New Statesman
The New Statesman is a British political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, the magazine has a left-of-centre political position.
103 articles
List of articles in the library
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Phenomenal: Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Report by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 1984
THAT A GROUP should make the fourth-best selling British single of all time with their first release is remarkable; that they should follow it up ...
New Model Army: Top of the Antipops: New Model Army
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 1984
PUNK IS DEAD in letter but not in spirit. That is the message from a new school of groups who do not make videos and ...
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 ...
Big Country, U2: Epic Affirmation: U2 and Big Country
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 9 November 1984
WITH ALL THE hype of chart pop proving more contagious that ever, what chance does the passionate old dream of rock now stand? If Jon ...
The Associates, The Smiths: The Smiths: Meat Is Murder; The Associates: Perhaps
Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, Spring 1985
MORRISSEY OF The Smiths is still the unlikeliest pop star of all. Watching him jerk and flounder about on Top Of The Pops last week, ...
Soul II Soul: Jazzie B and the New Black Economy
Report and Interview by Cynthia Rose, New Statesman, 17 June 1988
A thriving underground enterprise culture has grown up around music – bootlegged vinyl, pirate radio, warehouse parties. It’s a black economy powered by black aesthetics ...
The Shamen: No Right To Party: Acid House
Report by Mark Sinker, New Statesman, 14 April 1990
2005 note: Unforgivable as actual real journalism – I made no effort to represent the anti-drug position – this still works as a snapshot of ...
Arthur Lee, Love: Arthur Lee: Winter of Love
Overview by Ted Kessler, New Statesman, 20 January 2003
MANY outrageous claims have been made on Arthur Lee's behalf — but most of them are true. ...
Comment by Ted Kessler, New Statesman, 31 March 2003
Ted Kessler on the rise of a new rap star who just can't stay out of trouble ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Caribbean Shaman: Lee "Scratch" Perry
Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 12 June 2006
ON THE NIGHT Lee "Scratch" Perry performed at the New York venue B B King's last month, the news came through that the 1960s ska ...
Lily Allen, Joanna Newsom, Amy Winehouse: Year Of The Woman
Overview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 11 December 2006
At the beginning of 2006, the prospects looked bleak for strong, idiosyncratic female pop acts. Jude Rogers meets three remarkable artists who changed all that ...
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 22 January 2007
THE SHINS – four men in their mid-thirties from New Mexico who style themselves as "an American pop combo" – are the literate, intelligent music ...
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 19 March 2007
MONTREAL'S ARCADE FIRE are the band of the moment. To the critical mob and clued-up music fans, they are the fresh-faced heirs to the epic-pop ...
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 9 April 2007
POP MUSIC in 2007 is glorious – energetic, intelligent and glowing with life. Its master of ceremonies is Mark Ronson, a charismatic London-born New Yorker ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Keep On Moving
Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 28 May 2007
Hailed as the best album of the 20th century, Bob Marley's Exodus is 30 years old next month. Vivien Goldman recalls the sessions that produced ...
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 15 November 2007
To a different beat: With jagged, fragile soundscapes, the mysterious Burial has created a modern classic, writes Jude Rogers ...
Spice Girls: The Spice Girls: Never Mind The Bum Notes
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 3 January 2008
The Spice Girls: O2 Arena, London ...
Interview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 27 March 2008
Independence Day: Björk's cry of "Tibet, Tibet" at a recent concert in Shanghai pre-empted the riots in Lhasa and outraged the Chinese authorities. It was ...
R.E.M.: Shiny, Happy People: R.E.M.: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 10 April 2008
The veteran rock band have regained the passion that made them great ...
Animal Collective, The Beach Boys, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear: The Lure Of The Beach
Report and Interview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 12 June 2008
A new generation of US bands cites the Beach Boys as a huge inspiration. Why now? ...
Dolly Parton: Warmth, Wonder and Wisdom: Dolly Parton, O2 Arena, London
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 17 July 2008
The superstar country singer proves her worth as a feminist icon. ...
