Simon Reynolds
Born in London in 1963, Simon Reynolds started out writing about music as a founding member of Monitor, an Oxford-based pop journal, which lasted six issues before expiring in 1986. By then he had joined Melody Maker as a staff writer. Thinkpieces and interviews drawn from his late '80s writing for MM were collected in Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock (Serpent's Tail, 1990). In October 1990 Reynolds went freelance and started dividing his time between London and New York. Since then he has contributed to The New York Times, Village Voice, Spin, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Observer, Artforum, New Statesman, The Wire, Mojo, Uncut, and other magazines. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion & Rock'n'Roll, co-written with Joy Press, was published in 1995 (Serpent's Tail in the UK and Europe; Harvard University Press in America).
From 1991 onwards Simon became increasingly involved in rave culture and obsessed with electronic music, ultimately resulting in Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (Picador, 1998), published in North America as Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (Little, Brown). The American version of the book was nominated as a finalist for the 1999 Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards.
For the duration of 1998, he worked as a Senior Editor at Spin before quitting to return to freelance life. Subsequent books include Rip It Up and Start Again, a history of postpunk, and Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its own Past. Reynolds maintains a web archive of his work called Blissout and posts regular commentary on Blissblog. He lives in South Pasadena with wife Joy Press and their children.
List of articles in the library by artist
23 Skidoo: Seven Songs, Urban Gamelan
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2001
Audacious avant-funksters re-released ...
A Guy Called Gerald: Wicked Guy!
Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1995
A GUY CALLED GERALD is at the forefront of junglist innovation and future-shock technological experimentation. A guy called SIMON REYNOLDS joins him in virtual space. ...
American Music Club: Psycho Thriller
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1989
MARK EITZEL, OF American Music Club, a self proclaimed 'fuckin mess', a man who's spoken before of being 'doomed to sing' and living in terror ...
Laurie Anderson: Clarity’s Angel
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Wire, The, March 1992
First, Laurie Anderson chronicled the United States of America. What’s next for the leading performance-person of our day? ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1988
WITH THEIR NEW SINGLE, 'MAKE ME LAUGH', ANTHRAX CONTINUE TO LEAD THE HARDCORE CHARGE AGAINST TRADITIONAL HEAVY METAL. SIMON REYNOLDS HITCHES A RIDE ON THE ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1993
Aphex Twin is unusual. He likes tanks. He hates sleeping. And he pours tea on his cereal. SIMON REYNOLDS meets the rave-age Mozart in a ...
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Warp)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1994
The prodigious, prolific and increasingly eccentric Richard James brings us two and a half hours of his unique muse. SIMON REYNOLDS is bewitched on our ...
Associates, The: The Associates: Popera
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1991
ONCE UPON A time (the early '80s), there was something called "new pop". For about a year Morley's pipedream of a chartbusting music that combined ...
Associates, The: The Associates: Wild and Lonely
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1990
THE FIRST TIME I heard the Associates was when I saw 'Party Fears Two' on Top Of The Pops. It was one of those moments ...
Associates, The: The Associates: Reissues
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2000
Legendary Scottish duo — featuring late, great Billy MacKenzie — issue best work and pre-fame material ...
The Avalanches: Since I Left You
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2001
YOU SHOULD HEAR the things people say about The Avalanches: "Basement Jaxx meets The Beta Band," "Stardust crossed with Stereolab," sample-based music with the freshness ...
Band of Susans: Repeat & Frayed
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1988
AT THEIR UTMOST Band of Susans make one of the most spiritual and uplifting rock sounds around. ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, March 1994
THESE DAYS, ALTERNATIVE = ANTIQUATED. Almost all alternative rockers pay homage to a bygone golden age (although they disagree about which is the genre that ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, i-D, January 1994
The Beastie Boys have gone from pop stardom to obscurity to being the biggest cult band in the world. Their last LP sold a million ...
Beenie Man: Bennie Man: Art & Life
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2000
Flava floods out of dancehall ubermensch ...
Beta Band, The: The Beta Band: Hot Shots II
Readers' Letters by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2001
Both Barrels Blazing - Follow-up to 1999's notoriously disowned eponymous debut ...
Big Black: Steve Albini: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1992
Big Black (1981-1987) were one of the most influential bands of the Eighties. Industrial music, 'skronk' rock, New York noisecore, British indiepop, Nirvana, Ministry, Suede, ...
Big Youth: Natty Universal Dread; and, Various Aritists: A Jamaican Story
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2001
IN JAMAICA, the DJ isn't the guy who spins the records (that's the selector), it's the bloke who chats over the music. As misnomers go, ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, August 1992
The singer Björk has gone solo, as some devotees always felt she should. ...
