Select
Select was a monthly music magazine published in the UK. It was founded in 1990 and closed in 2001, and was focused on Britpop.
195 articles
List of articles in the library
Review by Richard Cook, Select, July 1990
KATYDIDS sound at first like they're mining a vintage seam of British pop craft, winsome and shy one moment, vigorous the next. ...
Mazzy Star: She Hangs Brightly
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, July 1990
MAZZY STAR is the latest project of David Roback, a seminal, limelight-shunning Los Angeles underground figure who put together the original Rain Parade in the ...
Prince: Select: The Best Of Prince 1979-1989
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, July 1990
I MET PRINCE ONCE. It was at the main airport in Los Angeles. Walking towards my flight I glanced over my shoulder and realised that, ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, July 1990
FIVE YEARS ago, had you put the idea of a greatest hits compilation by The Bangles up for serious consideration, you'd have been whipped off ...
Brand New Heavies: The Brand New Heavies: The Brand New Heavies
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, July 1990
THE BRAND NEW HEAVIES, after an early association with fellow rare groove outfit Diana Brown And The Brothers, came together in the late 70s. They ...
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, July 1990
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN the irresistible rise of Soul II Soul and dance music's nationalisation of the charts, The Chimes have been lost In the shuffle. A ...
Review by Mike Barnes, Select, July 1990
IT IS SOBERING to realise that a number of bands who have been plucked from nowhere to be critically lauded have actually been inhabiting nowhere ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, July 1990
MAKING A MOCKERY OF MANCHESTER WHEN THE MOCK TURTLES first peeked out of Manchester, with 1988's totally ignored Pomona EP, they were probably too busy rehearsing ...
Anita Baker: Compositions - A Return To Rapture
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, August 1990
FOR THE first time since her elevation to the forefront of female vocalists, Anita Baker has begun writing her own material. Furthermore, in an attempt ...
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, August 1990
THEY CAN'T win, Bad Company. In the 70s. anyone who harboured a hope of hipness roundly lambasted their swaggering rock style. Two decades on, suddenly ...
Jill Sobule: Things Here Are Different
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, August 1990
IT'S STILL a guarantee of something, a Todd Rundgren production credit. Whether it's been XTC, The Pursuit Of Happiness or Bourgeois Tagg, they've always had ...
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, August 1990
IT TOOK Magnum a decade's-worth of albums to reach the stage of automatic entry into the Top 40 singles chart, as they did three times ...
The B-52s: Dance This Mess Around
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1990
THE B-52's have had a best of on the cards ever since 'Love Shack' jitterbugged (or was it the aqua-velva?) its way up the charts ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1990
PICK UP a 12-string these days and just watch those sneaky Byrds put-downs form in the corners of cynical mouths. But it's a fair point ...
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, September 1990
DURAN DURAN, like most early '80s hygienic post-punk pop, played alongside current chart hits has you yearning for stuff you hated first time round. Compare ...
Ice Cube: AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, September 1990
FOR A WHILE THERE, Ice Cube's abusive and inflammatory lyrics came over like harmless cartoon sketches of life in American's black underclass. ...
Peter Blegvad: King Strut And Other Stories
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, September 1990
HE'S BEEN in all the right bands (Golden Palominos, Slapp Happy) and some of the wrong ones (Henry Cow), but Peter Blegvad has stayed on ...
Poison: Flesh And Blood (Enigma)
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, September 1990
THE CHALLENGE for Poison was to fulfill the corporate responsibility, having sold Open Up And Say... Aaah! to five million Americans, and still kick the ...
Review by Penny Reel, Select, September 1990
IT IS an irony that The Dubliners should have come to prominence with Seven Drunken Nights in 1967, the same year that Dermot OBriens IRA ...
The Neville Brothers: Brother's Keeper
Review by Richard Cook, Select, September 1990
NEW ORLEANS is a difficult place to characterise, at least as far as its music is concerned. Ernie K-Doe, the veteran R&B singer and one ...
The Pointer Sisters: Right Rhythm
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, September 1990
TOPSY-TURVY would seem to be the phrase. Along come the soulful sisters Pointer from Oakland. California in the '70s and produce some blistering singles like ...
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, September 1990
THESE WERE the bad guys in Purple Rain, which was just a movie, so it doesn't mean that they treat Prince like shit in real ...
2 Live Crew: As Clean As They Wanna Be (Luke)
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, October 1990
WASHING DIRTY LINEN IN PUBLIC ...
Prince: Burning His Bridges: Prince: Graffiti Bridge (Paisley Park) **
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, October 1990
THE FIRST SINGLE from Graffiti Bridge, 'Thieves In The Temple', compared to Prince's past endeavours, is no more than a nominally interesting B-side. And it ...
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Select, October 1990
Can girl groups be taken seriously and is there brains behind the beauty? Tough R&B hitmakers EN VOGUE put the politics into pop and make ...