Madonna: Seen It All Before: Madonna, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 11 September 2008
After 25 years of pop hits, Madonna's shock tactics are just embarrassing ...
Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Tony Christie: Crooners: The Second Coming
Overview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 23 October 2008
Inspired by Johnny Cash with his ring of fire, a slew of ageing crooners are pursuing their desires ...
Comment by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 13 November 2008
Radio 2, beset by scandal, is still the home of gloriously odd programming ...
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 26 March 2009
NEARLY 30 YEARS ON, the Gilbert and George of pop are still charmers. Like two Planet Pop missionaries sent to cheer us up in the ...
Michael Jackson: Blame it On the Good Times: The Life and Living Death of Michael Jackson
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 6 July 2009
IN SEPTEMBER 1979, my friend Davitt Sigerson – then a very good white writer on black music; later the chairman of Island Records in America; ...
Blur, Oasis: Look Back In Anger: Britpop
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 13 August 2009
Fifteen years ago, a teenage Jude Rogers was enchanted by a new pop sound and a new politics, both of which promised to change the ...
The Beatles: You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle For The Soul Of The Beatles by Peter Doggett
Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 8 October 2009
BY NOW all of us should have recovered from our latest dose of Beatlemania, occasioned by the release of the Beatles' remastered back catalogue on ...
Overview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 10 December 2009
From accents to Auto-Tune, singers fought to stand out from the pack ...
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 2 June 2010
Despite her fearsome reputation, Lady Gaga knows how to charm a crowd. ...
Chrissie Hynde, The Slits, X-Ray Spex: Lasses of the Mohicans
Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 31 October 2011
Vivien Goldman charts the history of Britain’s rebellious female punks. ...
Ren Harvieu, Lana Del Rey: Far from Dusty: Ren Harvieu and Lana Del Rey
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 January 2012
TWO GUYS ON a streetcar in 1940: "Say, have you heard about that horn player Louis Armstrong? He's so authentic! His mother was a prostitute, you ...
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 6 March 2012
SHE HAS A STOCK answer for it now. American news anchor Cynthia McFadden recently questioned Madonna about the uncanny resemblance between her 1989 hit 'Express ...
Jack White: What's Jack White made of?
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 2 May 2012
White never stops working and everything he works with turns to gold. ...
Frank Ocean Comes Out: A Brave Move In The Exaggeratedly Heterosexual World Of Hip Hop
Comment by Dorian Lynskey, New Statesman, 4 July 2012
What it means to be the first out gay star in urban music. ...
Gotye, Kimbra, Janelle Monáe: Right on the Monáe: Janelle Monáe, Gotye, Kimbra
Report by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 July 2012
THE FIRST RULE for writers – apply seat of pants to chair – works for musicians, too. Thirty years ago, the hairbrush and the bedroom mirror ...
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 September 2012
DYLAN FANS have invented some amusing parlour games. One is 'Guess That Song' from the strange, incomprehensible soup of his live performance. Another is keeping ...
The xx's Coexist Is An Album To Get You In The Mood For Misery
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 20 September 2012
Ideal for autumn, the season of mists... ...
Green Day: Mossman on music: Green Day's musical
Live Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 19 October 2012
The Green Day-inspired musical reviewed. ...
Michael Jackson: The Boy in the Bubble
Retrospective by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 14 November 2012
Released 30 years ago, Michael Jackson's album Thriller was the beginning of his assault on the white pop world. It's so dazzling it makes you ...
Secret Affair: My secret affair
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 28 November 2012
Why '70s power pop is unfashionably cool again ...
Kylie Minogue: The mysterious popstar who can do no wrong
Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 29 November 2012
As an album of "reimagined" Kylie songs emerges, Kate Mossman goes in search of the singer herself. ...
Björk, Chvrches, Laura Mvula, The Strypes, The Weeknd: Pop in 2013 — Under the influence
Preview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 3 January 2013
What to listen out for this year. ...
