Ian MacDonald
The author of the acclaimed Beatles book REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD, and of the collection THE PEOPLE'S MUSIC, both published by Pimlico, MacDonald was Assistant Editor of NME in the early '70s and contributed regularly to Uncut. Tragically, Ian took his own life in August 2003.
Paul Gorman's 2001 interview with Ian
206 articles
List of articles in the library
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 28 July 1973
SINCE THE Beatles re-created the album market with Sergeant Pepper we've become used to the idea that the best of rock'n'roll is invariably found in ...
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 11 August 1973
CAN YOU AFFORD TO LAUGH AND MISS OUT ON 10CC? ...
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 September 1975
DAEVID ALLEN GOT out of it this year. Out of the VAT-race, to be more precise and let's keep the double-entendres under control, eh? ...
Report by Ian MacDonald, Creem, November 1974
SITUATION UNCHANGED. Still hanging on in here, waiting for something to happen. (Wait — was that a heart-grazing lobe-grinder of a new single from Mick, ...
Amon Düül, Tasavallan Presidentti: Amon Düül II, Tasavallan Presidentti: Imperial College, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
A CULTURAL ANECDOTE: It's early 1967 and The Soft Machine are having a little trouble getting it together — particularly Mike Ratledge. Finally, Daevid Allen ...
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 16 December 1972
BOMB BLASTS AND THE BEAT: PART TWO OF IAN MACDONALD'S DEFINITIVE SURVEY OF GERMAN ROCK ...
Amon Düül, Can, Faust, Kraftwerk, Nektar: Krautrock: Germany Calling
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
TIME WAS WHEN a sudden loud crash around West Germany was probably just an other F-One-Eleven. These days it's more likely to be the local ...
Amon Düül, Faust, Popol Vuh: Krautrock: Germany Calling #3
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 23 December 1972
From Amon Düül to Faust's new sound-world ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
Sudden impact: Best of the label that brought us the Small Faces…and Jimmy Tarbuck. ...
Pete Atkin And Clive James: From Little Atkins Great Oak Trees Grow
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 April 1975
A fearsome encounter between two of the foremost minds of a Generation...uh...two of the most cerebral Rock Critics afloat...um, two of the most Accomplished Raconteurs...the ...
Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello: Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
ONLY FIVE years ago in the UK, it needed to be reaffirmed that Burt Bacharach is one of the greatest popular musicians of the second ...
Back Door: Just Who Do Back Door Think They Are?
Profile and Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973
ONE OF the peripheral pleasures of a thriving music scene is being able to tell your friends about this great unknown group you've just discovered. ...
The Band: Northern Lights — Southern Cross
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 December 1975
I'M UP AGAINST a deadline on this one, having to hurry – which is bad enough without having to respond fairly to a group operating ...
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, September 2001
IN TERMS OF scale and impact, rock music was born during Dylan's 1965-6 world tour with a group called The Hawks. Dylan's rig was by ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan: Before The Flood
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 29 June 1974
AN APPOSITE QUOTE from Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (the town preacher talking): "Oh Lord, can we truly accomplish this great task or are we ...
The Beach Boys: Beach Boys: Reissues
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2001
Choral unevensong from the waywardly wondrous Wilson clan ...
Overview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2000
SunflowerSurf's UpCarl And The Passions So ToughHollandThe Beach Boys In Concert15 Big OnesThe Beach Boys Love YouM.I.U. AlbumLA (Light Album)Keepin' The Summer AliveThe Beach ...
Be-Bop Deluxe: Be Bop Deluxe: Axe Victim
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 July 1974
IT'S GREAT to be right in there on the first still-to-be-perfected artistic utterance of A Truly Great Group To Be. That old warm self-congratulatory glow ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 1998
Downbeat apocalypse: US master of ironic eclecticism unearths a diamond in the trash. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, March 2001
Four-disc overview for the label that brought you sweet soul music ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2001
New York new wave pop pasticheurs repackaged ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001
Twenty-album reissue programme commemorates a great Sixties label ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Blue Oyster Cult/Tyranny & Mutation/Secret Treaties/Agents Of Fortune
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2001
WITH ITS de rigueur darkside lyrics, bugaboo blues-monster riffs, and hypermacho pose-striking, heavy metal was always the dumbest member of the rock family. ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Tyranny And Mutation (Columbia Import)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 16 March 1974
WELL, HERE it is then: volume two of Sandy Perlman's boys' collective voyage in the S.S. "Cosmic Greaser Speed-freak" towards strange new worlds of murk ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 August 1975
"WHITE ROCK", OBSERVED CSM last week in his Wailers review, "lays its beat on you; the Wailers' music allows you to find your own rhythm ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, September 1998
Epic set of Sixties soul classics, formerly import-only ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973
"I'M AGELESS," said David Bowie in a recent interview – and these 21 tracks from the very earliest days of his career point up the ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 22 January 1977
YOU'RE JUST a little girl with grey eyes and you never leave your room. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 20 October 1973
THE GOLDEN AGE Of Rock is almost universally assumed to have been in full swing between about 1954 and 1959, following which, according to every ...
