John Harris
John Harris is a British journalist, writer and critic. He is the author of The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock (2003); So Now Who Do We Vote For?, which examined the 2005 UK general election; a 2006 behind-the-scenes look at the production of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon; and Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll (2009). His articles have appeared in Select, Q, Mojo, Shindig!, Rolling Stone, Classic Rock, The Independent, the New Statesman, The Times and The Guardian.
68 articles
List of articles in the library
Gaye Bykers On Acid: Jericho Tavern, Oxford
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 12 May 1990
TONIGHT'S PERFORMANCE provided final proof that the Bykers are still today's definitive rock nutters. ...
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 26 May 1990
THE TOWN Hall, a venue that usually forms the setting for nothing more exciting than tea dances and antique fairs, hasn't played host to amplified ...
Flowered Up: International One, Manchester
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 28 July 1990
HEAVY PETAL ...
Soul Asylum: Subterania, London
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 1 September 1990
All the madmen ...
Adamski: Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy (MCA)*
Review by John Harris, Sounds, 6 October 1990
JUDGING BY the title of this LP, Adamski would like to be seen as a crackpot alchemist, a crazed musical boffin stumbling across killer compounds ...
Donovan, Happy Mondays: Happy Mondays, Donovan: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 24 November 1990
FUNNY GAME, this pop business. You can either master its niceties, turn yourself into a big bucks circus and revel in the fact that you'll ...
Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 5 December 1990
When the cream of Brit indie pop staged its annual invasion of Valencia, all Spain could offer in defence was a stream of dubious local ...
The Simpsons: The Simpsons Sing The Blues (Geffen)
Review by John Harris, Sounds, 12 January 1991
SO YOU thought Bart Simpson was a pubescent anarchist who spat in the face of the American way and sowed chaos wherever he went? ...
Interview by John Harris, Melody Maker, 9 May 1992
Fresh outta Oxford come RADIOHEAD hoping to use the might of a major label to get their guitar squall onto the air-waves and squeeze out ...
Spiritualized: Manchester University, Manchester
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 26 September 1992
HEY! SCREECHER! LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE! ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 10 October 1992
Neurotic, paranoid, alienated, personally inadequate (sound familiar?) — RADIOHEAD's THOM YORKE could well be the new British lyricist to claim the King Of Glum's songwriting ...
Paul Weller: Apollo, Manchester
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 24 October 1992
SEARCHING FOR THE OLD SOUL REVELS ...
Björn Again: Academy, Manchester
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 7 November 1992
THE '70s WERE fantastic, weren't they? Everyone was sort of daft, really. They ate all this weird food like Salt 'N' Shake crisps. They wore ...
Report by John Harris, New Musical Express, 12 December 1992
So is THE WORD the prole art threat made flesh, or a load of amateurish toss? JOHN HARRIS travels to darkest Wembley to spend an ...
Cornershop: This Sitar Kills Fascists
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 16 January 1993
Out to smash Asian stereotypes, shit on racists and slaughter every half-assed predictable indie band on the planet — CORNERSHOP might not be able to ...
Julian Cope, The Fall, Pop Will Eat Itself, U2: Ground Control To Major Labels
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 30 January 1993
Unattached, paranoid, fancy working your ass off and seeing five gigs a night, listening to 400 tapes a week and shouldering the blame when the ...
Radiohead: Pablo Honey (Parlophone/All formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 20 February 1993
GLOW FREQUENCY BAND ...
The Auteurs: Auteur Magic For The People
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 20 February 1993
Fed up of noisy, brutish Brit bands ripping off tired ideas from the Yanks? Nothing to excite you in the modern, cutting-edge of music? Then ...
Arrested Development: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 27 March 1993
THE DEGENERATION GAME ...
Belly: The Exploding Gastric Inevitable
Interview by John Harris, Melody Maker, 12 June 1993
Indie sex kitten, superstar, classic songwriter, gender traitor, fairy tale princess — these are just some of the inevitable praises and insults levelled at TANYA ...
The Velvet Underground: Playhouse, Edinburgh
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 12 June 1993
WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HAIR ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 10 July 1993
It's the most exciting and important tour to take place this year. In the last six months, politics has roared back onto the musical agenda ...
Huggy Bear: Taking The Rough With The Smooch (Wiiija/All formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 18 September 1993
PUCKER LIPS NOW ...
