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Kate Mossman

Kate Mossman

Kate Mossman is arts editor of the New Statesman and previously worked on music monthly The Word alongside Mark Ellen and David Hepworth. She appears regularly as a critic on BBC radio and television and presented the BBC Four music documentaries Girl In A Band and When Pop Ruled My Life: A Fan's Story. She also writes for The Guardian and The Observer and is a judge for the Mercury Music Prize.

80 articles

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Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Raising Sand

Review by Kate Mossman, The Word, November 2007

SEVEN YEARS AGO, Robert Plant rang country music superstar Alison Krauss and one imagines, toying casually with the telephone cord, said something like, "Hey, we ...

Amy Winehouse: Life Imitating Art...

Comment by Kate Mossman, The Word, January 2008

...imitating life. When did Amy Winehouse start to inhabit her songs, wonders KATE MOSSMAN. ...

Kevin Ayers: Exile On Mean Street

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, October 2008

Rumpled romantic, booze-fuelled philanderer, gifted golden boy of art-rock, Kevin Ayers fled abroad 40 years ago and now lives a strange, impecunious life wrestling with ...

Muse: Dystopian Rhapsody: Muse's The Resistance

Review by Kate Mossman, The Word, October 2009

Queen-like symphonies, "thought police", a nameless evil... Muse are wrestling with Something Very Important — that never quite arrives. ...

David McAlmont, Michael Nyman: This Just In: David McAlmont and Michael Nyman

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, December 2009

A bizarre collaboration between David McAlmont and Michael Nyman revives the dying art of the topical news story in song. ...

Taylor Swift: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Word, 10 February 2010

Taylor Swift's conquest of the teenage-girl market is so controlling it's creepy. In the front stalls: Kate Mossman. ...

James Booker, Alison Krauss, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Various Artists: 40 Years Of Rounder Records

Review by Kate Mossman, The Word, January 2011

Now in new hands, Rounder Records looks back after four decades of progressive signings in country, blues and folk. ...

Queens Of The Stone Age: "How Do I Reprogamme This Robot?" mused JOSH HOMME "And Make Trance-Dance Repetitive Rock For Girls?"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, April 2011

IT'S PRONOUNCED "hommy", rhymes with "mommy". Everyone gets it wrong, but Homme seems more fitting anyway for this great big tank of manhood, the Queens ...

Alison Krauss: Key coordinates for the First Lady Of Bluegrass ALISON KRAUSS are Paul Rodgers + ELO x Ralph Stanley

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, May 2011

PAPARAZZI CAME to the Baglioni Hotel at Hyde Park Gate this morning to catch Debbie Harry, who's staying in Room Four. They went into bonus ...

Goldie, Pat Metheny: When Goldie Met Metheny

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, August 2011

Obsessed drum'n'bass muscle writes daily letters to jazz wizard (and to Beethoven and Elgar). Eventually he posts one. Word arranges a summit ...

Amy LaVere — Film Noir

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, September 2011

CHILDLIKE VOICE, murder ballads with a dark country shuffle... Amy Lavere thinks of her songs as "mini-movies". ...

Queen, Roger Taylor: Queen: Bismillah! We Will Not Let You Go!

Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, October 2011

At the age of 11, Kate Mossman began a manic seven-year obsession with the baroque fantasies of Queen – but thought she'd now made a ...

Elbow: Guy Garvey: Elbow ambassador; Joni Mitchell torch-carrier

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, January 2012

ANY WOMAN interviewing guy GARVEY will inevitably drift to thoughts of what he would be like to live with. This is because every anecdote that ...

Ren Harvieu, Lana Del Rey: Far from Dusty: Ren Harvieu and Lana Del Rey

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 January 2012

TWO GUYS ON a streetcar in 1940: "Say, have you heard about that horn player Louis Armstrong? He's so authentic! His mother was a prostitute, you ...

Chris Isaak

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, March 2012

Moon pies, Brylcreem, Elvis... Why has Chris Isaak been stuck in the '50s since the 1960s? ...

Madonna: MDNA

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 6 March 2012

SHE HAS A STOCK answer for it now. American news anchor Cynthia McFadden recently questioned Madonna about the uncanny resemblance between her 1989 hit 'Express ...

P.P. Arnold, Sandy Denny, Thea Gilmore, Joan As Police Woman, Maddy Prior, Scritti Politti, Trembling Bells: Sandy Denny: The Battle Of Evermore

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, April 2012

The Sandy Denny tribute show is expanding, a long-running fight to "give her songs a future". ...

