David Bennun
David Bennun has been writing about music and interviewing musicians for twenty years, starting at Melody Maker in the early '90s and moving on to The Guardian and then to the Mail On Sunday Review, where he is a regular pop critic. Additionally, his work has featured in GQ, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph and The Quietus. He is also a general interest features writer and commentator, and the author of two critically acclaimed, cult favourite books, Tick Bite Fever and British As A Second Language. He can found on Twitter @DavidBPop.
141 articles
List of articles in the library
Veruca Salt: Saline of the Century
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 7 January 1995
Since the release of their brilliant debut single 'Seether', VERUCA SALT have become the fastest rising band on the indie scene, both here and in ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 24 June 1995
NOW HERE'S what you know about Björk. She's tiny, elfin, mad as a rabbit, childish, arty, trendy and Icelandic. ...
Massive Attack: Overland Attack
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 21 January 1995
Massive Attack made one of the great albums of the Nineties with Blue Lines. It took them three years to make the equally captivating Protection, ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 14 November 1992
Their brilliant abstract guitar pop has lit up the year like a beacon of unpredictable genius and their new 'Watery, Domestic' single is another glorious ...
Inner City, Kevin Saunderson: Inner City
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 20 June 1992
"DETROIT IS in a bad way. Recession, depression, whatever you wanna call it. There's a lot of crime, a lot of people out of jobs. ...
Oasis: Sheffield Arena, Sheffield
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 6 May 1995
JESUS pigf***ing c***bubble Christ on a three-way tandem, this is a great moment in life. ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 25 February 1995
America Beckons ...
Interview by David Bennun, The Observer, 3 October 1999
AS REGENCY drawing rooms go, this one is on the largish side but, at first sight, perfectly ordinary. ...
Kenickie: 'We Think We're Bulletproof!'
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1996
...and KENICKIE may well be right. The coolest, funniest, sharpest, rockingest all-girl-and-boy band in Britain to The Maker out for a night on the tiles and left ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1996
"FRIED." "Deep-fried." "Crispy." "Lo-fi." "Super lo-fi." ...
Interview by David Bennun, Loaded, 1997
STEVE FIRTH takes a pull on his fag and stares out blankly at the sodden fields of Glastonbury. The rain is beating horizontally against a ...
Leftfield: On Your Marks, Get Set, Gauche: Leftfield: Leftism
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 21 January 1995
Who the f*** are LEFTFIELD? Giant pandas of techno positivism, faceless bores who had a hit with Johnny Rotten, or VR sex pervs? Don't bother ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1996
BEYOND BEDLAM strikes me as a good place to start. We are not dealing with half-assed melancholia here. Nor are we dealing with the chaos ...
Overview by David Bennun, Hot Air, 1999
A LITTLE over two minutes into The Fugees' 1996 hit 'Ready Or Not', the voice of Lauryn Hill is thrown into relief by a brief ...
Supergrass: More Cock Than Doodle-Do
Interview by David Bennun, Everett True, Melody Maker, 11 February 1995
Oxford's SUPERGRASS put the POP! into apoplexy and inject hyper-charged glam into the Nineties Brit guitar thrill. Plus! Their second single — and first hit ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 16 November 1996
Snoop's poised defiance and masterful Gangsta cool, posthumous crap from 2Pac ...
Babyshambles: Down In Albion (Rough Trade)
Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, November 2005
WELL, here comes a record more laden with baggage than an Andalucian pack mule. ...
Jack White, The Raconteurs: Jacks White: Is Jack White Trying To Kill Music Journalism?
Comment by David Bennun, The Guardian, 18 March 2008
The new Raconteurs album is to be released without pre-publicity. Is this a gesture of fairness to the fans, or an attempt to silence the ...
Babyshambles: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, February 2005
FOR THE BENEFIT of readers in Turkmenistan, I should explain that Babyshambles is the band led by former Libertine Pete Doherty — a man whose ...
Metallica: "Good Day For A Battle"
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 5 June 1993
Metallica, the titans of terse doom-metal, return to the UK this weekend, on the final leg of an epic tour that has taken them to ...
Take That: Stadium of Light, Sunderland *****
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, May 2011
YOU CAN TELL it's a chilly evening in Tyne and Wear. Some of the women even have their shoulders covered. It's the first night of ...
