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Trouser Press: The Story Behind The Legendary Zine

Retrospective by Ira Robbins, Perfect Sound Forever, June 1997

EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the reasons that our zine started up was because there were other music nuts before us who wanted to tell the ...

Disco Kids in Gay L.A.

Report by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 28 August 1975

Where cycle sluts, tanktoppers and dedicated bumpers dance, dance, dance, stick poppers up adversity's nose and dodge surging roachers... ...

Fishy Riddims!

Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 18 January 2001

From Radio Ethiopia to Dread Zeppelin...20 classics of Cod-Reggae ...

Git Down!! The 50 Funkiest Records Ever Made!!

Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, June 2001

ONCE UPON a time there was Funk. THE Funk. The Rhythm of the One. Now it's all four-on-the-floor hard-house and techy trance, dance-muzik devoid of ...

Hunter Thompson Pays a Visit to Babylon

Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, Rock's Backpages, 2015

HUNTER THOMPSON'S SUICIDE ten years ago this month should not have come as a surprise. His dark tales about riding with a biker gang, Mace-spraying ...

Is Acid's Mr Big Really All Bad?

Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, November 1989

Twenty-three-year-old gambler and whiz-kid entrepreneur Tony Colston-Hayter has been called Acid's Mr Big, Acid's Mr Fixit and The Acid King by the tabloid press because ...

Music in lockdown

Report by Rob Hughes, Uncut, January 2021

WHILE IT'S been a highly challenging year for the music industry – particularly in terms of cancelled tours, venue closures and a disrupted retail market ...

The iPod: Rise of the Machines

Report by Edward Helmore, Q, March 2005

This is the untold story of Apple's iPod — the gadget that ate the world and saved the music industry. We're all pod people now. ...

The New Wave Washes Out

Overview by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, October 1977

After A Glorious Year, British Punks Are Now Absorbed Into The Music Biz Money-go-round ...

Vince Power: Power, Corruption and Lies?

Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993

Once, he ran a junk shop; now Vince Power's a powerful music impresario. But last month's acquisition of London's Town & Country Club has led ...

Woodstock: Peace Mecca

Report by Danny Goldberg, Billboard, 30 August 1969

BETHEL, N.Y. – About 400,000 rock fans gave peace a chance Aug. 15-18, and it worked. For them and the overwhelmed residents of this Catskills ...

Abba: Oompah?

Profile and Interview by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 24 April 1976

What’s squeaky-clean, exquisitely produced, Scandinavian and goes OOMPAH? The answer to the riddle is ABBA ...and here’s MICK FARREN to ask it. ...

ABC: Romancing Tongue In Chic

Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982

FOLLOWING IN the footsteps of Barbara Windsor, The Professionals' Martin Shaw and Crossroads' Benny Hawkins ABC are tonight making a Public Appearance at Sheffield's Top ...

AC/DC

Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1990

"Just what are the East Germans who flock across the crumbled Berlin Wall spending their money on? While champagne and fresh fruit were once hot ...

AC/DC: Marquee, London

Live Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 21 August 1976

THOSE PUZZLED by the Status Quo phenomenon should beware. AC/DC, from the same rock family, could wreak similar havoc, but they will only realise their ...

Ace Strong on ‘How Long’

Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1975

THOUGH IT SOUNDS like a song about a stale love affair, ‘How Long’ is the story of an English band struggling to stay together. ...

Adele, Duffy: Adele and Duffy are products of the age of X Factor

Comment by John Aizlewood, The Guardian, 4 January 2008

You can thank Simon Cowell for the results of the BBC's The Sound of 2008 poll. ...

Aerosmith: Pump

Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1989

NOW ON to their tenth album and with sales of the previous nine topping 25 million in the States, Aerosmith are still just about unknown ...

Aerosmith: Rocks

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 3 July 1976

AEROSMITH HAVE GOT the whole situation psyched. ...

Aerosmith: This Way to Insanity

Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, October 1998

"WHEN THE moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore." A rich and fruity baritone croons impressively from room 523 of the ...

Allman Brothers Band: Allman Brothers Reform For LP, Tour

Report by Richard Wootton, Melody Maker, 9 September 1978

THE FOUR SURVIVING members of the original Allman Brothers Band – Gregg Allman, Dickie Betts, Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson – have reformed for ...

The Animals: Animal Tracks - Newcastle's Brand Of Powerhouse Blues

Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1982

In 1963, the northern beat boom was being answered further south by a trend, centred on London, towards a more aggressive R&B: the sort of ...

The Animals: Animals: Sure, We're Really Animals!

Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express Summer Special, Summer 1966

THE TITLE 'ANIMALS' was given to the group by Radio Caroline chief Ronan O'Reilly, who felt it summed up the group's wild attitude to rhythm-and-blues ...

Adam & The Ants: Adam Ant: Metamorphosis of a Narc

Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 July 1985

"I DON'T THINK I'm an intelligent person. But I think I have a common sense that allows me to have an instinct about what people ...

Adam & The Ants: Whip In My Valise: Adam and the Ants

Comment by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 December 1977

The angel Gabriel sent me to give you a little bit of sympathy...('Plastic Surgery') ...

Argent: First Get Yourself On The Telly!

Interview by Steve Turner, Cream, June 1972

WHATEVER GETS SAID about hit singles and Top Of The Pops, there's no denying that they still form the most powerful tonic that a British ...

Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading (A&M)*****

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 31 July 1976

THE RECORD deck grunts and clicks, the turntable sidles to a halt and polysyllabic analysis should be flowing from the critic's pen but I'd just ...

Joan Armatrading: Front Door Woman

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 April 1983

DO YOU believe in romance? ...

The Associates: The Affectionate Punch

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 August 1980

RUMOURS have been dripping down from Scotland about a diverse horde of determined post Skids/S. Minds/Scars groups all ready to shift our attention. Positive Noise, ...

Average White Band

Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 8 March 1975

AIN'T IT just like the February sunshine to play tricks with the mind? Here I am, sat aboard the Long Island Railroad Express, rattling out ...

