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Classic Pop

Classic Pop

Classic Pop is a bi-monthly magazine, published in the UK, specialising in the pop music of the 1980 and after, including New Wave, synth-pop, indie, ska and the New Romantics.

41 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Duran Duran: Looking Back to Planet Earth and Beyond: Five Decades of Duran Duran

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, December 2012

Please, please tell me now! As John Taylor publishes his autobiography, In The Pleasure Groove: Love, Death & Duran Duran, Wyndham Wallace accompanies him through ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: From Kraftwerk to Craftsmen

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, May 2013

They were just "two guys with a tape recorder and a name as long as the stage they were standing on", but Orchestral Manoeuvres In ...

Beyoncé: O2 Arena, London

Live Review by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, June 2013

The Mrs Carter Show rolls into town, but does the queen of pop justify the hype? The answer is yes and no. ...

Klaus Nomi

Retrospective by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, October 2013

Looking like a gothic kewpie doll and sounding like an operatic vocal virtuoso, Klaus Nomi was an unlikely New Wave icon. Thirty years after his ...

AR Kane, Bauhaus, Belly, The Birthday Party, Bon Iver, The Breeders, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Lush, M/A/R/R/S, Modern English, The National, The Pixies, Red House Painters, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, Xmal Deutschland: 4AD Records: Labelled with Love

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, November 2013

A new book, Martin Aston's Facing The Other Way, tells the story of a label that scored just a single number one hit during the ...

Talk Talk: Classic Album: Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, November 2013

Twenty five years ago, Talk Talk's fourth album was spurned upon its release, lasted only five weeks in the British charts and led the band ...

Bruno Mars: O2 Arena, London

Live Review by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, January 2014

WITH BRUNO MARS having released two, noticeably short albums (both clock in at around 35 minutes each), I go into to tonight's gig worrying how ...

Robbie Williams: Swings Both Ways (Island) ****

Review by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, January 2014

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, 2001's Swing When You're Winning is Robbie Williams' best-selling album to date. Who knew? So with actually quite a lot to ...

Michael Jackson: Xscape (Epic) ***

Review by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, August 2014

FIVE YEARS after his passing, Michael Jackson already has his name to posthumous album #2. ...

Britney Spears: Piece Of Me: The AXIS, Las Vegas

Live Review by Kate Allen, Classic Pop, October 2014

SEEING BRITNEY SPEARS LIVE holds every possibility of being an ugly affair. But seeing her play show number 32 as part of her Las Vegas ...

It's Immaterial: Living in an Immaterial World

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, October 2015

Emerging from the punk and art school scene of 1970s Liverpool, It's Immaterial are the band that time cruelly forgot. Despite one enduring big hit, ...

Thomas Dolby: Godfathers of Pop: Thomas Dolby

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2016

BEFORE HE EMERGED as a pioneering figure of electronic music in the 1980s, Thomas Dolby wrote Lene Lovich's single, 'New Toy', appeared on the Thompson ...

Morcheeba, Skye|Ross: Skye | Ross

Profile and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, October 2016

Morcheeba, helmed by Paul Godfrey's immaculate production, Skye Edwards' ethereal vocals and Ross Godfrey's luminous guitar, mapped out their own singular sonic territory in the ...

ABBA: The Split

Retrospective by David Burke, Classic Pop, December 2016

WE CAN TALK about the ephemeral magic of pop music. About the quick fix, the instant buzz, about getting off or becoming blissed out on ...

Mike + the Mechanics: Engineering a New Future

Profile and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, April 2017

It may have begun as a side project away from Genesis while Phil Collins tried to sort out his marital difficulties, but Mike + the ...

Omar: Fighting His Corner

Profile and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, August 2017

HE WAS A pioneer of the British soul movement of the 1990s, alongside Brand New Heavies, Young Disciples and Jamiroquai, but Omar claims the genre's ...

Stevie Wonder: Sound and Vision

Retrospective by David Burke, Classic Pop, October 2017

STEVIE WONDER had reached the summit with the wildly ambitious 1976 double album Songs in the Key of Life. It would become the best-selling and most ...

Debbie Gibson: All-American Girl

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, November 2017

DEBBIE GIBSON feels as though she's in a Tina Turner moment at this stage of her career, on the precipice of a midlife renaissance. ...

Luke Haines: Godfathers of Pop: Luke Haines

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, November 2017

LUKE HAINES has fronted the Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder, released 13 albums under his own name, composed the soundtrack for Paul Tickell's ...

Echo & the Bunnymen: Shooting from the Lip

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, January 2018

STEVE EARLE ONCE said he'd stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table and declare his mentor Townes Van Zandt the best songwriter he'd ever heard. ...