Don't blame HMV for its demise
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 January 2013
It's our fault – because we're too lazy to support our shops. ...
Justin Bieber: O2 Arena, London
Live Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 March 2013
Dazed and deeply confused. ...
Brian Eno: "How can Alastair Campbell have a TV career?"
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 16 May 2013
THE TOILETS OF the famous are centres of great significance. Liz Taylor was so used to guests snooping in hers, she filled the bathroom cabinet ...
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 May 2013
Her voice, once so English, has turned into a slip-slidey American lilt, half-speech, half-jazz, frequently yoyoing to a deeper register... In Marling, we're watching an ...
Essay by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 27 June 2013
Six months ago Rihanna looked like she was losing it, and now she looks to be in complete control. ...
Burt Bacharach: Royal Festival Hall, London SE1; Anyone Who Had a Heart (Alcourt)
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 July 2013
The effect of seeing Bacharach live at the Royal Festival hall was to be hit by more top-40 songs that you'd think a single act ...
Arctic Monkeys: AM (Domino Records)
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 September 2013
The Arctic Monkeys' fifth album, AM, has changed the sound but not the character of Britain's "Last True Indie Band". ...
Lou Reed: Why no one wanted to write his obituary
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 November 2013
MOST ROCK STARS are about 70 years old these days, so their departure is a constant possibility and music journalists are mentally prepared to trot ...
Lorde: Pure Heroine (Universal)
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 21 November 2013
THE BILLBOARDS glower on high streets in black and white, their closest visual neighbour in music being the artwork for Joy Division's final album, Closer. ...
Lostprophets: Rock Music Isn't Evil — it's the rock star myth that creates men like Ian Watkins
Comment by Ben Myers, New Statesman, 18 December 2013
Music journalist and author Ben Myers has been doing some soul-searching on the day the former Lostprophets singer was sentenced to twenty-nine years' imprisonment plus ...
David Bowie: Let's Not Pretend: David Bowie's Brit Award was for being alive
Comment by James Medd, New Statesman, 20 February 2014
Musicians and pundits need to get over their obsessive, nostalgic hero-worship. In 2014, David Bowie is irrelevant. ...
Interview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 27 March 2014
Jude Rogers talks to the pop princess about gay best friends, life after breast cancer and why she spent New Year alone. ...
David Stubbs: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 22 August 2014
Krautrock is a term that is bandied about alarmingly freely by bloggers, hipsters and, most of all, bands, desperate for its reflected cool — but ...
Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 16 October 2014
Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page (Genesis) Marianne Faithfull: Marianne Faithfull – A Life on Record (Rizzoli) Chris Stein: Negative – Me, Blondie and the Advent ...
Comment by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 4 February 2015
With school music spending down and the benefits system crippled, the voices of pop have lost their bite. ...
Tracey Thorn: Naked at the Albert Hall – The Inside Story of Singing
Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 23 April 2015
Good vibrations: Tracey Thorn's new book crushes our ideas about what makes a good singer ...
Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 18 June 2015
That's Entertainment: My Life in the Jam Rick Buckler Omnibus Press, 384pp, £14.95 Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams and Drugs with the Grateful Dead Bill ...
The Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse: Mawkish Tabloid Fare: How the Amy Winehouse Film Fails
Film/DVD/TV Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 2 July 2015
This film laments the way Winehouse's life was intruded upon while relying on the same methods to create drama. ...
Terence Trent D'Arby: "I was killed when I was 27": the curious afterlife of Terence Trent D'Arby
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 October 2015
Terence Trent D'Arby's 1987 debut album sold a million copies in three days. The music press went mad for him. Where was there to go ...
Ben Ratliff: Every Song Ever/John Seabrook: The Song Machine and other new books
Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 13 May 2016
The digital revolution has turned pop into a world of smart playlists and surprise albums. Yet the way we engage with music remains remarkably similar. ...