The B-52s: Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1998

HISTORY OF Athens perfect popsters with two new tracks. ...

Bad Company: Bad Company

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 29 August 1974

ON ITS FIRST album, Bad Company – led by former Free singer Paul Rodgers and original Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs – resembles Free ...

Bad Company: Desolation Angels Have Gastric Juices, Too

Interview by Penny Valentine, Creem, June 1979

Bad Company flee Screaming From Reality ...

Joan Baez - Diamonds and Rust

Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 28 June 1975

THIS ALBUM REPRESENTS Joan Baez's volte-face; after the years of diatribe and tireless dissemination of political views by every available channel, her records included, she's ...

Cream, Ginger Baker: Ginger Baker

Retrospective by Chris Welch, The History of Rock, 1982

PETER 'GINGER' BAKER had an enormous and profound effect on the course of rock drumming when his playing and personality first began to make an ...

The Band: A Melody Maker Band Breakdown

Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 29 May 1971

FEW ROCK AND ROLL concerts can have been so eagerly awaited as those which The Band are due to play at London's Royal Albert Hall ...

Syd Barrett, A Psychedelic Veteran

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1971

In every great revolution heroes are created who in turn are often killed by the very ideals which they fought for. The "psychedelic revolution" of ...

The Bay City Rollers: Inside the Bay City Rollers' Camp

Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 13 September 1975

"WHEN ANYONE slates us, you can bet they’ve never heard our own stuff – Derek is a brilliant drummer" ...

The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson: The Beach Boys: I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 13 August 1977

"SOME KAHLUA, we need a coupla pitchers of milk..." "Send up a bottle of milk. O.K., cartons. Four cartons. And some honey. And a coffee. ...

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, July 1987

AND ONCE THE tumult and the shouting have died, and life returns to something resembling normality... Sgt. Pepper remains a central pillar of the mythology ...

The Beatles: What Causes Beatlemania?

Report by Eden, KRLA Beat, 9 October 1965

YOU'VE SEEN it hundreds of times before — in mob scenes at airports, in screaming crowds of fans at concerts, even in one's and two's ...

Beck: “I’m trying to get to this place where you can stand outside the parameters of what’s possible.”

Profile and Interview by Paul Moody, Dazed & Confused, 1996

BECK’S OFFBEAT HUMOUR and devil-may-care demeanour usually leaves journalists baffled, and interviews that reveal very little. But this time Beck is unafraid to drop his ...

Jeff Beck: Jeff Beck Group

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Oz, July 1972

SINCE HIS LAST album, Beck has brought in an outside producer, Steve Cropper, no less. Unlike Rough and Ready, this one features some real songs, ...

The Bee Gees: The Bees Gees: From Down Under To Disco

Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1984

SINCE ENTERING POP MUSIC in the Fifties, the Bees Gees have had three careers on three continents, each more successful than its predecessor. The first ...

Chuck Berry Can't Be Followed

Profile by Charlie Gillett, The Alternative, 1 October 1970

AT THE TIME of his greatest popularity, 1955-59, there were several other singers who had more hits, were more often copied, and commanded higher fees ...

Big Brother & The Holding Company, Janis Joplin: Big Brother And The Holding Company: Cheap Thrills (CBS KCS 9700)

Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, April 1975

JANIS JOPLIN was an awkward Texan girl with a rough voice who became one of the major idols of the sixties 'counter culture'. Why? ...

Big Star: The Best of Big Star

Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, January 2000

Fourteen cuts from troubled pop-rack demigods' first two LPs, remastered, at mid-price ...

The Birthday Party, The Virgin Prunes: The Birthday Party/The Virgin Prunes: Ace Cinema, Brixton

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982

WITH CHANNEL 4's cameras peering over their shoulders, both sets of Wild Men of Pop felt a little inhibited. Mindful of television's cold, reducing stare, ...

Björk

Interview by Ben Thompson, ES, September 2000

THE VIEW FROM the roof garden of Björk's penthouse suite at New York's elegant Soho Grand hotel is almost too much to take in at ...

The Black Crowes: Amorica

Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994

FORBIDDEN PLEASURES ARE GETTING harder to find. What price true rebel music when disco, metal, mid-'70s pop and all the grizzled outlaws of yesteryear are ...

The Black Crowes, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV)

Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2000

Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. ...

The Black Crowes: Afghan Rebels

Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, 1992

IT'S LATE NIGHT in Dallas and the Black Crowes are partying in rock's most happening dressing room, an Aladdin's den of fairy lights, Afghan rugs ...

Black Flag: My War

Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, July 1984

WHAT HAPPENS to hardcore bands when they get old? They turn into Hawkwinds, that's what. Redondo Beach's finest have let their skinheads grow out and ...

Black Sabbath: It's All Word Of Foot

Profile and Interview by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, 3 October 1970

THE BLACK SABBATH album Paranoid, slipped into your record shops a couple of weeks ago. No ballyhoo. The release was as quiet as it was ...

Black Sabbath, Girlschool: Black Sabbath/Girlschool: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Pete Makowski, Sounds, 24 May 1980

THE SABS are back. And after a series of false starts to their British tour due to drummer Bill Ward contracting viral pneumonia they are ...

Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzfest ‘97

Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, unpublished, 1997

THE UNEARTHLY NOISE that barrels over the pines and down Alpine Valley in rural Wisconsin last summer was a clear signal that the natural order ...

Bobby "Blue" Bland: Two Steps from the Blues: The Gospel According to Bobby 'Blue' Bland

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, From a Whisper to a Scream (Fontana Books), 1991

WHEN HOWLIN' WOLF left Memphis for Chicago in late 1952, Sun Records' Sam Phillips was left with a crop of younger blues singers who in ...

The Blasters: Non-Fiction (Slash)

Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983

OVER THE past three years, white American music’s been getting a real recharge from several California couples: John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X, Chip ...

Blondie: All Aboard For Funtime!

Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, August 1977

FUN! IT'S A word which keeps coming back when you try and describe Blondie – live or on record. ...

Blondie, Debbie Harry: Debbie Harry: A Chat with the Punk Pop Queen!

