Andy Gill
544 articles
List of articles in the library
Dr. Feelgood, The George Hatcher Band: Dr Feelgood: City Hall, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 25 September 1976
HERE IN Sheffield there's a local aphorism along the lines of "Tha' works 'ard, so bloody well play hard". It fits. Most of the concerts ...
Barclay James Harvest: City Hall, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 October 1976
BARCLAYS BANK ON CORN HARVEST ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 20 November 1976
THERE ARE several possible ways to review this gig. ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 December 1976
ON ONE level, this gig (the second of City Boy's current tour) could be whiled away by playing "spot the influence" – 10cc, Roxy, the ...
Can: Free Trade Hall, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 December 1976
IN ONE OF the most glorious cases of mismatching ever seen on a British stage, Can are preceded tonight by an agonisingly kitsch comedy jug-band ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 January 1977
TYPICAL OF A Sheffield gig is the way in which the dancing section of the audience settles down crosslegged in front of the stage to ...
Elliott Murphy: Just A Story From America (CBS)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 May 1977
A FEW years ago, Rolling Stone printed a sizeable review of the first albums by Elliott Murphy and Bruce Springsteen, assessing them as contenders for ...
Split Enz: Sheffield University, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 May 1977
THE IDEA that a rock band from New Zealand should possess any merit whatsoever strikes many as ludicrously funny; the idea that such an antipodean ...
This Heat: Chelsea College Of Art, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 July 1977
THERE ARE weird gigs, and there are weird gigs, but this one stands as the weirdest I've attended since the memorable time Faust caused a ...
Nona Hendryx, Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel/Nona Hendryx: Live in Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 24 September 1977
NONA HENDRYX possesses all the lumps and bumps, (in abundance), in all the right places, and flaunts her curvacity in a performance which promises sexuality ...
Bob Seger: Palace Theatre, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 22 October 1977
THAT IT should have taken Bob Seger so long to receive his just reward is in itself one of the more disgraceful cases of rock ...
Bob Seger: The Michigan Marvel
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 12 November 1977
ON THE covers of several of Bob Seger's albums there's this curious production credit to "Punch". ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 28 January 1978
SO NOW the whole Toussaint catalogue is available again, enabling listeners of taste to trace for themselves the development of the New Orleans man's approach, ...
Dire Straits, Talking Heads: Talking Heads, Dire Straits: Sheffield University, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 28 January 1978
How 77 moves smoothly into '78 ...
XTC: Sheffield Polytechnic, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 February 1978
IT WAS pointed out, some while ago, that a large number of punk outfits preface their name with the definite article, as compared with the ...
The Residents: Meet the Legendary Residents, Alias the Cryptic Corporation
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 February 1978
...alias Pore-No-Graphics, alias Pale Pachyderm Publishing, alias Ralph Records. Maybe. Or maybe not. Some people think they're The Beatles. Hell, anybody who makes Ku Klux ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 25 February 1978
The Dangers Of Being Likeably Listenable ...
Bryn Haworth, Gallagher & Lyle: Gallagher & Lyle, Bryn Haworth: City Hall, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978
We used… to believe… in rock'n'roll ...
Wreckless Eric: Wreckless Eric
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978
IT'S RATHER appropriate that you can buy a hideous dung coloured version of Wreckless Eric's first album. Like the person who reminds you that the ...
Wreckless Eric: Sheffield Polytechnic
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978
A YOUNG lady appears on the stage and proceeds to shout something about today being her birthday, saxist John Glyn accompanying her (less than diplomatic) ...
Bethnal: Sheffileld Polytechnic
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 March 1978
More of a ripple than a wave? ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 April 1978
IT IS RATHER unfortunate that Kraftwerk's current popularity is based, to a large extent, on the chic appeal of David Bowie's favour. True, such favour ...
Kraftwerk: Terminal Weirdness à Paris
Report by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 April 1978
(Airport terminal, that is. Meanwhile somewhere up in some posey skyscraper, KRAFTWERK are boring everyone stiff...) ...
Horslips: Heard The One About Irish Band And The Green Beer?
Report by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978
No? Read on then, bro'. This is a story of amazing weirdness. You obviously haven't heard about the green underwear either. Or the green Chicago ...
The Gladiators, Reggae Regular: Rafters, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978
OF LATE, I and I have been nursing a nagging ambivalence towards reggae. ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978
TO USE an alimentary analogy, punk can be seen as a kind of musical laxative, clearing away all that stodgy stuff that was blocking the ...
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: Stranger In Town
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978
Meanwhile BACK IN '78 ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 3 June 1978
STYX, AS you'll doubtless be aware if you're familiar with the curious musical predilections of our American cousins, are a disgustingly successful five-piece band of ...
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 10 June 1978
BY DAY, DENNIS DE YOUNG WAS A REGULAR GUY WITH A PONCEY NAME, LACQUERED HAIR, AND A PENCHANT FOR GAUDY FAKE ANTIQUE FURNITURE... BUT BY ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 July 1978
THE NOW Society, a university-based organisation, has been putting on gigs featuring local, predominantly experimental bands (such are the local mores) for some time now; ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978
CABARET VOLTAIRE performances, if I can make a sweeping generalisation, are always interesting but never satisfying. Interesting because they're prepared to probe, often at the ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Sheffield – This Week's Leeds
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 9 September 1978
UNTIL LAST YEAR, Sheffield was undoubtedly the most musically inactive city in Britain. For a city with over half a million people, the paucity of ...
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 September 1978
"Well it's alright just listenCan't wait for 78God those r.p.m.Can't wait for themDon't just watchHours happenGet in there kidAnd snap them."– Wire, 'It's So Obvious' ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 October 1978
Dr Feelgood: Sheffield City Hall ...
Buzzcocks: The Buzzcocks: Top Rank, Shefield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 October 1978
Who, exactly, is gobbing on whom? ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978
MORE SO than anything else they've done, when Not Available's weirdness wears off, its "merry tunes" become an indelible stain on one's day-to-day existence. After ...
Boyfriends, The (US): The Boyfriends: Totley College, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 2 December 1978
TOTLEY TEACHERS Training College stuck out on the edge of Derbyshire gives The Boyfriends' gig there the atmosphere of a village hop, and it suits ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 9 December 1978
They came from Outer Akron...Their purpose – Conquest.Their methods – Unpleasant.This was...Spud Wars ...
Hawkwind, Robert Calvert: Hawklords: Leisure-Wear Of The Timelords
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 December 1978
Actually, BOB CALVERT'S mystic dressing gown is not what this feature's about: what we have here is an appraisal of the new Hawkind, sorry, HAWKLORDS ...
Chrome: Half Machine Lip Moves
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 17 March 1979
THE TITLE OF Chrome's second album Alien Soundtracks perfectly describes one level on which their music can be taken: the evocation of a fantasy world ...
Jean-Jacques Burnel: J.J. Burnel: Euroman Cometh (United Artists)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 7 April 1979
IT WAS THE 19th Century Italian poet Leopardi who put it best: "Great truths are discovered only by a faculty of reason in a condition ...
M: Talkin' about POP MUZIK; Singin' about POP MUZIK; Gettin' rich offa POP MUZIK
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 May 1979
ANDYGILLYPENNY takes dictation from M. ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
IF I WERE to tell you that a record you've probably never heard of was the album that David Bowie's been trying to make these ...
Red Crayola: "...THE IDEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF ANY WORK AS A FUNCTION OF CONSUMER RELATIONS...
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
...AS OPPOSED TO DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATIONAL IMPERATIVES; SECTIONAL MILITANCY AS OPPOSED TO PRIVATISED MILITANCY, OF WHICH YOU FIND A GREAT DEAL IN POP MUSIC — THE CRITICAL ...
The Pretenders: Sheffield University
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
Duty Now For The Past? ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 8 September 1979
FOR MUCH of This Heat's album, it's difficult and at times impossible to decipher which instrument is playing what. This is some indication of their ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 September 1979
The World's First Science Fiction Music FestivalWords: Ian Penman and Andy Gill. Pix: Kevin Cummins ...
XTC, The Yachts: XTC/The Yachts: Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 22 September 1979
THIS IS POP? THIS IS POP?? ...
The Human League: Reproduction (Virgin)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 October 1979
EVERY TV appearance Gary Numan makes must be like a dagger to the heart of The Human League, every radio-play a bit more salt in ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 October 1979
I'M NOT altogether sure quite how to convey the magnitude of The Residents' achievement with Eskimo. What I am sure of is that it's without ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Mix Up (Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 20 October 1979
WITH MIX UP, Cabaret Voltaire transcend being simply the blueprint for a genre – the drummerless synthesizer trio – and finally get down to business. ...
Guide by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980
"Progress in the physical and mechanical sciences determines a progress in art." — Carlos Chavez, 1957 ...
Overview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 12 January 1980
POMP THE trouble with synthesisers is actually playing them, accepting their status as sound-generators and starting from scratch. Mechanical keyboards were included in early synth ...
Devo: Freedom Of Choice (Virgin)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 14 June 1980
Some of us out here are still Devo ...
The Pop Group: We Are Time (Y/Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 26 July 1980
THIS COULD have been a great record. On paper, it seemed to be a handful of The Pop Group's strongest suits. ...
Dead Kennedys, UK Subs: Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables; UK Subs: Crash Course
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
SPOT THE DIFFERENCEStudy these two pictures carefully. At first sight they may seem identical, but there are at least twelve small but significant differences between ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
THE RECENT correspondent to Gasbag who used Czechoslovakia's Plastic People as a stick with which to beat NME's supposed ignorance of domestic repression was himself ...
Comsat Angels: Miracle Workers
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
"MILKY WAY – the gig you can do between tours!" Steve Fellows, singer, guitarist and lyricist with The Comsat Angels is right. There's very little ...
Joe Jackson Band: Beat Crazy (A&M)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
WITH SOME albums, constructive criticism's more a case of wishful thinking. With others, you just don't bother. ...
Colin Newman: A-Z (Beggars Banquet)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 October 1980
AFTER THE flawed experimentalism of Gilbert and Lewis's Dome and Cupol projects, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Colin Newman's first solo outing ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 22 November 1980
THE COVER to this, the seventh Steely Dan album (discounting the Greatest Hits compilation), features a painting or anaglyph of a dancing couple of presumably ...
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. ...
Tom Waits: London, Victoria Apollo
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 28 March 1981
TOM WAITS, sad to say, has now joined the illustrious pantheon of artistes whose performances have driven me to sleep. Sad, because this is the ...
Pere Ubu: 390 Degrees Of Simulated Stereo
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 4 April 1981
SUBTITLED Ubu Live: Volume One, this LP contains recordings made by the Ubu of Modern Dance days between May 1976 and March 1979 in Cleveland, ...
UB40: UB4O: Unfortunately, We Were At The Woolwich
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 April 1981
UB4O: Woolwich Odeon, London ...
Kraftwerk: Computer World (EMI)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
COMPUTER-WORLD is the first Kraftwerk LP for over three years, an inordinate period of silence for most groups, but no surprise in their case. Indeed, ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
LATE AGAIN, so I missed most of the Birthday Party — who I was looking forward to the most, as it happens. Theirs is the ...
DAF: D.A.F.: The Venue, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 June 1981
'ALLES IST Gut', for sure, ist gut: there's an almost imagistic pointedness to DAF's musical progressions, just simple sequencer patterns stripped bare of "musicianly" encumbrances ...
The Birthday Party: Abbo — The Album
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981
WHEN THE Birthday Party were recording their Prayers On Fire LP back "home" in Melbourne, Split Enz were recording Waiata in the studio next door. ...
DJ Kane & the Millionaires, Toyah Willcox: Toyah, DJ Kane & the Millionaires: Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981
A WALKING POSTER POSER ...
Robyn Hitchcock: Black Snake Diamond Role (Armageddon)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 September 1981
THOSE OF us who never could see all that much of worth in Syd Barrett's music, either solo or with that group he used to ...
The Sound: From The Lion's Mouth
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 31 October 1981
THE SOUND'S second LP carries on where Jeopardy, their first, left off, with a search for contact or (non-religious) communion of some kind. It's a ...
Pigbag: Dr Heckle And Mr Jive (Y)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982
THE ACREAGE of cloth in Pigbag's collective trousers has been measured and, I'm afraid, found wanting. This is, apparently, an issue of some importance in ...
Al Green: Higher Plane (Hi/PRT)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 3 April 1982
OH, HAPPY man...You can tell Al Green is truly saved from a quick glance at the cover, from the way his Daz-white shirt blue-airbrushes its ...
Sun Ra: Strange Celestial Road (Y)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 May 1982
HEAVEN UP HERE ...
Laurie Anderson: Adelphi Theatre, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
FIRSTLY, OF course, Laurie Anderson is a woman. ...