David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 July 1973
THERE ARE crowds of kids outside the hall, waiting for Stardust to limousine into view. And for them this is all three times as real, ...
David Bowie: The Revolution Is Here
Essay by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 March 1973
IN THE NINE months since he broke through to mass recognition, David Bowie has had more written about him than most rock artists will in ...
Brian Eno, David Bowie: Eno Part 2: Another False World — How to Make A Modern Record
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 December 1977
Thinking about music with BRIAN ENO. Some more monologues recorded and compiled by IAN MacDONALD. ...
David Bowie: Station To Station (RCA ALP1-1327)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Street Life, 7 February 1976
Bowie's Station: The Playback Of The Western World ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 15 March 1975
WHERE have all poppa's heroes gone? Living in New York, every one. A hard city by reputation, but presumably it has its compensations for someone ...
David Bowie: White Lines, Black Magic
Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 1998
'I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree. And I looked and frowned and the monster was me'(David Bowie, 'The Width Of ...
David Bowie: Great Albums That Have Fallen Off The Critical Radar: David Bowie's Lodger
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2003
IN THE SO-CALLED "Berlin trilogy", Lodger is always thought of as an anticlimax after Low and "Heroes". Eno, who collaborated with Bowie on the album ...
David Bowie: The Case For and Against Bowie: Shrewd Publicity Stunt Or Necessity?
Interview by Roy Carr, Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 July 1973
AFTER CALLING Jeff Beck on stage to climax last week s final night of his British tour, David Bowie reappeared alone before the curtain to ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 September 1975
"DENNIS BROWN," announces Trojan manager Webster Shrowder From the sleeve of the man's album, "is one of my favourite artists, who I put in the ...
James Brown: Live At The Apollo Volume II (Deluxe Edition) (Universal)****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2001
UNEDITED REISSUE of legendary 1967 double album. ...
James Brown: There It Is (Polydor)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 September 1972
WHERE JAMES BROWN IS AT ...
Profile by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 5 May 1973
CREATOR OF one of rock's two most distinctive bass styles (the other being Paul McCartney's), Jack Bruce has, during the course of a long and ...
Bill Bruford, King Crimson: Under the Influence — This Week: Bill Bruford of King Crimson
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973
JOHN McLAUGHLIN: 'Pete The Poet'. From Extrapolation. Fantastic — well, that whole album is. Very fast, tight bop playing and some great drums from Tony ...
Buffalo Springfield: Buffalo Springfield Boxed Set (Rhino)****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2001
MASSIVELY DETAILED retrospective packed with previously unreleased material ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 November 1975
THIS ONE'LL SORT out the liggers. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 December 1975
HERE COMES ONE of the strongest reggae albums of this year, lately available only on import in specialist shops and now rushed out in Britain ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, February 2002
Perverse selection – from New York Dolls to Gonads, Buzzcocks to Toy Dolls — misses chance to be definitive summary ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 8 June 1974
YEAH, KING of the Laid-Back and all that bananas, but it goes a little deeper than that cos, even though he probably spends more ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 September 1974
Can in Curio City ...
Can: Future Days (United Artists)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 January 1974
I'VE HAD MY paltry reservations about Can in the past, but their previous album, Ege Bamyasi, allayed most of them and this, the group's fourth ...
Can: Automation For The People
Guide by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1997
A DEEP DISTANT DETONATION ECHOED by an aftershock and a seething high-frequency fallout of fire and rain. Out of this drizzle rises a robotic one-bar ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973
THE STAGE WAS filled with manic, shadowy figures: three guitarists, two drummers, two singers, and a saxophonist. Through the barrage of noise, one could distinguish ...