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Daily Express, 2000

WHAT A difference a year makes. The last time I spoke with Debbie Harry she was gearing up for the release of the first Blondie ...

The Blue Nile: Paul Buchanan Phones Home

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995

WE'VE BEEN IN ALL sorts of places for a couple of years, just meandering around the world on a fairly frugal basis – America, Italy, ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 September 1978

IT COULD be just my fevered imagination running away with me, but right now it seems that Sandy Pearlman (wily old fox and Cult behind-the-scenes ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Tyranny and Mutation

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, April 1973

YOU MIGHT remember my brief mention of Blue Oyster Cult's new album in the heavy metal piece. That was after only one listen, however, and ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Night Of The Locusts

Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980

THE GOLDEN AGE of hotrod and dragster racing is over but the USA is still littered with its mythology. One such relic is Lebanon Valley ...

The Blues Brothers: The Horrifying True Story!

Special Feature by Robert Duncan, Creem, April 1979

(or, Ain't Got No Love, Don't Want No Starch) ...

The Blues Brothers, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Rev. James Cleveland, Aretha Franklin: Various artists: The Blues Brothers Soundtrack (Atlantic SD16017)

Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 6 July 1980

DESTRUCTION OF THE BLUES ...

The Blues Brothers, Aretha Franklin: The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack (Atlantic)

Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 4 September 1980

WITH THEIR second LP, Blues Brothers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd have moved from the gratuitously racist to the merely patronizing — progress of a ...

Blur, Oasis: Battle of the Bands — Old Turf, New Combatants

Overview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 22 October 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 ...

Marc Bolan, T. Rex: Marc Bolan: Top of the Guitar Parade

Guide by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1972

BEHIND EVERY success story there’s a team of guitars. Marc Bolan decided to give his chosen few a taste of the publicity he’s been getting ...

Marc Bolan, T. Rex: The Cosmic Dancer: The Short, Brilliant Ride of Marc Bolan

Retrospective by Nicky Parade, Rock's Backpages, September 2001

IT IS LONDON, JANUARY 1970. A new pop decade has begun, and two of its budding stars are huddled together at the Trident recording studio, ...

Boomtown Rats: The Boomtown Rats (Ensign)

Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 27 August 1977

OH CHRIST, what will we label them? Rock 'n' Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Pop/New Wave? All tags apply. But no one alone totally fits the ...

David Bowie: Lodger

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979

ANOTHER YEAR, another record. Like Burroughs, David Jones, rootless, looks for unconventional commitment: Burroughs found it in junk, control-systems and predatory homosexuality; Jones found it ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Scotland

Report and Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 26 May 1973

RAY FOX-CUMMING WATCHES THAT MAN STUN THE SCOTS IN ABERDEEN ...

David Bowie: Fifty Ways To Love Your Bowie: Half a Ton of Fave Daves

Guide by William Higham, Rock's Backpages, October 2002

WITH THE Bard of Beckenham on a critical high right now (and yes, new album Heathen IS his best in years), it seems an opportune ...

David Bowie: How David Bowie, Brian Eno Revolutionized Rock on Low

Retrospective by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone Online, 13 January 2017

Singer-songwriter, producer devised 'a new musical language' in Berlin with help from Tony Visconti ...

Boy George: The Boy Who Fell From Grace

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, September 1987

THE PRESS OFFICER has pleaded, in the nicest possible way. "You're not going to ask him about drugs, are you?" Maybe. Maybe not. In the ...

Boy George, Culture Club: Culture Club and George

Report and Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 23 December 1983

A TYPICAL SUNDAY afternoon in New York's Central Park. Horse drawn carriages sweep by full of tourists. Armies of joggers with headphones stream down every ...

Billy Bragg's Brave New England

Report and Interview by Mark Sinker, The Observer, 27 November 1988

2005 comment: Neil Spencer didn’t rate me or want to use me, according to Jon Savage – who told him (Sav told me) not to ...

James Brown, Valentines Park, Ilford

Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1994

TEN MINUTES BEFORE JAMES BROWN IS DUE TO APPEAR ON AN English stage for the first time since his release from prison, there is an ...

James Brown: The Classic Soul of James Brown

Guide by Cliff White, Let It Rock, August 1975

It's White on Black. Cliff White examines the output of the sex machine inch by inch. ...

Jackson Browne: I'm Alive

Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, December 1993

HAS TIME STOOD STILL? Fifteen years on and Jackson Browne's running on empty again. He's out of love yet surviving, holding himself together but now ...

Jackson Browne: Jackson's Song For Everyman

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 17 November 1973

JACKSON Browne arrived half an hour late. He'd been figuring out how to repair the plumbing at his house, and had finally succeeded in getting ...

Jackson Browne, Laura Nyro: Laura Nyro: Laura's London Triumph

Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 February 1971

Laura Nyro/Jackson Browne: Royal Festival Hall, London ...

Jack Bruce: Tales Of A Brave Ulysses

Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 26 February 1977

"Jack's always been involved with these terrible bloody all-star bands. But now he's in an ideal position. He's older now and can surround himself with ...

Jeff Buckley: Grace (Legacy Edition) (Columbia)

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, October 2004

Remastered version of the original 1994 album with second CD of outtakes/rarities and DVD of Grace vids and footage of Buckley in Bearsville, New York. ...

Tim Buckley: Live At The Troubadour 1969

Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1994

HE WAS, ABOVE all, a beautiful boy. Sure, the album sleeves show those impossible good looks steadily thickening into manhood and by 1974's Look At ...

Johnny Burnette: Already Dead Keen to Come Back

Interview by June Harris, Disc, 21 April 1962

JOHNNY BURNETTE arrived in Britain at the end of last week for his tour with U.S. Bonds and Gene McDaniels, which opens in Glasgow on ...

Burning Spear: Dry And Heavy

Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 August 1977

IT ALL DEPENDS whether you're a sucker for the Burning Spear Sound. It hasn't changed too much through all their Island albums, and certain key ...