Larry Graham: The Sly Sound Of Success
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 7 August 1982
THE SOFA is sumptuous, the clothes casual; Larry Graham sits swathed in both, the epitome of affluent black America. We're in a hospitality suite in ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 7 August 1982
Last week the legendary SUN RA, who claims to come from the planet Saturn, beamed down to earth to play two sell-out concerts at London's ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Taxi To The Terminal Zone
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983
"The way I see it is capitalism's a sponge – consider yourself to squeeze it. Squeeze it while it's here, be prepared to pick up ...
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 November 1983
ANDY GILL talks to avant composer, soundtrack svengali and arty type PHILIP GLASS, and finds that life as one of the most pervasive musical influences ...
Dr John: The Brightest Smile In Town (Demon)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 4 February 1984
THERE WAS an interview with Mick Jagger in some magazine or other recently in which the ageing plutocrat titteringly told of how Dr John had ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 October 1984
ANCIENT BEAT journalist and hippie doyen Ralph J. Gleason, who could be a daft old coot at the best of times, got it completely wrong ...
Husker Dü: The Thrash Aesthetic
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 8 June 1985
IN ONE OF HER more perceptive Time Out columns recently La Burchill took a hefty sideswipe at the video popsters' incessant flirtation with outsiderdom – ...
Scritti Politti: Cupid & Psyche 85 (Virgin)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 15 June 1985
A BUNCH of words such as can be found on the new Scritti Politti album: heart, her, girl, baby, word, reason, love, boy, hurt, sugar, ...
Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 30 November 1985
BY 1975, THINGS had begun to look a little pale around the Rock'n'Roll gills (no relation); had begun to fade away, in fact. ...
Violent Femmes: Dangerous Visions
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 29 March 1986
The VIOLENT FEMMES are, in deed, weird fish. Bagpipers, Bolan and Wild Billy Burroughs all seem to stagger blindly into their orbit. ANDY GILL herein ...
Sam Cooke: The Man And His Music
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 26 April 1986
I SUPPOSE any Sam Cooke record is a gift from God, even an LP which fundamentally belies its title in the way this album does. ...
Screaming Blue Messiahs: Gun-Shy
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 10 May 1986
THE COVER of The Screaming Blue Messiahs' first mini-album/EP Good And Gone captures their music perfectly: a posse of WW2 Grumman fighters cruising above the ...
The Beach Boys: Capitol reissues
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 12 July 1986
NOW IS this poetry, or what? ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: Strange Bedfellow
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 2 August 1986
The Beach Boys are 25 years old and, to mark the occasion, that great white whale BRIAN WILSON has finally got up, cleaned up and ...
R.E.M.: Lifes Rich Pageant (IRS)
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 August 1986
THE ONLY BAND that mutters, as an American commentator wittily described REM, are back, and not before time, too. The past few years have seen ...
Dwight Yoakam: Kicking the Horseshit out of Nashville
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 September 1986
Guitars, Cadillacs, and a needle nose cowboy boot up the ass of Nashville slush. DWIGHT YOAKAM bigmouths his way top Britain with the cuntry 'establishment' ...
Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 6 September 1986
DURING THE early/mid-'70s, Warner Brothers were the envy of their major corporate rivals for their unparalleled hip-act market-share. Partly, one suspects, for the way their ...
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 25 October 1986
THERE'S THIS big guy sitting two seats down the table from me at The Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, and he's blocking my view. ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1986
TWENTY YEARS ago, Mickey Dolenz, a former child actor best known in the title role of Circus Boy, answered an ad for "Four Insane Boys, ...
Los Lobos: Charing Cross Road Astoria, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, Sounds, 14 February 1987
CRAZY LIKE A WOLF ...
The Replacements: Pleased To Meet Me (Sire 255571 LP/Cass/CD)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, June 1987
Replacements: razor rasping, ringing, stinging US rock'n'roll ...
Husker Du, The Replacements: Husker Du and The Replacements: Euphoric… Urgent... Raucous... Drunk
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1987
MINNEAPOLIS: it must be something they put in the water. ...
Screaming Blue Messiahs: Bikini Red
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1988
WITH THEIR LAST album Gun-Shy, The Screaming Blue Messiahs suggested that, with a little focusing, they might easily grow into Britain's equivalent of ZZ Top ...
Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson (Sire/Reprise 25669-1 LP/Cass/CD)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1988
Eccentric: Summer's here and the time is right... for a Brian Wilson Christmas album? ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Dr. Eugene Landy on Brian Wilson (1988)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 25 September 1988
The notorious Dr. Landy talks about his long association with Brian Wilson, going back to helping produce 15 Big Ones in 1976: his own background in the music business with Frankie Avalon and George Benson; becoming a psychologist; what was wrong with Wilson, and how he fixed him; the Capitol reissues of the Beach Boys' catalogue; his break with Wilson, and being called back by the band; dealing with Wilson's health issues; the complexities surrounding the production of Wilson's first solo record; the involvement of his wife Alexandra (who appears here), and his on-off relationship with the Beach Boys.
File format: mp3; file size: 83mb, interview length: 1h 26' 30" sound quality: ****
Nanci Griffith: Everyday stories of Country
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 October 1988
Nanci Griffith, New Country singer and novelist, talks to Andy Gill ...
Nelson George: Nelson's column
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 January 1989
American Black Music writer Nelson George talks to Andy Gill about the "death of Rhythm and Blues" ...
S'Express: Original Soundtrack (Rhythm King, Left C8)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 March 1989
MARK MOORE, the mind behind S'Express's explicit body music, is the most interesting exponent of the blender-culture aesthetic, besides being its most commercially adept. He ...
Black Sabbath: Rave from the grave
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 April 1989
Black Sabbath, who first made metal heavy, are reforming. Andy Gill watched them make their video ...
The Neville Brothers: Yellow Moon
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1989
The Neville Brothers bring it all back home. ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1989
Prophet in an anorak: Dylan delivers at last. ...
Frank Zappa: Frank's Wild Years
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989
AT DEAD OF night, behind barred gates and video security cameras up in the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles, a tall, angular man with neatly ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 December 1989
State of some confusion ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 December 1989
THE WEST Coast rap ascendancy continues with a couple of strong, though flawed, releases from the two main parent organisations. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 1990
From the Groundhogs to the Stone Roses: the music-industry legend narrates his journey from '60s Denmark Street to '90s Madchester via United Artists Records; talks about Hawkwind and Dr. Feelgood, signing the Stranglers and Buzzcocks, Radar Records and F-Beat, Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello, Demon Records and the CD/catalogue revolution; Silvertone Records and the Stone Roses... and the many changes in the music business over the years.
File format: mp3; file size: 60.7mb, interview length: 1h 03' 12" sound quality: ***
Captain Beefheart: Colin David Webb: Captain Beefheart - The Man And His Music
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
PUBLISHERS MAY BE willing to publish books on fairly marginal artists such as (to choose two recent examples) R.E.M. and Tom Waits, but a cult ...
Little Richard: The Specialty Sessions
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
THOUGH HE RECORDED for several other labels in his career, the few years that Little Richard spent with Art Rupe's Specialty Records were to provide ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
IT SEEMS TO have been a long time coming, but in fashioning a worthy successor to their triple-platinum debut album, The Christians did set themselves ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
LISTENING TO THE early Residents LPs as they came out through the '70s was always attended by the excitement of knowing you were going to ...
The Beloved: The names of the game
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 March 1990
The Beloved are happy to be going in circles. Andy Gill talked to the band about their latest album. ...
Public Enemy: Fear Of A Black Planet (Def Jam 466281)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 April 1990
Complex persecution ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1990
THERE ARE SEVEN of us round the microphone, and I, for one, am a little nervous. I should be, too: three of the voices present ...
Eric B. & Rakim: Eric B & Rakim: Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em (MCA DMCG 6097)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 June 1990
THE GOLD rope worn by Eric B on the cover of the duo's first album for MCA is the largest I've seen, a ludicrous piece ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
UNCLE FRANK'S EXTENSIVE reissues programme continues apace with eight more blasts from various bits of his past. ...
The Neville Brothers: Neville Brothers: The Mississippi Mafia
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
THE NEW ORLEANS Jazz & Heritage Festival makes most British music festivals, even the Readings and Glastonburys, look a bit sick by comparison. It's not ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
AFTER LEAVING THE Beach Boys mid-tour in 1964 thanks to a nervous breakdown, Brian Wilson passed most of his time in the studio, one of ...
The Fall's Mark E. Smith (1990)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, September 1990
The Fall frontman picks highlights from his record collection, from Link Wray to the Mothers of Invention via the Doors, the Twilight Zone soundtrack, the Seeds, Schoenberg, Can, Black Sabbath, Bhangra and... Jethro Tull! Along the way, much else gets discussed.
File format: mp3; file size: 50mb, interview length: 52' 04" sound quality: ****
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1990
"IT'S NOT I'M ORIGINAL or anything." Charles Kittridge Thompson IV, aka Black Francis, Pixies frontman, is describing how he comes up with the lyrics to ...
The Fall: Mark E. Smith's Record Collection
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1990
CROUCHED IN THE CORNER of a back room in a semi somewhere in Prestwich, Mark Smith flips through one of several large stacks of records; ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1990
This Is Spinal Tap: the movie that became a legend, the spoof band whose name became a by-word for all that is incompetent, disastrous and ...
Angelo Badalamenti, Julee Cruise: Angelo Badalamenti, and Julee Cruise: Way to settle the scores
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 October 1990
Angelo Badalamenti talks to Andy Gill about scoring David Lynch ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1990
Don (left channel) and David (right) Was talk about their early Detroit influences; seeing John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk; going from Island to Geffen, and Born to Laugh at Tornadoes; studio techniques and proto-sampling; their new album Are You Okay?; current American culture; singers Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens; keeping a big band on the road; comparisons with Steely Dan; becoming more cheerful than back in '81; producing Dylan's Under the Red Sky, and Don winning a Grammy for Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time.
File format: mp3; file size: 61.5mb, interview length: 1h 04' 05" sound quality: *** (background noise in second half)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1991
JESUS JONES'S Liquidizer was one of the most assured debuts of recent years, an exhilarating but solid presentation of a band who, though mindful of ...
The Proclaimers Favourite Records
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, February 1991
CRAIG REID holds up a copy of Prince's Parade, his favourite album by the tiny genius, and lavishes approbation upon the sublime 'Kiss' – "just ...
The KLF: KLF: Hang On! I've Got An Idea!
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, March 1991
They're big on ideas, are KLF. Like having hits without musicians, making a load of cash, losing a load of cash… and every so often, ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1991
If R.E.M. appear to walk the street of Athens, Georgia, as if they owned the place – well, that's because they do. Now, as the ...
Julian Cope: Je Ne Suis Pas Sting!
Report by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
IN A FUNKY but chic little Parisian cafe called the Piano Vache (rough translation: Soft Cow), Julian Cope faces a roomful of French journalists and ...
Fleetwood Mac: Peter Green: Rarities, Two Greens Make A Blue and Tramp: Tramp
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
AS A RULE, old legends might best be left alone to gather mythic dust. ...
13th Floor Elevators: Various Artists: Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
ROKY ERICKSON, LEADER OF LEGENDARY Texan psychedelic combo the 13th Floor Elevators, is perhaps an odd choice for the tribute album treatment. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, August 1991
The venerable Wyatt talks about his new album Dondestan, setting his partner Alfie's poems to music and his singing voice. He also talks about sampling, his appreciation of hip hop, and his pleasure listening to Pete Tong's Radio 1 show. He then talks about leaving the Communist Party, which leads on to an extensive discussion of politics...
File format: mp3; file size: 73.1mb, interview length: 1h 16' 05" sound quality: ****
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1991
SUNFLOWER (1970), THE FIRST ALBUM of a new contract with Warner Bros following their disaffection with Capitol, was on a par with later '60s albums. ...
Frankie Knuckles: Beyond The Mix (Virgin America VUSLP 36)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 August 1991
A set of Knuckles in the ears ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
Collectors of happy endings, look no further. Bonnie Raitt's career was dumper-bound until a P45 from her record company inspired her to rediscover her musical ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
IN WHAT MUST HAVE been a classic, once-in-a-lifetime meeting of the Ts, Ice-T once taught Mr T to rap. You remember Mr T: burly black ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
"AAAH, IT'S JUST BEEN NON-STOP," says Seal of his virtual year-long bout of promotional chores. "I just wanna get out and play. I'm not interested ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
THIS, THE FIRST of two volumes of previously unissued Tom Waits tracks, is the latest fruit of the deal with Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa's ...
Guns N' Roses: Use Your Illusion I (Geffen GEF 24415); Use Your Illusion II (Geffen GEF 24420)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 September 1991
Appetite for pretension ...