Can: They Have Ways Of Making You Listen…
Profile by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 November 1974
ONE NIGHT IN NOVEMBER 1969 the phone rang in Irmin Schmidt's Cologne home. Schmidt got out of bed to answer it and found himself talking ...
Captain Beefheart: The Beef Of The Matter
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 April 1973
DON VAN VLIET and his orchestra are here for their third British tour. The current line-up of The Magic Band features Zoot Horn Rollo (first ...
Walter/Wendy Carlos: Walter Carlos: Sonic Seasonings (CBS Quadraphonic)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973
HERE'S ONE for Tangerine Dream freaks. ...
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Nick Cave: No More Shall We Part
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2001
Tenth solo album from Saint Nick ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2000
Another Chic anthology — why buy? An intelligent sleevenote with participation from Nile Rodgers, full-length album cuts where applicable. La musique elle-meme. ...
The Chi-Lites, The Moments: The Chi-Lites: Half a Love and The Moments: Sharp
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 September 1975
IF IT WERE ONLY for All Platinum's second certifiable classic – The Moments' 'Dolly My Love' – this group's new album would need to be ...
John Coltrane: Live Trane: The European Tours (Pablo)****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, February 2002
MASSIVE BOX set of Coltrane's classic quartet in action. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
TIME SASHAYS on and Miles Davis, who was still with us only a few blinks of an eye ago is already becoming history. Hence Sony's ...
Alice Cooper: Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 September 1974
Alice's absurd achievements ...
Ivor Cutler: Dandruff (Virgin)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 October 1974
I REMEMBER the time when you got seven tracks on each side of an album. Over the years, the quantity has been steadily decreasing and, ...
Miles Davis: Big Fun; Get Up With It; On The Corner
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, February 2001
CONTROVERSIAL FUSION megastructures from the early Seventies. ...
Miles Davis: Live At The Fillmore East (March 7,1970): It's About That Time (Columbia/Legacy)****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2001
FIERCE PRE-Bitches Brew live date at a rock venue. ...
Miles Davis: On The Corner (CBS)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 February 1973
I WAS LYING around listening to Miles Smiles the other day, thinking about how it's a great record. And then I remembered the 30-odd other ...
Miles Davis: The Complete 'In A Silent Way' Sessions (Columbia/Legacy)****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001
Another episode in Columbia's complete reissue programme. ...
Kiki Dee, Steely Dan: Steely Dan, Kiki Dee: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 June 1974
Thumbs down for the Dan ...
The Delfonics: La-La Means I Love You – The Definitive Collection
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, April 1998
THOUGH THE Delfonics are now seen as archetypal icons of '70s kitsch, they recorded their best stuff, including their three big hits, before the '60s ...
Nick Drake: Five Leaves Left****; Bryter Layter****; Pink Moon*****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
Lost poet's main works re-released ...
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
"I was born to sail away into a land of forever/not to be tied to an old stone grave/in your land of never" — Nick ...
Nick Drake: Exiled From Heaven
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, MOJO, January 2000
DURING THE ACADEMIC year of 1968-9, Cambridge University felt an alien influence from beyond its ancient facade of curtain walls and quiet quadrangles. Sober flag-stones ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, March 2001
IN WHICH THE meanest mf-ers in contemporary hip hop, now wallowing in a gargantuan trough of dollars, give themselves 10 times more than enough rope, ...
Bob Dylan: In My Time Of Dyin'…
Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2001
ON ITS RELEASE IN 1962, BOB DYLAN'S FIRST ALBUM BLEW MINDS ALL OVER THE WORLD. IAN MACDONALD RECALLS ITS IMPACT ON HIS OWN TEENAGE YEARS ...
Bob Dylan: Wild Mercury: A Tale Of Two Dylans
Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2001
"Lotta people seeing double tonight.From the disease of conceit"– 'Disease Of Conceit' (Oh Mercy, 1989) ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1997
WHERE MOST folk in this business work on instinct, rarely pondering how to maximise their talent, supposing they have any, Eno is one of a ...
Brian Eno, Roxy Music: Eno Part 1: Before and After Science — Accidents Will Happen
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 November 1977
Thinking about music with BRIAN ENO. Some monologues recorded and compiled by IAN MacDONALD. ...
Brian Eno, Robert Fripp: Fripp and Eno: No Pussyfooting (HELP)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973
Sex of one, Eno of the other ...