Jack White: What's Jack White made of?

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 2 May 2012

White never stops working and everything he works with turns to gold. ...

Gotye, Kimbra, Janelle Monáe: Right on the Monáe: Janelle Monáe, Gotye, Kimbra

Report by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 July 2012

THE FIRST RULE for writers – apply seat of pants to chair – works for musicians, too. Thirty years ago, the hairbrush and the bedroom mirror ...

Palma Violets, Savages: Savages/Palma Violets: Liverpool Leaf

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 29 July 2012

IT'S A BARGAIN, two for one, a post-punk bogof: the band they're calling the all-girl Joy Division, plus four boys named after perfumed sweets. Both ...

Anohni (Antony & the Johnsons): "Women have suffered for so long" says Antony Hegarty. "And we need to support each other"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, August 2012

ANTONY HEGARTY is a very persuasive man. He rarely smiles, he doesn't crack jokes, but there's something about that whisper, which at first sounds cool ...

Bob Dylan: Tempest

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 September 2012

DYLAN FANS have invented some amusing parlour games. One is 'Guess That Song' from the strange, incomprehensible soup of his live performance. Another is keeping ...

The xx's Coexist Is An Album To Get You In The Mood For Misery

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 20 September 2012

Ideal for autumn, the season of mists... ...

Biffy Clyro: Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 24 September 2012

TWO SONGS down and there's a fight on — a small whirlpool of boys in the crowd headbutting each other's sternums. As they fall into ...

Mumford & Sons: Mumford and Sons: Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 25 September 2012

MARCUS MUMFORD is likely to be found starving, bleeding, dying, sighing, fading, sinning, hopeless, "in the dark" or — as the new song 'Broken Crown' ...

Green Day: Mossman on music: Green Day's musical

Live Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 19 October 2012

The Green Day-inspired musical reviewed. ...

Death Cab for Cutie, Benjamin Gibbard: Ben Gibbard: "We've got a superhero in Seattle. I'm not making this up"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 14 November 2012

HE'S RIDDEN A DEATH CAB, worked for the Postal Service and ventured into alt-country. Ben Gibbard picks the songs he's written that explain him best. ...

Michael Jackson: The Boy in the Bubble

Retrospective by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 14 November 2012

Released 30 years ago, Michael Jackson's album Thriller was the beginning of his assault on the white pop world. It's so dazzling it makes you ...

Secret Affair: My secret affair

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 28 November 2012

Why '70s power pop is unfashionably cool again ...

Kylie Minogue: The mysterious popstar who can do no wrong

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 29 November 2012

As an album of "reimagined" Kylie songs emerges, Kate Mossman goes in search of the singer herself. ...

Björk, Chvrches, Laura Mvula, The Strypes, The Weeknd: Pop in 2013 — Under the influence

Preview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 3 January 2013

What to listen out for this year. ...

Don't blame HMV for its demise

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 January 2013

It's our fault – because we're too lazy to support our shops. ...

SOAK: One to watch: SOAK

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 27 January 2013

The 16-year-old singer-songwriter from Derry SOAK aka Bridie Monds-Watson, releases her second EP in a year ...

Justin Bieber: O2 Arena, London

Live Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 March 2013

Dazed and deeply confused. ...

The Kills: Alison Mosshart: "I listened to love songs for 24 hours straight yesterday"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 10 March 2013

SOME MUSICIANS wear their commitment to rock'n'roll like a series of battle scars. Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme has the place and time ...

Iggy Azalea: One to watch: Iggy Azalea

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 24 March 2013

IGGY AZALEA has a highly developed sense of the absurd. She saw paparazzi outside her hotel this morning and felt obliged to put on dark ...

Lady Leshurr: Lady Lesshur: "The industry just doesn't know what to do with women"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 20 April 2013

The Midlands-born MC on morals, inspiration and why the UK needs a female rap star ...

The Strypes: 'We Always Knew That You Had To Practise For Months, Get In A Van And Do 200 Gigs...'

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 28 April 2013

Irish rock'n'rollers the Strypes have gone from playing fêtes to iTunes stardom — and they're all still under 18 ...

John Murry: Bush Hall, London

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 9 May 2013

HIS HOUSE BURNED DOWN, he famously "died" for a few minutes and he already owns his own burial plot: tonight the sticky vinyl letters "Tim" ...