Björk: Björk: Super Fairy Animal
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, October 2001
SHE'S NOT A bit how you'd think she'd be. From the public persona of song and video, you might reasonably expect effervescence, an explosive extravagance ...
Black Eyed Peas, Taio Cruz: Never Mind The Balearics: The Ibiza-ification Of Pop
Comment by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, April 2011
From Black Eyed Peas to Taio Cruz, much recent pop looks to Ibiza for inspiration. And yet for all the hands-in-the-air moments, this music is ...
Black Sabbath: The Complete '70s Replica CD Collection 1970-78
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001
THE MYSTERY OF THE RIFF – so crucial to rock, so oddly neglected by critics. ...
Blur, Oasis: Blur Vs. Oasis: A U.S. Perspective
Overview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, September 1995
RIGHT NOW, the British music scene is convulsed with patriotic fervor. For the first time in over a decade, young British guitar bands are penetrating ...
Bomb The Bass: Unknown Territory (Rhythm King)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1991
WE NEED a new category – something like "progressive dance", or prog funk – to describe the new post-aciieed groups like 808 Slate, Bass-O-Matic and ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1991
THIS FOUR-CD mega-anthology reveals that there are actually two James Browns. The first is JB the patrician and patriarch: the disciplinarian who fined his musicians ...
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, July 2000
Driven to despair by commercial neglect, his visionary genius unrecognised, TIM BUCKLEY died of a heroin overdose at the age of 28. On the 25th ...
Kate Bush: Heaven’s Kate: Kate Bush
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1993
ENGLAND MY LION HEART KATE BUSH AN ENGLISH original. In 1978, that wavering, starburst voice seemed to come out of nowhere, but only because it's ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, December 1993
Kate Bush is very... unlikely· A teen prodigy, she rocketed to the pinnacle of the British charts with her 1987 debut, ‘Wuthering Heights’, a very... ...
Butthole Surfers: The Butthole Surfers: Deeper & Down
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1990
AFTER OVER A YEAR OF SILENCE, the Butthole Surfers have re-emerged only to suffer the indignity of being topical. With uncanny punctuality, their cover of ...
David Byrne: From Ur to L.A. and back again
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, June 1991
In performance, and as the 'compere' in his film True Stories, David Byrne comes across as the epitome of Wasp uptightness, nervy and ill at ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Various Compilations
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001
From post-punk to dance crossover: Sheffield pioneers' mid-Eighties revisited The Original Sound Of Sheffield — The Best Of The Virgin/EMI Years Conform To Deform — The Virgin/EMI ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2001
Hot from the States: hip hop meets electronica ...
Nick Cave: Of Misogyny, Murder and Melancholy: Meeting Nick Cave
Interview by Simon Reynolds, National Student , 1987
TALKING TO NICK CAVE is a bit of a trial. He’s not really a proper person. Like many artists, what makes him a genius also ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, 1990
In the U.K., the last few years have seen the original sequence of '60s rock replayed – in reverse. Nineteen eighty-eight was the year of ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: Glory Days
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1990
1990 could well go down in the rock almanac as the year The Charlatans stole the initiative from The Stone Rose. While the figureheads of ...
Chemical Brothers, The: The Chemical Brothers: Back To The Lab
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, July 1999
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE BLOCK-ROCKIN' SOUND YOU INVENTED HAS BECOME THE SOUNDTRACK TO LAME TEEN FLICKS AND TAMPON COMMERCIALS? IF YOU'RE THE CHEMICAL ...
Ciccone Youth: The Whitey Album (Blast First)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1989
NEXT to the brittle plangency and luminous, labyrinthine depths of Daydream Nation, the first (and last?) Ciccone Youth album is an irrelevance. ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, February 1990
Two years ago, Lloyd Cole folded his band, The Commotions, after six years, a bunch of hit singles and three solidly successful albums (Rattlesnakes, Easy ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1991
CONSOLIDATED ARE the new militants of American rock. Their debut album, The Myth Of Rock, agitated against rock’s regressive impotence, its spurious rebellion and disengagement ...
Julian Cope: Krautrocksampler: One Head’s Guide To The Great Kosmiche Musik - 1968 Onwards
Review by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, December 1995
Since it deals with that most fetishised of genres, Krautrocksampler is appropriately enough an intensely fetishisable object. Purportedly the first of a whole line of ...