Manic Street Preachers: All That Glitters…
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 29 January 1994
It's been eight months since The Maker met the Manic Street Preachers, and they haven't cheered up in that time. On the eve of a ...
Super Furry Animals: "We've never taken acid"
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 July 1996
…So why is Super Furry Animals' new video set in a multi-coloured chemistry lab? How come their ancestors wore pointy hats on visits to castles? ...
Ed Sheeran: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, October 2011
A FOUNDING MYTH of modern music has Robert Johnson, that most occult and eerie of early bluesmen, meeting the Devil at a Mississippi crossroads one ...
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: The East Wing, Brighton Centre
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 15 October 1994
JON SPENCER has something he would like to tell us all about. ...
Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 1996
AT THE AGE OF 25, Beck Hansen has the air of a man who is surprised by nothing. Either that, or he is surprised by ...
Manic Street Preachers: Manic Stations: Manic Street Preachers: Brighton Centre ****
Live Review by David Bennun, Uncut, June 1997
THE SURVIVING REPRESENTATIVE of The Culture Of Despair sits on the drum riser, bass on his knees, fingers every which way across the fretboard, laughing ...
Prince: The Legendary Black Album (Warners 9362-45793-2)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 10 December 1994
BETWEEN THE critically revered Sign O' The Times and the underrated psychedelic funk feast of Lovesexy came The Black Album, withdrawn from release by Prince ...
Queen: Brixton Academy, London *
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, 2005
"CAN YOU BELIEVE," says Brian May, "that we're doing this?" ...
Review by David Bennun, Daily Mail, 24 September 2012
Nothing towers in Mumford's Babel ...
Blur: This Is The Modern World?
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 7 May 1994
BLUR believe themselves to be the most modern of bands, a four-man amalgamation of Nineties Britain. DAVID BENNUN reckons they're clever throwbacks, feeding on a ...
Supergrass: Lycanthropissed-up!: Supergrass: I Should Coco (Parlophone)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 May 1995
A scary rock 'n' roll wolfchild who roams the streets, high on drugs and booze, in search of whatever cheap thrills the night has to ...
The Chemical Brothers: The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 20 January 1996
Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands aka THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS are the Stooges of techno — freaky, raw and seriously hip. Like The Orb, The Prodigy, ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1996
Isn't BECK the slacker king and self-proclaimed 'Loser'? So how come he's the hardest working man in showbiz? Why has Noel Gallagher chosen new single ...
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Bang! Bang! You're Cred
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 5 October 1996
They're rude, they're raw, they love rock'n'roll, they're The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Just don't call them cabaret, that's all ...
Take That: That's All Folks!: Take That: Greatest Hits (RCA)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 23 March 1996
That That have split. David Bennun laments the passing of the "greatest pop group in the world" ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 2000
"I CAN," says Glen Campbell, "wriggle my right breast." He demonstrates. It's true. He can. ...
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London ****
Live Review by David Bennun, Event Magazine, 1 June 2013
Just drop the chat and give us the rap, Mac ...
EMF: Ballroom Blitzed! EMF: Cha Cha Cha (Parlophone)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 18 March 1995
EMF are famous for putting citrus fruits up their foreskins and getting drunk. For some peculiar reason, DAVID BENNUN doesn't think this, in itself, is ...
Metallica: Classic Metal: Metallica
Report and Interview by David Bennun, The Observer, 9 May 1999
LIKE MOST things in this California college town, including the people, Berkeley's Community Theatre has changed little since the '60s. Its rust-brown auditorium and green ...
Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, October 1999
IF EVER a Central Committee for Naming Things should be summoned into existence, I would like to nominate, for the chair, the inventor of the ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 July 1996
COULD I just get this out of the way? I mean, Kenickie are wonderful for what they are, not what they aren't, but I'd just ...
Wreath Lecture: Braying Crowds & The Accidental Death of Quiet Music
Comment by David Bennun, The Quietus, 12 December 2013
2013 was the year when crowds talking loudly at gigs became a universal aggravation, writes David Bennun. He asks why this is the case, and ...
Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, February 1998
FROM 1980S synth-pop with Talk Talk, Mark Hollis is now a solo artist of rare contemplation… It's all gone quiet over here. Mark Hollis has ...