Robbie Robertson: The Big Easy
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1991
It's New Orleans, high summer, and everybody's wilting with the heat. Everybody, that is, except Robbie Robertson – the legendary Band guitarist who's just made ...
PM Dawn: P.M. Dawn: Prince among thieves
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 31 October 1991
Andy Gill talks to Prince Be, frontman of rap group P.M. Dawn ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1991
IT'S AUGUST 1991, and rock personages everywhere are cashing in on the summer season. Simple Minds pack Wembley Arena. Prince (temporarily) contemplates an outdoor spectacular ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1991
JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, to quote Uncle Frank: yet another record label, and eight more Zappa albums hot on the heels of his two ...
Enya: Shepherd Moons (WEA 9031-75572)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 November 1991
WHAT'S THAT Celtic mist shrouding the top of the album charts? Enya, in at No 1? What's going on? It seems there's a widespread need ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1991
THANKS TO INNOVATORS LIKE Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League, alongside the huge leaps made in drum-machine technology by the Roland corporation, musicians finally ...
Body Count, Ice-T: Ice-T (1991)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Summer 1991
The erstwhile Tracy Marrow talks about acting in movies; his gang roots; pioneering West Coast gangsta rap and telling the truth about black L.A.; still rapping though no longer in the hood; his Body Count thrash-metal band and the Black roots of rock'n'roll; "the intoxicating values of gangs"; white kids listening to rap, and America's need to separate the races.
File format: mp3; file size: 58.2mb, interview length: 1h 00' 26" sound quality: ****
My Bloody Valentine: About Bloody Time!
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, January 1992
In terms of mystique, My Bloody Valentine would have been better off never releasing another record. But three years and many pale imitators later, they ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 January 1992
AFTER TWO such daunting releases (Lou Reed, Tori Amos — RBP Ed), it's a relief to come across this debut album from the splendidly-named Del ...
Anthrax, Public Enemy: Public Enemy, Anthrax: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 January 1992
Breaking the sound barrier: Andy Gill sees Public Enemy and Anthrax split the bill ...
Elvis Presley: Greil Marcus: Dead Elvis
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, March 1992
AT THE CLOSE OF the Presliad, the most substantial part of his classic Mystery Train and still the most illuminating work on Elvis, Greil Marcus ...
Soundtracks: 'Mumble Mumble Film'
Overview by Andy Gill, Q, March 1992
As De Niro so eloquently put it, movie soundtracks are not what they were. Too often they're just second-rate rock songs slung together. There are ...
Elvis Presley: Greil Marcus: Elvis for everybody
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 March 1992
Andy Gill talks to the writer Greil Marcus, Serious Elvis Person, about his chronicle of a cultural obsession ...
Profile by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
WHEN TONI HALLIDAY first bumped into Dean Garcia backstage at a Eurythmics gig, it wasn't so much love at first sight as the first inklings ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
PACKED WITH ALL MANNER of musical invention, oddball observations and joyous pop nonsense, Uh-Oh is by some way David Byrne's most commercial – and enjoyable ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
JOHN FLANSBURGH of They Might Be Giants, that most droll of duos, albeit one with a serious undertow, is anxious. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 April 1992
DISCO DIVAS now come in all nationalities and flavours. The Yemenite Jewish disco queen Ofra Haza, best known for the minor hit 'Im Nin Alu', ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
IT'S OFTEN OVERLOOKED in the face of the wholesale "decadent" mythology that has surrounded him since the early Velvet Underground, but of all the poets ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
NICK CAVE SIGHS. He sighs a lot, as if weary of the world and all that's in it. ...
Spiritualized: Lazer Guided Melodies
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
Spiritualized: Blissed out, numbly minimalist and distinctly unsweaty. ...
Cabaret Voltaire's Record Collection
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1992
Spookily delayed trumpets, primitive drum machines, bone-shaking bass, the original "bleep" record, loads of Germans and "Elvis gone wrong". Earplugs at the ready, Andy Gill ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1992
THE CONCERT FOR LIFE: INXS, CROWDED HOUSE, DIESEL, JENNY MORRIS, RATCAT, YOTHU YINDI, DEF FX – CENTENNIAL PARK, SYDNEY, March 28, 1992 ...
Was (Not Was): David Was' Top Ten
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1992
David Was of Was (Not Was) invites us into his lovely garage. Much of his collection stems from an earlier career as a jazz writer: ...
Billy Ray Cyrus: Some Gave All (Mercury 510 635-2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 August 1992
WHY BILLY Ray Cyrus, of all people? This is the question that has baffled country music veterans across America, as this unknown and seemingly talent-impaired ...
Shabba Ranks: Rough & Ready — Volume 1 (Epic 471442 2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 August 1992
CONTINUING ITS desperate, doomed quest to bring ragga to the masses, Epic offers another album by Shabba Ranks, on the back of a single hoisted ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1992
Stevie Wonder reissued: from 12-Year-Old-Genius to I Just Called To Say I Love You. ...
Nirvana: Reading Festival, Berkshire
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 September 1992
The sights, sounds, smells: Andy Gill reviews Nirvana in the mud at the Reading Festival ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1992
THE ENTRANCE to the grounds is classic old Hollywood style, with a phone you have to call from to get someone to operate the remote-controlled ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1992
ON HIS EARLIEST albums, piano was the definitive Tom Waits instrument, its chords illuminated only by the dimmest of nightclub spotlights, filtered through a tumbler ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, November 1992
The Queen of Folk on her stage repertoire; on the definition of folk; on the end of the Vietnam War; on her political activism – and letting it go; on her new album Play Me Backwards... and not paying taxes for weapons!
File format: mp3; total file size: 41.3mb, interview length: 42' 58" sound quality: ***
The Christians: Blood On The Tracks
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1992
Song-sequencing is a small yet significant element of what experts call "the album-making process". Could Revolver have started with anything other than 'Taxman?' Should 'Madame ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1992
They're cooking up something deeply strange in the sound kitchen. The Orb explore your inner space with endless sonic dreamscapes that suggest a planet where ...
George Clinton: Funkadelic: Doctor Funkenstein, I Presume
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1992
"Free your ass," he once advised the world, "and your mind will follow." Another song of his explored the fear of being eaten by a ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1992
ON A TWISTY MOUNTAIN ROAD ABOUT 25 miles outside Toulon, another mad bastard is laying his life on the line, taking his bike way over ...
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine (1992)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1992
The Megadeth leader talks about taking up Martial Arts; keeping it simple on stage; about not being such a dickhead anymore; his time with Metallica, and getting fired; his huge drug intake, and getting clean; being a father; his religious beliefs, and his view of the world and politics.
File format: mp3; file size: 55.2mb, interview length: 57' 27" sound quality: **** (after a dodgy start)
Leonard Cohen: The Future (Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1993
THE PROJECT bears a logo, or more accurately a sort of heraldic device, comprising hummingbird, heart and handcuffs: is this how Leonard Cohen views the ...
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1993
The ex-wife speaks: David Bowie was an alien, had nothing to do with his own success and was no Cherry Vanilla. ...
Depeche Mode: Songs of Faith and Devotion
Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1993
THEIR LAST album, Violator, was a quantum leap over Depeche Mode's previous output, as if the live-double compilation, 101, had purged their past. Buoyed by ...
Ice-T: Home Invasion (Virgin/Rhyme Syndicate)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1993
ICE-T'S FIFTH album – his first post-riot record and, more importantly, his first following the 'Cop Killer' brouhaha and his subsequent departure from Sire – ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 May 1993
Leonard Cohen: Royal Albert Hall, London ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 May 1993
ELEVEN years between albums is excessive, even by living-legend standards. For some pop performers, that's time enough to get discovered, be the next big thing, ...
Donald Fagen, Steely Dan: Donald Fagen: Back To Bed For Another 11 Years Then
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1993
VARIOUSLY JET-LAGGED and eyeing each other guardedly from behind their paper plates and coffee cups, half a dozen representatives of the world's rock press settle ...
Paul Westerberg, The Replacements: Paul Westerberg: The Agony Aunt Of Grunge
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1993
MID-APRIL in Minneapolis. This weather is serious business. It's bitterly cold. Bob Mould, now of the mighty Sugar but then of the mighty Hüsker Dü, ...
The Beach Boys: Candy Striped Avenger
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1993
Once, turban-topped, he trod the path to inner contentment; but now, baseball-hatted and belligerent, Beach Boy Mike Love is fighting mad, especially at his cousin ...
Al Green: Don't Look Back (RCA)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1993
When Al Green first recorded with Willie Mitchell in 1970, his cover of The Temptations' 'I Can't Get Next To You' launched his career as ...
Janis Ian: Protest and Survive
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1993
AT THE age of 42, Janis Ian is making a comeback (her second, or is it third?), which would be unexceptional save for the fact ...
Brian Eno: Towards An Understanding of Pop Past and Present
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1993
IN THE BIG room at Peter Gabriel's Real World studio down in Box, Wiltshire, Brian Eno holds court at an informal workshop involving himself and ...
Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (EMI)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1993
INITIALLY SOMEWHAT shrill and unimpressive, The Red Shoes improves immeasurably after repeated plays over a long period of time, gaining a solidity at odds with ...
10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant: Natalie Merchant: Little Sister Syndrome
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1993
MOJO: YOU'VE BEEN described as "interminably serious". Is that accurate? ...
Ice Cube: Lethal Injection (Island)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1994
CUBE'S LATEST missive from the front line of black resentment opens with a homicidal racist gag, Dr Ice Cube getting his patient Mr White to ...
Frank Zappa, The Mothers Of Invention: Frank Zappa: A Real Mother
Obituary by Andy Gill, Q, February 1994
Francis Vincent Zappa II, 1940-1993 ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 March 1994
BLACK FEMALE artists are assailed by an obligation to serve as role models that doesn't operate on their male colleagues with anything like the same ...
Black Flag, Henry Rollins: Henry Rollins (1994)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1994
Henry reflects on Kurt Cobain's recent death; Black Flag's influence on the new bands; his disapproval of slackers and his ascetic lifestyle; his disciplinarian father; violence in America; what he likes and loathes about England; his youthful fondness for Ted Nugent, and '70s hard rock in general; the difference between Black Flag and his Rollins Band; music vs. spoken word; his literary influences, including Nietzsche; his mother's record collection; being knocked out by punk rock; his gym work... and his relationship with his fans.
File format: mp3; file size: 79.5mb, interview length: 1h 22' 46" sound quality: ****
Henry Rollins (1994) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages transcripts, May 1994
This is a transcript of Andy's audio interview with Henry. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1994
POISED ON the brink of widespread success after nearly 14 years as linchpin of Sheffield glum-rock combo Pulp, Jarvis Cocker muses upon the long and ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 27 June 1994
The blue-eyed-soul man from Batley talks about the musicians who've crossed his path: working with Miles Davis producer Teo Macero; his first pro gig with the Alan Bown Set, followed by Dada and Vinegar Joe; his first solo album Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, featuring the Meters and Little Feat; his Gary Numan connection, and the many other people he's worked with, from James Jamerson to The Band's Rick Danko and Garth Hudson.
File format: mp3; file size: 63.1mb, total interview length: 1h 05' 46" sound quality: ***
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, July 1994
IN AN abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Toronto, Henry Rollins is getting beaten up. A huge, Rasputin-like figure (monk's garb, frankly Messianic face-fungus) throws ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1994
LEONARD COHEN'S LITTLE NICHE IN THE marketplace has expanded somewhat over the last decade – and mercifully so. Being the bedsit prophet of gloom is ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 August 1994
The Carpenters are hip — and that's official. Andy Gill on the indie world's unexpectedly heartfelt tribute to Karen and Richard Carpenter ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1994
WHEN BOZ SCAGGS MADE HIS FIRST tentative steps back into the music industry that he had abandoned for most of the '80s, he found his ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1994
WHILE BRITAIN WAS IN THE THROES of blues-boom mania in the late '60s, American youth had little time for that particular shade of black music. ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Wildflowers (Warner)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1994
THE SURPRISING choice of Rick Rubin as producer after a highly successful liaison with Jeff Lynne over his last couple of albums might suggest a ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1994
AMORICA, ACCORDING to Chris Robinson, is "somewhere north of hell and south of heaven", a Utopia for the frazzled and the put-upon. Amorica the album ...
Audio transcript of interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages transcripts, Summer 1994
This is a transcript of Andy's audio interview with Ice-T. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
The Band, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson: The Q 100 Interview
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, January 1995
How the devil are you? ...
The Black Crowes: Stoned Soul Picnic
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, January 1995
MUSIC SEEPS OUT of the streets in Memphis. It's everywhere, in bars and clubs, but also somehow just hanging in the air, almost as if ...