Review by Neil Perry, Select, October 1990
WITH ALL the charm of a graduate from the Pol Pot school of tact and diplomacy, hardcore outlaw Dave Mustaine limped away from Megadeth's last ...
Monie Love: Down To Earth (Warner Bros.)
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, October 1990
FEMINIST RAPPER Monie Love uses the word "sister" so much as a term of spiritual endearment to all creatures feminine that it's a dead givaway ...
The Monochrome Set: Dante's Casino
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1990
WHAT A TURN UP FOR THE BOOKS. The Monochrome Set, never a band to pay any heed to the prevailing pop climate, have reformed. Now ...
Robert Cray: The Robert Cray Band: Midnight Stroll
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, October 1990
THE CHIPS were well and truly down for Robert Cray this time. It was felt that 1988's Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark had him ...
Review by Neil Perry, Select, November 1990
HAILING FROM New York's South Bronx, 24-7 Spyz occupy a space midway between Bad Brains and Living Colour, and a damn good space it is ...
Iron Maiden: No Prayer For The Dying
Review by Neil Perry, Select, November 1990
CONSIDERING THAT Iron Maiden are Britain's most successful homegrown HM act — Def Leppard had to ship out to the States and then return like ...
Slayer: Seasons In The Abyss (Def American) *****
Review by Neil Perry, Select, November 1990
ALL THE BIG BOYS have come out to prove themselves this year. Following recent triumphant reaffirmations of metallic prowess from Anthrax and Megadeath, a sledgehammer ...
The Vaughan Brothers: Family Style
Review by Neil Perry, Select, November 1990
SIX WEEKS ago, after making his regular tour-guest appearance at an Eric Clapton gig in Wisconsin, Texan blues guitar genius Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, November 1990
THIS ALBUM took five years to make. It sounds like it took a week and a half. How do ZZ Top do it? And, for ...
Big Daddy Kane: A Taste Of Chocolate
Review by Paolo Hewitt, Select, December 1990
WHEN BIG Daddy Kane released his debut LP, Long Live The Kane, in 1988, his producer Marley Marl's emphasis on slower beats and rhymes meant ...
Review by John Aizlewood, Select, December 1990
HOWE GELB is the caretaker of a small desert motel near the Joshua Tree National Park in America's still Wild West. Every few months he ...
Review by Neil Perry, Select, December 1990
STRETCHING FOR a tag to pin on offbeat Texan trio King's X, impressed but bemused hacks settled uncomfortably for New Age Metal. Which conjures up ...
Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: Life's A Beach
Interview by Neil Perry, Select, December 1990
In Public Image Limited's 12 years at pop's outer limits — a career now highlighted on a compilation LP — John Lydon's lifestyle has become ...
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, December 1990
IN THE 12 MONTHS since they bid us Welcome To The Beautiful South, the perplexing popsters have been pretty low-profile, taking a measured approach to ...
Alton Ellis: Alton and Hortense Ellis: Alton and Hortense Ellis
Review by Penny Reel, Select, January 1991
THE COMMANDING voice of Alton Ellis has been a constant feature in popular Jamaican music for over a quarter of a century and his classic ...
Cinderella: Heartbreak Station
Review by Neil Perry, Select, January 1991
A LOT of people have probably been put off by the name, expecting a super-tacky hairspray 'n' lip-gloss LA glam outfit, but Cinderella are among ...
Eurythmics, Annie Lennox: Annie Lennox: Who's That Girl?
Profile and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Select, February 1991
Never afraid to experiment and shock, Annie Lennox has paraded a succession of challenging images during the last decade — from androgynous hedonist to caring ...
David Lee Roth: A Little Ain't Enough
Review by Neil Perry, Select, February 1991
IT'S BEEN a long time coming, this third solo LP from the Peter Pan of rock. Was it worth the wait? ...
Holger Czukay: Radio Wave Surfer
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, February 1991
THE MAESTRO'S really gone on an extended lunch hour this time. Radio Wave Surfer, the latest in a sporadic series of album bulletins from rock's ...
Jesus Jones: Doubt (Food/Parlophone)
Review by Neil Perry, Select, February 1991
SO FAR, so good. Jesus Jones have done all the right things — or at least all the right things have happened to them — ...
Marc Almond, Soft Cell, The The: The Bizzare Adventures of Stevo
Interview by Paul Sexton, Select, February 1991
Bank managers chase after him, record company chiefs live in fear of him trashing their offices, but STEVO somehow manages to survive, along with one of the most ...
Jesus Loves You: The Martyr Mantras
Review by Lucy O'Brien, Select, March 1991
BOY GEORGE, the good Catholic boy, swaps the symbolism of the Vatican and the crucifix for the rich sensuality of Hindu splendour. ...
Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine (Island)
Review by Neil Perry, Select, March 1991
TWO YEARS ago, Trent Reznor locked himself in a studio and took a long, hard digitally-sequenced look into his soul. Pretty Hate Machine was the ...