Kate Bush: The Sensual World (EMI)

Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 14 October 1989

"WHEN LAUREN WAS a small girl, she would stand in the field and call the cats. One by one they would come to her through ...

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 22 November 1986

IT WAS Mark Smith of top pop group The Fall who, in a typical broadcast of dedicated anti-trendiness, announced that vegetarianism helped one leave the ...

Kate Bush: Fire In The Bush

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, August 1980

WHAT'S KATE BUSH doing in ZigZag? It's a fair chance that's the thought flitting through your noggin as you espy our rather tasteful cover. ...

Buzzcocks: Looking Back

Retrospective by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982

Proto-punk, pure pop and other bites and scratches. Richard Cook assesses the career and impact of "the world’s first modern pop group". 1 April ...

Buzzcocks, Johnny Moped, Wire, X-Ray Spex: Buzzcocks/X-Ray Spex/Wire etc.: Running with the Ratpack

Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 16 April 1977

ROXY RATPACK, Saturday nite. Find a friend and stick close: sink or swim. Tony and Julie were right: a club full of 'Wild Boys' outtakes ...

The Byrds: Byrds Eye View

Profile by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, June 1971

But I was so much older then,I’m younger than that now. ...

The Byrds, Gram Parsons: Going Up the Country: The Byrds and Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, ICE, August 2003

THOUGH OPINIONS differ on who recorded the first country-rock album, there is no question that the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first one ...

David Byrne: Leicester De Montfort Hall, 7th July

Live Review by Andy Farquarson, Rock's Backpages, July 2002

AN INCONGRUOUSLY large stage dominates the tiny park which is the setting for a one-day festival at Leicester's De Montfort Hall. As two risers are ...

J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: Travel Log

Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989

SOME ARTISTS set a style so distinctively their own they become immediately generic; as with The Ramones or Led Zeppelin, J.J. Cale's first album Naturally ...

John Cale

Interview by William Higham, What's On, 14 November 1990

Musical bogeyman John Cale has a new album out with Brian Eno. He talks to William Higham about the new LP and when the chickens ...

John Cale: Caged Heat

Profile and Interview by Mick Gold, Melody Maker, 27 July 1974

JOHN CALE is sitting in a preview theatre, cowering in the shadow of the London Hilton to see a screening of this movie hes scored ...

Can: Unlimited Edition

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, July 1976

THIS IS ONE for hardened Can-atics, being basically a collection of snippets which haven't made it onto past Can albums. ...

Captain Beefheart: Clear Spot

Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, November 1972

THERE ARE TYPICALLY three schools of thought surrounding Captain Beefheart. The first love him and feel he can do no wrong. The second find him ...

Eric Carmen: Rock's Rejuvenated Raspberry

Interview by Alan Betrock, Hit Parader, June 1976

WHEN ERIC CARMEN, Wally Bryson, Jim Bonfanti, and Dave Smalley formed the Raspberries back in 1971, their goal was to stand for something especially fresh ...

The Carpenters: Horizon

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, July 1975

IT'S CERTAINLY LESS than revolutionary to admit you like the Carpenters these days (in ‘rock’ circles, if you recall, it formerly bordered on heresy). Everybody ...

Johnny Cash

Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Music Week, 1995

HE’S BACK IN BLACK...again. And, as ever, he means business. Johnny Cash, the original rock'n'roll spectre lets loose the leashes with new album Unchained, covering ...

Johnny Cash: Pills'n'Thrills And Bellyaches

Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, June 1991

HITCHING UP HIS blue jeans to give his hands something to do, country music's Greatest Living Legend smothers a cough before the familiar voice offers ...

Nick Cave: Rage Has Not Withered Him

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 18 March 2001

Nick Cave never thought he'd get past 40, but heroin and self-hate are behind him now. Married and "reborn", he writes nine to five in ...

Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: Now for the Big Time

Interview by John Robb, Sounds, 10 November 1990

Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and the Inspirals have all been tipped to break the States, but THE CHARLATANS may have the best chance of all. ...

Cheap Trick: At Budokan

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 2 December 1978

THE TRICK experience, but hardly cheap at £8.50 a shot. Even so, it's worth it, as is evidenced by the fact that Flyover in Hammersmith ...

Neneh Cherry: My Top Tunes

Interview by Bill Brewster, Mixmag, October 1992

What's Goin' On — Marvin Gaye ...

Chicago: Chicago VIII

Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 19 June 1975

WHILE IT'S DIFFICULT to picture anyone failing to be amused by the intentional ludicrousness of, say, dedicating an album to the revolution or making the ...

Alex Chilton: 19 Years: A Collection of Alex Chilton (Rhino)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, April 1991

IF ANY ONE PERSON is emblematic of the musical malaise of rock's cutting edge during the 1980s, it would have to be cult factotum Alex ...

John Cipollina, Man: Man: Maximum Darkness

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, January 1976

ONE OF THE undoubted highlights so far this year for all ZigZaggers has been the long-overdue visit of John Cipollina to these shores, and if ...

Eric Clapton: Danish Blues Power: Eric Clapton

Review and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 29 June 1974

"WE WANT Buddy Holly!... I AM Buddy Holly!" ...

Eric Clapton: 24 Nights

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, January 1992

CORRECTION. Eric Clapton was God. ...

The Clash: Clash: The Clash; Give 'Em Enough Rope; London Calling; Sandinista!; Combat Rock; Cut The Crap

Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989

UNLIKE THE Sex Pistols, the other great London punk-rock group had ambitions beyond delivering the short, sharp shock to the system suggested by the sudden ...

The Clash, Joe Strummer: Joe Strummer: Definitely Not Admitting Defeat Yet

Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 24 September 1999

"I THINK GOOD manners will come back. In America, kids saw punk rock as a licence to be as rude as possible. I didn't like ...

The Clash: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 6 November 1976

A ROW OF PARKED Vivas, Consuls and Zephyrs indicated that the ICA had an audience a little different to the usual. It was "A Night ...

George Clinton: Some Of My Best Jokes Are Friends (Capitol)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 1985

IF THERE'S nothing more pathetic than an ageing crazy person, then why is George Clinton still able to make music as passionate, ...