Michael McDonald: The Godfather of Pop — Michael McDonald

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, January 2018

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Michael McDonald has been a member of Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, sang with Ray Charles, ...

Alexander O'Neal: The Resurrection of Alexander O'Neal

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, February 2018

He was sacked by Prince, only to find fame and lose it all in an orgy of decadence. Now adopted Mancunian Alexander O'Neal is back. ...

Kim Wilde — Close Encounters of the Wilde Kind

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, March 2018

"I always figured that the music world and my voice were connected and that was my destiny," says Kim Wilde. And she wasn't wrong. Now ...

Whitney Houston, Courtney Pine, Simple Minds, The Special AKA, Sting, Stevie Wonder: When Pop Went Political: Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2018

IT WAS A PARTY staged to express solidarity with the world's most famous political prisoner, while concurrently expressing vehement opposition to an overtly racist system ...

The Special AKA: When Pop Went Political: Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute Concert

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2018

IT WAS A party staged to express solidarity with the world's most famous political prisoner, while concurrently expressing vehement opposition to an overtly racist system ...

Swing Out Sister: Pledging Their Allegiance

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, July 2018

They broke the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic with 'Breakout' in 1986, recorded with Jimmy Webb and made it big Japan. Now ...

Dannii Minogue: Stepping Out of the Shadow

Profile and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, August 2018

Fifteen years ago, Dannii Minogue reinvented herself as a dance icon with Neon Nights, a classic of the genre which bears favourable comparison with big ...

David Byrne: Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Live Review by David Burke, Classic Pop, August 2018

ALL THE SUPERLATIVES you've heard or read about David Byrne's American Utopia tour are true. ...

Level 42: Next-Level Thinking

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, September 2018

Level 42 embark on a 19-date Eternity tour of the UK this autumn. But don't expect to hear anything new. "I'm as dry as granny's ...

Candi Staton: The Godmother of Pop: Candi Staton

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, September 2018

CANDI STATON is set to release Unstoppable, her 30th album of a 50-year career, and hoping to score a sixth hit in as many decades. ...

Toyah Willcox: Toyah: Forever Free

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, September 2018

1977 and all that may have come and gone, but Toyah brought the punk aesthetic into '80s pop music with her radical sense of style ...

Martin Stephenson & The Daintees: The Godfather of Pop: Martin Stephenson

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, October 2018

THE NOW-DEFUNCT Sounds magazine reckoned Martin Stephenson "one of the finest and grossly underrated singer-songwriters this country has given birth to". ...

Dionne Warwick: Birmingham Symphony Hall

Live Review by David Burke, Classic Pop, November 2018

THE VOICE MAY have withered with age – the range not so extensive, the lung capacity not so voluminous – but Dionne Warwick remains a ...

Johnny Hates Jazz: Clark Datchler: The Jazz Singer

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, December 2018

"I SHOULD HAVE been more patient, but I just wanted to get on with the next thing," is how an older, wiser Clark Datchler reflects ...

Howard Jones: Breaking Down Barriers

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, December 2018

MUSIC HAS always been a tribal thing, and the music press – Classic Pop excepted, of course – has always derived a certain sadistic pleasure ...

Joe Jackson: Don't Look Back in Anger

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, February 2019

JOE JACKSON doesn't strike you as someone who's all that bothered about anniversaries, preferring to remain in the present rather than return to the past. ...

Bronski Beat: The Godfather of Pop: Steve Bronski

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019

SEMINAL SYNTHPOP outfit Bronski Beat – Steve Bronski, Jimmy Somerville and Larry Steinbachek – unwittingly became a mouthpiece for gay issues with their 1984 debut ...

Junior Giscombe: The Godfathers of Pop: Junior Giscombe

Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019

JUNIOR GISCOMBE cut his teeth as a backing vocalist with Linx before enjoying success as a solo artist with 'Mama Used to Say', a 1982 ...

Men at Work: Unfinished Business: Men Back At Work

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019

Fronted by a Scottish native who relocated down under in his teens, Men At Work glimpsed greatness before it all became a bit Spinal Tap. ...

Aswad, Smiley Culture, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Janet Kay, Matumbi, Misty In Roots, Musical Youth, Maxi Priest, Steel Pulse, Carroll Thompson, UB40: When British Reggae Was King

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019

Reggae may have been born in Jamaica, but it grew up in '80s Britain at a time of evolving multiculturalism, finding an unlikely ally in ...

Five Star: And Then There Was One…

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, October 2019

At their '80s peak Five Star lived the high life in a Berkshire mansion and drove a fleet of supercars. But then the hits dried ...

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