Brian Eno, Roxy Music: Under the Influence: Eno of Roxy
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 10 March 1973
Velvets & Beethoven ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2001
UNLESS YOU'RE hardline avant-garde (in which case, you'll vote for Cecil Taylor), Bill Evans (1929-1980) is the greatest jazz pianist of the post-bebop era. Classically ...
John Fahey: The Great San Bernadino Birthday Party And Other Excursions
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, April 2001
Solitary fingerstyle pioneer evokes the dark side of the Sixties ...
Discography by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973
ONE OF THE best of a large number of good British bands to emerge in 1967, Family were for about 18 months the most exciting ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 October 1973
FAUST IV is the chronological successor of So Far (The Faust Tapes being from the period of the transparent album) and, as such, represents the ...
Faust: The Wumme Years 1971-73
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2001
THERE'S STILL nothing quite like the first side of Faust's eponymous debut album, recorded in 1971 and released by a bemused Polydor in 1972. These ...
Faust: "We're Just Trying to Be Here Now"
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 November 1973
FOLLOWING A PAPER TRAIL, IAN MacDONALD TRACKS DOWN FAUST TO A DISUSED CAR LOT OUTSIDE SOLIHULL WHERE THEY REVEAL DRAMATICALLY... ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, November 1973
"I NEVER EXPECTED anything like this," exclaimed a small enthusiastic person who occupied the seat next to mine in Plymouth's famous Guildhall on May 19 ...
Faust: The Sound of the Eighties
Comment by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 March 1973
A LOW buzzing sound, at first almost subliminal, emanates from a position somewhere between the twin stereo speakers. It wavers, hesitantly, from side to side ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 June 1973
I'VE NO CLEAR idea of what was going on at this concert at all. Faust, hardly the most publicised of bands, appear suddenly at Plymouth ...
Faust: The Helmet of the Policeman is on the Head of the Musician: Faust In Britain
Report by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 July 1973
FAUST WERE bored. Bored with the set they'd been playing on tour, feeling that they'd much rather lounge around all day in their London flat ...
Faust, Henry Cow: Faust: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973
I SENSED something weird was in the offing the moment I was met in the foyer of the Rainbow by a lady dressed as a ...
Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry: Party Fun From an Old Poseur
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 8 September 1973
AT NOON PRECISELY, on a colourless day, I pressed the bell-push of Bryan Ferry's chic Earl's Court flat. Fifteen minutes later I was still ringing. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 19 August 1972
Aretha at her greatest ...
Robert Fripp, King Crimson: Robert Fripp: Head, Heart and Hips
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 25 August 1973
ROBERT FRIPP doesn't give many interviews – which is silly because he's a shrewd, witty, and engrossing man who, when he's not sitting on a ...
Robert Fripp, King Crimson: Robert Fripp: The Sexual Athlete
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 September 1973
ROBERT FRIPP paused in a virtuoso display of cross-picking on Francisco Tarrega's 'Recuerdos de la Alhambra', the interlude music he'd chosen between the two parts ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 December 1975
IF EVERYONE HAD a pair of disco turntables as well as a telly, this record might sell a million. ...
Marvin Gaye: Marvellous Marvin Reconsidered
Book Excerpt by Ian MacDonald, 'The People's Music' (Pimlico), July 2003
RARELY DID AN artistic persona run more counter to the truth than in the case of Marvin Gaye. Onstage, he was the quintessence of urbanity: ...
Overview by Ian MacDonald, The Face, March 1987
WHAT IS THE USE OF MINIMALISM? ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: The Golden Road (1965-1973) (Rhino/Warner Bros) *****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2002
THE GRATEFUL DEAD are probably the most puzzling enigma in rock history. ...
Claire Hamill, King Crimson: King Crimson/Claire Hammill: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 March 1973
ON SUNDAY night, at that big weird place in Finsbury Park, Messrs. Derek Moss, Bart Brassert, Don Wilton and Rodney Frock most certainly did not ...
Harpers Bizarre: The Best Of Harpers Bizarre
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 31 August 1974
THE TRADITION of the American pop/soft-rock interpretative/performing outfit, apparent now in the Pointer Sisters and Three Dog Night, goes back into the '60s (and ultimately ...
Hatfield And The North: Hatfield And The North
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 23 March 1974
TO BE BLUNT, Hatfield And The North have missed the boat. What they're doing on this record, admirable as it may be in itself, is ...