Shed Seven, Sleeper: Sleeper, Shed Seven: Smashed!, London
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 18 September 1993
HOW WE laughed. There is something delightfully absurd about York band Shed Seven's guitarist carrying on like a 15-year-old square trying to impersonate Bernard Butler, ...
Grant Lee Buffalo: Manchester University
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 25 September 1993
ALL SUMMER, Grant Lee Buffalo have been critically lauded, thrown into the requisite festival slots and had their pictures shoved in the windows of record ...
Retrospective by John Harris, New Musical Express, 16 October 1993
ON APRIL 16, 1990, a proud man who'd spent 27 years in the custody of a vicious racist regime arrived in London. He'd come to ...
Suede: Fan Fare for the Common Room
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 6 November 1993
Recently returned from their second American tour, SUEDE have decided the US is their sort of place and they want out of cynical, self-consuming Britain. ...
The Beatles and Astrid Kirchherr: They Loved Stu Yeah Yeah Yeah
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 2 April 1994
They weren't always old men owning half of Scotland and giving all their money to spiritual motor racing gurus. On the eve of a Beatles ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 23 April 1994
The Kinks did it. The Who did it. But no-one does it like OASIS, five lads who won't waste words when a punch will do, ...
Buffalo Tom, Kurt Cobain, The Lemonheads: The Lemonheads: Come On Feel The Suedehead
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 7 May 1994
EVAN DANDO has been marketed as teen sex symbol, scagged out hippy doper and serious artiste, but now THE LEMONHEADS' main squeeze is trying to ...
Sleeper: Kipping Against The Pricks
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 21 May 1994
Tired of being safe? Fed up with worrying about the ozone layer? Bored with modern life? Then you need SLEEPER. The last of the dirty, ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 4 June 1994
Beneath the all-quaffing, lager-frenzied, dreamy-weamy indie muso LUSH there's a band bristling with resentment, heartbreak and anger. Visiting MIKI BERENYI's nightmare childhood and EMMA ANDERSON'S ...
The Boo Radleys, Oasis, Ride: Creation Records: Rehabsolutely Fabulous
Interview by John Harris, Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 9 June 1994
A decade on from its inception, Creation rules the British rock underground. The 'Undrugged' party at the Royal Albert Hall, and the random singing of ...
Suede: While My Guitarist Swiftly Leaves
Report by John Harris, New Musical Express, 30 July 1994
What a guffing idiot, eh readers? You're the genius guitarist in SUEDE, you've just finished your second album and then... you bugger off amid rumours ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 6 August 1994
PUBLIC ENEMY were once unerring occupiers of the moral high ground, but guns, drugs, liquor and arrests have shown them to be as fallible as ...
Public Enemy: Flavor Flav: Coke Adds Strife
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 13 August 1994
While PUBLIC ENEMY have been lying low for the past two years, errant rapper FLAVOR FLAV has been having very personal, and very public problems ...
Report by John Harris, New Musical Express, 27 August 1994
Take 250,000 hippy children (Please! — Ed) and baby boomers reliving the 'glories' of the '60s, stick them in a sea of mud and charge ...
Catatonia: Sleep Smell of Success
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 24 September 1994
"ECHOBELLY, THESE Animal Men, all those groups... they've got the gift of the gab, they know what to say, they live in the right places. ...
Suede: Dog Man Star (Nude/All formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 1 October 1994
DIAMOND 'DOG'! ...
Meat Puppets, Nirvana: Nirvana: Unplugged In New York (Geffen/All formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 29 October 1994
WAKE OF FIRE ...
Beck: The Slack and Bright Minstrel
Profile and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 26 November 1994
In the boho East Village cafes he listened to Woody Guthrie's back catalogue and shouted along to his acoustic guitar. But that was before 'Loser' ...
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 10 December 1994
M PEOPLE make timeless pop songs, have a genuine cool soul singer and a classic album that won them the Mercury Music Award — and ...
The Stone Roses: Second Coming (Geffen/All formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 10 December 1994
ANTI-CLIMAX BLUES BAND ...
Blur, Elastica, Oasis, Pulp, Sleeper, Suede, Supergrass: Britpop: Modern Life Is... Brilliant!
Overview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 7 January 1995
It was the year grunge died, the year of jungle... arses. It was the year that BRITISH POP found its feet again, and what's more, ...
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 14 January 1995
Has it all gone wrong for SUEDE? Dog Man Star not accorded the status they wished for, doubt over Richard Oakes' ability to better Bernard, ...
Manic Street Preachers: From despair to... where?