Interview by Neil Perry, Select, March 1991
With their new LP, Arise, Sepultura are poised to gatecrash the major metal league. And with their raucous mix of rage and rock the boys ...
Tanita Tikaram: Everybody's Angel
Review by Paul Sexton, Select, March 1991
THE STATISTICS — a number two album, world tours, etc — make it seem as though 1990 and 'The Sweet Keeper' were further TT triumphs ...
Throwing Muses: The Real Ramona
Review by Mike Barnes, Select, March 1991
4AD SHOULD really come clean and put Play Loud stickers on copies of The Real Ramona. ...
Review by Lucy O'Brien, Select, April 1991
YOU HAVE to hand it to them. On first hearing, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' just seemed to be insipid pop, the nadir of the cover version. ...
Chickasaw Mudd Puppies: 8 Track Stomp
Review by Mike Barnes, Select, April 1991
MICHAEL STIPE'S production involvement with Chickasaw Mudd Puppies has given them welcome exposure. Still, the duo from Athens, Georgia, would like to be remembered for ...
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, April 1991
MORE TWISTED tales from the cynical heart of America between the wars (Vietnam and this one), or at least between girlfriends — the weird ones. ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, April 1991
THIS IS an album that starts with falling rain and finishes with a 16-year-old girl tossing herself off a bridge. Welcome to a world of ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, April 1991
JACK FROST is a collaboration between two notable Australian pop classicists, former Go-Between Grant McLennan and Steve Kilbey, singer/bassist with The Church. ...
Boy George, Culture Club, Jesus Loves You: Jesus Loves You: The Last Temptation of Boy George
Report and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Select, April 1991
Four years ago BOY GEORGE'S world crashed, his career in shreds as he struggled to come off heroin. He became a bitter, paranoid recluse, shunning the same media he'd once courted. In this rare interview, ...
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Select, April 1991
Once the Bristol dance trio were Massive Attack, now they're just MASSIVE but aim to be huge with 'Unfinished Sympathy', their new single. They're also ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, April 1991
IT'S TEMPTING to see The Godfathers' career as one delicious vicious circle. No fame means no money, and no money means no fun. The more ...
Womack and Womack: Womack & Womack: Family Spirit
Review by Lucy O'Brien, Select, April 1991
WHEN THE Womacks play live there's usually a dog, a cat, several children and a mouth organ on stage. They're the original hippy couple, spreading ...
Kurtis Mantronik, Mantronix: Mantronix: Into The Heart Of The Man Machine
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Select, May 1991
In his native US, KURTIS MANTRONIK is something of a mystery. But in the UK, with his group MANTRONIX, he's hailed as a pioneer of ...
Rain Tree Crow: Rain Tree Crow
Review by Mark Sinker, Select, May 1991
RAIN TREE CROW may be a one-off reformation of Japan, but they wouldn't want to be trapped by any of the preconceptions in that. The ...
Violent Femmes: Why Do Birds Sing?
Review by Mike Barnes, Select, May 1991
WHY DO BIRDS SING? is the long-awaited follow up to 3, Violent Femmes' fourth LP from 1988. Although it runs the spectrum of their past ...
Review by John McCready, Select, June 1991
BAABA MAAL is best known in Africa as an exponent of Senegalese folk music, which he plays on guitar, fora and riti. Something of a ...
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, June 1991
NO LESSER pop pundits than Ian Broudie and Tony Wilson have thrown their lot in with Edinburgh's Wendys. And judging by this debut LP the ...
Morrissey: Wake Me When It's Over
Interview by Mark Kemp, Select, July 1991
The Manchester scene is press-created, shallow, turgid, "a shuddering disappointment". Dance music has destroyed everything, it's "totally shocking and revolting". You are Morrissey and 1991 ...
The Wedding Present: Seamonsters
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, July 1991
JILTED, JADED AND USED, David Gedge is back and thirsty for the taste of revenge. The bad news for those who've crossed him is that ...
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, August 1991
MOMUS (AKA NICHOLAS CURRIE) is way, way out there. A wicked pop weasel whose poisoned Euro-pop fizzes with animal sex, human sex and cannibalism. His ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1991
FORGIVE THE PATRONISING TONE if you know this already, but some of the best music of the last ten years has come from New Zealand. ...
Transvision Vamp: The Little Magnets Versus The Bubble Of Babble
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1991
AS THE DIFFICULT QUESTIONS mount up for Wendy James, it's a bitter irony that Truth Or Dare: In Bed With Madonna has arrived to emphasise ...
The Blue Aeroplanes: Beatsongs
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, September 1991
WHEN THE BLUE AEROPLANES were in Los Angeles earlier this year recording Beatsongs — and that's all they were doing there, let's make that quite ...