Hatfield And The North: New Band on the Old Road…
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 19 May 1973
PIP PYLE, Phil Miller, Dave Stewart, and Richard Sinclair have been on the road a few years between them. ...
Jimi Hendrix: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2000
LOUD, FLASHY, purple, wild, a danger to the nation's daughters. Face it, if personalities like JM Hendrix didn't exist, life would be rather boring. (And ...
Henry Cow: In Praise of Learning
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 June 1975
IT HAS been said that rock has lost its vision. It has also been suggested that the current drought of spectacular things to behold in ...
Henry Cow: Just Happy Playing Their Music
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 April 1973
HENRY COW, a quintet formed at Cambridge University five years ago, are probably best known — though the group themselves would rather forget it — ...
The Incredible String Band #1: Eight Years On
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 10 March 1973
THE INCREDIBLE String Band, in various forms, have been playing for eight years and have recorded 13 albums, including two doubles and solo sets by ...
The Incredible String Band #2: Scientology and the Incredibles
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 March 1973
MacDONALD: Was there any consistent philosophical or spiritual attitude behind the group's work during the Elektra period, or were you just tossing in anything you ...
Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow/Crown Of Creation/Volunteers
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, April 1998
"COUNTRY blues at deafening volume," was the verdict of one English pop star on Californian acid-rock in 1967, a view then widely held among his ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 January 1974
YOU WILL soon be told that this cat is going to be the big breeze in 1974. Receive this piece of information with sceptical, though ...
King Crimson: Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Island).
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 10 March 1973
A NICE RECORD of pleasant, middle-of-the-road music which should prove a great favourite with everybody's mum and dad this Easter. Bill Bruford's whistling has improved ...
King Crimson: Latest Shade of Crimson
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 4 August 1973
SOME REPORTS from America suggested that King Crimson's recent tour had bombed completely. Others maintained that everything had gone according to plot and that audience ...
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973
THE MARQUEE MAY be an ace gig as far as groups are concerned but, for audiences, it can be most uncomfortable particularly when the ...
King Crimson: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1973
IT'S A ROCK concert evening and the stalls are filling to the accompaniment of music played over the public address system. A review-functionary takes his ...
The Kinks: Kinks: Pye Label Reissues
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 1998
Ray Davies and Co's first five LPs ...
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
MORE SEMINAL Englishness from the kings of Britpop ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 August 1974
THE MAIN OBSTACLE between a rock song-writer and Major Form (as ye olde musickologists have it) is Objectivity. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 22 February 1975
THE AVERAGE WHITES broke the ice with their second album and Kokomo will be the first of the beneficiaries. ...
LaBelle: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 15 March 1975
THE PROVERBIAL BREATH of fresh air. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 19 October 1974
AN IRRATIONAL prejudice: Given a choice between the sound of New York and the sound of New Orleans, I'd always go for the former. If ...
John Lennon: The John Lennon Anthology
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 1998
WE GET USED TO THE VOICE. THE SOUND of a largely self-educated, rawly-talented, troubled and often wildly erratic Englishman who, by means of the various ...
Little Feat: Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros.)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 31 March 1973
SINCE SAILIN' Shoes, the group's last album, asthmatic Pachuco bass-player Roy Estrada, formerly of The Mothers, has departed to join Captain Beefheart under the pseudonym ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, April 2001
ONE OF THE many misleading ways in which writers born since the Sixties view that enigmatic decade stems from the modern habit of judging success ...
Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds Of Fire (CBS)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 February 1973
THE INNER Mounting Flame was a very extreme record: extremely fast, extremely dazzling, extremely lyrical, extremely passionate. If you go along with Robert Fripp's "Head ...
Mahavishnu Orchestra: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 July 1973
A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE ...
John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin: The Heart Of Things — Live In Paris
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2000
EX-MAHAVISHNU whizz and legendarily virtuosic cosmo-prog funk-jazz extrapolator in cool comeback shock ...
Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin: John McLaughlin: Gimme Dat 11/8 Time Religion
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 July 1973
PART 2: IAN MacDONALD ON THE SPIRITUAL McLAUGHLIN ...
Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin: The Captain Kirk in John McLaughlin
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 July 1973
PART 1: IAN MacDONALD CHARTS THE RISE AND RISE OF THE COLOSSUS OF ELECTRIC GUITAR ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley CD Reissues
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2001
Catch A Fire*****Burnin'****Natty Dread****Live!****Rastaman Vibration***All Island Roots Of Passage: First instalment of definitive reissue programme ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 September 1975
Marley No Woman No Cry No Opposition Mon ...