Prince: 25 Years On: Lovesexy Revisited
Retrospective by David Bennun, The Quietus, 10 July 2013
NOW I THINK OF IT, I'm struck by how seldom I have gone out and bought an album on the day it was released. In ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Hot Air, Summer 2000
THEY CALLED him Moby from the moment he was born. A tiny homunculus, small for his age even then – too small, they thought, for ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, February 1999
AS LOW POINTS go, this one was not merely a dip in life's road. It was a chasm. A gorge. A bloody great sheer-sided canyon. ...
Alanis Morissette: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, June 2001
SAY WHAT YOU like about Alanis Morissette – and I intend to – there's no denying the girl can belt it out. Alone among the ...
Report and Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1993
AFTER LESS than a year in the recording business, Jason Kay, the man who is Jamiroquai, has developed an understanding with the press. They are ...
Sun Kil Moon: St George's Church, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 4 August 2015
BACK, THEN, to the old question of whether, and how, one separates the artist from the art. Mark Kozelek's music has been justly treasured since ...
Blubber, Elastica, Shed Seven: Elastica, Shed Seven, Blubber: Zap Club, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 17 September 1994
ALL RICH kids should be in bands. Consider it a duty. ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 12 February 1999
At his lowest ebb, Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, nearly jacked it in to be a fireman. Now he's a chart-topper with a clutch of ...
Pink Floyd Meet The Orb: David Gilmour and Dr. Alex Patterson
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 27 March 1993
JUST ABOUT everything anybody has ever told you is wrong. Take, for a very mundane example, the music you listen to. Most likely, there are ...
Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, November 1997
THE LATE '70s and early '80s were bleak years for rock, and most other things besides. One of those moments in history which seem to ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Loaded, Summer 1997
STEVE FIRTH takes a pull on his fag and stares out blankly at the sodden fields of Glastonbury. ...
Dexys Midnight Runners: Dexys: Duke of York's Theatre, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Event Magazine, 20 April 2013
IT CAN'T BE pointed out too often that the entertainment industry is lying to us about what constitutes soul music. The clue is in the ...
Gary Barlow: Bournemouth International Centre
Live Review by David Bennun, Daily Mail, 19 November 2012
CUT GARY BARLOW, one suspects, and he bleeds light entertainment. ...
Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: Snoop Doggy Dogg
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, November 1996
"I'M GONNA live forever," says the man slumped in the chair opposite, his voice so soft it's barely more than a mumble. Nobody has ever ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, Heat, 2000
"GOD SENT ME," Eminem once proclaimed, "to piss the world off." ...
Kanye West: A Triumph of Kanye West's will
Live Review by David Bennun, Intelligent Life, 28 June 2015
"RAP IS THE new rock'n'roll. We the rock stars. And I'm the biggest of all of them." ...
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 17 November 2015
WHAT A CURIOUS, synthetic experience it is to see Chvrches. Not that there's ever anything amiss with pop feeling synthetic. What makes Chvrches odd is ...
The Maccabees: Alexandra Palace, London
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 30 June 2017
THERE'S MUCH to be said for perseverance. Seven years ago and two albums in, the Maccabees, if not quite the "landfill indie" of Britain's post-Libertines ...
Cypress Hill And The New US Rap
Report by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 19 February 1994
IN AMERICA, rap is big, big business. ...
Gravediggaz: La Mort the Merrier — Gravediggaz: Niggamortis (Gee Street GEECDH 17tks/54mins/FP)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 17 September 1994
Rap: reflecting the brutal realities of life for urban American blacks or providing ghoulish and vicarious thrills for the eavesdropping cultural tourist? Maybe both, suggests ...
Cypress Hill: Temple Of Boom (Ruff House 15 tks/67 mins)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 28 October 1995
CYPRESS HILL. Music for marijuana-addled bores and Top Cat fans, or what? Or what, gibbers DAVID BENNUN, as we stretcher him out of the Temple ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 21 October 1995
Around these parts, we like a touch of evil. Artistic, mind. And one of the things that really fuels our tool is gangsta rap. Inventive, ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 27 February 1993
Reality used to be a friend of theirs — now PM DAWN, the world's leading manufacturers of delicious hip hop soul, hate it with a ...