Alan Vega: Power On To Zero Hour
Review by Mike Barnes, Select, October 1991
THROUGHOUT ALAN VEGA'S CAREER, from Suicide in the mid/late '70s to the present day, he has always had a strong, inherent grasp of the essence ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1991
AND GUESS WHAT: they were right. It is special. The four Blur boys have guaranteed themselves a hefty leg-up in the being-taken-seriously stakes with the thrills ...
Nanci Griffith: Late Night Grande Hotel
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, October 1991
INFAMOUS for posing for pictures with books by her favourite Southern authors — Larry McMurtry (Deep South epics) and Carson McCullers (Ballad Of The Sad ...
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This At Home
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, November 1991
ON 1988's Worker's Playtime LP, Billy Bragg was "Waiting for the great leap forwards". It's been a long time coming, but he's made that leap, ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, November 1991
JIM BEATTIE'S BIG ROCK 'N' ROLL TALKING is up there with his old Primal Scream oppo Bobby Gillespie's for brass nerve and self-belief. ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, December 1991
IF STRAITJACKET FITS were English they'd be stars by now. They're a better noise guitar band than anyone In the current Anglo-scheme, barring Ride: they're ...
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, January 1992
ICE CUBE IS NOT A MAN to mince his words. "Niggers," he declares solemnly during the introduction to 'Death Certificate', "are in a state of ...
Michael Jackson: Dangerous (Epic) *****
Review by William Shaw, Select, January 1992
HE LIVES on an estate called Neverland Valley, guarded by armed security. The driveway is lined with statues of naked cherubs. His most constant companion ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, January 1992
CONFUSION REIGNS. What Is their trip? Achtung Baby sounds very 1991, but only as the most tangential of bulletins from four musicians who've been holed ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, February 1992
HOW ON EARTH would you explain Lush's sound to aliens from another planet? Well, realistically, of course you wouldn't. You'd run away shouting "Aliens! Aliens!" ...
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, February 1992
AMERICAN SINGER/ SONGWRITER Tori Amos sounds a lot like Mary Margaret O'Hara and Victoria Williams. And while it'd be nice to think that whatever she ...
James: Seven — Booth's New Gold Dream: Are James mutating into Simple Minds?
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, March 1992
OF COURSE, there's more to life than Indie music — there's getting out and meeting people: there's having money: there's not having to submit yourself ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, April 1992
WHOO-EE. Really, you shouldn't have. As a gift to the world, Going Blank Again is a fully- fledged wow, a winner, a stunna, a glory ...
Lyle Lovett: Joshua Judges Ruth (MCA)
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, May 1992
LOVETT CALLS this his "gospel death" album — partly because there's a long song about how fun funerals are, how you get to see all ...
Mary Coughlan: Sentimental Killer (East West)
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, May 1992
IN TERMS of her accent, Coughlan is to Ireland what the Proclaimers are to Scotland. She has an almost conversational approach to jazz blues, singing ...
Michelle Shocked: Arkansas Traveller (London)
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, May 1992
SHE'S DUMPED the big band from 1990's Captain Swing and gone back to her mountain music roots — not folk whimsy but hardcore hillbilly stuff. ...
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, May 1992
PAUL HEATON hasn't had a whiff of the much bandied about teen spirit since disbanding The Housemartins. When he ditched every thinking bank clerk's favourite ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, June 1992
SOME DEBUT ALBUMS, of course, are more eagerly awaited than others. It would be hard to Imagine anyone chewing their nails to the quick waiting ...
Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (Big Cat)
Review by John Robb, Select, June 1992
WITH ENOUGH hints at the twin godheads of the Fall and the Velvets, Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted is an outstanding debut. ...
Report by William Shaw, Select, July 1992
It's the last grand gesture, the most heroic acts of self-destruction in the history of pop. And it's also Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's final ...
Review by John Robb, Select, August 1992
IN WHICH THE PERENNIAL UNDERDOGS go overground. In some ways Cud epitomise everything that's crap about guitar rock in 1992 — they're wilfully self-indulgent, deft ...
Prefab Sprout: Paddy McAloon – The Mild One
Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1992
WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE went for rhythm Paddy McAloon stuck with melody. He's got ten years of defiantly unrockist pop behind him and his next seven ...
The House Of Love: Babe Rainbow
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, August 1992
IT'S SOME STRANGE SECRET — probably one that only Guy Chadwick fully understands — how a band that have known such trauma and turmoil as ...
Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, September 1992
THEY'RE THE ADAM AND EVE of the New World Order, the First Couple of the rock 'n' roll underclass. For Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love ...
Review by Chris Heath, Select, September 1992
PLEASE BE UPSTANDING. Just when the memory of The Smiths is being rekindled by Best...1, an unsettlingly English Morrissey emerges triumphantly from his former band's ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, September 1992
SONIC YOUTH were the progenitors of American noise nouveau. Now they're back on top of the dirt-pile. ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, September 1992
AFTER LAST YEAR'S The Real Ramona, which seemed to please everybody at least some of the time, the Muses split in half. Tanya Donelly and bassist ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1992
WITH A THANK-YOU LIST that includes Les Paul. Kurt Cobain and Shonen Knife (just for being, y'know, themselves...) and a highly involved genealogy that takes ...