John Martyn: The Stormbringer Comes Into The Sun
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 21 July 1973
"Love me with your head and heart.Love me from the place it starts;Love me from your head and heart.Love me like a child." ...
John Martyn: Inside Out (Island)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 29 September 1973
YOU COULD SAY that the post-decadence rock scene is structured rather like the society of ants: a hangover of old drones twittering away behind last ...
Matching Mole: Cosmic Music and a Weird Fripp Trip...
Report by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 30 September 1972
INSIDE THE control-room of CBS Number One, Whitfield Street, producer Robert Fripp leans forward in his swivel chair and addresses the studio in general: "This is ...
John Mayall: Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, and; The Best Of (As It All Began)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
WANT TO know what the fuss was all about? Drop the old laser-beam on track 21, the stereo version of 'Have You Heard?', John Mayall's ...
Curtis Mayfield - A Gently Sensitive Observer
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 1998
SIX MAYFIELD albums on three CDs, from the great to the grottyCurtisGot To Find A WayRootsSweet ExorcistBack To The WorldLove ...
Curtis Mayfield: America Today
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 June 1975
THREE YEARS AGO, Curtis Mayfield was one of the golden boys of New Wave soul, having broken with marketing formats (The Impressions) and joined the ...
Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (Two-CD Special Edition)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, September 1998
ORIGINALLY RELEASED in 1972, Curtis Mayfield's album of music for one of the most notorious blaxploitation films of the Seventies is typically compassionate, melancholic, and ...
Paul McCartney: Driving Rain (Parlophone)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2002
ROCKIN' MACCA goes for live spontaneity. ...
Mott the Hoople: All The Young Dudes: The Anthology
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
Boxed set full of rarities and goodies from self-conscious stylists of Glam ...
Maria Muldaur: Maria Muldaur (Warner Brothers, Import)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973
Maudlin Maria malady of rock ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 5 October 1974
"A VINDICATION of the South?" Hey Randy y'all gon' lay A CONCEPT ALBUM on us? Yeeee-haw! ...
Randy Newman: Here Comes The Rain
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
Ian MacDonald salutes Randy Newman's first solo album as a flawless masterpiece. ...
Laura Nyro: The Essential Masters
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2000
DEEP ARTIST travestied by shallow "Greatest Hits" package. ...
Laura Nyro: Oh My Love-Trumpet Soul: Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
AND A GREAT tenderness came forth from the unforgiving streets of the East Side. It's easy to dislike Laura Nyro. Your first requirement is to ...
Laura Nyro: The Five-Year, Five-Album Span Of High-Pressure Creativity
Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 29 June 1974
"Nights in New York street angels running down steps into the echoes of the train station to sing..." ...
Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe (Apple)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 20 January 1973
IN AS MUCH AS the Lennons have spent four years trying to turn self-dramatisation into an art-form, the criticism of indulgence so often aimed at ...
The Osmonds: Br-r-r-ring... Hi, this is Alan Osmond
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 4 August 1973
WIMP ROCK AND WEIRD CITY. IT'S THE OSMONDS GROWING UP. IAN MacDONALD REPORTS ...
Pet Shop Boys: Release (Parlophone)***
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2002
ON THEIR seventh album proper, PSBs go songful at home with Johnny Marr. ...
Pink Floyd: Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2002
Long-awaited greatest hits package from English progressive legends ...
Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon
Essay by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 23 February 1974
IF YOU'D played this to an average record-company executive at the beginning of '73 and told him it would become the year's best-selling rock LP ...
Pink Floyd: Empire Pool, Wembley
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 28 October 1972
Quadraphonic Smokebombs ...
The Pointer Sisters: The Pointer Sisters
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 28 July 1973
ANITA, RUTH, JUNE and Bonnie Pointer come to us with the fervent recommendations of seemingly everybody in America. But with the best will in the ...
Prince: The Rainbow Children (Redline Import) **
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, February 2002
SQUIGGLE GOES cosmo-Biblical. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 5 October 1974
MARTHA AND The Vandellas never really made the grade. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
Second LP from Big In America, 'Ready To Go' hitmakers ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 May 1975
HOW MUCH SUGAR do you take? ...