Arrested Development: Jazz Cafe, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 11 July 1992
THE PROPS: wooden trunks and barrels. Suspiciously trim sacks marked "Beans", "Wheat", "Coffee". An olde-style Western Pacific railway board and a steamboat placard. A clothesline ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 8 January 1994
KRS ONE IS, to all intents and purposes, Boogie Down Productions, although his late partner, DJ Scott LaRock, still oversees his work, "despite what others ...
DJ Shadow: Endtroducing... (Mo'Wax 13tks/64mins)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 14 September 1996
Tricks of the Shade ...
Ice-T: Home Invasion (Rhyme Syndicate)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 20 March 1993
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ...
Massive Attack: The Leadmill, Sheffield
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 17 December 1994
ASSAULT AND FLATTERY ...
Acid Mothers Temple: Hope & Ruin, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 29 September 2016
NON-STOP head-melting psychedelia — each pulsating, echo-drenched disco-rock groove excels the one before, ending in a collective instrumental howl: AMT are hot, sweaty cool sonic ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 June 1992
SOMETHING HAS to happen to the Popguns soon. I've never pretended they were great favourites of mine, but every time I hear them, I'm taken ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 June 1992
JUST WHAT is it that's kept Galliano out of the charts? The Occult? Dodgy bar codes? Freak weather conditions? Every other funker, from the Young ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 3 July 1993
ONE DOVE have been hailed as the future of epic, melodic dance music, blending classic pop melancholia with club beats to produce a sound that ...
Pop Will Eat Itself: At Weird's Bar And Grill (RCA)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 6 March 1993
SURPRISE, SURPRISE. The point of a Pop Will Eat Itself gig (of which this is a record) isn't, God forbid, the music, it's the sense ...
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 28 August 2018
DISCLOSURE: I had forgotten the Kooks existed. When the Brighton indie quartet first surfaced some 12 years ago, I described them as an "amiably ordinary ...
The Sabres of Paradise, Andrew Weatherall: Weatherall Storms
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 24 September 1994
ANDREW WEATHERALL has towered over the British club scene since he first found fame as a DJ in the acid house explosion. He created 'Loaded' ...
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy: Camden Underworld, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 30 May 1992
HIP HOP HOORAY ...
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 30 April 2017
Singer who redefined rock'n'roll 50 years ago continues to confound expectations as tour brings him to London Palladium. ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 28 August 1993
"TAKE THAT are the best group in the whole world. So there!" ...
PJ Harvey: O2 Academy Brixton, London
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 31 October 2016
The musician brings her Hope Six Demolition Project on tour to rail against social ills, and confirm her status as a forceful commentator. ...
Saint Etienne: St Etienne: Brighton Centre East Wing
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 16 May 1992
KITSCH OF DISTINCTION ...
Curtis Mayfield: Revisiting Curtis Mayfield's There's No Place Like America Today
Retrospective by David Bennun, The Quietus, 16 April 2015
NOTE: This article was adapted by its author from a piece in the 1995 Melody Maker book Unknown Pleasures. ...
Tracy Chapman: Matters Of The Heart (Elektra)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 16 May 1992
I'M ALWAYS prepared to be surprised. I like surprises, me. If, for example, Tracy Chapman made an album — not a terrifically surprising event in ...
The 1975: A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 27 November 2018
SOMETIMES YOU hear a record that feels like comfort in a diffuse and dissonant age, a warm, reassuring record that harks back to former certainties, ...
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 27 August 2019
"TRANS" IS QUITE the motif for indie cult hero Ezra Furman. ...
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 5 August 1995
GOLDIE is being called the Jimi Hendrix of jungle, the charismatic centre of an extraordinary new music. His debut album, Timeless, is a hugely inventive, ...
Lizzo: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Metro, 8 November 2019
ALL BIG ACTS start small – but the difference between the Lizzo who played a hole in Brighton's seafront wall five years ago, and the ...
Guide by David Bennun, The Guardian, 28 September 2016
From hallucinatory stormers to Dylan-esque big-city tales, here are 10 tracks that define an artist forever ahead of a game he always ended up losing. ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 May 1995
SCARLET IT BLEED ...
Steely Dan: BluesFest at the O2, London
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 30 October 2017
Donald Fagen, now sole founding member after the death of Walter Becker, is the vocal grit in the oyster of Steely Dan's sophisticated, frictionless grooves. ...