Julian Cope: Blonde on Peggy Suicide Blonde
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, August 1991
One of pop's most eccentrically self-important extremists, Julian Cope drops drugs, gets centered and creates his first brilliant album ...
Cop Shoot Cop: Consumer Revolt
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, February 1991
'BURN YOUR BRIDGES' is where Cop Shoot Cop proclaim their oblique intentions most plainly – their "anthem," if you will. "Know what you like/Like what ...
Elvis Costello and Martin Amis: Prophets of Doom
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Arena, Summer 1991
The highbrow hysteria of Elvis Costello and Martin Amis ...
Creatures, The: The Creatures: Demon Hunters
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, 1990
From her punk beginnings as style terrorist through her early Eighties reign as godmother of 'Goth' to the almost motherly figure she now presents, Siouxsie's ...
Cure, The: Robert Smith: Dr. Robert Explains It All
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, June 1992
In a rare solo interview, Cure leader Robert Smith dissects his cult, defines his own private punk and pursues his Wish. ...
Cure, The: The Cure: Robert Smith's Wish List
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1992
FIFTEEN years on, THE CURE are post-punk's hardy perennial. Of all their peers, they're virtually alone in making it to stadium level without pandering or ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, October 1999
COMING OUT OF THE ART-ROCK CLOSET, DEATH IN VEGAS SHED DANCE BEATS FOR SINISTER, TRIPPED-OUT PSYCHEDELIA. BUT THEIR SNEAKERS REMAIN THE SAME ...
De La Soul: Malice In Wonderland
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1991
With their new album, De La Soul Is Dead, the founders of the hippy hop movement have turned their back on peace, love and positivity. ...
Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Gary Numan: One Nation Under a Moog: How Britain Went Synthpop
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, October 2009
As new BBC4 documentary Synth Britannia shows, the synthesizer first dehumanised then re-humanised British pop, fulfilled the DIY promise of punk, and changed how bands ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1991
After a year of rumours about Dinosaur splitting and retiring from music altogether, J Mascis finally returns with a major label contract, a new single, ...
Doors, The: Jim Morrison: The Anatomy Of Madness
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, April 1991
This year's superstar is a bloated, bearded would-be poet who died 20 years ago. SIMON REYNOLDS investigates the dark influence and deep fascination JIM MORRISON ...
Ian Dury: The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury 1942 — 2000
Obituary by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, June 2000
At the peak of his late '70s success, Ian Dury was one of this country’s most beloved entertainers. He kept busy in his post-stardom years ...
Elastica: Twang Twang, You're Cred!
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1995
This week, ELASTICA’s debut album has achieved the greatest double whammy of critical and commercial success since Parklife and Definitely Maybe, final proof that Britpop’s ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2001
Two blasts of future freak-funk ...
Fad Gadget, Frank Tovey: Cult Heroics: Frank Tovey
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1986
No longer Fad Gadget, his sights firmly focused on Saturday Superstore, FRANK TOVEY tells a skeptical Simon Reynolds that he’s out to corrupt the youth ...
Donald Fagen: Steely Don is no fly-by-night
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, May 1993
With their jazz-tinged soft-rock and mordant lyrics, Steely Dan were critics' favourites and a staple of FM radio throughout the Seventies. ...
Faith No More: God, The Devil And All The Rest
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, June 1992
Despite starting out as an anti-people band, Faith No More's last album, 1989's The Real Thing, has sold millions, even though its baroque, doom-laden fusion ...
Fall, The: The Fall: The Infotainment Scan (Matador)
Review by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, July 1993
THE FALL is one of England’s enduring cult bands. Formed in 1976 by the singer and lyricist Mark E. Smith, it evolved into one of ...
Fatboy Slim: You've Come A Long Way, Baby
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 1998
Former Housemartin turns Big Beat pioneer ...
Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, November 2000
FEATURING SAMPLES from a bootleg album of the Lizard King's poetry, Fatboy Slim's new single 'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' isn't the first time Jim Morrison's ...
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1995
If anyone remembers Fleetwood Mac's Tusk at all, it's as the surprise flop sequel to 1977 Rumours. A soft rock masterpiece (gorgeous melodicism charged with ...
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001
FORGET ABOUT THE NOSTALGIA-MONGERING AND KITSCH REVIVALISM – THE POST-PUNK PERIOD OF 1979-81 WAS AN ASTONISHINGLY FERTILE TIME FOR BRITISH MUSIC, WHEN INDIE LABELS FLOURISHED ...
Overview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1994
What is JUNGLE? And where does it fit into the new dance scheme? SIMON REYNOLDS reports ...
Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Danger Lurks Beyond The Doors
Profile by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, August 1991
No other rock band today provokes such polarised opinions as Guns N' Roses. For some, they are 'the most dangerous band in the world', heirs ...
Happy Mondays: Yes Please! (Factory)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1992
NO THANKS ...
Happy Mondays: The Rock Garden, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1987
HAPPY MONDAYS is where the repetition-repetition-repetition of post-Velvets jangle-drone meets the repetition-repetition-repetition of '70s funk. Imagine a cross between the Blue Orchids and Hamilton Bohannon, ...
PJ Harvey: What Makes Polly Scream?
Interview by Simon Reynolds, i-D, October 1993
PJ Harvey — the singer and the band — is the pop phenomenon of the year. Her emotional, bluesy primal screaming is the most challenging ...
PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk: PJ Harvey: The Academy, New York NY
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1993
FROM GRUNGE'S "castration blues" to the glutinous gloom of Come/Red House Painters/Mazzy Star to tonight's support band Gallon Drunk (with their cliché-encrusted homage to Nick ...
Jimi Hendrix: Black Secret Technology
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, July 2000
Hendrix wasn't just the original firestarter, all flash and dazzle. He was a scientist of sound. ...
Hole: Belting Out That Most Unfeminine Emotion
Interview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, February 1992
SUSAN FALUDI, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, said recently in a magazine interview that "anger is not something that's an ...
House Of Love, The: The House Of Love's Guy Chadwick
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, October 1991
If there was ever any doubt that it’s tough at the top, one need only look at what happened to GUY CHADWICK. Feted, eulogized, deified ...
Hüsker Dü: Husker Du: Candy Apple Grey
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1986
LISTENING TO THIS vast, volatile music, up in its power and space, I suddenly realised that these attributes are the precise opposite of the experiences ...
Hüsker Dü: Husker Du: Why Aren’t They Massive?
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1987
IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, the Replacements play me a tape of Husker Du’s live appearance on The Joan Rivers Show. It’s more than a little mindblowing. ...
Jane's Addiction: Jane’s Addiction and Lollapalooza: A Woodstock For The Lost Generation
Interview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, August 1991
There’s no contest: this summer's biggest tour is the aptly titled Lollapalooza, a mobile rock festival featuring a bill of premier alternative bands – Siouxsie ...
Jane's Addiction, Happy Mondays: Jane's Addiction/Happy Mondays: Madison Square Garden, NYC
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1991
IT MUST HAVE seemed an inspired notion to pair these unabashed champions of drug culture, but inside sources tell me that it's turned out to ...
Jay-Z: The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001
Sixth album from Brooklyn rap don ...
Jay-Z, DMX, Lox, The, Juvenile: Jay-Z, DMX, Juvenile and The Lox Albums
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2000
Huge over there, ignored over here – the state of the rap art, US-style: Jay-Z: Volume 3...Life And Times Of S Carter; ...
Jesus & Mary Chain, The: The Jesus and Mary Chain: A Spectacle Of Eclectic Rock
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, March 1992
For a while it looked like The Jesus and Mary Chain had slipped into the ‘where are they now? file. "We’re lazy bastards," says William ...
Jesus & Mary Chain, The: The Jesus And Mary Chain: In Never-never Pop Land.
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, 1988
In their promo videos the Jesus and Mary Chain aim to be as disorientating to the eye as they are to the ear. Look again ...
Joy Division: Music to Brood by, Desolate and Stark
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, October 2007
THE MYSTIQUE surrounding Joy Division has always been way out of proportion to its record sales. Far bigger bands, like the Clash and Pink Floyd, ...
Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt: Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt
Retrospective and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, October 2007
"I COULD HARDLY recognise him at first," says Kevin Ayers. "But there, under that great beard, was Robert and he hadn't changed a bit." The ...
Liars: They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, September 2002
Sweet deceivers ...
Loop: A Gilded Eternity (Situation Two)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1990
IT'S CLEAR now that Loop peaked with their magnificent brace of EPs in 1988, Collision/Thief Of Fire and Black Sun/Mother Sky. Last year's Fade Out ...
Lush: Hazy Daze For The Scenesters
Profile by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, February 1992
Just about the only thing happening in British indie music last year was a rash of blurry, neo-psychedelic bands known as 'shoegazers' or The Scene ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1991
Can you feel it? A creeping paralysis accompanying every advance in the obese accumulation of ‘good music’, a seeping slide into the mire of eclecticism. ...
