a long winded way ...
Throbbing Gristle: The Factory, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 2 June 1979
WHEN I WAS watching Throbbing Gristle where were you? ...
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.
Review by Nina Antonia, MOJO, July 1994
THIS IS NOT PUNK: THIS IS EDDIE COCHRAN and Gene Vincent dragged screaming into 1977. ...
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: The Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 1 October 1977
'Living in the jungle, it ain't so hard/But livin' in the city, it can eat out, eat out your heart...' ...
Martina Topley-Bird, Tricky: Tricky: It's a Tricky World
Interview by Andrew Smith, The Face, April 1996
Tricky was a poor petty criminal who grew up to be acclaimed as a musical genius. Martina came from a wealthy family, and left her ...
Allen Toussaint: The Jazz Café, London
Live Review by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2006
THOUGH HE IS the greatest living exponent of the extraordinary New Orleans piano tradition that produced Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Huey Smith, James Booker, Dr ...
Pete Townshend: The Lifehouse Chronicles
Review and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, December 1999
Some day all music will be made this way. In 1970 it seemed so barking mad the band asked him to drop it. Now, Pete’s ...
Pete Townshend: Genius of the Simple
Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, December 1971
Pete Townshend is a little worried about the advancement that is being made with musical equipment and recording studios. "The technology is beginning to overtake ...
Traffic Lightens Up for American Tour
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, 24 October 1974
NEW YORK – Looking only slightly recovered from a two-day-old case of jet lag, Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi strutted into the Providence Civic Center dressing ...
Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 13 January 1968
TRAFFIC is now on the move again but as a trio. So it was that I scaled the eight flights to drummer Jim Capaldi's Earl's ...
T. Rex: The Unobtainable T.Rex
Review by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
AND SO, it appears, we are on the brink of a new T.Rex faith. Well, as one who defended the Bolanian right at school in ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1987
The Triffids, authors of the greatest Australian country and western album, address the darker undercurrents beneath the sparkling antipodean surf. ...
Ike & Tina Turner: Tina Turner Peels Potatoes as She Raves Over 'River Deep'
Interview by Tracy Thomas, New Musical Express, 15 July 1966
"I WAS knocked out by 'River Deep' the first time I heard it," exclaimed Tina Turner, peeling potatoes over the sink of her Los Angeles ...
Ike Turner: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 February 2002
IF YOU didn't know Ike Turner was 70 before this show, you certainly did within minutes of his swaggering entrance. ...
Ike & Tina Turner: Her Man, His Woman
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 17 April 1976
RECORDED AND FIRST released as the Get It, Get It L.P. on the L.A. Cenco label circa 1965, this album was snapped up by Capitol ...
Tina Turner: London, Wembley Stadium
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, July 2000
NESTLED BETWIXT the iconic twin towers of Wembley Stadium lies a sumptuous banqueting hall that’s completely rammed to its very rafters with the affluent and ...
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 25 October 1980
I LOVE U2. I worry about U2. Hearing their debut single 'Out Of Control' and seeing them play in Ireland, I fell for their undismayed ...
Essay by Mark Cooper, Q, 1991
WHEN U2's recent Number 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1983
UB40, A MULTIRACIAL reggae group whose name derives from the code on British unemployment cards, emerged from Birmingham in 1980, right around the time the ...
Profile and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, January 1981
HEY BUNKY, are ya feelin' low because the whirlwind East Coast tour you were promised turned out to be two weeks at Vinnie's Peppermint Lounge ...
Ultravox! New Music From A Doll's House
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 19 March 1977
CONTRARY to what Stranglers' bassist, Jean Jacques Brunel, is reputed to think, Ultravox! are not "a bunch of session musicians put together by Island records." ...
The Undertones: the Famous Five go to Finland
Profile by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 6 August 1981
IN JULY in Helsinki, Finland, the only darkness you can find is inside buildings with no windows. Buildings like the "Travastia Klubi" where the Undertones ...
Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 8 September 1973
THIS INTERVIEW had the most ordinary of beginnings. David Byron and Uriah Heep's Press Miss and myself left the other four members of the band ...
Luther Vandross: Forever, For Always, For Love (Epic)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 27 June 1987
ON THE soft focus cover shot, the transformation is complete: Luther the beige mannequin with compulsory wet look is a world away from the roly ...
Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981
The worst thing about labels is their sticky side. But the next worst thing about them is that they attract flies, and that can put ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Sunday Express Magazine, 1 November 1987
Suzanne Vega is, on her own admission, a most unlikely rock star. On stage at Sydney’s Town Hall, rooted to the spot and hung with ...
Velvet Underground: 1969 — The Velvet Underground Live
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1974
THE LAST YEAR has seen sufficient scholarly exegeses on the subject of Lou Reed to see us through the decade; and the release of 1969, ...
The Velvet Underground: Loaded
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 24 December 1970
LOU REED HAS always steadfastly maintained that the Velvet Underground were just another Long Island rock 'n' roll band. But in the past he really ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly And See
Review by Lenny Kaye, MOJO, October 1995
The brief, brilliant life of The Velvet Underground, from jug-band rags to hypercool chronicles – experiments, cast-offs, fights and all – on five CDs. Immortal, ...
The Verve: Manchester Roadhouse
Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 17 June 1995
SO THAT’S what it sounds like. A long, curdled up intro, all ghostly pyrotechnics and a death rattle of drums, then suddenly, whoosh! And the ...
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 11 June 1977
MMM. PSYCHO daisies. Hid her wid de axe/you better relax. More zoop bop cartoon funnies – this time the movie's speeded up. Laugh this one ...
Sid Vicious: Max's Kansas City, NYC
Live Review by Ira Robbins, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978
ON AN unusually busy New York rock night, the attraction of an ex-Pistol was apparently sufficient to pack Max's out for a couple of sets ...
Gene Vincent: Born To Be A Rolling Stone (Topline Records)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, December 1987
TO SEE JUST how far a former great rock and roller can sink, check out the 12 pieces of aural excrement that comprise Gene Vincent's ...
Bunny Wailer: Original Bunnyman Echoes His Roots: Bunny Sings The Wailers
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 17 January 1981
AS TO WHY Bunny Wailer has chosen this moment to come down from the hills and ransack the files of old Wailers material – well, ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Album III
Review by Bud Scoppa, Creem, January 1973
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE to forget the sight of Loudon Wainwright singing: head turned upward and wobbling loosely on his hunched shoulders, his face contorted in response ...
Rufus Wainwright: The Backpages Interview: Rufus Wainwright
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 2 June 2001
When Rufus Wainwright’s eponymous debut album appeared three years ago, it was as though the golden age of maverick American singer-songwriters had never ended. ...
Tom Waits: The Backpages Interview: Tom Waits
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 26 April 2002
Thomas Alan Waits is about to release two albums simultaneously – Alice and Blood Money. In this previously unpublished interview from the spring of 1985, ...
Tom Waits: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 12 June 1976
HE TAKES the stage with what he describes as his don't care-a-shit shuffle. Very apt ...
Rick Wakeman: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 13 April 1974
IN CLASSICAL music terms, this composition might be described as "lightweight" or of "little consequence." But as far as popular music is concerned, Rick's composition ...
Scott Walker: Scott; Scott2; Scott3; Scott4; Boy Child (Fontana/Mercury)
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 2000
Scott’s first four post-Walker Brothers solo outings plus a revamped ‘best of’. Originally issued between 1967 and 1969. They got better but sold less and ...
The Walker Brothers: Harmony and rivalry from the Walkers
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, The History of Rock, 1982
In the mid sixties, just as every worthwhile group in Britain seemed to be setting up tours in the States, Scott Noel Engel, John Joseph ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975
WHAT A DISTRESSINGLY large percentage of the perfect strangers with whom I happen to chat while waiting in line for ball games, premieres of motion ...
Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, November 1995
GIVEN THE CHOICE that exists in the Golden Earring department, it's scandalous that we've been forced to wait this long to hear War on CD. ...
Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: Born To Laugh At Tornadoes (Geffen)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 November 1983
AMERICA HAS been dressed by improper minds. Corralling the year's important American records – Swordfishtrombones, Girl At Her Volcano, Burlap And Satin and Born To ...