Electric Light Orchestra: The Electric Light Orchestra will leave you all aglow
Comment by David Bennun, Metro, 18 September 2018
I HAVE LOVED Electric Light Orchestra, as almost nobody calls them, since I first heard them as a youngster in the 1980s, after their golden ...
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 26 August 2019
IT'S TAYLOR Swift's world; the rest of us just live in it. That, at least, is the impression conveyed by any given Taylor Swift album. ...
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 12 February 2020
SOME RECORDS slip by so easily you hardly notice. You hit play and moments later they're done. In the case of the third album from ...
The Clientele: Music For The Age Of Miracles
Review by David Bennun, The Quietus, 22 September 2017
Exotic and eerie tales from Hampshire, and the Clientele's first LP proper since 2009's Bonfires On The Heath ...
Underworld: Brixton Academy Megadog, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 15 January 1994
HADES AND GENTLEMEN ...
Skunk Anansie: Sunburnt And Paranoid (One Little Indian TPLP55 11tks/42 mins/FP)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 16 September 1995
RODENT TO NOWHERE The nation is divided into people who hate SKUNK ANANSIE for the wrong reasons (they appeal to liberal guilt) or love them for ...
Carleen Anderson, Young Disciples: Carleen Anderson: Soul Mother
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 12 February 1994
CARLEEN ANDERSON is a former Young Disciple, James Brown's god-daughter, and the creator of one of 1994's first great singles. DAVID BENNUN hears her life ...
Grimes: Miss Anthropocene (4AD)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 25 February 2020
WHAT DO YOU do when you become not only a star but a style? When a host of other artists keep remaking (pretty well, too) ...
Liam Gallagher: Why Me? Why Not.
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 18 September 2019
IN HINDSIGHT, Liam Gallagher had one thing going for him two years ago when he released his first solo album, As You Were, to a ...
Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 17 September 1999
Four years ago Leftfield made the Greatest Dance Album of All Time. Then everything went quiet until the release of their new album this month. ...
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 15 December 2020
AT LEAST THIS suspended animation has been good for something, then. All those artists who have been denied the road and excused the promotional treadmill ...
Baby Bird: Ugly/Beautiful (Echo)
Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 18 October 1996
This baby's got wings David Bennun celebrates a bedroom genius ...
Junglepussy: JP4 (Secretly Canadian)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 22 October 2020
HOW MUCH fun is Shayna McHayle, more felicitously known as Junglepussy? More fun than a boxful of puppies with sharp little teeth and a bone ...
Annie: Dark Hearts (Annie Melody)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 22 October 2020
HEY ANNIE – well, look at you. ...
Lewis Capaldi: Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 15 May 2019
IF EVER A record's title amounted to that "Come on, then!" gesture from a pub squabble, Lewis Capaldi's is surely it. Still early into a ...
Django Django: Glowing In The Dark (Because Music)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, February 2021
TIME WAS WHEN art schools were the engine of British pop culture. That's long gone but you still get flickers from the embers. One of ...
Uncle Tupelo: Mean Fiddler, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 2 January 1993
RELATIVE VALUES ...
Sharon Van Etten: Cambridge Junction
Live Review by David Bennun, Metro, 3 July 2019
SHARON VAN ETTEN has changed. She seems no longer consumed by the rage and pain she has had good reason to feel, and has channelled ...
Chaka Khan: Hello Happiness (Diary/Island)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 10 February 2019
Ch-arge of energy from Chaka bursting with life and joy ...
Todd Terry: Terry's All Gold — Todd Terry: Resolutions (Innocent)
Review and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 2 July 1999
Todd Terry is huge — and if his latest album is anything to go by, says David Bennun, the house deity is about to get ...
Flowered Up: Mean Fiddler, London
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 9 January 1993
STEM'S THE BREAKS ...
Mark Ronson: Late Night Feelings (Columbia)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, June 2019
Mood music: Ronson keeps it subtle ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 18 January 1997
FRONTIER BASHING ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, Spring 1994
Rarely has the Recommended star at the top of a review been so icily ironic. Because, reckons David Bennun, if Come's brutal rhythm'n'bruise says anything ...
Lady Leshurr: The Arch, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 27 February 2017
Ingenious freestyler combines mischief, wit and expert comic timing. ...
Horace Andy: Komedia, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 20 July 2017
The reggae veteran has some of his eerieness smoothed out in a brisk and businesslike set – but his vibrato-laden voice remains spellbinding. ...
