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Music

  • James Brown at Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, 23 May 1985.

    Ranked
    Soul, sermonising and wrestling Satan: James Brown’s 20 best albums – ranked!

  • ‘Total collaboration’ … from left: Devra Hoff, Jorge Balbi, Sharon Van Etten, Teeny Lieberson.

    Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory – going goth to confront our grim world

  • Could be a Fellini film … Lady Blackbird performing at the Palladium.

    Live review
    Lady Blackbird – flamboyance and nuance from late-blossoming jazz-soul star

  • Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.

    Don’t look back: after decades of apathy, A Complete Unknown has turned me into a Dylan nut

    Laura Snapes
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Best music of 2024

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Interviews

  • Candi Staton in London, 2025.

    Soul
    ‘He said if I divorced him, he’d kill us all’: Candi Staton on abuse, alcohol and the story of Young Hearts Run Free

  • Producer Clive Langer.

    Pop
    ‘My job was making hits’: Clive Langer on taking Bowie, Dexys and Madness to No 1 – and why he turned Madonna down

  • ‘It’s relentless’ … from left, Mike Kellie, Alan Mair, John Perry and Peter Perrett.

    How we made
    ‘It was triggered by a Fellini-esque woman who pulled a knife on someone’: how the Only Ones made Another Girl, Another Planet

  • Lunch with Alex Kapranos illustration

    Lunch with...
    Alex Kapranos: ‘It took me a few years to realise that I didn’t have to drink everything on the rider’

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Confidence and confusion … Central Cee.

    Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Central Cee: Can’t Rush Greatness – conflict and contradiction underpin justly confident rap debut

  • FKA twigs looking to camera, wearing big earrings and sleeveless, high-necked black PVC dress

    Pop
    FKA twigs: Eusexua – she feels good

    • Rock
      Mogwai: The Bad Fire – a flame that still burns bright

    • Experimental album of the month
      Davis Galvin: Prism – shape-shifting soundscapes for the horticulturally minded

    • Pop
      Teddy Swims: I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2) – retro soul with a retro lyrical attitude

    • Metal
      Wardruna: Birna – numbing Norse nature-metal better suited to Netflix scores

    • Rap
      Central Cee: Can’t Rush Greatness – a tantalising debut of hits and misses

    • Folk
      Sam Amidon: Salt River – huddled round the laptop, but where’s the spark?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Live reviews

  • Could be a Fellini film … Lady Blackbird performing at the Palladium.

    Soul
    Lady Blackbird – flamboyance and nuance from late-blossoming jazz-soul star

  • Birthday boy … Trivium’s Matt Heafy at the Utilita Arena, Cardiff.

    Metal
    Trivium and Bullet for My Valentine – glorious exchange of skull-crushing riffs and deafening roars

    • Floating Points perform at the Outernet venue in Central London. 22/1/25

      Kitty Empire's artist of the week
      Floating Points – an unclassifiable triumph

    • Cunningham with her guitar

      Folk
      Madison Cunningham – complex new tunes from a folk singer with a knack for a twist

    • A trombonist, a man banging a huge gong and a saxophonist

      Avant garde
      Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners/Ensemble Klang – anarchic energy

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Add to playlist

  • Heartworms

    One to watch
    Heartworms

  • Potent … Tina Turner on her tour for the Private Dancer album.

    Review
    Tina Turner: Hot for You Baby – she’s in fine voice, but this lost 1984 song is no classic

  • FKA twigs portrait - Jan 2025

    Ranked
    ‘In her own out-there world’: FKA twigs’ 20 greatest songs

  • Head and shoulders portrait of Brooke Combe

    One to watch
    Brooke Combe

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Obituaries

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From the archive

  • The Smiths in 1987.

    Feature
    A light that never goes out: why the Smiths are eternally influential

    As Meat Is Murder turns 40, revisit our feature in which fans including Andy Burnham and Connie Constance consider how and why the band have endured
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.
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  • Perfume Genius AKA Mike Hadreas lying down with a boat in the background.

    Indie
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  • Chappell Roan, Beyoncé and Charli xcx – three of this year’s multiple nominees.

    Grammys
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  • Sean Moore, James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers sitting on a sofa

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  • Shirley Henderson as Elizabeth Laine in Girl from the North Country at Noël Coward theatre, London.

    Stage
    ‘Completely staggering’: how Shirley Henderson mastered Like a Rolling Stone

  • GIgeconomy

    Feature
    The gig economy: ticket inflation is getting worse, so where does all the money go?

  • Luigi Russolo and Ugo Piatti’s intonarumori in Milan.

    Feature
    Play that funky noise intoner! The rumblers, gurglers and howlers of the world’s strangest orchestra

  • Joni Mitchell Plays An Acoustic Guitar

    Books
    ‘She couldn’t walk, she couldn’t talk’: music therapy helped Joni Mitchell recover from a stroke – could it ward off depression and dementia too?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

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