George Clinton: Taking Funk Over The Hump

Profile by Simon Witter, i-D, May 1988

EXCUSE ME if I gush here, but this is a subject very close to my heart. In these days of political defeatism, sexual paranoia and ...

Joe Cocker: The A&M Years 1968-1976

Overview by Bud Scoppa, unpublished, 1982

BETWEEN THE YEARS 1968 and 1976, Joe Cocker recorded his first seven albums (all released on A&M). These recordings were composed of a wonderfully diverse ...

Cockney Rebel: The Mellowing Of Mr Harley

Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 9 November 1974

STEVE HARLEY just sits there a-glowering, looking, if one can, defiantly mellow. The suggestion that the arrogant ol' sour puss has softened up a bit ...

Cockney Rebel, Steve Harley: Steve Harley Interviewed

Interview by Ira Robbins, Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press, April 1975

Hear the audio interview from which this article derived ...

Cockney Rebel, Steve Harley: Steve Harley: How I Survived, by the Cocaine Rebel

Interview by Mal Peachey, Mail On Sunday, 2 May 1993

  ONCE STEVE Harley had it all. Every song he wrote was a hit, every friend he made was famous and every lover was a fashion ...

Cocteau Twins: Milk And Kisses (Fontana)

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996

AN UNFORGIVABLE THING happened in 1994. The Cocteau Twins released arguably their finest album to date, Four Calendar Cafe, only to have it roundly ignored ...

Leonard Cohen: The Future

Review by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, December 1992

THE CRITICAL REHABILITATION of the man they used to call Captain Mandrax is one of rock's more unexpected twists in recent years. ...

Leonard Cohen: Cohen's New Skin

Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 1 March 1975

LOS ANGELES: "For a while, I didn't think there was going to be another album. I pretty well felt that I was washed up as ...

Coldplay: X&Y

Review by Jim Irvin, The Word, June 2005

AS A STAUNCH advocate of pop music that's actually popular, that revels in its ability to make human connections, I can't begrudge Coldplay their unquestionable ...

Natalie Cole: The Unforgettable Ms Cole

Interview by Lucy O'Brien, The Guardian, 26 September 2008

Natalie Cole is the superstar's daughter who became a Black Panther, a cocaine addict – and a huge success in her own right. As she ...

Genesis, Phil Collins: Phil Collins: Genesis Of A Solo Career

Interview by Chris Salewicz, Creem, January 1982

SET IN THE STOCKBROKER belt 30 miles to the southwest of London, the Genesis studio complex is exactly what you might expect: several thatched, suitably ...

Ry Cooder: Chicken Skin Music

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, November 1976

I'VE BEEN LOOKING forward to this one for ages, same as I do every Ry Cooder album. Apart from the obvious quality of his music, ...

Alice Cooper: All Right, Son . . .Where's My Big Boy With Extra Sauce?

Interview by Barbara Charone, Creem, August 1977

ALICE COOPER is waiting for the man. He's even got a Coca-Cola in his hand. But where's the burgers? Alice Cooper is waiting. He's waiting ...

Alice Cooper: School's Out

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, August 1972

IF YOU DON'T THINK Alice Cooper are the Rolling Stones of 1972, think again. In innumerable aspects – from the foremost importance of image to ...

Elvis Costello Re-releases

Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002

Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...

Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 1978

THE INSULT that made a man out of Mac(manus). As runs the hype: get sand kicked in your face (or whatever), keep on punching your ...

Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe McDonald: Incredible! Live! Country Joe! (Vanguard)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Cream, June 1972

I like the coffee and I like tea,I like the sweetness that you give to me, Hey woman set your mind at rest,Home cookin' still ...

The Cramps: A Date With Elvis

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986

THE CRAMPS' rampant gurning and soft-focus sleaze has been shaped into an institution of sorts. Transcending and fusing tribal instincts – goth's dumb brooding and ...

Cream: "Nobody can replace Cream" — Ginger Baker

Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, April 1972

It seems that it’s not only the record-buying public that consider Ginger Baker to be the world’s top drummer. "I haven’t ever heard anybody who’d ...

The Creatures, Siouxsie & The Banshees: 10 Questions for Siouxsie Sioux

Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, September 1998

Is it true that you split the Banshees because the Sex Pistols reformed? ...

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo's Factory

Review by Greg Shaw, Who Put The Bomp!, October 1970

WELL, THEY'VE finally done it. Creedence Clearwater has produced an entire album without a single poor song. And what's more, they don't all sound alike. ...

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Creedence Clearwater Revival

Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 2001

FOR A FEW SEASONS as the '60s turned into the '70s, Creedence Clearwater Revival were the biggest band in the world, with their incredible US ...

Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash/Daylight Again

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, March 2006

CSN WAS BORN of dissolution, the fruit of fragmenting times. They kicked off a second wave of post-Sunset Strip/British Invasion music, loose affiliations of longhairs ...

Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: American Dream

Review by Tom Hibbert, Q, December 1988

It has been suggested that this LP is the result of the compassion of Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young–a bid to keep their ...

Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Auburn, Washington, July 27th 2006

Live Review by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, 15 August 2006

"Do you think there are any Republicans here?" We are on the queue for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Freedom of Speech show, and the ...

Sheryl Crow

Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996

EVERY FEW YEARS AN ALBUM IS MADE IN LOS Angeles of such wistful sunniness that it sets up shop on the radio for months on ...

The Cure: Taking The Cure With Robert

Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, 1 October 1987

"I put make-up on when I wake up. Some times, if I'm go-ing shopping, depend-ing upon what shop I'm going to, I wear it. If ...

The Cure: In Search Of El Dorado

Report and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, July 1987

EARLY IN THE evening of 27 March 1987 in Rio de Janeiro, Robert Smith is sipping tea in the air-conditioned cool of The Cure's luxury ...

The Damned: Music For Pleasure

Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 26 November 1977

CATCHING SIGHT of the title in a news column, I wondered. 'Music For Pleasure'? Have the dervish-like Damned decided to junk all this credibility rubbish, ...