Profile by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1995
Prolific post-grunge Dylan type records dozens of songs for several labels, then rolls-up and smokes the rejects. ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1995
SUCCESS SWEPT OVER SANTANA WITH A suddenness which might have destroyed a less durable group. ...
Hall & Oates: The Voice Of Young America
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 23 March 1995
Daryl Hall is the sweet soul voice in the Hall & Oates duo, whose "black-white" music has made them America's hit single champs of the ...
Steely Dan, Walter Becker: Walter Becker: Hasn't He Grown
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1995
WHAT'S WRONG with this picture? Halfway up a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Walter Becker, one-half of Steely Dan, the most cynical rock'n'roll ...
Del Amitri: It's All Downhill From Here
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1995
"FUCK! NOOOOOO!" The man in the prog-rock vintage greatcoat, Soviet military headgear and unfeasibly sizable sideburns wavers under the implacable pull of gravity, a tremor ...
Brian Eno: The Oblique Strategist
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1995
You’d like your album smoothly airbrushed with the minimum fuss, and expertly streamlined to slot into a tidy marketing profile? Don’t phone Brian Eno then. ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, July 1995
HAVING EFFECTED the transition from cult figure to '90s style object with the universally popular Debut, Björk Gundmundsdottir's Post finds her and producer Nellee Hooper ...
Dr. John: Dr John: The Very Best Of (Rhino)
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1995
IF THIS COMPILATION ULTIMATELY fails to live up to its title, it's at least partly due to the strain of trying to encapsulate a career ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1995
If anyone has done it his way, it is "that gonzo party guy" Warren Zevon. And over the years such luminaries as Dylan, Neil Young ...
The High Llamas, Mercury Rev: Mercury Rev/ The High Llamas: LA2, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1995
THE DECOMMISSIONED DISCO dungeon that is LA2 is hardly the best place to see a group like The High Llamas. ...
Oasis: (What's the Story) Morning Glory (Creation CRE CD 189)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 September 1995
THIS IS A bit cheeky, even for a thieving pop magpie like Noel Gallagher, you think as the opening song on Oasis's sophomore offering resolves ...
Prince: The Gold Experience (Warner Bros 9362-45999-2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 September 1995
"WELCOME TO the Dawn, Playground for the New Power Generation," coos the sultry interactive voice-bite that links the tracks on The Artist Formerly Known As ...
Pulp: His Little Percolations: Pulp's Jarvis Cocker puts the T in Britpop.
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1995
You came through the '70s revival relatively unscathed. Did it look like becoming a millstone? ...
Steely Dan: The Return Of Steely Dan
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1995
ONCE UPON A TIME, they were the odd couple in rock. They wrote songs that featured knuckle-knotting chords and brain-twisting lyrics. They welded jazz and ...
Grateful Dead, John Oswald: John Oswald/The Grateful Dead: GrayFolded (Swell/Artifact S/A1969-1996)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 October 1995
SOME DEADHEADS are already calling this the best Grateful Dead record ever; it's certainly the most monumental tombstone imaginable for Jerry Garcia, an utterly convincing ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1995
MICK HUCKNALL has barely put a foot wrong over the past six years, since A New Flame set new, impeccable standards for Brit-soul back in ...
Nick Cave, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Nick Cave (1995)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Winter 1995
The head Bad Seed talks about his Murder Ballads album: the starting point, 'O'Malley's Bar; the attraction of the murder ballads narrative; the swift recording process; his own anger never tempting him to murder; his relationship with crime fiction; the pleasure of writing about violence; his take on the 'Stagger Lee' story, and his duet with Kylie Minogue.
File format: mp3; file size: 32.4mb, interview length: 33' 46" sound quality: *****
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Summer 1995
Zevon talks about recording new album Mutineer using modern technology; his early musical activities including being musical director for the Everly Brothers; his various record labels; his songwriting viewpoint, and not being a cynic; his drink and drugs use, and detoxing; being happy with his career; the success of ‘Werewolves of London’; meeting Stravinsky; novelists he likes; his fascination with the dark side of society; albums like Transverse City and Mr Bad Example; classical and other modern serious music; the Oklahoma bombing; writing with Carl Hiaasen, and writing music for television.
File format: mp3; file size: 103mb, interview length: 1h 47' 16" sound quality: ****
Steely Dan's Denny Dias (1995)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1995
The former Steely Dan guitarist recalls first meeting Becker and Fagen in New York, and starting playing music with them; enjoying the sophistication of their songwriting; joining them in Los Angeles; their exacting demands in the studio; touring with the band; going off the road, and the break up of the original band; leaving music and becoming a computer programmer; returning to music, and hard disk recording; the legacy of Steely Dan, and the record company's dislike of Countdown to Ecstasy.
File format: mp3; file size: 16.1mb, interview length: 16' 49" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Joe Cocker: The Long Voyage Home
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1996
MARTIN KEELEY'S front cover photo for Joe Cocker's first album – named, of course, for his transformative cover of ‘With A Little Help From My ...
Tupac Shakur: 2Pac: All Eyez on Me (Death Row/Island 524 204-2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 March 1996
THE GANGSTA-rap double-whammy of surviving both multiple wounding and prison has left Tupac Shakur in unrepentantly triumphalist mood on this daunting double-album. It's a toss-up ...
The Auteurs: After Murder Park (Hut DGHIH33)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 March 1996
HE TALKS a good fight, does Auteurs songwriter Luke Haines, but only intermittently delivers on his promises. This third album is a strangely, unaffecting affair ...
Underworld: Second Toughest in the Infants (Junior Boys Own JBOCD4)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 March 1996
UNDERWORLD'S 1994 masterpiece, dubnobasswithmyheadman, set new standards for techno music, bringing a confounding humanity to the genre. Since then, they've retreated somewhat from the limelight, ...
Johnny "Guitar" Watson: The life and death of a guitar-slinger
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 May 1996
With his fedora and his Gibson, his pimp-chic style and his flamboyant playing, Johnny "Guitar" Watson lived and died, on stage, for the blues. Andy ...
J.J. Cale: Guitar Man (Virgin/Delabel)
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1996
THERE'S SOMETHING IMMENSELY comforting about Cale's stubbly resistance to musical fashions, and that warmth spreads easily through this album, which has the same intimate feel, ...
The Isley Brothers: It Don't Mean A Thing...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1996
...if it ain't got that swingbeat, say The Isley Brothers, who have updated their sound with producers R. Kelly and Keith Sweat. Andy Gill asks ...
Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Broken Arrow
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1996
WELL, AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE THREATENED LIVE souvenir of Neil's time with Pearl Jam, which comes out later this year; and mercy of mercies, ...
ZZ Top: Crazy 'bout a kitsch-dressed man
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, August 1996
ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons has reconnected his blues roots with African rhythm. Can he really be giving up trash in the interests of good taste, ...
Marilyn Manson: Antichrist Superstar (Interscope UND 90086)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 October 1996
IT'S COMPLACENT bands such as Hootie and Counting Crows that almost make one sympathise with the likes of Marilyn Manson, trash-thrash riff-mongers whose taste for ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1996
Ms. Sainte-Marie talks about making art in the digital domain: creating music and pictures on computers, the importance of technology to artists, having her own website; working online with indigenous American communities; her early musical experiences; revisiting older material on new album Up Where We Belong; on 'Soldier Blue', the song and the film; and being part of Sesame Street.
File format: mp3; file size: 49.5mb, interview length: 51' 31" sound quality: ****
David Bowie: Earthling (RCA 7432144944 2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 January 1997
What comes through most strongly is the way Bowie retains an obsessional interest in the sheer variety and extremity of sound ...
Blur: Blur (Reprise 9362-46236-2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 February 1997
LOUDLY HERALDED as the pyre upon which their former Britpop selves have been ritually dispatched, Blur certainly takes some getting used to, though it's questionable ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1997
Is jungle exploration the right career move for a 50-year-old pop star who plans to float himself on the Stock Market this year? ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
AT ONE TIME, it seemed like everyone in Germany was in Amon Duul. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
WITH THEIR SECOND album, Being There, already being hailed as the record of the year, and flattering, if fanciful, comparisons to such as Exile On ...
Can: Art Terrorism! Sensory Derangement! Holistic Vomiting! Available Weekends…
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
CAN ALWAYS added to more than the sum of their experience and influences. When the group made the seminal Monster Movie in 1968, three of ...
Faust: Deconstructing the nuts, bolts and girders of rock - or simply having a smashing time?
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
A DAY OR TWO after their Queen Elizabeth Hall concert, my ears are still ringing when I go to interview Jean-Hervé Peron, one of the ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Do the men play the machines? Or the machines play the men? How four humanoids with one vision revolutionised pop. ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S SOMETIME IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER OF 1973-4, and Faust are playing Sheffield City Hall. ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Chilly symphonies and misty synth-scapes: the Gothic revival starts here ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
The Byrds fall out, run off and get back to the country. The second batch of remastered reissues in the Legacy series. Each features extra ...
The Summer of Love's Counterculture Butterflies
Overview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1997
Who were they? Where are they now? ...
Radiohead: First Impression: OK Computer
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 June 1997
EXPERTLY SURFING THE WAVE of pre-millennial tension, OK Computer offers a dozen snapshots of contemporary unease that combine to form a larger picture of The ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1997
CONTINUING THE HIGH STANDARDS of Perfectly Good Guitar and Walk On, but with a lighter heart and a jauntier spring to its step, Little Head ...
Ben Harper: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1997
THERE'S SOMETHING going on here. Before he's even played a note, Ben Harper is treated by a jam-packed house to a standing ovation of Messianic ...
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 ...
The Chemical Brothers: The Big Boom Theory
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1997
Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons — aka The Chemical Brothers — are rewriting the rock'n'roll rule book with their earth-moving amalgam of big beats, old ...
The Rolling Stones: Bridges To Babylon
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1997
EMBOLDENED BY the success of both Voodoo Lounge and Stripped, the Stones have retained Don Was as co-producer for their third album in succession, a ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 20 October 1997
Boz goes through his recording career, starting with Jann Wenner's role in the first solo album at Muscle Shoals; the albums Moments and Boz Scaggs & Band; returning to Muscle Shoals for My Time; the Johnny-Bristol-produced Slow Dancer, featuring James Jamerson and others; Silk Degrees and 'Lowdown' as a crossover pop hit, plus producer Joe Wissert; involvement in the New York Rock & Soul Revue with Donald Fagen; his Some Change album with co-producer Ricky Fataar; the Japanese-only release Fade into Light, and his new Come on Home covers album.
File format: mp3; file size: 33.8mb, interview length: 35' 11" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Jackson Browne: The Next Voice You Hear — The Best Of… (Elektra)
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 1997
Jackson Browne gives a track by track rundown to Andy Gill ...
Boz Scaggs: My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1997
STILL REGARDED over here primarily as a kind of lounge-lizard soulman — sort of Bryan Ferry with roots — thanks to his hugely successful mid-70s ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1997
In order of their first replies, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay revisit the early days of Can: the first time they played together; how they shared everything; their homemade studios; how they met; drummer Jaki Liebezeit and the rituals of repetition; the group's social environment; the importance of original American frontman Malcolm Mooney, and meeting his successor Damo Suzuki; the latter's unforgettable first gig with the band. Oh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats... (Please note that there are approximately 10 minutes of annoying tape hiss from about 29 minutes in to about 38 mins.)
File format: mp3; file size: 69.5mb, interview length: 1h 12' 26" sound quality: ***½
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 January 1998
IF, AS SOME believe, 1998 is to be the year that France finally produces pop music of international appeal, then synth duo Air are the ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 January 1998
After a brief chat about touring with the Clash, Alan Vega and Martin Rev go back to how they first joined forces; Martin's jazz roots; their electronic predecessors the Silver Apples; being "punk" before Punk; their relationship with New York City's music scene and not being druggies; the name Suicide; their music as confrontational; their use of electronic instruments; their lyrical concerns; their second album, produced by the Cars' Ric Ocasek; their innate futurism; DIY and the future of recording and distribution.
File format: mp3; file size: 43mb, interview length: 38' 29" sound quality: ****
Madonna: Ray of Light (Maverick 9362-46847-2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 February 1998
Ray of Light opens like an Eno album from the mid-Seventies, with an amorphous, watery blur of sound. It even has an Eno-soundalike title, or ...
Bonnie Raitt: Fundamental (Capitol)
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, May 1998
First album in four years from the premier bluesmeistress. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1998
The singer-songwriter-bandleader takes us from playing bars as a 14-year-old in Oklahoma to George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh via sessions in L.A. for Phil Spector: being a part of L.A.'s Wrecking Crew; playing electric piano on the Byrds' 'Mr. Tambourine Man'; meeting Delaney & Bonnie; English producer Denny Cordell and his Shelter label; putting together Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen; J.J. Cale, Freddie King and Willis Alan Ramsey; the all-star cast on his first solo album; his famous songs ‘A Song For You’ and ‘This Masquerade’ becoming standards... and working with Bob Dylan and so many others.