Jeff Beck: The £7m fingers: how Jeff Beck became a guitar hero by saying no
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 22 July 2016
Kate Mossman talks to Jeff Beck about escaping Eric Clapton's shadow, dodging fame, and why he can't go and see Pat Metheny. ...
Björk: In Björk Digital, you become the singer's ex-lover – and there's no looking away
Report by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 September 2016
Björk's new experiment takes music of claustrophobic unhappiness and shifts it into a relentless, dynamic world. ...
Jon Bon Jovi on Trump, Bono, Bieber — and the agony of his split with Richie Sambora
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 November 2016
IT'S SOMETHING unheard of in the modern PR junket, but Jon Bon Jovi interviews are running early. Breaks have been built into his day but ...
David Hajdu: Love for Sale/Marc Meyers: Anatomy of a Song/ Ed Ward: History of Rock'n'Roll, Vol. 1
Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 14 January 2017
For decades, white male critics have championed white male rock. Can a new school of writing re-evaluate the history of pop music? ...
Glen Campbell: Kate Mossman on extreme pop tourism: who would fly 5,000 miles for a gig?
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 22 March 2017
Glen Campbell's daughter says, "Dad, she's come 5,000 miles to see you!" I add, "How sad is that?" ...
KISS: What happened when Kiss went to Moscow
Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 May 2017
WHEN GENE SIMMONS decided he wanted to be a rock star, he made a deal with his mother: be in a band but show me how ...
Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan: "Why I don't understand my own band"
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 June 2017
WHEN NEIL TENNANT of the Pet Shop Boys was the assistant editor of Smash Hits, he made the following observation: ...
Paul Simon: Kate Mossman on Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints
Memoir by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 16 December 2017
WHEN I WAS TEN, we entered a raffle at an ice rink and won a holiday to the south of France. ...
Slade: Dave Hill: So Here It Is (Unbound)
Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 22 December 2017
THE EXCLAMATION mark in biography is a peculiar thing. It leaps from the page like a spark from a bomb, but it is jollier, perkier, ...
Beck: "I miss people. I have a longing for connection and human contact": Life on Planet Beck
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 30 January 2018
THE CHILSTON PARK Hotel in Lenham, Kent, was once owned by Judith and Martin Miller, the antiques stars of the '80s who wrote the Miller's ...
Lisa Stansfield: "Some women will shag anything to get anywhere"
Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 15 February 2018
She was the biggest British female soul star of the Nineties. At 51, she's back and ready to let loose. ...
The lost world of the music weekly: Why NME was the last of an extinct species
Comment by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 14 March 2018
ONE EVENING IN the late 1980s, returning from my part-time job teaching "scallies" ethnomethodology in Skelmersdale, I opened a letter with a London postmark. It was ...
Arctic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 17 May 2018
Space is the place where Alex Turner can let his solipsistic weirdness emerge. ...
Electronic shock treatment: how dance music was born
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 11 July 2018
30 years on from 1988's Second Summer of Love, a flurry of eye-witness accounts of the rise of electronic dance music are hitting shelves. ...
Ariana Grande: How Ariana Grande floated free
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 29 August 2018
Grande has lifted the weight of the Manchester terror attack with a collection of gloriously oddball, career-changing pop songs. ...
Lily Allen: My Thoughts Exactly
Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 26 September 2018
Allen details countless horrors, including a stalker entering her bedroom at night, waking up as a record industry executive attempted to rape her, and the ...
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 10 October 2018
Grant represents a very human set of contradictions. In his songs, horrific experiences are set alongside transcendent ones; cynicism alongside childlike wonder ...
Queen: The cartoon unreality of Bohemian Rhapsody reveals how Queen see themselves
Film/DVD/TV Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 25 October 2018
This is a group who wrote their songs not for personal reasons but with tens of thousands of people in mind. ...
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 28 November 2018
SHORTLY BEFORE THE end of her gig last week at the Hammersmith Apollo, Héloïse Letissier, in bra and trousers, ran from the upper circle back ...
