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Leyla Sanai

Leyla Sanai

Leyla Sanai started writing for the NME aged 17 while at school. She freelanced for them through the rest of school and during a year out and then reluctantly left London to study medicine in Edinburgh.

She subsequently qualified as a doctor and then as a hospital physician (MRCP) and anaesthetist (FRCA). She worked as a consultant anaesthetist in Glasgow for some years before having to give up because of scleroderma which caused gangrene of fingers and involvement of other organs.

She has freelanced for Number One, The Herald, The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, Scotland On Sunday, Sunday Herald, The Scotsman, The Observer, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), The British Medical Association News Review, Hospital Doctor, Lancet, Student BMJ, Careers BMJ, British Journal of Intensive Care, International JIC, and Scottish Medical Journal.

Leyla Sanai's Rock's Backpages blog

List of articles in the library by artist

A Certain Ratio: I'd Like To See You Again (Factory)

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, December 1982

I REALLY wanted to love the new A Certain Ratio LP. After countless plays I've accepted it's not going to click the way I'd hoped. ...

Aztec Camera, Josef K: Josef K, Aztec Camera: The Venue, London

Live Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, August 1981

WHEN I entered the Venue, I expected to be bestowed with an endless soul. I wasn't, but I got a ticket instead. A choice of ...

Damned, The: The Damned: Strawberries (Polydor)

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, September 1982

YOU DIDN'T really think they'd gone, did you? After all, it's only four years since their 'farewell' gig, and looking at Jimmy Pursey's Hams 69 ...

Hall & Oates: H2O (RCA)

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, September 1982

DARYL HALL and John Oates are potentially a formidable partnership. 'I Can't Go For That' was the slickest snappiest ditty the wrong side of the ...

Bette Midler: No Frills

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, September 1983

OK, FORGET the drip through the roof. Forget the mortgage and the DHSS snoop halfway through the letterbox. Imagine a night out on the town ...

Bette Midler: No Frills (Atlantic)

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, September 1983

OK, FORGET the drip through the roof. Forget the mortgage and the DHSS snoop halfway through the letterbox. Imagine a night out on the town ...

Orange Juice: You Can't Hide Your Love Forever

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, February 1982

SOME PEOPLE are irritated by Orange Juice. Onstage, they're relaxed and unrehearsed, and execute their clear-cut sound with such disregard for criteria such as tightness, ...

Psychedelic Furs, The: Psychedelic Furs: Forever Now (CBS)

Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, September 1982

ONCE UPON a time, the Psychedelic Furs were everyone's epitome of the vulgarity and pretence of rock music. ...

Gil Scott-Heron: The Vulture

Book Review by Leyla Sanai, Rock's Backpages, January 2010

FATHER OF hip–hop, granddaddy of rap, articulate polemicist and early pioneer of the fusion of black politics with poetry and music, Gil Scott–Heron has been ...

Teardrop Explodes, The: The Teardrop Explodes: Brunel University, Middlesex

Live Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, October 1982

TEARS ARE NOT ENOUGH ...

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