File format: mp3; file size: 61.8mb, interview length: 1h 04' 24" sound quality: ****
Brian Eno: To Infinity and Beyond
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
THESE DAYS, you have to catch Brian Eno as and when you can. Always peripatetically inclined, he now spends even more time abroad — ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
"I'LL TELL you something," offers Shirley Manson conspiratorially at the start of this second load of Garbage, "I am a wolf, but I like to ...
Report by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
SOMETIMES IT'S BEST to wipe the slate clean, in music as well as in life. Such was the philosophy of Harry Partch (1901-1974), one of ...
Marilyn Manson: Mechanical Animals (Nothing/Universal/Interscope)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 September 1998
IN CASE you've been off-planet the past few years, Marilyn Manson is the latest American androgyne perv bogeyman, sent to terrify liberals just as much ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 September 1998
NAMED AFTER Greil Marcus's evocative description of The Band's early albums, this latest offering from Mercury Rev is, by some distance, the best pop record ...
R.L. Burnside: Stuff you really shouldn't do in public
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 October 1998
R.L. Burnside has boogie in his shoes, among other things. And where better to walk the blues than in front of "the young people"? ...
Bob Dylan: Live 1966: "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" (Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 October 1998
1966 WAS POP music's annus mirabilis: Revolver, Pet Sounds, Freak Out! and Blonde On Blonde were all released then, and Bob Dylan spent much of ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 1998
HERETOFORE, MERCURY Rev have trodden that fine line between order and chaos with a, shall we say, idiosyncratic sense of equilibrium. Part of the appeal ...
Whitney Houston: My Love Is Your Love (Arista)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 November 1998
HER FIRST non-soundtrack work in eight years, My Love Is Your Love, finds Whitney Houston trying to re-position herself in a more youthful context. The ...
The critical condition: Awop bop aloo bop and so on
Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 December 1998
The thing about pop music is it's everywhere. It's part of the day to day fabric of the world we live in, whether we like ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 January 1999
1966. The night popular music changed for ever. Bob Dylan swapped his acoustic guitar for a Stratocaster and one fan lost his cool. This is ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Trenchtown Rock
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1999
DOVETAILING NICELY with the recent 3-CD set from JAD Records, Trench Town Rock presents the most wide-ranging account yet of the second chapter of The ...
Harry Partch's Original Invented Instruments: Barbican, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1999
IT'S NOT every day – or every decade, come to that – that UK audiences get a chance to witness Harry Partch's bizarre instruments "in ...
Steve Earle, The Del McCoury Band: Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band: The Mountain
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 February 1999
THE LATE '90s have been something of a golden period for Steve Earle: this is his fourth album in as many years, and they've all ...
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at Aberdeen Music Hall
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1999
ALL THINGS considered, the chilly, windswept environs of Aberdeen are probably not the best place to start your UK tour. At this remove from the ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1999
Between lengthy expositions on conspiracy theories and American politics, the Godfather of Gonzo Journalism expounds on the music he selected for "personal favourites" album Where Were You When the Fun Stopped: his love of Robert Mitchum; his friendship with Jimmy Buffett; and on his relationship with music and how Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was written to the sound of the Stones' Get Your Ya Ya's Out.
File format: mp3; file size: 31.5mb, interview length: 32' 51" sound quality: * (phoner)
Eminem: The Slim Shady LP (Interscope)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 April 1999
This Week's big noise — Eminem ...
Tom Waits: Mule Variations (Epitaph)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 April 1999
The Big Noise ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 April 1999
BROADER IN musical conception than their previous albums, Head Music reflects two basic changes in Suede's working methods since Coming Up. The most obvious is ...
Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Jim O'Rourke, Pavement, Sebadoh, Smog: The Domino effect
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 May 1999
So the major record labels have got things all sewn up? Not quite. As the business reels under the impact of downsizing, the cottage industry ...
The Ramones: Hey! Ho! Let's Go! — The Ramones Anthology
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, August 1999
I DON'T KNOW if they ever made a Ramones pin-ball machine, but if not, they missed a trick. Just imagine: the ritual chant of "Hey!Ho! ...
East River Pipe: Guitars, Cadillacs, etc, etc
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 August 1999
"The car is like the gun. It's US individualism incarnate." In his new album The Gasoline Age, FM Cornog — better known as one-man band ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1999
FOR OVER A YEAR, Santana had built a reputation the hardest but most reliable way, by word of mouth. In their home town of San ...
Macy Gray: Where Billie meets Janis
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1999
AS THE MINISTRATIONS OF interchangeable soul divas turn what used to be soul music into an increasingly formulaic music experience, it’s a pleasure to be ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1999
A fourth helping of blue stew. Fourth album finds gifted slide guitarist broadening his approach. ...
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1999
WITH AN additional six songs bulking out the 10 featured on the original vinyl album, this is the first version of the Stop Making Sense ...
Little Richard: 10 Questions for Little Richard
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1999
The sultan of frutti on the Devil’s music, Pat Boone and the best hair pomade. ...
Santana: Jack of All Trades: Carlos Santana
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 January 2000
AROUND THIS TIME every year, the American music industry holds its collective breath as the Grammy awards nominations are announced, eager to see which of ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 4 February 2000
ONE OF the problems of being a critically-lauded cult success with scant resources is that fans' well-meaning allowances can lead to low expectations, particularly regarding ...
Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 February 2000
When Steely Dan vocalist Donald Fagen released his second solo album, Kamakiriad, in 1993, fans marvelled at the inordinate length of time it had taken ...
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 ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Dylan and The Band: Obviously Five Believers
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 2000
He took them round the world – to endless booing. They settled in Woodstock, separated, and then reunited for the highest grossing tour of the ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 October 2000
HAVING SPENT the majority of the past decade searching for ways to rejuvenate the jaded stadium-rock formula — as much for their own benefit as ...
Bob Dylan: September 2000 UK Tour
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 2000
"MY HEART'S in the Highlands, where the Aberdeen waters flow," sang Bob Dylan on 1997's gloriously gloomy Time Out Of Mind, "I'm gonna go there ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 2000
Nestling beneath the forest-clad slopes of Overlook Mountain, a couple of hours drive north of New York City, the town of Woodstock has a sort ...
Brian Eno: "So Why Are We Doing This?"
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, May 2001
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFICULT, observing Brian Eno's early career as furnisher of funny noises to the original Roxy Music, to predict that three decades ...
Elbow: Asleep in the Back (V2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 4 May 2001
WHAT'S IN a name? The Bury-based indie combo Elbow found out a year or two ago when, after Universal's swallowing of their label, Island, they ...
Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 2001
AFTER HIS EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF the '60s, there should have been no doubt about Bob Dylan's position in the rock firmament. After all, he had ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 2001
The colossal early '70s Krautrock groove of Neu! has influenced everyone from David Bowie to Radiohead. Now, 30 years on, they're back. "We had no ...
Bill Callahan, Smog: Bill Callahan: I want to be alone
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 September 2001
Alt-country's reluctant star, Bill Callahan, aka Smog, is not a man to stand still. Or get too close to people. Or talk much. Andy Gill ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 2001
IT'S BEEN a long time since Bob Dylan released two consecutive albums of top-drawer original material – probably as far back as 1975's Blood On ...
Bill Callahan, Smog: Bill Callahan (2001)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 2001
Mr Smog talks about his latest album Rain on Lens; about his songs not being autobiographical; on not deserving his reputation as a miserabllist; discovering music in his youth, from John Lee Hooker to punk; enjoying a peripatetic existence; playing the 2000 Meltdown Festival and meeting Scott Walker; on not trying to make hit records, and his admiration for Buster Keaton.
File format: mp3; file size: 33.6mb, interview length: 35' 01" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Little Axe, On-U Sound System, Adrian Sherwood: Adrian Sherwood (2002)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, April 2002
Producer/record company boss Sherwood talks about his huge array of projects: starting the On-U Sound label; projects and artists such as African Head Charge, Tackhead and Dub Syndicate; making dub records until his friend Prince Far-I's murder; working with Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald; remixing Primal Scream's Vanishing Point, and the perils and pleasures of remixing; working with Lee "Scratch" Perry, and artists like Sinead O'Connor; the 'Barmy Army' football songs; his solo album Never Trust a Hippy; recording and technology, and running a label, and quite a lot about kids' football!
File format: mp3; file size: 50.7mb, interview length: 52' 51" sound quality: ****
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Change Is Gonna Come
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 2002
BY 1966, IT LOOKED LIKE THE WAILING WAILERS WERE FINISHED ON the Jamaican music scene. They had recorded numerous hits, eventually challenging The Maytals as ...
Steve Earle: The Dissent Of Man
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 September 2002
Forget Springsteen's posturing and the redneck mentality of Toby Keith; it's Steve Earle's response to September 11 that has been causing a stir in the ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 September 2002
AS BY FAR THE MOST INTERESTING of the current crop of nu-soul divas, this second album from India Arie has come to assume huge importance ...
Bob Dylan: Just Bend Your Mind A Little…
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 2002
BOB DYLAN WAS NOT THE FIRST SONGWRITER to write about – or under the influence of – drugs, though you could be forgiven for assuming ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 December 2002
RICHARD BUCKNER'S four previous albums somehow slipped under my radar, an indication, perhaps, of the difficulties that fringe talents experience in securing adequate promotion and ...
Richard Buckner: Impasse (Fargo)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 December 2002
RICHARD BUCKNER'S four previous albums somehow slipped under my radar, an indication, perhaps, of the difficulties that fringe talents experience in securing adequate promotion and ...
The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne (2002)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 2002
The Flaming Lips frontperson on the new reissues; looking back on the old albums, liking what he hears; amateurism, and "will over skill"; keep changing and not being precious; Jonathan Donahue and producer Dave Fridman bringing musicality to the band; using his imagination, and writing about UFOs; sampling the Beatles; the meaning of the Jesus Egg, and being about to back Beck.
File format: mp3; file size: 24.9mb, interview length: 25' 55" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages, 2003
The Can keyboard player on the recording of Future Days: The mood of the band at the time; the difference between singers Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki; recording ‘Bel Air Suite’, and the meaning of the cover artwork, the I-Ching hexagram for Ting (The Cauldron).
File format: mp3; file size: 13mb, interview length: 13' 31" sound quality: * (phoner)
Bob Dylan: Live 1975 The Rolling Thunder Revue
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, January 2003
Twenty-two tracks from Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder tour finally see official release. ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2003
IT SPEAKS volumes for Can's protean, constantly-changing sound that fans, indeed the band members themselves, rarely agree which is their best album. ...
Kinky, Manuel Galbán, Ry Cooder: Ry Cooder & Manuel Gálban: Mambo Sinuendo; Kinky: Kinky
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2003
Perfuming Each Moment ...
Eminem: What's SO F***ing Great About Eminem?
Essay by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2003
The worst character traits imaginable assembled into violent, cautionary cartoons have produced the charismatic star of the moment, now further immortalised in an acclaimed movie. ...
India.Arie: India Arie: Cry no more
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 April 2003
After the tearful disappointment of last year's Grammys, India Arie is back. Andy Gill finds her wiser, stronger and reaping the rewards she deserves with ...
Radiohead: Hail To The Thief (Parlophone)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 June 2003
THOSE RADIOHEAD fans hankering after the band's more mainstream indie-rock style will be heartened by the first sound they hear on Hail To The Thief, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 June 2003
HIS FIRST ALBUM in six years finds Steve Winwood striking out in the direction of Latin America, using a core unit of jazz guitarist Jose ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 June 2003
HE'S THE LEADING pop icon of his generation, the undisputed Elvis of his era, and for many of the 65,000 fans who attend his concert, ...
John Cooper Clarke: Buster Rhymes
Interview by Andy Gill, The Word, July 2003
Punk's not dead, and neither is its poet laureate, John Cooper Clarke. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 August 2003
NEIL YOUNG is probably the most overindulged talent in rock: overindulged by his record company, who let him put out whatever old rubbish he has ...
David Bowie: Reality (ISO/Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 September 2003
LIKE BOB DYLAN, David Bowie seems to have been re-invigorated by a lengthy period with a stable band: Reality appears with almost indecent haste a ...
Robert Wyatt: Cuckoo In The Nest
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 September 2003
Idiosyncratic and eccentric, Robert Wyatt's unique musical style is consistently lauded by both critics and musicians. Andy Gill talks to him ahead of the release ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 September 2003
Warren Zevon's final, valedictory album provides ultimate proof that those of us who believed him to be one of the greatest songwriters of his generation ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, October 2003
The Radiohead axeman discusses writing and recording the soundtrack to Simon Pummell's Bodysong: the way he used tape to record it; the musicians he collaborated with, including jazzman Gerard Presencer; the process of working to pictures and the arcane instruments he used, including the Ondes Martenot. Along the way he talks about playing Viola, and about being colourblind.