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 December 2018
She has written hits for Rihanna, Cher and Christina Aguilera — and she's been dropped by a series of major labels. Is it finally time for ...
Memoir by Paul Morley, New Statesman, 6 December 2018
I became the writer I wanted to be writing from a city that reacted the quickest and smartest to the lurid poetics of the Sex ...
Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen, Pet Shop Boys: When song lyrics become literature
Essay by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 2 January 2019
From Pet Shop Boys to Kate Bush, pop stars are publishing their songs as books. What do their words reveal about them? ...
David Bowie, John Lennon, Keith Richards: Mike Roberts: How Art Made Pop (And Pop Became Art)
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 16 January 2019
From Roxy Music to Florence and the Machine, a new book chronicles the long, fertile and symbiotic relationship between pop music and the art schools ...
Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar)
Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 January 2019
In Van Etten's new album, life's mess is powerful and holding it all in your arms is a creative act. ...
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 10 April 2019
Bell was an openly gay pop star "bubbling up from Boy George and Jimmy Somerville", in an era when pop stars weren't openly gay. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 4 July 2019
How mythmakers shaped the music scene. ...
Lana Del Rey: How the world caught up with Lana Del Rey
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 October 2019
When Lana Del Rey emerged, she was attacked for being inauthentic. But her strange brand of brooding, bruised Americana now seems to fit the times. ...
The Beatles: Why the Beatles' Abbey Road reigns supreme 50 years on
Retrospective by David Hepworth, New Statesman, 9 October 2019
The interesting thing about the 1969 record is that it is bigger now than it was then. ...
Memoir by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 19 October 2019
I tell Galen that I found interviewing her father strangely upsetting and she says, "then we are the same." ...
Patrick Cowley's pioneering electronica
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 30 October 2019
Today, Patrick Cowley is barely known outside record-collecting circles: but his ecstatic electronic disco left an indelible mark on the music scene. ...
Why we should mourn the loss of Q magazine
Retrospective by David Hepworth, New Statesman, 22 July 2020
The music title was a thrill-ride at the front and a good shopping guide at the back. ...
Chick Corea: How Chick Corea shaped a jazz generation
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 24 February 2021
The pianist, who died in February, was one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion — a deeply misunderstood genre. ...
Joni Mitchell: "I didn't want anyone to know it was me": On being Joni Mitchell's 'Carey'
Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 17 December 2021
For 50 years, the "mean old daddy" immortalised in one of Mitchell's best-loved songs has been an enigma. Now he tells his side of the ...
Sheku Kanneh-Mason: "The cello is a part of you"
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 7 September 2022
The 23-year-old has already played for the royals and tackled the Elgar Cello Concerto. Where does he go from here? ...
Björk: Greta Thunberg and Björk in conversation
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 17 October 2022
The world's leading voice for climate action and its most original singer-songwriter discuss greenwashing, fame, Cop27, music and the matriarchy. ...
Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song
Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 1 November 2022
In The Philosophy of Modern Song, 62 of the 66 featured songs are performed by men. Is the 81-year-old songwriter still intent on provocation? ...
Madonna, William Orbit: William Orbit: "If you confound Madonna, a red mist comes down"
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 15 November 2022
The producer worked his magic with Britney Spears, All Saints and Blur. In his sixties a drug binge and breakdown forced him to reassess. ...
Nick Cave: "I don't think art should be in the hands of the virtuous"
Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 24 November 2022
The musician on why Morrissey matters, his deepening faith and grieving for his sons. ...
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones: The return of the Beatles vs Stones wars
Retrospective by David Hepworth, New Statesman, 24 February 2023
As news of a Rolling Stones album featuring Paul McCartney appears, the press reignites a culture war it confected. ...
Elton John, Bernie Taupin: Bernie Taupin: Scattershot – Life, Music, Elton, and Me
Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 17 September 2023
Bernie Taupin: good lyricist, bad writer. The songs he wrote with Elton John may be works of art. His bloated memoir is not. ...
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