Muddy Waters: I'm Ready (Blue Sky)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1978
IT ISN'T JUST the natural process of attribution and the creative stagnation afflicting his competitors that have made Muddy Waters the premier master of his ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, unpublished, 2 April 2005
On working with a regular session team "A group of people in those days got selected to do a lot of work, which in a way ...
Weather Report: The True US Art Form
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 31 July 1976
"PEOPLE ARE beautiful everywhere," says Josef Zawinul. "I think a real open person, I don't care what music he is playing, is going to be ...
Jimmy Webb: Pizza on the Park, London ***
Live Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 28 October 1999
WHEN THE Boo Radleys wrote a song called 'Jimmy Webb is God' they presumably weren't gripped by a vision of the Lord playing a gig ...
Paul Weller: Wild Wood (Go! Discs)
Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 1994
SOMETHING TO mull over. Paul Weller has been having hit records for 16 years. Wild Wood – the follow-up to his wildly-underrated debut solo outing ...
Profile by Bob Fisher, New Musical Express, 14 December 1974
Some things turn me on...like the way you might say a word or the way you wear your hair and have a certain smile on ...
Tony Joe White: Homemade Ice Cream
Review by John Pidgeon, Let It Rock, October 1973
TONY JOE WHITE just loves to play the ingenu. The sleeve of Homemade Ice Cream has photographs of him "up at Turkey Creek" and titles ...
The White Stripes: Astoria Theatre, London, 21st November
Live Review by The Rev. Al Friston, Rock's Backpages, 24 November 2001
THE MOTOR CITY IS BURNING – on London's Charing Cross Road. An hilariously heraldic "City Of Detroit" flag – with a Latin inscription translating as ...
The White Stripes: White Stripes Or Shite Hype?
Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2003
NEXT WEEK the White Stripes release their latest single, a highly distinctive reading of the Burt Bacharach standard 'I Just Don't Know What To Do ...
The Who: 30 Years Of Maximum R&B
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1994
APART FROM THE BARRON KNIGHTS AT BERTRAM MILLS Circus, the first group I ever saw live was The Who: It could have been Spooky Tooth, ...
The Who: My Generation Deluxe Edition (Polydor) ****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2002
BEFORE NEW, larger sound systems ushered in rock in 1966-7, there was beat music, a tighter, more driving sound based on pushing club-scale amplification to ...
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, May 1969
A DOUBLE ALBUM can often prove a boring disappointment these days, with the gimmick presentation becoming more important than the quality of the music. Pete ...
Lucinda Williams: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, May 2003
I LAST SAW Lucinda Williams live about ten years ago when she supported Mary Chapin Carpenter in London – not an auspicious show. She seemed ...
Report by Michael Gross, Blast, August 1976
SEVENTH AVENUE looked like a refugee camp for the great unwashed. No matter where you turned, all you could see was people. ...
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 1 December 1973
"IT'S NOT A concept," says Paul McCartney, but there is a thread to Wings' newie Band On The Run. The feeling expressed throughout is one ...
Johnny Winter: Johnny Winter And Live
Review by John Morthland, Creem, June 1971
HOW, YOU MIGHT be asking yourself, could this not be a killer album? After all, it may have taken two albums and several tours, but ...
Steve Winwood: 'I'm Gonna Do an Album a Week!'
Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 17 May 1973
IT'S BEEN MANY a long year since Steve Winwood has made impact as an individual on the English rock scene. ...
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 21 February 1976
IT IS NOW ten months since Wishbone Ash packed up their troubles and settled in the USA, choosing a spot in Westport, Connecticut, that is ...
Profile and Interview by Steven Rosen, Music World, April 1973
BOBBY WOMACK HAS been making music for twenty long years, an odyssey that carried him from the working quarters of Cleveland to the rocking corners ...
Bobby Womack: Live at the Dallas Arcadia
Live Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 21 September 1985
"BLACK MUSIC is being broken down. It's no longer black music. This is not a discussion or argument...what I'm saying is that it's a reaffirmation ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, March 1988
THIS IS ALMOST as satisfying a return to form as Sugar Ray Leonard's victory over Marvelous Marvin Hagler and practically as much of an upset. ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 27 September 1973
THE GREENING OF MOTOWN continues apace, with performers who once flourished under the company's autocratic guidelines (the Four Tops, Gladys Knight) seeking success elsewhere while ...