Pet Shop Boys: Hate – Neil Tennant on the Power of Negative Thinking
Comment by Neil Tennant, Select, October 1992
IF NOT FOR hatred, I wouldn't be doing what I do now. I became a pop star because I hated football at school. I hated ...
Sinead O'Connor: Am I Not Your Girl?
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, October 1992
WRITERS BLOCK? Contractual obligation? Or just a really long joke without the funny bit? Sinead O'Connor has made a record of cover versions of songs ...
Report and Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1992
Technicolour sensurround with a benevolent poltergeist on its shoulder. This is Spiritualized, and they call it soul music. ...
Nazi Noises: Right-Wing Rock in Europe
Report by Dave Rimmer, Select, November 1992
NOTE: This piece about Nazi rock music in Germany was commissioned and published by UK music magazine Select in autumn 1992. It ran alongside a ...
R.E.M.: Automatic For The People
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, November 1992
REM'S LATEST COLLECTION is a miraculously stripped-to-the-bone celebration of the sorrowful. It's here. It's ready. And it makes Out Of Time look like a collection of ...
Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, January 1993
PROVOCATIVE ENGLISH INDIE-NIHILISM, ANYONE? Kingmaker's American tour is dominated by Loz's one-man campaign on the "positive aspects" of topping yourself. And the rest of the ...
Review by Ted Kessler, Select, April 1993
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN revival finally kicks in! Adorable, Creation's mouthy four-piece, were clearly reared on a grim teenage diet of early '80s guitarbased angst — ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1993
IT'S SAID THAT The Smiths chose such a prosaic name to throw the fabulous, doomed glamour of their music into dramatic relief. Charles Thompson aka ...
Bob Mould, Sugar: Sugar: Beaster
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, May 1993
PRAISE BOB! He is! He is the Messiah! Amen to Sugar's six commandments ...
That Petrol Emotion: Fireproof
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, May 1993
IN 1989 Peter Buck told Sounds That Petrol Emotion was the band he would want to be in if he wasn't already in REM. Now ...
Wendy James: Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, May 1993
EVERYONE LIKES a happy ending. Only a churl or an inveterate cynic could begrudge Wendy her return to some degree of credibility with this her ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, June 1993
YOU'RE THE ONE FOR ME, PATTI... PJ Harvey's latest makes Dry (and Huggy Bear) seem like easy listening. Anguish, pain, fear, self-loathing, the horror... this'll ...
The House Of Love: Audience For The Mind
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, July 1993
THE SAGA KINKS, bizarrely even by their standards. Audience For The Mind, the official fourth House Of Love album, is upon us a mere year ...
Manic Street Preachers: Gold Against The Soul
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1993
THE MANICS go for gold with their all-mature second album. They're bach...with a vengeance! Attitude is the most overrated concept in modem pop. What it ...
The Boo Radleys: Giant Steps (Creation)
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, September 1993
THE KICKIN' STRIDE: BAM! BAMM! BAMM-M! FEE-FI-FO-FUM-M! I smell the blood of a Liverpudlian four-piece producing a 64-minute, 17 song epic that mutates before your ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1993
The Hell-Shaped Room Normal cervix will not be resumed. Phew! The speculation is over; and you thought that was difficult. Nirvana’s Albini-'recorded’ third album will ...
The Lemonheads: Lemonheads: Come On Feel The Lemonheads
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, November 1993
BEHOLD, THE SWEET TROLLEY ARRIVETH. The only problem about loving the Lemonheads is that there hasn't been enough new stuff over the last 18 months. ...
Pet Shop Boys: Very and Relentless
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, November 1993
WAY BACK WHEN, a sneering critic once challenged the writer F Scott Fitzgerald to write a novel in six words. Fitzgerald went away and came ...
The Boo Radleys: One Step Beyond?
Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, November 1993
WHEN THEY WERE KIDS, they'd sit in their bedrooms and run through their pop-star moves: getting off aeroplanes, waving at crowds, that sort of thing. ...
Pulp: Pulpintro — The Gift Recordings
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, December 1993
15 YEARS IN THE MAKING, yet Pulp's first "proper" LP is only a bits-and-bats package. For a band that's been going for 15 years, it's strange ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, December 1993
Pulp are the world's most patient overnight sensation... The punk rock roots in Sheffield. The naive first album. The naive second album. Moz envy. The wheelchair. Art ...
Report and Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, December 1993
"QUIET AT THE BACK! Mr Dando can sit here all day if he needs to..." Follow the increasingly knackered, confused and generally non-linear Lemonheads from ...
Björk — "I only really grew up two years ago."