Brian Eno: "How can Alastair Campbell have a TV career?"

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 16 May 2013

THE TOILETS OF the famous are centres of great significance. Liz Taylor was so used to guests snooping in hers, she filled the bathroom cabinet ...

the xx: Night + Day, Berlin

Live Review by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 22 May 2013

SPLIT OPEN the head of Jamie xx and you might expect to find an image of post-industrial sadness – an empty ferris wheel turning in the rain, ...

Laura Marling: Whenever power emerges, there's a sense of innocence lost — Laura Marling: Once I Was An Eagle (Rough Trade)


Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 May 2013

Her voice, once so English, has turned into a slip-slidey American lilt, half-speech, half-jazz, frequently yoyoing to a deeper register... In Marling, we're watching an ...

Rihanna's Victim-Diva Complex

Essay by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 27 June 2013

Six months ago Rihanna looked like she was losing it, and now she looks to be in complete control. ...

Janelle Monáe: "I'm a time traveller. I have been to lots of different places"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 30 June 2013

She's an android-dating style queen who's been compared to Bowie. Is the R&B singer the saviour of pop? ...

Burt Bacharach: Royal Festival Hall, London SE1; Anyone Who Had a Heart (Alcourt)

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 July 2013

The effect of seeing Bacharach live at the Royal Festival hall was to be hit by more top-40 songs that you'd think a single act ...

Arctic Monkeys: AM (Domino Records)

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 September 2013

The Arctic Monkeys' fifth album, AM, has changed the sound but not the character of Britain's "Last True Indie Band". ...

Jessie J: 'I'm A Hard Worker. I Want To Be Great At Everything I Do'

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 29 September 2013

Chart-topper, devoted daughter, role model for teenagers... how does Jessie J manage it all? ...

Lou Reed: Why no one wanted to write his obituary

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 November 2013

MOST ROCK STARS are about 70 years old these days, so their departure is a constant possibility and music journalists are mentally prepared to trot ...

Lorde: 'People Have Treated Me Like A Fascinating Toy'

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 24 November 2013

She's the pop phenomenon of 2013, chalking up No. 1s around the world, signing a £1.5m deal and hanging out with Bowie. How does it ...

Neneh Cherry: "People ask me where I've been for 18 years…"

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 23 February 2014

On the cutting edge of pop in the '80s and '90s, the singer paved the way for today's sassy female stars. Now she's back with her ...

Iggy Azalea: "I Have Never Had Any Musicians Tell Me That I Wasn't Authentic"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 29 June 2014

The Australian rapper has endured her fair share of controversy in a brief, spectacular career, but seems well equipped to fight her way to the ...

Clean Bandit: New Eyes (Atlantic)

Review by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 1 July 2014

WE'LL PROBABLY look back on this as a golden age of British electronic music, like the first days of disco, as unprepossessing producer types coax ...

The Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse: Mawkish Tabloid Fare: How the Amy Winehouse Film Fails

Film/DVD/TV Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 2 July 2015

This film laments the way Winehouse's life was intruded upon while relying on the same methods to create drama. ...

Terence Trent D'Arby: "I was killed when I was 27": the curious afterlife of Terence Trent D'Arby

Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 October 2015

Terence Trent D'Arby's 1987 debut album sold a million copies in three days. The music press went mad for him. Where was there to go ...

Sleater-Kinney: A Riot Grrrl Remembers: Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein

Book Review by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 29 December 2015

A complex and moving portrait of a coming of age in America ...

Jeff Beck: The £7m fingers: how Jeff Beck became a guitar hero by saying no

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 22 July 2016

Kate Mossman talks to Jeff Beck about escaping Eric Clapton's shadow, dodging fame, and why he can't go and see Pat Metheny. ...

Frank Ocean: Blonde

Review by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 28 August 2016

The R&B singer's new album has slow-burn power and poetry enough to raise it beyond its gimmicky release strategy. ...

Björk: In Björk Digital, you become the singer's ex-lover – and there's no looking away

Report by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 September 2016

Björk's new experiment takes music of claustrophobic unhappiness and shifts it into a relentless, dynamic world. ...

Jon Bon Jovi on Trump, Bono, Bieber — and the agony of his split with Richie Sambora

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 November 2016

IT'S SOMETHING unheard of in the modern PR junket, but Jon Bon Jovi interviews are running early. Breaks have been built into his day but ...