Manic Street Preachers: Righteous Hate 4 Real
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, November 1991
When Malcolm McLaren rewrote the Sex Pistols story as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, he invented a new genre – rock bands who come ...
Material: Secret Life (Jungle)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1986
STRANGE TIMING for this double album retrospective, considering how totally the alternative scene has renounced the ambitions of 1979-82, all the rhetoric about Eurofunkactivism, Sex, ...
Meat Puppets: When Kurt Met Curt: Meat Puppets
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, January 1995
IF YOU WANT TO know why Meat Puppets touched Kurt Cobain so deeply that he covered not one but three of their songs for Unplugged ...
Joe Meek: Various Artists: It's Hard to Believe It - the Amazing World of Joe Meek (Razor & Tie)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Spin, 1995
WHO WAS Joe Meek? A cut-price Spector crafting pocket symphonies in his North London studio for a stable of dodgy pre-Beatles combos? Yes, but the ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1991
MERCURY REV's debut album has been hailed as one of the albums of the year. SIMON REYNOLDS talks to the band in New York about ...
Stephin Merritt: The Pocket Symphonist: Stephin Merritt
Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, September 1995
Stephin Merritt is the standard-bearer for a new pop aesthetic. "Music isn’t about performing out your soul," he avers. "It’s about making pretty objects you ...
Metallica: ...And Justice For All (Phonogram)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1988
THE KILLING MACHINE ...
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1987
MATALLIC KO ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1993
By now, you must all know about Moby, the techno nutter who's a Christian vegan, doesn't drink, smoke or do drugs. And you'll have heard ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1992
YOU KNOW, MAYBE the Scene wasn’t so bad after all. Sure, it churned out rapture by rote, but grunge has similarly turned rage into a ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, April 1991
"OH MANCHESTER, so much to answer for..." Contradiction has always been at the heart of Morrissey's mythologization of his hometown: this was nostalgia for a ...
Morrissey: Vauxhall and I (Sire)
Review by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, 1994
IF TWO WORDS come close to encapsulating Morrissey's sensibility, they are isolation and insularity. ...
Morrissey: Songs Of Love And Hate
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
I THINK I'VE MET THEM ALL NOW. For me, there are no more heroes left. And no new ones coming along, by the look of ...
Morrissey: Songs of Love and Hate, Part 2
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
"Did that swift eclipse torture you?/A star at 18 and then – suddenly gone/down to a few lines in the back page/of a teenage annual/oh ...
My Bloody Valentine: When You Wake You're Still In A Nightmare: My Bloody Valentine
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Alternative Press, October 1995
In 1991 My Bloody Valentine released Loveless, one of rock's most innovative albums. Then... silence What on earth have they been doing the last four ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, September 2001
R&B production team turn out politically-infused black rock'n'soul album ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2001
Krautrock revisited and remastered: Bowie, Eno, Thorn Yorke, Damon Albarn, Stereolab and Sonic Youth pay sleevenote homage to the Lennon And McCartney of Teutonic boogaloo ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, November 1991
NIRVANA'S VERTIGINOUS ascent to stardom has to be the year’s most surprising success story. The single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ has been in heavy rotation ...
Nirvana: Kilburn National, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1991
THE ONLY EXPLANATION is that a lot of people didn't realise how angry and alienated they really were. Once in a blue moon, a group ...
Nirvana: Smells Like A Sensation
Profile by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, December 1991
NIRVANA ARE THE sensation of 1991. Their single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ shot straight into the UK Top Ten and is now number seven after ...
Nirvana: The Coliseum, New York City
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1993
IF THERE WERE any doubts that Nirvana had truly connected with America's rock heartland, the sight of the crowd tonight dispels them. It's a sea ...
Nirvana, Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam Versus Nirvana: The Final Countdown
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1993
IF NUMBERS COUNT for anything, Pearl Jam wiped the floor with Nirvana. In its first week of release, Vs sold five times as many copies ...
Nymphs, The: Nymphs: The Asylum Siren
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, February 1992
When singer Inger Lorre first heard Patti Smith, she knew she had to become a rock'n'roll star. When she heard the Velvet's 'Heroin'. She got ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Fowler’s Mod English Usage
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, 1990
If 1989 was the year Manchester proclaimed itself pop capital of Britain, 1990 was when reality caught up with the rhetoric. ...
Sinead O'Connor: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1988
SO, NINA SIMONE'S 'My Baby Just Cares For Me' – the clubland secret, the cult trophy – went High Street provincial, Top Ten Top Shop. ...