File format: mp3; file size: 48.1mb, interview length: 50' 09" sound quality: ****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 October 2003
LAST YEAR'S EPONYMOUS DEBUT from Kinky represented a huge step forward for Mexican pop, confounding the usual ethnic clichés with an unclassifiable stew of poetic ...
Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead: So Long to Jonny Guitar: Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 31 October 2003
THOM YORKE may be the driving force and most recognisable face of Radiohead, but for many fans it's the guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the thin, twitchy ...
Miles Davis: The Prince of Darkness: So What: The Life Of Miles Davis by John Szwed (Arrow)
Book Review by Andy Gill, The Word, January 2004
Miles Davis: what demonic spirit possessed him? ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Devil in Miss Jones
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 January 2004
Rickie Lee Jones has always had her demons - and now she's living in the America of George Bush and Jeffrey Dahmer. ...
Norah Jones: And Now For My Next Trick: Norah Jones and the Difficult Second Album Syndrome
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 February 2004
BY THIS TIME next week, Norah Jones will probably be nestling atop the album charts with Feels like Home, the follow-up to her multi-platinum, Grammy-grabbing ...
Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks: A Critic's Obsession
Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 March 2004
TODAY, IN MINNEAPOLIS, a group of musicians will assemble at the Pantages Theater to perform Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in its entirety. ...
Will Oldham: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Prince of Perversity
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 March 2004
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, the artist formerly known as Will Oldham, is perhaps the most uniquely gifted songwriter of his generation. And, as Andy Gill discovers, ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, April 2004
New wave god turned worldbeat evangelist gets opera bug ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 April 2004
A new spirit is abroad in Mexican music, and the fans are going wild with gratitude. Andy Gill goes on the road with Kinky, whose ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, May 2004
Eighteen songs — chosen by Cash himself just before his death to represent "life lessons" spanning the period 1958-1988 that puts his reputation as a ...
Mary Chapin Carpenter: The Essential Mary Chapin Carpenter
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, May 2004
The mould-breaking Nashville singer-songwriter gets a marvellous Best-Of. ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, June 2004
Haunting back-porch quirkiness from former Be Good Tanya ...
Taj Mahal: A Living Edifice To The Blues
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 10 June 2004
Taj Mahal/Tinariwen, Barbican, London **** ...
Phil Manzanera: Dance Away The Heartache
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 July 2004
SEVERAL FLOORS UP a converted warehouse block in a tiny mews in north-west London, Phil Manzanera lounges in the pristine calm of his home studio. ...
Simon & Garfunkel: Simon and Garfunkel: MEN Arena, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 July 2004
AS YOU'D EXPECT, the greying audience for Simon and Garfunkel's first UK show in 30 years is similar to that which regularly turns out for ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Fleet Pavilion, Boston, USA
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 July 2004
THE FLEET PAVILION is a sleek, tented outdoor auditorium overlooking Boston harbour. Like the Millennium Dome, but useful. And actually functioning as a venue. And ...
Todd Rundgren, Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 July 2004
SINCE his mid-Seventies heyday, Todd Rundgren has always been preaching to the converted, so his religious-themed show is at least appropriate, though unlikely to extend ...
R.E.M.: St James's Church, Piccadilly, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 September 2004
R.E.M. ARE NO strangers to the "secret" show, having pioneered them back in the ‘80s, when they would appear at places such as the tiny ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 November 2004
WHAT A HUGE disappointment this is. About a decade and a half ago, Gail Ann Dorsey released a brilliant debut album called The Corporate World, ...
Interview by Andy Gill, The Word, December 2004
If the world-beating line-up of Pink Floyd ever flies again you can thank the drummer. Nick Mason tells Andy Gill his peace-keeping personal history of ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, 2005
IN AN AGE when the commercial imperative has reduced the notion of ideal musical production to one of recycling old techno riffs, slapping a treated ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 January 2005
More Adventurous is exactly the kind of title you want a band to choose when they make the jump from independent to major label. No ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 April 2005
IT REALLY SHOULDN'T come as a surprise that the most vital new sound from the UK dance underground should come from a transplanted Sri Lankan ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 April 2005
THOUGH RAISED in Sweden, José González's Latin American roots shine through on this debut album, which has hoisted him to unlikely stardom in Scandinavia, as ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, July 2005
Mr Stevens talks about his latest album, Illinois: his memories of Chicago and Peoria; reading biographies of both cities; how his writing is informed by fiction, and how fact and fiction interchange; the instruments used in making the album; his long track titles; Detroit v Chicago; the influence of Terry Riley; his Steiner School upbringing, and his addressing of the Native American genocide.
File format: mp3; file size: 19.3mb, interview length: 20' 07" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, October 2005
Martyn looks back to his youth in the UK folk scene; his hero Davey Graham; Roy Harper; his "health problems"; his folk-jazz fusion, and playing with Harold McNair; living in Woodstock; Bless the Weather, using an Echoplex, and 'Glistening Glyndebourne'; slurring his vocals; his bass player Danny Thompson, and still touring and recording in 2005...
File format: mp3; file size: 30mb, interview length: 31' 12" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 October 2005
AS THE LAST MILLENNIUM drew to its close, Conrad Lambert, aka Merz, seemed poised for The Big Time. Signed for a six-figure advance to a ...
Kate Bush: Finally, Something For The Grown-Ups
Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 October 2005
EARLY NEXT MONTH, Kate Bush releases Aerial, her first new album since The Red Shoes back in November 1993. Even by the relaxed schedules adopted ...
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan: Isobel Campbell (2005)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, November 2005
The former Belle and Sebastian singer talks about her collaboration with former Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan: first hearing, then meeting Lanegan; the song writing; her whistling; channeling Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and the prevailing mood of melancholy in their work.
File format: mp3; file size: 13.5mb, interview length: 14' 05" sound quality: *** (phoner)
Wilson Pickett: Farewell, Wicked Messenger
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2006
Wilson Pickett: you couldn't sing 'In The Midnight Hour' the way he did without a terrible temper and in this respect the man from Prattville, ...
Donald Fagen: Former Steely Dan Member On His New Album
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 March 2006
IN THE BRUTAL world of American football, teams often employ what they call a "hurry-up offense", a series of plays they can run quickly when ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 April 2006
EVER SINCE HE emerged from the shadow of his chums in Outkast and Goodie Mob to establish himself as a solo artist, Cee-Lo Green has ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: The Hottest Band in the World: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Profile by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 May 2006
IN RECENT YEARS, mountain-man lookalike record producer Rick Rubin has been justly fêted for his career-revival work with Johnny Cash, which effectively recontextualised the Man ...
Kasabian: Empire (Columbia) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 August 2006
LIKE THEIR similarly immodest contemporaries Razorlight, Kasabian talk a good fight — or enough of a good fight, anyway, to make you overlook the shortfall ...
The Lemonheads: The Lemonheads
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 September 2006
TEN YEARS AGO, on the last Lemonheads album Car Button Cloth, Evan Dando was apologising for his dissolute, druggie lifestyle, hanging his dirty laundry out ...
The Good Bad & The Queen: The Good, The Bad and The Queen: London Calling
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 October 2006
If you thought the age of the supergroup was past, think again. Andy Gill meets The Good, The Bad and The Queen ...
Amy Winehouse: Back to Black (Island)*****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 October 2006
SHE'S A BRAVE lass, Amy Winehouse. It's rare to find any artist changing their approach between albums, and virtually unknown if their debut was a ...
Mercury Rev: Hello Blackbird (V2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 November 2006
FOR MUCH of their career – certainly since they began exerting a modicum of discipline over their experimental leanings – Mercury Rev have seemed to ...
Iron & Wine: Sam Beam: Love, God, death and a tree of bees
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 November 2006
The famously uncommunicative singer-songwriter Sam Beam — also known as Iron & Wine — discusses his hauntingly poetic musical world with Andy Gill. ...
Ray Charles: Ahmet Ertegun, 1923-2006
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, February 2007
AS MUSIC BUSINESS people go, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun was a giant amongst pygmies, a mover and shaker whose colossal impact on the course ...
Future Pilot AKA: Secrets from the Clockhouse
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 February 2007
INDO-SCOTS COMPOSER (and one-time Soup Dragon) Sushil K Dade has been carving his own niche on the more benign fringes of indie-rock for some years ...
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2007
IT'S NOW AN acknowledged item of rock and roll faith that the sun-kissed life of the West Coast hippie aristocracy was underpinned, and ultimately undermined, ...
Nico: The Frozen Borderline 1968-1970
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, March 2007
The Ice Queen Sets Sail: The Marble Index and Desertshore On Two CDs, Plus Demos And Out-Takes ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: Sneaky Pete Kleinow, 1934-2007
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2007
AS PEDAL STEEL guitarist with the Flying Burrito Brothers, Sneaky Pete Kleinow probably did more than any other musician to establish that instrument in rock ...
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, April 2007
IT WAS IN "the green pastures of Harvard University", according to the genial introduction on his debut album, that Bob Dylan cribbed the chord-structure of ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, June 2007
Tweedy and Co.'s Surprising Soft-Rock Therapy. ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, July 2007
Heavy Riffage! Celtic Folk! Mariachi Blues! Meg And Jack Rock Back With A "Compellingly Weird" One... ...
Georgie Fame: Rik Gunnell, 1931-2007
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Word, August 2007
RIK GUNNELL, who died recently aged 75 in the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbuhel, where he owned and ran a bar called The Londoner, was ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 August 2007
THERE'S A SORT OF junkyard, trash-culture exuberance about M.I.A.'s beats that infuses the Anglo-Tamil rapper's work with freshness and immediacy. ...
Radiohead: OK Computer: Why The Record Industry Is Terrified Of Radiohead's New Album
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 October 2007
Radiohead are the latest — and greatest — band to shun the conventional CD release. Their new album is available online — and you don't ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 October 2007
MOST PEOPLE'S MINDS, as they enter their sixties, probably turn to thoughts of retirement and a sedate glide along the gentle lower slopes of life's ...
Led Zeppelin: The First, The Biggest, And Still The Best...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 December 2007
The greatest reunion in rock is on Monday, when Led Zeppelin play the O² Arena. Andy Gill is dazed, but not confused ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 January 2008
THE ITUNES/MYSPACE revolution has speeded up the pop process to such an extent that a new act barely has time to draw breath before being ...
Adele: "Her Success is Depressingly Inevitable"
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 February 2008
AS ADELE'S album sweeps to the top of the charts, it becomes increasingly clear that in the future, all our pop-cultural decisions will be made ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 February 2008
NORTH WALES siren Duffy is the latest of a formidable crop of female singer-songwriters to be overloaded with the desperate expectations of an industry in ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 March 2008
WITH THE MOLDY PEACHES' MUSIC featuring in the film Juno, Adam Green's stock has never been higher — which may account for his easygoing tone ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 April 2008
BACK AT THE turn of the millennium, Jamie Lidell was a cutting-edge electronic musician, crooning over abstract, fractured beats and jittery synth blips as one-half ...
The Ting Tings: We Started Nothing (Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 May 2008
IF THERE'S A more immediately catchy single than 'That's Not My Name' released this year, it will have to be recorded with Velcro instruments on ...
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes (Bella Union)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 30 May 2008
THOUGH NOT having quite the sun-kissed enchantment of their debut Sun Giant EP, Seattle alt.folk combo Fleet Foxes' full debut suggests they can follow the ...
Bo Diddley and the Beat Surrender
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 June 2008
Bo Diddley has shuffled off, but his trademark rhythm, and his part in the creation of rock'n'roll, will remain. ...
Coldplay: Viva La Vida, or Death and All His Friends (Parlophone)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 June 2008
COLDPLAY'S X&Y, they've since explained, was the final part of a trilogy — a claim some might consider a cunning defence against accusations that they're ...
Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 June 2008
Pompous, mawkish, and unbearably smug, Coldplay have conquered the charts with the sonic equivalent of wilted spinach, argues Andy Gill. And in the process, they've ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 June 2008
PERHAPS HEARTENED BY the (artistic) success of 2006's One More Drifter in the Snow — the only serious addition to the ranks of Christmas albums ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 June 2008
WITH MTV, Rolling Stone and Blender magazines, and even Kanye West conceding he's the hottest rapper, and his MySpace site becoming the first to clock ...
N.E.R.D.: N*E*R*D: Seeing Sounds (Star Trak)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 June 2008
PHARRELL WILLIAMS is one of modern pop's more quixotic talents – purveyor of beats brisk and bouncy in his Neptunes guise, but an attempt at ...