The Kinks, Ray Davies: Ray Davies

Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 4 November 1967

THERE is something of the smoking volcano about Ray Davies. Six foot of suppressed quietly spoken, quietly smiling and quietly watching! It is what some ...

Miles Davis: London, Hammersmith Odeon

Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983

MILES RUNS the voodoo down down down ... and here I am, somewhere way up in the high heights of the Odeon (gee I hate ...

Deep Purple: Breakfast of Champions: Deep Purple's Machine Head

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Circular, 29 May 1972

IF YOU'RE OVER 20, you needn’t read on. Unless, of course, you want to hear why Deep Purple are a good group – just like ...

Deep Purple: Empire Pool, Wembley

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 20 March 1976

THIS REVIEW SHOULD have been written in the white heat of anger after seeing Deep Purple play at the Empire Pool, Wembley, on Friday night. ...

Sandy Denny: Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005

BEGUN IN LA and finished in London, Like an Old-Fashioned Waltz may be Denny's finest hour. Kicking off with 'Solo', one of her trademark piano ...

Depeche Mode: Construction Time Again (Mute)

Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 27 August 1983

"LOTS OF surprises in store/This isn’t a party/It’s a whole lot more," sings Dave Gahan in ‘More Than A Party’. It’s a song from Construction ...

Depeche Mode: Hanover Garbsen Stadium

Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 19 June 1993

IN A marquee in the middle of a German field, Martin Gore is being cross-examined about the quasi-religious imagery of his lyrics by a frizzy-haired ...

Dexys Midnight Runners: Dexy's Midnight Runners: Don't Stand Me Down (Mercury)

Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985

YOU'D THINK three years silence might have dimmed the man's burning rage, but no, Kevin Rowland is back with a resharpened axe to grind. Chapter ...

Bo Diddley - Bo's a Lumberjack!

Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 8 February 1975

THE WHOLE THING about Bo Diddley was that he was by far the weirdest and craziest musician ever to come out of either blues or ...

Dire Straits: On Every Street

Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1991

THE REASONS FOR the six-year absence are well known: Brothers In Arms – the 15-million-selling album and 250-date world tour – banished an unassuming bloke ...

The Dixie Chicks: I Shall Be Free: The Blacklisting of Dixie Chicks

Comment by Dave Marsh, Harp, June 2003

IN CHRIS BUHALIS'S 'Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues', John Ashcroft declares questioning him un-American, to which the singer replies, "It's called a democracy. ...

DJ Hollywood, The Sugarhill Gang: The Sugarhill Gang: Freak of the Week

Report by Davitt Sigerson, Melody Maker, 15 December 1979

DESPITE A rhythm track that mangles Chic's 'Good Times' (they settled out of court), 'Rapper's Delight' by the Sugarhill Gang has been the season's biggest-selling ...

Donovan: Hurdy Gurdy Man Rolls Into Town

Live Review by Rick McGrath, The Georgia Straight, October 1971

TWO THINGS I found quite interesting at the Donovan Concert last Monday night. First, the Humble Minstrel of psychedelic folk music seems to be running ...

The Doors: John Densmore

Interview by William Higham, New Musical Express, 1991

THE DOORS avalanche begins here! Word Up corners the band's drummer and chronicler JOHN DENSMORE, reviews his book and checks out an investigation into Morrison's ...

The Doors: The Morrison Legacy

Report and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 23 December 1978

JIM MORRISON'S body may lie a-moulderin' in his grave but his soul goes marching on. ...

Dr. Dre, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr Dre: Every Dogg Has His Dre

Report and Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 14 May 1994

They called him an "evil bastard", said he shouldn't be allowed in the country, that there would be riots outside his hotel and gigs. But ...

Nick Drake: Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, Pink Moon and Heaven Is A Wild Flower

Review by Martin Aston, Q, August 1990

RAISED BY UPPER-middle class parents in the Black Country, educated at public school and Cambridge, Nick Drake's life was never as comfortable as his upbringing ...

Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, Kid Creole & The Coconuts: August Darnell: From Dr. Savannah to Kid Creole

Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 November 1980

"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, ...

Dr. Feelgood: Dr Feelgood: Down By The Jetty

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, July 1975

ROCK'N'ROLL LOUD, dirty, mean, raw, vicious rock'n'roll. That's what Dr Feelgood are all about and they never make any pretensions to the contrary. ...

Dr. Feelgood: Just What The Dr. Ordered: A New Guitarist To Replace Wilko In The Feelgoods

Report and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 7 May 1977

IT'S BARDOT'S, Canvey Island, formerly Cloud Nine, former weekly haunt of Dr. Feelgood. It's Thursday, almost midnight, and Wilko Johnson has well and truly joined ...

Dr. John at the London Forum

Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1997

COMPARED TO his tremendous gigs at Ronnie Scott's a year or two ago, when Dr John was accompanied by a horn section that included Alvin ...

Dr. John: Gumbo

Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, 8 June 1972

WIPE YOUR MIND clean of all you have ever heard and read about Dr. John the Night Tripper. If you knew that once he was ...

Duran Duran: We’re Big Boys Now

Interview by Steve Turner, Company, 1988

Simon Le Bon doesn’t look like a teen idol on this particular day. A T-shirt flaps around the top of loose black trousers, his hair ...

Ian Dury: Body Language

Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 3 September 1981

"HAVEN'T YOU heard? I'm a Fifth Columnist for the Year Of Disabled People. They've bribed me massively." ...

Ian Dury: It's Fairly Whassname…

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 25 February 1978

"WHICH WOULD you rather see; Kenny Rogers or Randy Edelman?" ...

Bob Dylan: Enter Good-Time Bob

Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 3 October 1997

Bob Dylan: Bournemouth ...

Bob Dylan: Dylan’s Tarantula

Review by David G. Walley, Zygote, 1971

TARANTULA: twenty-five year-old visions of reality/letters to himself and posterity, now here in some other form from miracle xerox. Tarantula--visions of Aretha, soul singer in ...