Interview by Martin Aston, Select, January 1994
NOBODY WILL DARE SAY 'elfin' again... Few had much time for Bjork and her quirky solo project this time last year. There she goes, they ...
Interview by David Cavanagh, Select, February 1994
SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR... Last year the Auteurs missed the Top 40 by one place and had the Mercury Prize snatched from under ...
Elastica, Suede: This is the Future: Elastica — the Bash Street Kids
Profile and Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, February 1994
Elastica: noise and girls come out to play... ...
Report and Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, February 1994
Teetotal, or total pissheads? Who drinks what, and what does it say about them? Select goes on the ale (strictly for research purposes, of course) ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, March 1994
….AND DID THOSE FEET IN ANCIENT TIME stomp some cops... during the Miners' Strike, lay into a Nazi or two and then head south in ...
Review by Elaine Cusack, Select, March 1994
NOW BEFORE YOU START, just prepare to swallow your words if you've only ever seen Pavement as a band with a Fall fixation and a ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1994
THE TROUBLE WITH Saint Etienne is they're too clever. And this should be said while wiping the lager foam from your lips and turning over ...
Pavement: Stephen Malkmus of Pavement
Interview by Elaine Cusack, Select, April 1994
AS AN AMERICAN, what do you think of the sex scandals that are sweeping British politics? Does it matter If an MP gets his rocks ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: The Ballad of Redditch Jail
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1994
If a star goes 'inside', it's usually for drugs or drink driving. Not so for Rob Collins of the Charlatans. He went for a quiet ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, May 1994
ROCK MUSIC likes to think of itself as radical, revolutionary and scarily anarchistic, but really it's so arse-clenchingly conservative it must leave Portillo and Lilley ...
Erasure: Super Stereo Brothers
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, June 1994
Erasure: the electronic Status Quo, or bleep-pop's High Score? Insert Coin for three rounds with Mr Andy Bell! ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, July 1994
CAN TECHNO ever really be about anything? Or, should we say, about anything more meaningful than fluffy clouds and getting substantially out of it. Than ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, July 1994
AT FIRST GLANCE it looks like history repeating itself. The hegemony of a bunch of well-fed. critically-sanctioned dopeheads assaulted by the authentic, splenetic roar of ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1994
Glamour! Sex! Unlimited platinum credit accounts at Top Shop! Insurrectionist teenage punkettes Shampoo want all of these things and more. Is there a Svengali in ...
Suede: Bark Psychosis: Suede: Dog Man Star (Nude) ****
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, November 1994
Introducing the ban… Oh, too late! But rejoice! Brett and co have made high drama out of their crisis. ...
The Flying Medallions, Stereolab, Suede, Take That, Tiny Monroe, Voodoo Queens: Take That and Indie?
Report and Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, December 1994
What happens when a quintet of indie deities meet the locus of teen-lust that is Take That? Will they cop off? Will they agree to ...
Blur: Band of the Year: Blur — The comforts of ladness
Interview by William Shaw, Select, January 1995
Despite late competition from Oasis, only one band truly defined 1994. Coming back from the dead with cultural analysis set to chirpy tunes, Blur were ...
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, January 1995
For 18-year-old A-level dodger RICHARD OAKES from Dorset, opportunity knocks! (in the person of SUEDE) ...
Aphex Twin — You don't have to be made to work here…but it helps.
Interview by William Shaw, Select, May 1995
Richard "Aphex Twin" James is branching out these days. Now he creates challenging sounds by using a Black & Decker sander on a stereo stylus. ...
Blur, Oasis: Blur vs. Oasis: What's the story?
Report by Siân Pattenden, Select, October 1995
We know who won the Blur-versus-Oasis singles showdown. But who trounced who in the media-othon? Sian Pattenden adds 'em up. ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1995
THE JOY OF ESSEX. The suburbs are still rotting on the sequel to Parklife. ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Raging Bill
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, December 1995
It's just impossible being in the Smashing Pumpkins. No one understands, you see, what it is to be spokesman for a tortured and romantic Generation ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Select, March 1996
A STANDARD semi-detached on Oxford's fashionably downbeat Cowley Road appears an unlikely HQ for the UK's "hottest new band" (copyright the typically finger-not-on-the-pulse Today newspaper) ...
Live Review by Siân Pattenden, Select, March 1996
I SHOULD SOLO — Spike Island for the 'Cigs & Alcohol' generation ...
Stereolab: It's The Sugarcubists!
Report by Siân Pattenden, Select, April 1996
OK, it isn't really. Only Stereolab would concoct a promo video set at a fictional 1930s surrealists' drug convention ...
Oasis: C'mon America...Let's Ave Yer! Seven Mental Nights On The Oasis Tourbus
Report by Paolo Hewitt, Select, May 1996
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES of their plane taking off for Kansas, Oasis have assumed battle positions. Liam Gallagher is in the toilet with a couple of ...