Report by John Harris, New Musical Express, 25 February 1995
The disappearance of RICHEY EDWARDS has rekindled all sorts of fears and rumours, from the possibility of suicide to the seemingly inevitable split of the ...
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 25 February 1995
"THIS SONG'S about Oxford, I s'pose," says Thom Yorke, managing to sound like a spiteful 25-year-old adolescent. Then he starts singing: "I can't afford to ...
Hole: Oxford Street Virgin Megastore, London
Live Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 6 May 1995
PETTY ON THE OUTSIDE ...
Michael Jackson: HIStory (Epic/all formats)
Review by John Harris, New Musical Express, 17 June 1995
HISTERICAL! ...
Radiohead: Ground control to Major Thom — Radiohead: OK Computer (Parlophone)
Review by John Harris, Select, July 1997
Neurosis, steel, glass, Random Access Memory — welcome to The Future Sound Of Radiohead ...
PJ Harvey: New Boots & Panties
Report and Interview by John Harris, Q, January 2001
Loud guitars, PVC, bit of leg — Polly puts the metal on… ...
Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 15 May 2005
Oasis's sixth album is out at the end of the month. John Harris wonders whether it can really be the promised return to form ...
Blur, Oasis: Britpop: Remember the first time
Retrospective and Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 12 August 2005
Without Britpop, would we have had hit guitar groups, stadium anthems or rock stars on Newsnight? Ten years on, John Harris looks back on how ...
The Jam, Paul Weller: Paul Weller: "The Jam? They were a way of life."
Retrospective by John Harris, The Guardian, 3 February 2006
As Paul Weller prepares to receive a Lifetime Achievement Brit, John Harris salutes a giant. ...
Kaiser Chiefs: Back to the Future in Kaiserworld?
Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 19 January 2007
The backlash has begun for the Kaiser Chiefs, and their new song has no 'la la las'. But there's still a strong case for cheering ...
Review by John Harris, The Guardian, 27 April 2007
THE SEA AND CAKE have made a "rock album", It sounded like a bad idea — but by the end of the last track, only ...
Essay by John Harris, The Guardian, 20 July 2007
With lyrics like "Hotch-potch, hugger-mugger, bow-wow, hari-kiri, hoo-poo", how could anyone forget late '70s punk outfit LiLiPUT? ...
Fairport Convention: "There was a manic feeling in the air"
Retrospective and Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 3 August 2007
In 1969, reeling from the shock of a tragic car crash, Fairport Convention recorded an album that would change British folk for ever. John Harris ...
PJ Harvey: Songs of innocence and experience
Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 28 September 2007
PJ Harvey sings like a child on her new, stripped-down album, but it's full of grim subject matter. John Harris hears how the elusive singer-songwriter ...
Kraftwerk: Ralf Hütter: "I got a new head, and I'm fine"
Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 19 June 2009
The bikes ... the robots ... the dream of man and machine in perfect harmony. How is the Kraftwerk vision of the future shaping up? ...
The Rolling Stones: Why a Rolling Stones bootleg is one of my albums of the year
Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 22 November 2011
Their recent reissues might be rubbish, but 1973 bootleg Brussels Affair shows the Stones at their onstage peak. ...
Simply Red: Here's to Mick Hucknall's amazing voice
Memoir by John Harris, The Guardian, 21 December 2011
Admitting I liked Simply Red didn't fit with the NME's Maoist indie conspiracy, but Hucknall's repertoire is studded with triumphs ...
The Stone Roses: Why I won't be going to see the Stone Roses
Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 23 June 2012
Since their magical peak in 1990, the band has delivered only disappointment and disaster. So is their latest reunion a chance for them to finally ...
Billy Bragg: Barking's Woody Guthrie on 30 years of songs and activism
Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 26 March 2013
From agitpop to love songs, Bragg has brought his audience through life with him, creating a soundtrack to thousands of lives ...
Sleaford Mods: Grammar Wanker: Sleaford Mods 2007‑2014 by Jason Williamson (Bracketpress)
Book Review by John Harris, The Guardian, 18 March 2015
Drug comedowns and fist fights — an angry and uncompromising collection of lyrics. Who else in modern English music is doing anything quite like this? ...
Marvin Gaye: Volume One: 1961-1965
Review by John Harris, Q, July 2015
Before he got it on: icon's tentative years. ...
David Cavanagh: The writer who saw the musicians behind the music
Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 31 December 2018
With his acute observations on David Bowie, Paul Weller and Radiohead, Cavanagh combined a passion for music with an eye for the small details of ...
back to LIBRARY