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1991
CURRENTLY THE focus of much cultish enthusiasm, Pavement exemplify all that's groovy and all that's grievous about American underground rock right now. ...
Pavement: Some Enchanted Evenings
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1992
The post-Nirvana deluge of grunge guitar bands is threatening to stifle rock. Only a handful of genuine mavericks and freaks are holding out against the ...
Lee 'Scratch' Perry: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1988
SOMETIMES there are concerts that leave your mind so thoroughly evacuated, that the only way to galvanise your diminished sense of being is to work ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies: Ditties Of Pixilated Reasoning
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, 1990
A year ago, the Pixies were considered the last word in rock bacchanalia. The Boston-based band's three albums – Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa and ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies: Speaking In Tongues
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
THE HOLLERING IS ALL. The Pixies are what's left when all the frustrations and absences that once prompted rock'n'roll into being have faded away or ...
Portishead, Massive Attack: Trip Hop Don't Stop: Massive Attack and Portishead
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, September 1994
Imagine a cross between ambient and hip-hop. Imagine a Brit version of Cypress Hill or Gravediggaz's spooky Gothic Hop. Imagine the sound of 'bombs exploding ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, 1991
The story of Primal Scream, whose second hit single entered the charts this week, encapsulates the last 14 years of British rock history. Bobby Gillespie, ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1991
BOBBY GILLESPIE reckons that his new single, 'Higher Than The Sun', will revolutionise pop in the Nineties in the same way as the Pistols' 'Anarchy ...
Primal Scream: No More Yesterday
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1987
Primal Scream look back to look forward. Simon Reynolds retracts a few statements but still argues the toss. ...
Primal Scream: The Ritz, New York NY
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, February 1992
Days Of Future Past ...
Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie: Prophet Or Dead Loss?
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, April 1994
Primal Scream’s new LP, Give Out But Don’t Give Up, has split the voters. Some think it’s retro-rockist rubbish, others believe it’s the ultimate good-time ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: The Fat of the Land
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, July 1997
SOME SAY the Prodigy have betrayed the bright promise of the "electronica revolution", resulting in a techno-rock hybrid that's not so much kick-ass as half-assed. ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: Smack My Mix Up
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, May 1999
EVER SINCE 'Firestarter' and 'Breathe' transformed Prodigy into rave'n'roll superstars, Liam Howlett, the band's leader and musical brain, has taken pains to distance Prodigy from ...
Prodigy, The: The Prodigy: Touched By The Hand Of Prod
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1994
"So I've decided to take my work back underground... to stop it falling into the wrong hands." ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, October 1991
What’s the bond between rap and metal? What’s the ‘black holocaust’? Why are Public Enemy angrier than ever? SIMON REYNOLDS meets CHUCK D to discover ...
Public Enemy: Fear of A Black Planet
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1990
OVER THE past three years, Public Enemy have made the single most concerted attempt to take rap's inchoate fury and sonic insurgency, and commandeer it ...
Public Enemy: Strength to Strength
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, October 1987
PUBLIC ENEMY PLAY BRITAIN IN NOVEMBER AND SIMON REYNOLDS TAKES A LONG HARD LOOK AT THE SURVIVALIST PHILOSOPHY BEHIND SOME OF THE TOUGHEST NOISE OF ...
Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim: Public Enemy/Eric B And Rakim: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, December 1987
PUBLIC NUISANCE ...
Pulp: We Love Life (Island}*****
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2001
After scrapped sessions and a delayed release date, Cocker & Co follow up 1998's This Is Hardcore, with Scott Walker at the controls ...
Radiohead's Kid A: Revolution In The Head
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2000
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE STATE OF BRITISH ROCK, AND HOW COME RADIOHEAD'S KID A HAS GOT IT SO RIGHT? ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Magicians followed but not chaste
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, September 1991
One of the most hyperactive rock scenes in the United States is a genre called 'funk-metal' or 'funk 'n' roll'. Groups like Faith No More, ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: Red Hot Chilli Peppers: The Clarendon, Hammersmith, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
SO THE Clarendon faces closure, and yes it's a sad day for rock, another step in the drawn-out death of the London gig circuit, and ...
Lou Reed: Alchemical Engineering
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Wire, The, February 1992
Lou Reed is one of the few 60s figures who has kept up any serious exploration of rock's sounds and words. In this exclusive New ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, February 1992
On Lou Reed's touching elegy to two recently departed friends, Magic and Loss, he grapples with the age-old question: What is the meaning of death? ...
