Music
Uncool country
Country music has a frontline place in the culture wars, says Sarah Ditum
Shock of the new
People are terrified of modernity’s great gift: the sudden freedom to make appalling noise, says Robert Thicknesse
The iconic history of London’s 100 Club
Steve Morris recalls the iconic Oxford Street basement club which has housed London’s evolving music scene since the Second World War
Paul Heaton: an undervalued musical genius
For all his success, Heaton remains surprisingly niche – which is probably just how he likes it
Are the Bee Gees Britain’s most underrated band?
The Bee Gees have always been a target for mockery, but by force of talent and ambition, they managed to define the age around them
The legacy of David Bowie: five years, what a surprise
Alexander Larman on why the late, great David Bowie remains such a totemic and iconic figure in his life
Meet me at Ronnie’s
A new BBC documentary captures the spirit of the club that made London a global hub for jazz
Cheer leaders
Opera unswervingly believes in the potential for a divine spark in humans, says Robert Thicknesse
From disaster to opportunity
London’s orchestral rat-race will have fewer runners when musical life returns, says Norman Lebrecht
Dress sense
The average rock band from the 1980s onwards dressed as if they were going to fix your car, not blow your mind
Most Read
The establishment is still living in an immigration fantasy land
It is influential left-wingers, not the broader public, who have deluded themselves on mass migration
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
On Britain as a capitalist command economy
It is neither neoliberal nor socialist but a secret third thing
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
Migration musings
A new book on immigration is welcome in its honestly and openness
We’ve had enough agitslop
British TV drama has become an embarrassing display of liberal neuroses
“Fauxcest” is not a free speech issue
The government should ban this dangerous and disgusting genre
Oldham, new problems
How changing demographics have reshaped culture and politics in Greater Manchester
Reimagining the people’s palace
A building that deserves to be admired as an example of intelligent and sophisticated urban planning
An unpleasant man, and a genius
The most interesting people are not necessarily the most attractive
Institutional feminism against women
The likes of Julia Gillard and Jess Phillips have enabled misogyny
Like a homecoming
A haunted house
What does it mean to be free?
Women are caught between different experiences of freedom and loss
Spirits, a seven-year-old and a death camp
Balancing the gap between what the narrator knows and what the reader does
The EU’s immigration asymmetry
Ten years on, the EU still hasn’t learned Brexit’s hard lesson on migration