Grace Jones: Still a Slave to the Rhythm
Profile by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 June 2008
She's belted Russell Harty, beaten James Bond and brought the house down with her fashion sense. Now the inimitable Grace Jones is back at Meltdown. ...
Dirty Pretty Things: Romance at Short Notice (Vertigo)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 June 2008
IT CAN'T be easy being Carl Barât, eternally condemned to playing the former sidekick in some tacky B-movie of tragic dissipation, with every break-up song ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 July 2008
FOR MY money, Nas remains New York's most potent rapper, operating with an insight and intelligence few exponents can equal. ...
Stereolab: Chemical Chords (Duophonic/4AD)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 August 2008
STEREOLAB HAVE made no fewer than 11 albums, many more than indie titans like Blur, Oasis, the Smiths and New Order, and far outstripping the ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 August 2008
RARELY CAN RAMPANT self-regard and billowing emptiness have combined to such vacuous effect as they do in the Verve, and particularly in Richard Ashcroft, a ...
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 31 October 2008
After 14 years of rumours and false starts, Guns N' Roses are promising to release their new album. There's even a ticking clock on their ...
The Cure: Robert Smith: What becomes of the brokenhearted?
Profile by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 November 2008
From Smashing Pumpkins to Edward Scissorhands, the Cure's Robert Smith has been influencing pop culture for decades. It's just a shame that the band's new ...
Al Green: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 10 November 2008
EVEN IF YOU didn't know that Al Green was an ordained minister, his concert performances would leave no room for doubt, in all senses of ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 November 2008
IN THE LATE '60s, Mike Hart was a member of the Liverpool Scene, the poetry and music collective that had guitarist Andy Roberts and poet ...
White Denim: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 November 2008
"I THINK maybe we should move to London," muses White Denim guitarist James Petralli as a packed Dingwalls roars its approval of the band's opening ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 November 2008
WHEN MANIC Street Preachers' lyricist Richey Edwards disappeared from his room at the Embassy Hotel in London's Bayswater district on the night of 1 February ...
Common: Universal Mind Control (Island)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 December 2008
APART FROM HIS recent shift into movies, Common seems to be approaching his hip-hop career in a perversely roundabout manner. ...
Bon Iver: Victoria Apollo, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 December 2008
"THIS IS AN extremely big deal for us," says Justin Vernon, standing beneath a giant pterodactyl. Vernon is the songwriter, lead singer and creative mainspring ...
Sigur Rós: Why We're Mesmerised By The Hypnotic Icelandic Band
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 30 January 2009
EACH WEEK, along with the basic album and singles sales charts, there are myriad other charts published that track the diverse fortunes of the music ...
U2: Will U2 be the saviours of the music industry?
Report by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 February 2009
Five years on from their last record, U2 have hauled Bono away from his saving-the-world duties long enough to finish their twelth studio album. But ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 April 2009
THEIR EIGHTH ALBUM finds the abstract-electronica duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown in much the same brittle, airless space that housed 2003's Draft 7.30, ...
Kasabian: West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Columbia) ****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 June 2009
AFTER THE PATCHY RESPONSE duly bestowed upon the patchy Empire, Kasabian have wisely made a few changes for this much-improved follow-up. ...
Black Eyed Peas: The Black Eyed Peas: The E.N.D. (Polydor) **
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 June 2009
THE TITLE apparently stands for "The Energy Never Dies", will.i.am's response to what he perceives as the end of a music industry "paradigm", but which ...
Obituary by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 June 2009
ROUSED FROM sleep with the shocking, if not entirely surprising, news that Michael Jackson was gone, I was halfway through my bowl of cereal when ...
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Running for the Drum (Cooking Vinyl)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 July 2009
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE'S first album in 17 years finds her spirit as undiluted as her charm, still making persuasive, engaging arguments for Native American attitudes, and ...
Gang of Four: Andy Gill meets Andy Gill
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 September 2009
After 30 years of being mistaken for him, The Independent's music critic Andy Gill meets the Gang of Four's Andy Gill to discuss a shared ...
Monsters of Folk: Monsters of Folk
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 October 2009
OBVIOUS DIFFERENCES OF SCALE prevent this alliance of American indie luminaries — Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes, Jim James from My Morning ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 10 November 2009
"WHERE YOU BEEN?" responds an amused Jeff Tweedy to a punter's call to "play the hits", midway through Wednesday's show at the Forum. "These are ...
Rihanna: Rated R (Mercury) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 November 2009
IN NO OTHER field of music does the autobiographical imperative wield as much power as it does in R&B. ...
Midlake: In Tune with the Times of Others
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 February 2010
IN THE RUSSIAN visionary film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's long, prismatic biopic of the great 15th-century icon painter Andrei Rublev, the monk Rublev strives to sustain the ...
Ellie Goulding: Lights (Polydor) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 February 2010
AS THE LATEST WINNER of both the Brits Critics Choice Award and the BBC Sound Of 2010 poll, singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding is following in the ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 March 2010
WITH THE DEPARTURE last year of final founder member Keisha Buchanan, Sugababes finally slipped from being a band to a brand. ...
Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can (Virgin) ****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 March 2010
ON I Speak Because I Can, Laura Marling continues to demonstrate why she's such an exciting singer-songwriter. ...
Danger Mouse, The Shins: Danger Mouse Rings In The New
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 March 2010
The superstar producer/remixer of Blur, Beck, the Black Keys and many more has teamed up with the frontman of The Shins. Andy Gill meets the ...
Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part Two: Return of The Ankh
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 March 2010
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, Erykah Badu's highly politicised psychedelic-soul opus New Amerykah Part One (4th World Order) raised hopes that the "conscious" arm of ...
Scouting For Girls: Everybody Wants to Be on TV
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 April 2010
AFTER YEARS OF DILIGENT DUES-PAYING in front of a small circle of friends down their local pub, the Harrow trio Scouting for Girls suddenly hit ...
Sly & the Family Stone: Sly Stone: Listen To the Voices – Sly Stone In The Studio 1965-1970 (Ace)
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, May 2010
Sly Stone's pharmaceutical habits attracted an undue level of bad press, but the studio would always be a place of refuge. ...
Christina Aguilera: Bionic (RCA) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 4 June 2010
ON THE FACE OF IT, Christina Aguilera's fourth studio album offers plenty of intriguing potential new directions, featuring as it does collaborations with the likes ...
Eminem: Recovery (Aftermath/Interscope) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 June 2010
PERHAPS Eminem's single most impressive achievement has been to shift hip-hop's focus from being primarily concerned with sociological issues, into the murkier realm of psychology. ...
Arcade Fire: Spontaneous Combustion - The Return Of Arcade Fire
Profile by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 July 2010
Arcade Fire's first album catapulted the unconventional Canadian outfit into the rock stratosphere, drawing eulogies from Springsteen, Bowie, Byrne and more. Six years later, their ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 October 2010
IF ONE COMPARES the occasional raggedy magic of Babyshambles with the more prosaic virtues of Dirty Pretty Things, there's no denying that Carl Barât lacks ...
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam) *****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 November 2010
RECORDED IN HAWAII at a rumoured cost of some $3 million, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of ...
Nicki Minaj: Pink Friday (Island) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 November 2010
THERE'S NOTHING on Pink Friday with quite the incendiary impact of her cameo on Kanye West's 'Monster', but there's enough to confirm the buzz about ...
The Unthanks play Robert Wyatt and Antony and the Johnsons, Union Chapel, Islington
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 December 2010
RACHEL AND BECKY UNTHANK have often covered songs by Robert Wyatt or Antony Hegarty in their live set, so it was a simple step to ...
John Grant: Success At Last For A Rock'n'roll Survivor
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 January 2011
Dangerous sex, addiction and self-loathing – John Grant's turbulent life inspired one of the best albums of last year. Andy Gill meets him ...
Chase and Status: No More Idols (Vertigo)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 January 2011
I'VE NO idea who's responsible for the African rap on 'No Problem', which opens Chase and Status's album, but he deserves the kind of star ...
Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, February 2011
T-Bone Burnett brings Gregg Allman back from the brink with a blues injection. It's the best solo album he's ever made. ...
Johnnie Allan, Chuck Berry: Johnnie Allan's 'Promised Land'
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Word, February 2011
ON 5th MARCH 1960, the same day that his rival Elvis Presley was being discharged from the army and welcomed back as an all-American icon, ...
PJ Harvey: Let England Shake (Island)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 February 2011
ON WHAT MAY be her best album, Polly Harvey offers a portrait of her homeland as a country built on bloodshed and battle, not so ...
Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys! (Fiction) ****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 4 March 2011
IN THE THREE years since The Seldom Seen Kid hoisted the band into the first rank of arena-rock dependables, Elbow have had plenty of time ...
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues (Bella Union) *****
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 April 2011
WITH HELPLESSNESS Blues, Fleet Foxes triumphantly deliver on the promise of their popular debut, the album that helped establish folk-rock once again as a formidable ...
Fleet Foxes: Modern Life Is Rubbish
Interview by Andy Gill, The Word, May 2011
Fleet Foxes dust down their antique marxophones and twanging one-string zithers — and record it all on tape. ...
Lady Gaga: Born This Way (Polydor) ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 May 2011
FIRST THINGS FIRST: that cover is simply awful, its adolescent heavy-metal imagery — "ride me, wild one!" — effectively destroying in a single stroke Lady ...
Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, June 2011
Robert Johnson used a variety of tricks to hide his remarkable technique from copyists, even dancing while he played. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 June 2011
THERE COMES a certain point in mass pop culture when it ceases being primarily about the music and simply becomes a matter of numbers, whether ...
Music And Drugs — It's A Hard Habit To Break
Overview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 July 2011
Amy Winehouse's popularity came in part, says Andy Gill, from the honesty with which she sang of her addictions. But pop hasn't always faced up ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 August 2011
IN THE WAKE of last week's riots, the North London rapper Jermaine Scott, aka Wretch 32, is bound to be tagged as the Voice of ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 August 2011
THE WEST COAST REVIVAL continues with this splendid second album from Dawes, the Los Angeles combo who were adopted by Robbie Robertson as his backing ...
Book Review by Andy Gill, The Word, September 2011
FORGET JAMES BROWN: the hardest working man in show business is surely bluesman Bobby "Blue" Bland, who played over 300 shows per year, for decades ...
Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 September 2011
SINCE THE MIGHTY CHAVEZ RAVINE, Ry Cooder's albums have struggled to reach equivalent heights, as if their themes — and with Cooder, there is always ...
The Kingsbury Manx: Aztec Discipline
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 September 2011
IF ONLY THE KINGSBURY MANX'S THIRD ALBUM matched its title more accurately; but Aztec Discipline is a bloodless affair, lacking the bite implied. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 September 2011
INARA GEORGE is the latest beneficiary/victim of rock's dynastic urge, though at least she sought out other options — notably acting — before following in ...
The Dap-Kings, Sharon Jones: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: Naturally
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 October 2011
Those seeking more from their soul music than the deracinated clichés, witless hip-hop collaborators and endless credit-lists afforded by "urban" albums are hereby directed to ...
Bjork: Biophilia (One Little Indian) **
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 October 2011
BJÖRK IS undoubtedly one of the more questing spirits working in music today; but with Biophilia, that quest seems to have led her too far ...
Sandy Denny, Thea Gilmore: Thea Gilmore breathes new life into the words of a tragic lost star
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 October 2011
Folk-rock pioneer Sandy Denny left a wealth of lyrics that have inspired the artist's new album. ...
The High Dials: War of the Wakening Phantoms
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 October 2011
IN ANOTHER ERA, The High Dials might have been one of the bands on Nuggets. Their name, album title and sleeve design reek of 1960s ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 October 2011
The hit of SXSW and Glastonbury, White Denim are building up an unstoppable momentum. Andy Gill meets the band who gave one of the most ...
White Denim: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 October 2011
THE LAST TIME I saw White Denim they were a formidable psychedelic power trio who delivered one of the most blistering aural assaults I'd heard ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 November 2011
YOU WOULDN'T imagine one man could feel so much: like its two immediate predecessors Eyes Open and A Hundred Million Suns, this latest Snow Patrol ...
Jonathan Wilson – an interview
Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, January 2012
He jams with David Crosby and Jackson Browne and has Charlie Sheen's Chevy in his garage. He's a sought-after producer who builds beautiful guitars. His ...
Ani DiFranco: Which Side Are You On?
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 January 2012
ANI DIFRANCO'S FIRST ALBUM in three years finds the self-proclaimed Righteous Babe in feisty, thoughtful form, her political ardour undimmed despite a discernibly increased interest ...
The Black Keys: Black Keys: Keys to the Kingdom
Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, February 2012
How an unassuming garage blues duo from Akron became the biggest new rock band of the decade. With a little help from Danger Mouse, two ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, February 2012
His first studio album for eight years finds Cohen addressing love on a larger moral scale. ...