Replacements, The: The Replacements
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, November 1990
This year, singer, downtrodden writer and all-round wasted boozer PAUL WESTERBERG has given up drinking, abandoned his band and is trying to look on the ...
Replacements, The: The Replacements: The Rebel Yell
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1987
Describing their relationship to pop as being like 'a dirt road through an emerald city', The Replacements get Simon Reynolds all hot under the collar ...
Roxy Music: Roxy Music/For Your Pleasure/Stranded/Country Life/Siren
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, September 1999
Their first five LPs lovingly remastered for your pleasure In 1969's Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboorn, Nik Cohn simultaneously celebrated and mourned the mythic era of "Superpop, the ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, March 1995
Chicago’s infamous Royal Trux have finally made the major-label album of "low-down Sticky-Fingered raunch ‘n’ roll" they’ve always threatened to. Does the big time beckon? ...
Saint Etienne: St Etienne: Debut That's Alpha Oscar Kilo.
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, October 1991
On their delightful debut album, Foxbase Alpha, St Etienne mix contemporary house rhythms with the string-swept melodrama of Sixties pop. Amazingly, the creators of this ...
Salt 'N' Pepa: Salt 'n' Pepa: Look Ma Top Of The World
Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
SALT 'N' PEPA WILL DO ANYTHING TO HAVE EVERYTHING. WITH THEIR NEW SINGLE, 'PUSH IT', ACCELERATING UP THE AMERICAN CHARTS IT LOOKS AS THOUGH THEIR ...
Schoolly D: Schoolly D (Schoolly D Records)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, August 1986
SCHOOLLY D is from Philadelphia and appears to be some kind of hoodlum, with an unhealthy interest in the status trinkets of high life, drugs ...
Scritti Politti: Hearts and Flowers: Scritti Politti
Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, May 2006
It's seven years since Green from Scritti Politti released an album – time spent boozing away in self-doubt. So what brought him back to his ...
Scritti Politti: Enigma Variation
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1988
Break out the dictionaries and Post-Structuralist text books, pop's most perfect intellect, GREEN GARTSIDE, is back with a new SCRITTI POLITTI single ready for release ...
Seal: A Conjurer Of Lush Grooves
Interview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, August 1994
What to call Seal’s blend of symphonic dance music and mystical lyrics? New Age funk? Progressive disco? Seal belongs to that strain of maverick, slightly ...
Shriekback: Funk's Fictional Threat
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Monitor, March 1985
1985, AND A GAGGLE of groups plough a well-furrowed, increasingly barren field. ...
Paul Simon: Simon Reports Back To Base
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, May 1991
PAUL SIMON'S management company has one client: Paul Simon. Based in Broadway's legendary Brill Building (where Simon and Garfunkel first attempted to sell their songs ...
Roni Size and Reprazent: Roni Size & Reprazent: In The Mode
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2000
FOLLOW-UP to 1997's New Forms ...
Skrillex, Deadmau5: EDM: How Rave Music Conquered America
Profile by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, August 2012
After 20 years, electronic dance music has made it big in the US. And big means big. With Las Vegas's Electric Daisy Carnival grossing $40m, ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 1997
I remember very clearly the first time I heard Cut – it was the summer of '79, I was staying at my aunt's in the ...
Patti Smith: 'Even As A Child, I Felt Like An Alien'
Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer Music Monthly, May 2005
PATTI SMITH today looks as striking as the 28-year-old instant icon who defiantly out-stared the viewer from the cover of Horses. With her strong nose ...
Soft Cell, Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Yazoo: Electro Pop: One Nation Under a Moog
Overview by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, October 2009
As new BBC4 documentary Synth Britannia shows, the synthesizer first dehumanised then re-humanised British pop, fulfilled the DIY promise of punk, and changed how bands ...
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, February 1991
THE WILD FRONTIER ...
So Solid Crew: They Don't Know (Independiente/Relentless)****
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, January 2002
Distinctive debut from UKG crew with colourful personal lives ...
Specials, The: The Specials: Reissues
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2002
Digitally remastered and enhanced with two videos per disc, the Sound Of Young Coventry before The Streets ...
Stereolab: Separation Terrorists
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1994
Subversive MOR may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it’s the best available description of Stereolab’s new single, ‘Ping Pong’, the most brilliant example ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Rolling Stone, April 1996
"Repetition in the music and we're never gonna lose it," sang Mark E. Smith of the English post-punk legends the Fall in the aptly titled ...
Stone Roses, The: The Stone Roses: Shooting From The Lip
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1989
THE STONE ROSES are the latest instalment in the resurrection insurrection. ...