Interview by Paul Elliott, Select, June 1996
Soundgarden's Chris Cornell muses on alcohol, nuns and The Presidents of The United States of America. ...
Tribal Gathering: Whose Land Is It Anyway?
Report by William Shaw, Select, July 1996
The residents of Otmoor hated it. The good citizens of Beckley insisted it should be halted. Members of The Woodland Trust claimed it would cause ...
R.E.M.: New Adventures In Hi-Fi
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, October 1996
GEORGIAN SPLENDOUR. After Monster's lumpy grunge, REM's tenth studio LP find them back on song. ...
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, November 1996
Punk rock. Splendid A-level results. Sponsorship by Boots No 7. Hail the sound of young Sunderland... ...
Kenickie: Our Friends in the North East
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, March 1997
In the greasy spoons of Sunderland, it was just a dream — but with a god-given combination of luck, talent and peroxide, Kenickie became trainee ...
Robbie Williams: "I am not a pie eater!"
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, May 1997
...well, you must like your chips, then. Robbie Williams has seen better times. The post-That fallout began at Glasto '95 and spiralled into an 18-month ...
Marilyn Manson: Hello. I am the Antichrist…
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, June 1997
Welcome to the demonic, human-bone smokin' domain of Marilyn Manson — a realm of serial killers, outré drugs and Top Five albums that has America ...
Radiohead: Ground control to Major Thom — Radiohead: OK Computer (Parlophone)
Review by John Harris, Select, July 1997
Neurosis, steel, glass, Random Access Memory — welcome to The Future Sound Of Radiohead ...
Radiohead: "Everything was just fear"
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, July 1997
"Pop is dead," they once sang. Now with "Pop" floundering, Radiohead return with a scary new album of stadium-sized space rock, ready to prove all ...
Courtney Love: You Shall Go To The Ball
Comment by Caitlin Moran, Select, January 1998
After Larry Flynt, the new-look Courtney has gatecrashed Hollywood. She has a health guru, hangs out with Madonna and may call her new album 'Malibu'. ...
Jane's Addiction: The emperor's old clothes: Jane's Addiction: Kettle Whistle (WEA) **
Review by Caitlin Moran, Select, January 1998
The Prodigy, Nirvana — Jane's Addiction invented them. Pity their "comeback" album's a diabolical anti-climax ...
The Verve: Follow The Yellow Brick Road
Retrospective by Martin Aston, Select, March 1998
The Verve's astonishing eight-year pilgrimage has been littered with drugs, dehydration, mental breakdown and six-month lasagne binges. Now, somewhere over the rainbow, the world belongs ...
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, April 1998
She's never tempted by Chicken Tonight, is haunted by Michael Hutchence, her bum isn't too small and she thinks 10am is too early to talk ...
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, May 1998
All-singing? All-dancing? You're joking. By rights, Cornershop should be basking in their new-found celebrity — instead, Tjinder and Ben are either crying into their pints ...
Elastica: When you're stuck like glue...
Report by John Harris, Select, May 1998
Rumours and controversy abound. Where exactly is the Elastica album? Last month, a certain member of an up-and-coming female-fronted act was telling anyone who'd listen, ...
The Bluetones: Return To The Last Chance Saloon (Superior Quality Recordings) ***
Review by Caitlin Moran, Select, May 1998
This album contains the immortal line, "Maybe the sky will fall/And maybe kill us all/Or just the very tall". ...
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, May 1998
Plucked from obscurity at a London nightclub, Sophie Ellis Bextor is all set to become the glam icon of '98. theaudience have been artfully sculpted ...
Tricky: Angels With Dirty Faces
Review by Simon Price, Select, June 1998
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Exposing music biz hypocrisy or biting the hand that feeds him? Tricky turns virus in the industry apparatus. ...
Smashing Pumpkins: The Smashing Pumpkins: From Genesis to Revelation
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, July 1998
The Smashing Pumpkins have built themselves a truly biblical myth. Now, Select offers them the chance to rip it up. Result? A 15-point fandango starring ...
Placebo: "I Thought I Was Good At Handling Pussy"
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, October 1998
ROCK LIFE TOOK ITS TOLL on Placebo. They indulged themselves shamefully, spent a fortune on chemicals, and "fucked themselves empty". Worse still, guns were pulled ...
Review and Interview by Mike Barnes, Select, November 1998
THE FOURTH ALBUM from the US six-piece who now make their home in America's Catskill Mountains. In last month's Select Ed Chemical Brother described Deserter's ...
Built To Spill: Keep It Like A Secret
Review by Roy Wilkinson, Select, March 1999
FIFTH ALBUM from Doug Martsch's Idaho-based alterna-rockers. This album sees BTS's first settled rhythm section, with drummer Scott Plouf joining bassist Brett Nelson. Plouf used ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1999
WE JOIN the story in the autumn of 1995. 'Country House' has beaten 'Roll With It' to Number One and the critics are in short-lived ...