Blur: Blur (Food/Parlophone 14tks/57mins)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 8 February 1997
Get this. BLUR have gone lo-fi. They're slumming it. And they might just have made their finest album to date... ...
The Pretenders: Hate For Sale (BMG)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 14 July 2020
CRIKEY. If you didn't know it was 2020 — if there were any way not to know it's 2020 — then the new Pretenders album ...
Tindersticks: The Tindersticks' Second Album
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 25 March 1995
TINDERSTICKS are conceivably the most "critically acclaimed" band of all time. And oh look, here comes David Bennun. He's a "critic". He's going to "acclaim" ...
Plastic Fantastic: Plastic Explosive
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 9 March 1996
YOU'VE WITNESSED THE HYPE, read the manifestos, joined in the controversy; now, at last, you can hear the music. Plastic Fantastic release their first single ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 2 May 1992
IGGY POP? As if Eldritch wasn't unlikely enough — Iggy f***ing Pop? This lady's agent doesn't lack imagination. What next? A guest spot with GG ...
Future Sound Of London: Lifeforms (Virgin V27722 19 tks/93 mins/FP/Double)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 28 May 1994
It's been a long while since FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON led us, entranced, to 'Papua New Guinea'. Now they've captured that long while on disc. ...
The Fatima Mansions: Fatima Mansions: Valhalla Avenue (Kitchenware)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 23 May 1992
THOR BLIMEY ...
Hot Chip: A Bath Full Of Ecstasy
Review by David Bennun, Metro, 18 June 2019
ALMOST A decade ago it wouldn't have been a stretch to call Hot Chip Britain's best pop band. They produced wonderful, warm-hearted electro floor-fillers with ...
The Chicks: Gaslighter (Columbia)
Review by David Bennun, Metro, July 2020
THE CHICKS formerly known as Dixie haven't released a new studio album in 14 years, which makes Gaslighter a pretty big deal. ...
Nitin Sawhney : Nitin Sawhney: Displacing The Priest (Outcaste) ***
Review by David Bennun, Muzik, October 1996
SAWHNEY'S SECOND album is so omnivorously eclectic that it would be easy to mistake it for a new David Toop compilation. All the same, there ...
Aphex Twin: The Six Lives Of Richard D. James
Interview by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 1 May 1993
APHEX TWIN you already know. Or at least you should do — he's been described as the hottest bleepmaster on the block, been dubbed 'The ...
Brand New Heavies: The Brand New Heavies: Heavy Rhyme Experience Vol. 1 (Acid Jazz)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 5 September 1992
YES! WHAT a brilliant simple, obvious idea! Why, you Have to wonder, has nobody thought of it before. Well, somebody did; a crew name of ...
Jamiroquai: Travelling Without Moving (Soho Square)
Review by David Bennun, Muzik, October 1996
THE SEVENTIES was an age when people lived out their fantasies. Between the clubs of New York and the gay bathhouses of San Francisco, running ...
Scott Walker: Tilt (Fontana 526858/9 tks/57 mins/CFD/LP/MC/FP)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 6 May 1995
SOMBRE, GOOD people, does not begin to describe it. Doubtless you'd expect this from the former leading fight of the Walker Brothers, but, aside from ...
Front 242: Live Target (Guzzi)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 30 January 1993
LET ME hear you say thud. Now let me hear you say it for 74 minutes. Hold it there. That'll do. How much do you ...
How Hip-Hop broke down the barriers
Retrospective by David Bennun, Daily Telegraph, 2018
The music style that began in the Bronx has branched out to become an international force and a Pulitzer Prize winner, says David Bennun ...
Compton's Most Wanted: Music To Drive By (Epic)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 9 January 1993
LAST TRAIN TO SOUTH-CENTRAL ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 24 September 1994
THE GEE SPOT ...
Review by David Bennun, The Quietus, 27 July 2015
IN ANOTHER WORLD, it was this way all along. ...
Superchunk: On The Mouth (City Slang)
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 30 January 1993
KISS THIS ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 7 September 1991
BRIGHTON, summertime. Sea breezes, sunshine in the park, the smell of new-mown dogshit... and Spitfire! (short for Jefferson Spitfire, don't you know). Yeah! Rock'n'roll! Cruisin' ...
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