Stone Roses, The: The Stone Roses: The Morning After
Retrospective and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, May 1995
"I guess you had to be there – probably Manchester, definitely England – to understand how the Stone Roses came to matter so much in ...
Stooges, The: Stooges Reissues
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1994
The Stooges (Elektra)Fun House (Elektra) FUN HOUSE is, no contest, the greatest rock'n'roll album of all time. And its prequel, The Stooges, is the tremor ...
Style Council, The: The Style Council: The Cost Of Loving (Polydor)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, February 1987
A REMARKABLE fellow, this Paul Weller. It's a strange journey he's made over the last decade, but stranger still is that he's managed to take ...
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, June 1993
Britain’s new white-hot hope brings its liberated sexual stance to the States. Are you ready to get Suede? ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, June 1992
"WHEN WE STARTED the group, we felt that people were starved for music which allowed them to let themselves go," says Brett Anderson, Suede's 24-year-old ...
Suede: The Best New Band In America?
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1993
SUEDE have already proved themselves in the UK, both critically and commercially. The next step is for the fab four to cross the Atlantic and ...
Sugarcubes, The: The Sugarcubes: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, January 1988
LIKE EVERYONE else. I expressly came to worship, to be defeated, to drench their names in a prolix of hopelessly imprecise euphoria. Unhappily, though, it ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, February 1989
"NEW YORK IS getting dull," says Suicide's Alan Vega. "The downtown New York of the Seventies has gone. But there's still something here, an electricity, ...
Teenage Fanclub: Teenage Fan Club: Bandwagonesque (DGC)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, December 1991
AS A BRIT who spends a lot of time in the U.S., I could hardly fail to notice the scathing scepticism of American hipsters when ...
Teenage Fanclub: The Glitz And The Grunge
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, December 1991
With their first single, ‘Everything Flows', last year, Teenage Fanclub's grinding raunch and bluesy solos announced that here at last was a British group unafraid ...
Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, February 1996
The new TORTOISE album, with its radical approach to rock, dub, trip hop and avant-Techno, will blow your mind. SIMON REYNOLDS heralds the future ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, June 1995
"I had this psychic drawing done," says Tricky, sucking greedily on the first of the four joints he's to consume in the next hour. Behind ...
Moe Tucker, Half Japanese: Moe Tucker/Half Japanese: Powerhaus, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, April 1989
THEY’RE ALL HERE tonight, convened in a spirit of slackwitted sentimentally: Morrissey (summoned, rumour has it, by the "great lady" herself, who admires his work), ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2000
Corn without authenticity. Bono and Co rediscover the importance of being earnest ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, March 1987
BARKING AT THE MOON ...
Verve, The: Richard Ashcroft: Having The Verve To Become Unashamedly Epic
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, July 1992
"When you live in a place like Wigan, your senses aren't exactly bombarded with stimuli," says Richard Ashcroft, lead singer of Verve. "So when you ...
Verve, The: The Verve: Urban Hymns
Review by Simon Reynolds, Village Voice, November 1997
Damn and blast the Verve. I'd sworn never to fall again for that classic-rock godstar-savior-shaman shtick, that it was gonna be dance music's desiring-machines and ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1994
Pink Flag (Harvest/EMI)Chairs Missing (Harvest/EMI)154 (Harvest/EMI) ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, May 1987
WIRE are pure luxury. Here are a bunch of superior sound technicians with an immaculate grasp of the sculptural and architectural possibilities of rock, who ...
Robert Wyatt: Going Back A Bit - A Little History of Robert Wyatt (Virgin)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1994
AT LAST, a long-overdue anthology of stuff and nonsense by one of the great eccentrics of English art-rock, Robert Wyatt. A miscellany of bits and ...
Zapp: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1986
ZAPP LIVE were perhaps the most extreme spectacle I have ever witnessed, with both band and audience abandoning inhibitions more extensively than at any rock ...
List of genre pieces
Garage: Pure Garage: Mixed Live By E-Z; Underground Explosion: The Real Garage Mix
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2000
Garage — the sound of the UK underground goes mainstream ...
Simon Reynolds's Notes On The Noughties: Clearing Up The Indie Landfill
Comment by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, January 2010
At the start of the noughties, indie was seen as the rubbish dump of contemporary music. But by the end of the decade, it had ...
What's Missing: On Pop's Eternal Dilemma
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Monitor, Summer 1986
SOMETHING'S WRONG. Everyone knows this, acknowledges it, but it's still hard to point out, precisely, what's supposed to have slipped into abeyance, eluded us in ...
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