The Rolling Stones: Play With Fire
Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2002
Forty years ago, THE ROLLING STONES were the defining voice of teenage rebellion, rock 'n' roll outlaws, the anti-Beatles. With their digitally re-mastered 1960s albums ...
Sonny Rollins: The Freelance Years
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2000
COLTRANE'S GREAT tenor rival gets another boxed-set boost. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 10 November 1973
IN A WAY, Roxy Music's original ambiguous stance the Chinese Box thing that was probably their most enticing quality always fought against their ...
Roxy Music: The Dome, Brighton
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 21 April 1973
GROUPS TOURING Britain are expected to put on that little bit extra for their London dates on the simple score of the probable presence of ...
Roxy Music: The kind of example we wish to set our parents?
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 23 September 1972
THE CHAMPAGNE was flowing freely when I interviewed Phil Manzanera, guitaring personality of Roxy Music, in freefall at twenty thousand feet over the English Channel ...
Roxy Music: The Man Who Put Sequins into Middle Eights
Interview by Nick Kent, Ian MacDonald, Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 20 January 1973
The BRYAN FERRY interview, in which the Roxy mastermind meets IAN MacDONALD, CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY and NICK KENT ...
Roxy Music: Ferry Interesting Roxy
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 October 1972
BRYAN FERRY, stunning in gold trimmed black pyjamas and matching shades, greeted me from where he reclined, half-submerged beneath a heap of scented fanmail, on ...
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 12 August 1972
A menace to society ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 21 June 1975
"I WAS BORN to fly higher, born to stand where I'm standing now/Basking in the light of the neon fire/As it burns my useless body ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, July 2003
THE SINCERE generational belief in the socially transformative powers of love and peace which marked the peak of the high '60s had, by 1974, dissipated ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2001
AMBIENT, HINDU-influenced, mystical jazz-rock spectacular. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 19 January 1974
SANTANA WERE always a good group, even though debs and deadheads liked them and played 'Soul Sacrifice' endlessly at boring Friday night Strand-ups. ...
Wayne Shorter: Footprints Live!
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2003
Impressive-to-excessive live foray from quartet ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2001
Wednesday Morning, 3am*/The Sounds Of Silence****/Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme***/Bookends*****/Bridge Over Troubled Water*** (All Columbia) Sixties folk-rock digitally done up and decorated with extra tracks ...
Valerie Simpson: Valerie Simpson (Tamla-Motown)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 20 January 1973
SOME FACTS about Valerie Simpson: yes, she is a good songwriter and has been responsible for such fine numbers as 'And If You See Him', ...
Soft Machine, part 2: The End of an Ear at the Proms
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 February 1975
IN LAST week's issue, Part One recounted the history of the Softs from their schooldays to the break-up of the group following the recording of ...
Soft Machine, The Wilde Flowers: Soft Machine, part 1
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 25 January 1975
CLASS OF '61 at the Simon Langton School, Canterbury – an exclusive, private establishment for the sons of local artists and intellectuals. Very free, emphatically ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 18 May 1974
ONE WAY or another, 1974's turning out to be quite a year for rock 'n' roll. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 October 1974
PEOPLE WHOSE tastes are rooted in the Blues did not, apparently, find what Ron Mael was doing with rock on Kimono My House either interesting ...
Review and Interview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2002
THIS IS SPARKS' 19th album, the follow-up proper to 1994's Gratuitous Sax..., and one might be forgiven for saying "So what?", since their work after ...
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 7 April 1973
ATTENTION PLEASE. For the next few weeks, Britain will have the chance of witnessing 'live' one of rock's most creative and significant guitarists. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, July 1998
Ev'rything's Coming Up Dusty/Where Am I Going/Songbooks Three more re-releases from the undisputed Queen of UK pop-soul ...
Steely Dan: Two Against Nature
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, March 2000
First album in two decades from America's premier cerebral jazz-pop twosome ...
Steely Dan: Decadent Diversions
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, March 2002
IAN MacDONALD ON STEELY DAN'S DARK HORSE, GAUCHO ...
Steely Dan: Everything Must Go
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, July 2003
Not-quite-brilliant follow-up to Two Against Nature from US collegiate pop's Lennon & McCartney. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 March 1974
A FINE RECORD. And that sentence goes first because the fact that a band as perfectly poised as Steely Dan can reach their third album ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 July 1974
I NEVER COULD understand why so many Rock Critics (sic) couldn't stomach The Supremes. ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots and the Maytals: In The Dark
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 September 1974
This, Toots, was made for dork-ing ...