Bob Dylan, The Greenbriar Boys: The Greenbriar Boys, Bob Dylan: Gerde's Folk City, New York NY

Live Review by Robert Shelton, The New York Times, 29 September 1961

Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist 20-Year-Old Singer Is Bright New Face at Gerde's Club ...

The Eagles: Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, California

Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 1994

THE BEST – AND CERTAINLY MOST SUCCINCT – REVIEW OF this, the opening night of the reunited Eagles' concert tour, came midway through guitarist Joe ...

The Eagles: Desperado

Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, June 1973

THE BACK COVER photo may depict the Eagles as dead losers, but with DESPERADO it is clear that nothing is further from the truth. ...

Steve Earle, The Del McCoury Band: Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band: The Mountain

Review by Fred Dellar, Hi-Fi News & Record Review, May 1999

PREDICTABLY FOR the unpredictable Earle, his tribute to bluegrass mainman Bill Monroe contains no material actually penned by Monroe. ...

Earth Wind and Fire: Earth Wind & Fire: Gratitude

Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 7 February 1976

PROOF AT LAST that EWF deserve all the acclaim that's been heaped on them in the last couple of years. ...

Earth Wind And Fire: The Ultimate Collection/Gratitude/All ‘N’ All/That’s The Way Of The World (Columbia)

Review and Interview by Kit Aiken, Uncut, September 1999

THE SNAZZIEST, JAZZIEST dance crew of the period. Their ‘one world’ spirituality, sunny mysticism and conspicuous musicality makes them a real genre one-off. Never as ...

Echo & The Bunnymen: Porcupine (Korova)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983

PERHAPS IT WAS inevitable, even decreed in some heaven up "there". Maybe it’s just the third time unlucky. But if Porcupine isn’t good it isn’t ...

Eddie & The Hot Rods: Eddie And The Hot Rods: Woolwich Polytechnic, London

Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 20 November 1976

EDDIE and the Hot Rods are turning into Heroes under our very eyes. ...

Dave Edmunds: Subtle as a Flying Mallet

Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, December 1975

Perhaps you’re thinking it’s either premature or entirely unwarranted that a relative unknown whose sole claim to fame is a 1970 updating of Smiley Lewis’ ...

Elbow: Leaders of the Free World (V2)

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, October 2005

Third album from Mancunian quintet, self-produced at the city's Blueprint studio. ...

Electric Light Orchestra: Light Years

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 1998

Mid-priced, 2-CD, 38-track collection of all their singles. ...

Electric Light Orchestra: ELO: Live in Philadelphia

Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 5 January 1974

WE ARE gathered together, ladies and gentlemen, for a recital by that promising septet of young British musicians who call themselves the Electric Light Orchestra. ...

Emerson Lake And Palmer: Greg Lake: Rock Will Go Back To Its Roots

Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 3 August 1974

GREG LAKE'S London home is a rare and impressive sight. A light glows outside a town house in a quiet street that takes you back ...

Brian Eno's Discreet Music

Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 January 1976

EXPERIMENTAL AND AVANT-GARDE music, by its very nature, exists mainly in the fringe area of private pressings, such as the Musica or George Avakian productions ...

Brian Eno, Roxy Music: Another Glam World: Brian Eno’s Adventures in Roxy Music

Interview by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, June 2001

DP: What does the phrase "Glam Rock" mean to you? ...

Eurythmics: Be Yourself Tonight (RCA)

Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 4 May 1985

AMONG their assimilations, borrowings and treatments, Eurythmics remain outsiders. "I'm a looker, a viewer of things," said Annie Lennox. Their Sweet Dreams album nailed the ...

The Everly Brothers: Songs Our Daddy Taught Us

Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 6 March 1976

IN A QUIET sort of way, 1975 saw an Everly Brothers revival of sorts. Warner Brothers released their magnificent Walk Right Back With The Everlys, ...

The Faces

Interview by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, 1 January 1972

AS FAR AS AMERICA is concerned, the Small Faces were notable for one single, 'Itchycoo Park', and one album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake; the former ...

The Faces: The Best Of The Faces (Riva)****

Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 30 April 1977

"AAALRIGHT: HERE'S one you may well know, you may not know it; and if you don't know it, I really don't know where you bin." ...

Donald Fagen: Kamakiriad

Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, March 1993

DONALD FAGEN'S first album in 11 years, Kamakiriad, can be judged from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it marries tartly ironic lyrics with ...

Fairport Convention: Babbacombe Lee

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, April 1972

FOR THEIR SEVENTH album, Fairport Convention has presented us with a "concept" or "unified theme" LP (avoiding the oppro-briously-connotated term "rock opera"). ...

Marianne Faithfull

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Request, February 1999

AS MICK Jagger’s girlfriend she was among the great - and most tragic - consorts of rock’s decadent heyday. But then this Sister Morphine forced ...

Marianne Faithfull: Marianne Never Does What A Pop Star Should

Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 9 April 1965

SHE HAS a pert, child-like face which darts out at you from a cascade of fine, fair hair. The face seems to be concentrated into ...

The Fall: Mark E Smith: Not Falling, Soaring

Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1991

MARK E SMITH'S REPUTATION precedes him like massed stormtroopers on the horizon. Fourteen years on, the Fall frontman still sets everyone on edge, either in ...

The Fall: Totally Wired — The Rough Trade Anthology/The Rough Trade Singles Box (Sanctuary) ***

Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, October 2002

Northern white crap that talks back meets west London liberals: early-Eighties Fall on Rough Trade ...

The Fall: The Wit And Wisdom Of Mark Smith

Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 10 January 1981

DID YOU KNOW?That Andy Gill discovered all these pearls of wisdom – and more – while talking to The Fall. ...

Family Are A MAN'S Band

Report and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, 16 October 1971

THEIR MUSIC is both uncompromising and aggressive but like most musical hard men they have their other side and their latest album Fearless is likely ...

Faust: Return of a Legend: Munic & Elsewhere

Review by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, January 1987

MEPHISTO CALLING. Good news – Faust are back. Released from a devil's pact with silence, they're noisily celebrating the repossession of their souls. A new ...