Ronnie Wood: I've Got My Own Album To Do
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 7 November 1974
RON WOOD, whose role in the Faces has paralleled Keith Richard's function in the Rolling Stones, has put together what is less a solo album ...
Link Wray: Be What You Want To
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 24 May 1973
LINK WRAY, father of chicken-shack recording, is back with his second album since emerging from the dim glint of rock history. Be What You Want ...
Review and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, 1997
Soft Machine and Matching Mole legend makes triumphant return. Sterling work from all-star supporting cast Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Evan Parker, Annie Whitehead and Phil ...
Tammy Wynette: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 14 June 1975
THREE MONTHS ago Tammy Wynette was little more than cowboy fodder in Britain, appealing only to a small body of country freaks. But, one smasheroo ...
Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980
XTC'S FOURTH outing, called, for no apparent reason, Black Sea, greets the reviewer like nothing so much as a bowl of Frosties on a wet ...
XTC: A Chat with Andy Partridge
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, CDNOW.com, 2000
HAILING FROM unglamorous Swindon, 70 miles west of London, XTC were clever-clever new-wavers who quickly outgrew the late 70s punk scene and matured into purveyors ...
The Yardbirds: The Yardbirds Featuring Eric Clapton, The Yardbirds Featuring Jeff Beck
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 27 March 1976
STRANGELY ENOUGH, the thing that hits you first about these albums is not so much the excellence of the two gentlemen named in the titles ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 16 March 1972
THE SURE AND STEADY pace at which Yes has progressed through their four albums seems to suit them just fine, and in Fragile the fruit ...
Interview by Roy Trakin, Creem, February 1988
"YES, WE ARE five individuals. That's what makes it what it is, how good it is and as complicated as it is. Each of us ...
Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.
Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 26 April 1986
IF IT'S careening kick-start country, a whisky wise distillation of old forms you need, come round here. Boisterous fiddle, the pound and pounce of six-string ...
Neil Young: Still a Young Man's Game
Interview by David Sinclair, The Times, 23 May 2003
HE CALLED one of his albums Rust Never Sleeps. But does Neil Young ever sleep? In the 12 months since he last played in Britain, ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Creem, March 1971
THIS ALBUM IS a preview of what is the ultimate rock opera-symphony, 200 Motels, which is constantly growing and taking on amazing proportions. ...
Frank Zappa: The Lost Episodes
Review by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, March 1996
DESCRIBED BY UTILITY Muffin Kitchen engineer Spencer Chrislu as a "sort of stealth project", this excellent little album of studio leftovers was put together by ...
Warren Zevon: Crystal Zevon's Story: Warren from A to Z
Interview by Fred Schruers, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2007
Through interviews and diaries, the musician's ex-wife chronicles the hedonistic life of one of the genre's bad boys. ...
Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon (Ayslum) ****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 26 June 1976
THIS ALBUM is a surprise. With a recent spate of LA flavoured albums released simultaneously I was suffering from a bad case of West Coast ...
The Zombies: Time Of The Zombies
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1974
THANKS TO THE SUCCESS of Argent, Colin Blunstone, and the 'Monster Mash', the long-neglected Zombies are again coming to light. London's fluke smash with the ...
Review by Jeremy Clarke, Q, November 1990
ON RECYCLER, ZZ Top jettison the hi-tech adventurism of Afterburner, their last album, released in 1985, which, despite the brilliance and wit of tracks like ...
ZZ Top: Long Beach Arena, California
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 March 1980
ALMOST THREE years ago ZZ Top became ZZ Stop, pensioned off the steers and circus animals Texas-style that went with their live performances and went ...
Cry Me A River! The 100 Most Heartbreaking Records of All Time…(100-51)
Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, December 2001
Hands up who's never been reduced to tears by a love song. There can't be many of you out there. ...
Like A Hurricane: The 100 Most Intense Records Ever Made
Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
One way or another, all music is about emotion, even when it’s about lack of emotion. But some records reach the parts others never can, ...
Very Noughtie: RBP's Best Albums, 2000-2009
Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, December 2009
WHILST CONCEDING that we are all "listed out" after a solid decade of anniversary-fixated list-o-mania – lists of lists of lists! – we at RBP ...
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