Primal Scream: "I Am A Drug Addict"
Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, February 2000
Primal Scream are off the smack (but not the speed, coke and E) and on a mission – kill Sporty Spice, kick the shit out ...
Cat Power: The Covers Record (Matador) ***
Review by Toby Manning, Select, April 2000
The fifth album from Atlanta's Chan Marshall is a collection of songs by — amongst others — Smog, Dylan, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. ...
Review by Roy Wilkinson, Select, April 2000
THIS FOLLOW-UP to 1998's The Good Will Out album was recorded with Trisan Norwell in London, Leeds and Gloucestershire. Perhaps inspired by his work with ...
Review by Dorian Lynskey, Select, April 2000
DEBUT FROM 20-year-old New Yorker Kelis ("kayleese") Rogers, the female voice on Puff Daddy's 'PE 2000' and Old Dirty Bastard's 'Got Your Money'. ...
Six By Seven: The Closer You Get
Review by Pat Long, Select, May 2000
Nottingham quintet's "fast, furious, angry" follow-up to 1998's underachieving The Things We Make album. ...
Review by Toby Manning, Select, June 2000
All-Welsh album, the title meaning "horse's mane". "It's an extension of a super furry animal," singer Gruff explains. ...
The Delgados: Glasgow Derangers
Profile and Interview by Pat Long, Select, June 2000
The Delgados have gone from mad to made-it. After much heartache, the cycle-pathic Chemikal Underground label boses have produced a psychedelic tour-de-force in new album ...
Yo La Tengo: The Belcourt Theater, Nashville
Live Review by Toby Manning, Select, June 2000
COMPLETELY DOMINATING the bare-brick basement that is Yo La Tengo's Nashville dressing room is one of the largest, most gourmet riders ever to grace a ...
Badly Drawn Boy: This Charming Man
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, July 2000
Floral tributes please for Badly Drawn Boy: incurable romantic, nicotine addict and, quite probably, the best songwriter in the world... ...
Bentley Rhythm Ace: For Your Ears Only
Review and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, July 2000
Three years on from their eponymous debut, Midlands men Richard March and Mike Stokes release the follow-up. Features former Black Grape vocalist Kermit on two ...
Graham Coxon: The Blur Switch Project
Profile and Interview by Pat Long, Select, July 2000
No more teen adulation for Blur's guitarist. On his new solo LP, Graham Coxon is going underground. ...
Interview by Pat Long, Select, July 2000
Come to grandaddy and exult in their eccentric, heartfelt sounds ...
Leftfield: X-tra Limmathaus. Zurich
Live Review by Toby Manning, Select, July 2000
"THE ENGINEER'S been and had a look," winces Leftfield's Neil Barnes, taking a pained sip of coffee. "It's still not working." It seems Leftfield are ...
The Dandy Warhols: Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
Review by Toby Manning, Select, July 2000
The third album from the Portland, Oregon, quartet perhaps best known for keyboard player Zia's insistence on revealing her breasts onstage. ...
Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP (Aftermath/Interscope) *****
Review by Dorian Lynskey, Select, August 2000
Liberal-baiting rap superstar returns with autobiographical outing, officially the second fastest-selling album ever. ...
Placebo: Fitter. Happier. More Productive
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, August 2000
THEY USED TO BADMOUTH everyone and flash their nipples in photographs. Now they've got politics, listen to Primal Scream and always sleep with the same ...
Brothers in Sound: Are We Slack Enough For You?
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, October 2000
"YES, WE ARE as slack as we appear," confesses Brothers In Sound's Paul Hanford with a you've-rumbled-us-guv shrug. "We need people to organise us getting ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, October 2000
Soup Is Blood! Tony Blair's Baby Was Born At Sea! Finley Ouaye Is Reborn As A Manic Street Preacher And He'll Smack You If You ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, November 2000
Inclement weather. Iffy gig. Coldplay's sojourn to Portugal's Paredes De Coura Festival was no holiday in the sun ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, November 2000
MUSE'S MATT BELLAMY, what's with the blue hair? ...
Roni Size and Reprazent: Reprazent: In The Mode (One Little Indian)
Review by Toby Manning, Select, November 2000
Mercury-winning Bristol drum'n'bass gang. Features guest spots from Zack De La Rocha and Method Man. ...
Sophie Ellis-Bextor: "I'm number one … so why try harder?"
Interview by Toby Manning, Select, November 2000
One day you're the ex-singer of a forgotten indie band. The next, you're Number One and embroiled in a tabloid bitch fight with Posh Spice. ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, January 2001
...or alternatively, look the other way, mumble about how no-one really likes you and worry about losing your hair. Coldplay are Britain's biggest new band ...
Kelis: Seeking Tuneage Kicks With... Kelis
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, January 2001
Space-age R&8 queen Kelis laughs long and loud about organ donation, Muse and why Tom Jones ruins her day. But what's her... ...
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