Pop Music
Is classical colonial?
Naive proposals to “decolonise” Western classical music risk losing the richness of its history
Doing the Strand
The glorious heyday of Roxy Music, when just to be a fan of a band that sounded like no other was like being in an exclusive club
Smoke Signals
How a song can drift across a life
What happened to sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll?
Music today is anodyne compared to the heydays of Britpop and the sixties and seventies
Play it again, Sam
Nostalgia has long been the key to pop’s survival
Long players
As long as the fans are alive, it seems that a band can keep going
Gimme, gimme, gimme
It is time, once again, to take a chance on Abba
Sparks of Life
The end of the Sparks brothers’ career matches the intensity and originality of its beginning
Stage frights
Do pop stars have what it takes to succeed in the theatre?
Raging irritants
Knowing Rage Against the Machine are political doesn’t overcome my determination to enjoy them anyway