Various Artists: Country & Western Hit Parade 1961-1965
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, February 2012
At the height of rock and roll, country music fought hack with a string of urban-hillbilly hits. But did they go too far? ...
Whitney Houston: The Greatest Voice Of Her Generation
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 February 2012
Wannabes are rife, yet she was a singular talent, says Andy Gill ...
David Sylvian: A Victim Of Stars, 1982-2012
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, March 2012
WHEN DAVID SYLVIAN first became a presence on the pop scene on the cusp of the '80s, it was obvious that, like many of that ...
Alex Chilton: Show Your Working!: Alex Chilton: Free Again: The 1970 Sessions (Omnivore/Ace)
Review by Andy Gill, The Word, March 2012
Former teen idol Alex Chilton found his feet writing songs. The first efforts were strange, charming and totally schizophrenic. ...
The Ting Tings: "We don't keep songs for a rainy day"
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 2 March 2012
The Ting Tings threw away a whole album before their new release, they tell Andy Gill ...
Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls (Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 April 2012
THIS STORMING debut album from the hot-ticket Alabama soul-rock quartet fully delivers on the groundswell of anticipation built up by already legendary live performances and ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, July 2012
The South has risen again! How Alabama Shakes became the best — and the biggest — new band of 2012. "They make me think of ...
The Roots, Betty Wright: Betty Wright & The Roots: Betty Wright – The Movie (S-Curve)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 July 2012
All the Wright moves as a soul star revisits her roots. ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 July 2012
From Brooklyn to Glasgow, a new wave of musicians are choosing laptops over guitars as their instruments of choice, says Andy Gill. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 28 July 2012
Blur are marking 21 years, and possibly their final days, by re-releasing almost everything they have ever recorded. Andy Gill discovers a host of unheard ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Word, August 2012
Elton John was prospecting in the land of his dreams long before he set foot in the States as a flamboyant frontiersman. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 August 2012
SUCCESS IN songwriting is as much a lottery as a measure of true quality. Some writers instantly catch the zeitgeist, and become household names; others, ...
Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer: Child Ballads
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, February 2013
THE FOLKSONGS accumulated by the 19th-Century Harvard professor of rhetoric and oratory Francis Child have become an endlessly malleable core of material upon which each ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 February 2013
MY BLOODY VALENTINE'S reputation for tardiness is well earned. I dimly remember rushing off to interview them around the release of their second album, Loveless, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 February 2013
WHILE IT GENERALLY REPAYS INTEREST to follow what Thom Yorke's getting up to, that interest has been getting harder to sustain recently. I know I'm ...
Valerie June: Pushin’ Against a Stone
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 May 2013
Bluegrass, blues and plenty of soul from a sultry singer ...
Laura Marling: Once I Was an Eagle
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 May 2013
EVEN IN A CAREER already marked by unusual precocity, Once I Was an Eagle is an extraordinary achievement, the kind of album that both summarises ...
Laura Marling: Once I Was An Eagle (Virgin)
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Jaan Uhelszki, Uncut, June 2013
The "English Joni" ruthlessly dissects her love life on confessional fourth. ...
Burt Bacharach: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 June 2013
BURT BACHARACH strolls onto the Festival Hall stage like he's stepping on board a yacht, the brass buttons on his blazer gleaming in the spotlight. ...
Robin Thicke: Blurred Lines (Polydor/Interscope) **
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 July 2013
IT'S AMAZING what one hit can do for an act's profile: Robin Thicke had laboured long and hard with little recognition outside the core US ...
Elton John: Rocket Man on a New Mission
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 September 2013
After serious illness, the star is back with his best album in years. He tells Andy Gill how he found a new lease of life. ...
Mark Lanegan: The Art of Darkness
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 September 2013
Mark Lanegan's unmistakably melancholy voice has featured on a multitude of collaborations. But, he tells Andy Gill, his latest album is his own. Well, kind ...
Arcade Fire: Reflektor (Sonovox)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 October 2013
THE ALBUM COVER image of Rodin's Orpheus & Eurydice signals the theme of Arcade Fire's longest and most involved album yet: this is a work ...
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, November 2013
A GRAND — sometimes cacophonous — inquisition into what comes next. ...
One Direction: Midnight Memories ***
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 November 2013
The boy band's third album is a fumbling transition from pop to rock ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 December 2013
Let's talk about sex, baby — and nothing but sex ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 December 2013
UNUSUALLY FOR an industry fuelled by hype, it was the most well-kept secret since David Bowie's comeback album earlier this year, and all the more ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 January 2014
MUCH OF CHICAGO post-rock label Thrill Jockey's output is spoilt for me by the pervasive air of smug worthiness, which recalls the "classically-trained" condescension of ...
The Dap-Kings, Sharon Jones: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: Give the People What They Want
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 January 2014
A stalwart soul sister comes back fighting ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 February 2014
THEY MAY HAIL from San Francisco, but trance-rockers Wooden Shjips have clearly left their hearts elsewhere — in the mid-'70s Germany of Krautrockers Neu! and ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 February 2014
WHEN GUY GARVEY split from his long-time partner Emma Unsworth, he had to get away. Far away. The genial, bear-like singer knew he needed a ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 March 2014
IN 2006, Pharrell Williams' debut solo album, In My Mind, following years as a hugely successful production partner in the Neptunes, landed with an almighty ...
Elbow: The Take Off And Landing Of Everything
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, April 2014
FOR THEIR SIXTH album, Elbow opted for a new working method, recording in small combinations rather than all together, with the remaining members chipping in ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 April 2014
THE MULTI-RACIAL trio Company Flow were one of rap's great underground hopes back in the '90s, their Funcrusher Plus album suggesting alternatives to the gangsta ...
Hamell On Trial: The trials of being Ed Hamell
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 April 2014
He thrashes his battered guitar and sings about De Niro and Bill Hicks. But he's lucky to be alive, following a car accident for which ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 April 2014
LILY'S BACK, and this time it's personal. But then, it always has been: few modern pop stars have engaged with the sweet 'n' sour of ...
Chuck E. Weiss: Chuck E Weiss: Red Beans and Weiss (Anti)
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, June 2014
SoCal boho's "alternative jungle music" finds its groove. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 August 2014
YOU HAVE TO HAND IT to Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard: he may come across like Johnny Borrell's understudy at times, but he's never shied away ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 September 2014
Originality loses out as Bono's boys retreat to comfort zone ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 October 2014
Pop star shows "promising signs of maturity". But whether it's adolescent exaggeration or an attempt to bring more intriguing strategies into pop lyricism is debatable. ...
Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric (Castle Rock)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, November 2014
"IF I DON'T do it, I get cravings to come out and do it," says Clapton at the start of the ungainly titled, but revealing, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 January 2015
Soul slow-burner charms on her gorgeous debut. ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 February 2015
THE LAST RECORDED testament of Roebuck "Pops" Staples, Don't Lose This remained a private family secret until his daughter Mavis remembered her father's instruction, one ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 March 2015
Her self-imposed exile is the one thematic mainspring driving this record ...
Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 March 2015
A cathartic exercise exploring the effect of his estranged mother Carrie's death ...
My Morning Jacket: The Waterfall
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 May 2015
Prolific frontman Jim James returns to My Morning Jacket with his soul refreshed and ready for another tilt at the cosmic windmill ...
Brandon Flowers: The Desired Effect
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 May 2015
HAVING DRAWN on his hometown Las Vegas's mythic character for his solo debut, Flamingo, Killers frontman Brandon Flowers has upped his game for this follow-up, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 July 2015
THE EAGERLY-AWAITED follow-up to 2012's breakthrough Lonerism throws something of a curve-ball. Kevin Parker's recent alliances with Todd Rundgren and fellow Aussie psych-rockers Pond suggested ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 19 October 2015
ACCORDING TO Dan Bejar, the title to Destroyer's 12th, and possibly best, album came to him upon learning that it was the original name for ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 October 2015
"WHY IS THE PAIN of birth lighter borne than the pain of death?" asks Joanna Newsom on the title-track of her first release in five ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 November 2015
New album arrives to save the music industry ...
The Velvet Underground: The Complete Matrix Tapes
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, January 2016
The live motherlode from San Francisco, 1969 ...
The 1975: I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 February 2016
WHILE THIS follow-up shares some of the annoying mannerisms that curdled one's enjoyment of The 1975's 2013 debut, it's ultimately a much more enjoyable and ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Uncut, April 2016
WELCOME BACK the new, improved White Denim, supercharged and adventurous riff-manglers from the Lone Star State. In Austin 's premier barbecue joint Uncut reconnnects with ...
James Blake: The Colour In Anything
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 May 2016
"IN MY HEART, there's a radio silence going on," sings James Blake on the opening track of The Colour In Anything. It's an odd claim ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 July 2016
WHEN, 15 YEARS AGO, the Avalanches released their debut album Since I Left You, it seemed like the dawning of a new age of DJ ...
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood: Chris Robinson Brotherhood: Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 July 2016
THE CHRIS ROBINSON Brotherhood may look like a bunch of bleary stoners, and confirm that impression by their colossal intake of weed, but that bohemian ...
Emeli Sandé: Long Live The Angels
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 9 November 2016
EMELI SANDÉ's long-awaited follow-up to the hugely successful Our Version Of Events is, at least in part, a break-up album – although her separation from ...
Kate Bush: "I'm not sure you're ever really happy with what you create"
Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 November 2016
In a rare interview, the reclusive 'Wuthering Heights' singer opens up about her nerves performing live and working with her son on the spectacular visuals for her 2014 shows, ...
Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, March 2017
ON COUNTRY HUSTLE, Jeb Loy Nichols' characteristic strain of expat-Americana leans away from folk and country, towards soul and funk of various forms, from his ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 March 2017
THERE'S A MOMENT, almost exactly midway through her sixth album, when Laura Marling asks herself, "Lately I'm wondering if all my pondering is taking up ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 March 2017
WHILST PUTTING TOGETHER a band to record some new songs, Conor Oberst was so encouraged by the response to his demos that last October, he ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 May 2017
ALTHOUGH A GUARANTEED chart-topping act for over a decade now, Kasabian's album sales have been dwindling gradually for the past few years, from assured multi-platinum ...
The Unthanks: The Songs And Poems Of Molly Drake
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 May 2017
THE UNTHANKS' EARLY CELEBRITY as clog-dancing siblings has perhaps tainted the general impression of the sisters' music with an excessively rustic tinge. It's entirely unwarranted, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 5 July 2017
UNDERSTANDABLY BEGUILED BY Olivia Chaney's enchanting 2015 debut album The Longest River, The Decemberists' frontman Colin Meloy tweeted his request that she cover the traditional ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 26 October 2017
DESPITE A personal output of 14 solo albums, Joe Henry remains more celebrated as a producer than a performer in his own right, thanks to ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 16 November 2017
I RATHER LIKED the single 'Spent The Day In Bed', with its mischievous advice to ignore news broadcasts designed "to make you feel small and ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 December 2017
THE MAIN THING that sets Eminem apart from virtually all other rappers is the conflicted nature of his character. Where most wallow in wearyingly cliched ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 4 January 2018
ARTIST, POET, illustrator, philosopher, cartoonist – so broad are Peter Blegvad's other interests, and so protean his muse, that one sometimes has to wait for ...
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Wrong Creatures
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 January 2018
LIKE MANY rock classicists, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seemed hidebound by their influences, prevented from realising a truly authentic rock'n'roll experience by their mannered appropriation ...
Calexico: The Thread That Keeps Us
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 January 2018
NOW EXPANDED to a full-time septet, Calexico display a new resourcefulness and determination on The Thread That Keeps Us, which may be the album that ...
Mary Gauthier: Rifles & Rosary Beads
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 25 January 2018
MARY GAUTHIER'S reputation as one of today's greatest songwriters, admired by peers such as Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, is rooted in her relentless commitment ...
Graham Coxon: The End Of The F***ing World
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 1 February 2018
GRAHAM COXON has always seemed the least comfortable of star guitarists, less concerned with image, bravado and pose than with matters of pure sound and ...
Franz Ferdinand: Always Ascending
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 8 February 2018
FIVE YEARS is a long time in pop, but Franz Ferdinand's artful, oblique take on the medium has allowed the band to negotiate the hiatus ...
The Low Anthem: The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 22 February 2018
OVER THE COURSE of a decade, the Low Anthem metamorphosed from the alt-folk harmonies of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin to the fantastical psychedelia of ...
Jack White: Boarding House Reach
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 March 2018
WHO DOES Jack White think he is? Well, judging by the cover to Boarding House Reach, a smoothly airbrushed simulacrum of Keanu Reeves, which rather ...
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