Allen Toussaint: Southern Nights
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 April 1975
IF ALLEN TOUSSAINT ever wants to make the great album he's obviously capable of, he'd be best advised to first take a year's sabbatical from ...
Tricky: Angels With Dirty Faces
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 1998
HEROES DON'T last long these days. Partly because the scene is shallow and restless; partly because cynicism is always muttering, "Why do we need heroes ...
Utopia: Todd Rundgren's Utopia
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 12 October 1974
OF THE presumably few people who ignored the charges of self-indulgence and pretentiousness generally levelled at Rundgren's last effort (the double-album Todd) and, despite everything, ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Bootleg Series, Volume One — The Quine Tapes
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001
Audience recordings of rare live gigs from 1969 ...
Rick Wakeman: The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 5 April 1975
The Cadbury capers, part 1: the management requests you leave your brain at the door ...
Scott Walker: Scott/Scott 2/Scott 3/Scott 4/Boychild: 1967-1970
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
The Arctic explorer's '60s solo oeuvre remastered with new pix and full lyrix. ...
Weather Report: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 December 1975
TO MYSTERIOSO OR not to mysterioso – that was the question facing Weather Report last Thursday at nine p.m. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, March 2000
Re-generation… From amphetamine mod-yobs to hairy rock messiahs on Radio Auntie ...
The Who: My Generation Deluxe Edition (Polydor) ****
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2002
BEFORE NEW, larger sound systems ushered in rock in 1966-7, there was beat music, a tighter, more driving sound based on pushing club-scale amplification to ...
Bill Withers: Morale Music For The People In The Ghetto
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 September 1972
A TELEPHONE CABLE that runs off the edge of Britain, down under the Atlantic, and up again into the heart of North America to St. ...
Bobby Womack - I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 July 1975
FROM 1964, FOLLOWING the death of his mentor Sam Cooke, to 1969, when he finally began to record under his own name, Bobby Womack was ...
Stevie Wonder: Talking Book (Tamla)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 January 1973
LAST YEAR, Wonder achieved overdue recognition for his first solo album, Music Of My Mind — which was, simply, the most overrated album of '72. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 July 1974
COUNTING MATCHING Mole's first album, this is Robert Wyatt's third solo record. It echoes his previous ventures in being a strong statement of mood, but ...
Robert Wyatt: Join The Professionals, Form A Rock Band…
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 27 July 1974
YEAH, WELL – Robert Wyatt (fact) drummed with Soft Machine, led Matching Mole, and fell from a fourth-storey window in Maida Vale early last year, ...
Yes: Close To The Edge (Atlantic)
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 2 September 1972
Meaningless magnificence from Yes? ...
Neil Young: Are You Passionate? (WEA) **
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, May 2002
YOUNG GOES Stax, trips over shoe-laces. ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 August 1974
RIGHT NOW NEIL YOUNG is in kind of an invidious position. On The Beach is his equivalent of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album in terms ...
Neil Young: "You're All Just Pissing In the Wind"
Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, September 1998
RIGHT NOW, Neil Young is in kind of an invidious position. On The Beach is his equivalent of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album in terms ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2003
At last, the Holy Grail to Neil Young collectors — the last part of the Doom Trilogy makes it on to CD. ...
The Zombies: Zombies: Zombie Heaven (Big Beat/Ace)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1997
WHAT'S POP magic? A certain quality of feeling; quelque chose de je ne sais quoi; a little bit of soul. To be prosaic: something indefinably ...
List of genre pieces
Motown: Stop! In The Name Of Love
Overview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
SECOND ONLY to The Beatles' catalogue as the finest single coherent body of pop music ever recorded are the records made in Detroit for Motown ...
Paul Gorman: In Their Own Write: Adventures In The Music Press
Book Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001
Perceptive, hysterical history of rock journalism — from the horses' mouths ...
Stax - The Stax Story - Volumes I & II
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 28 June 1975
SINCE THE 32 tracks collected here were cut after the 1968 Stax/Atlantic split it would be unwise to take the over-all title of this two-record ...
Various Artists: Machine Soul: An Odyssey Into Electronic Dance Music
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2000
From Kraftwerk to BT, via Throbbing Gristle, Moby and the Chemicals – the history of synthpop ...
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