Alicia Keys: "I want to make sure all the issues about race are addressed"

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 6 November 2016

At a hometown launch for her new album, Here, the New York singer-songwriter talks about the US election, Black Lives Matter and modern family life. ...

Glen Campbell: Kate Mossman on extreme pop tourism: who would fly 5,000 miles for a gig?

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 22 March 2017

Glen Campbell's daughter says, "Dad, she's come 5,000 miles to see you!" I add, "How sad is that?" ...

KISS: What happened when Kiss went to Moscow

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 May 2017

WHEN GENE SIMMONS decided he wanted to be a rock star, he made a deal with his mother: be in a band but show me how ...

Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan: "Why I don't understand my own band"

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 June 2017

WHEN NEIL TENNANT of the Pet Shop Boys was the assistant editor of Smash Hits, he made the following observation: ...

Beck: "I miss people. I have a longing for connection and human contact": Life on Planet Beck

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 30 January 2018

THE CHILSTON PARK Hotel in Lenham, Kent, was once owned by Judith and Martin Miller, the antiques stars of the '80s who wrote the Miller's ...

Lisa Stansfield: "Some women will shag anything to get anywhere"

Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 15 February 2018

She was the biggest British female soul star of the Nineties. At 51, she's back and ready to let loose. ...

Arctic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 17 May 2018

Space is the place where Alex Turner can let his solipsistic weirdness emerge. ...

Ariana Grande: How Ariana Grande floated free

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 29 August 2018

Grande has lifted the weight of the Manchester terror attack with a collection of gloriously oddball, career-changing pop songs. ...

The Cranberries: "She was on a roll": The Cranberries on the last days of Dolores O'Riordan

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 13 September 2018

THE LAST TIME the Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan saw Dolores O'Riordan was in the Limerick hotel where we are now standing, in November 2017. He ...

Queen: The cartoon unreality of Bohemian Rhapsody reveals how Queen see themselves

Film/DVD/TV Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 25 October 2018

This is a group who wrote their songs not for personal reasons but with tens of thousands of people in mind.   ...

Christine and the Queens: Why Christine and the Queens makes me feel like I'm ten years old and climbing a tree

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 28 November 2018

SHORTLY BEFORE THE end of her gig last week at the Hammersmith Apollo, Héloïse Letissier, in bra and trousers, ran from the upper circle back ...

LP: "I can feel the male and female in me flying around in a fury when I'm singing": LP on songwriting and diversity

Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 5 December 2018

She has written hits for Rihanna, Cher and Christina Aguilera — and she's been dropped by a series of major labels. Is it finally time for ...

Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar)

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 23 January 2019

In Van Etten's new album, life's mess is powerful and holding it all in your arms is a creative act. ...

Solange: When I Get Home

Review by Kate Mossman, The Observer, 9 March 2019

Solange Knowles's tantalising fourth album conjures fragments and fleeting impressions that get inside your head. ...

Erasure: Under a railway arch in Vauxhall, Erasure's Andy Bell talks about lust, loss and sensing stardom

Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 10 April 2019

Bell was an openly gay pop star "bubbling up from Boy George and Jimmy Somerville", in an era when pop stars weren't openly gay. ...

Carly Rae Jepsen: "I'm more confident in my weirdness now"

Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 12 May 2019

WHEN CARLY RAE Jepsen wrote 'Call Me Maybe', Billboard's "greatest chorus of the 21st century", she was aiming for a sense of "childish excitement". It's ...

Lana Del Rey: How the world caught up with Lana Del Rey

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 9 October 2019

When Lana Del Rey emerged, she was attacked for being inauthentic. But her strange brand of brooding, bruised Americana now seems to fit the times. ...

Kevin Ayers: It shook me up, interviewing Kevin Ayers. "I've felt like that my whole life," his daughter tells me

Memoir by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 19 October 2019

I tell Galen that I found interviewing her father strangely upsetting and she says, "then we are the same." ...

Chick Corea: How Chick Corea shaped a jazz generation

Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 24 February 2021

The pianist, who died in February, was one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion — a deeply misunderstood genre. ...

Joni Mitchell: "I didn't want anyone to know it was me": On being Joni Mitchell's 'Carey'

Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 17 December 2021

For 50 years, the "mean old daddy" immortalised in one of Mitchell's best-loved songs has been an enigma. Now he tells his side of the ...

Nick Cave: "I don't think art should be in the hands of the virtuous"

Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 24 November 2022

The musician on why Morrissey matters, his deepening faith and grieving for his sons. ...

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