Bryan Ferry: The Bride Stripped Bare

Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 16 September 1978

I MUST confess myself horrified to recall, just as I was about to start this review, that my first ever album review was of Bryan ...

The Flamin' Groovies: Sneakers

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, October 1975

BACK IN the heady days of the late sixties when it seemed that for several precious months San Francisco became the rock music centre of ...

Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac

Review by Bud Scoppa, Circus, November 1975

FROM LISTENING to Fleetwood Mac, you'd think this once-definitive British blues band was a Southern California pop group – and you'd be right. The three ...

Fleetwood Mac: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 28 June 1980

CROWDS, HOWEVER passive, make me unhappy. As Eli Wallach said on TV (The Magnificent Seven) last Sunday afternoon, "If God didn't want them to be ...

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks: Stevie Nicks: Confessions Of A Rock Chick

Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 21 November 2003

CURLED UP on the sofa at Fleetwood Mac's Los Angeles rehearsal studios, Stevie Nicks looks every inch the ageing rock chick survivor. At her feet ...

John Fogerty: Centerfield

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1985

I have a better title, except Malamud already claimed it: The Natural. John Fogerty's sound could never be pinned down to time or ...

Foo Fighters: Record reviews: Who needs them?

Comment by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 1 January 2013

Music criticism is in a horrible state. It wouldn't have to be if we talked about albums like they really mattered. ...

Kim Fowley: International Heroes

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 July 1977

I REALISE it's getting to be an obsession, but what can I do? Even Viv Goldman, between bouts of trying to convince me to do ...

Peter Frampton: Frampton Comes Alive

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, April 1976

I MUST CONFESS before I go any further that I'm not very familiar with too many of Frampton's previous solo albums (I've only got one ...

Peter Frampton's Camel: A Galloping Success In The States

Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 7 July 1973

PETER FRAMPTON made a flying visit to London last week. But the boss of Frampton's Camel couldn't stay long – too much excitement is happening ...

Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 April 1985

"HALLO HAHMMERSMITH...we are U2!" Holly say. Some say, ha ha, very funny; I say, many a true word spoken in jest. ...

Aretha Franklin

Essay by Amy Linden, The Source, 1998

THE SUBJECT is female singers, and we’re gonna make it easy on ya. ...

Aretha Franklin: Hey Now Hey (Atlantic)

Review by Bob Fisher, Cream, September 1973

IT'S BEEN HIP for mainstream rock critics to knock Miss Franklin for some time now, in much the same way the current vogue is to ...

Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand

Review by Wayne Robins, The Boston Phoenix, 21 May 2004

I’M THUMBING through the March issue of Uncut, the comprehensive and entertaining British music monthly, when I hit the front of the review section and ...

Free: Chronicles

Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, May 2005

CURRENTLY ATTEMPTING the almost impossible task of filling Freddie Mercury's shoes in a new-look Queen, it's hard to imagine Paul Rodgers landing any further from ...

King Crimson, Robert Fripp: A Chat with Mr. Fripp

Interview by Cynthia Rose, Viz, 1980

ROBERT FRIPP is a musician, theoretician, theologian and, as his colleague David Bowie (referred by Fripp as "Mr. B") points out, "probably the man with ...

Funkadelic, Parliament: Parliament: Live: The P-Funk Earth Tour

Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 11 June 1977

"THEY SAY the bigger the headache the bigger the pill!" Dr. Funkenstein shouts. ...

Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (Charisma) *****

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 19 February 1977

DEAR PETER, Hangin' round Times Square just the other day when some strange sounds caught my ear. Bundled up my leather jacket, tucked a can ...

Genesis, Peter Gabriel: Rhythm Of The Pete

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982

After the ambitious WOMAD Festival, the bailiffs cometh and PETER GABRIEL has decided to get himself out of hock – even if it means a ...

Rory Gallagher: Against The Grain

Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975

DO YOU realise that Against The Grain is Rory Gallagher's seventh album since he split Taste? ...

Rory Gallagher: Hammersmith Odeon, Lindon

Live Review by Mick Brown, Sounds, 29 January 1977

NOBODY PLAYS the blues anymore – not unless they're black and old. The blues tradition among young blacks has all but vanished in the mad ...

Gang of Four: Entertainment (EMI)

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 6 October 1979

THE Four are ambitious; and so they accept the process. ...

Garbage: Version 2.0

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, June 1998

THERE ARE surprisingly few bands like Garbage, bands operating in that shadowy, uncertain zone between the flesh of rock and the metal of techno. They're ...

Marvin Gaye: Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz

Review by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, 8 July 1985

The anguished life of Marvin Gaye ended on April 1, 1984, at the home in Los Angeles he had bought for his parents, when a ...

Marvin Gaye: I Want You

Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 8 May 1976

A COUPLE of weeks ago our very own Mr. Murray suffered a bitter anti-climax after waiting nigh on two years to hear the latest ...

J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: Bloodshot

Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, July 1973

EVER SINCE the first Butterfield Blues Band album I’ve been waiting and hoping for a group that could combine gut mangling excitement with instrumental virtuosity ...

J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, November 1989

WHILE I DON'T think there is a single instance of great, enduring songwriting on this disc -- don't look for any Hall of Fame nominations ...

Generation X: The Marquee, London

Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 8 October 1977

ROCK ON Indeed.I've finally figured out, after all this time, why, despite the fact that lots of people whose opinions I respect hate them, I ...

The Go-Betweens: Go-Betweens Aim To Strike Public Chord

Profile and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Billboard, 14 January 1989

AT THE END of the day, what do good reviews really mean? In the case of the Go-Betweens, whose debut Capitol album 16 Lovers Lane ...

Grateful Dead: Live Dead

Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1970

Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best performing bands in America, why their music touches on ground that most other groups ...

Grateful Dead: Dawn of the Deadheads

Report and Interview by David Gans, Headliner, August 1983

THE PSYCHEDELIC era is ancient history, and LSD is so far out of fashion that it probably doesn't even need to be illegal any more. ...

Al Green: Take Me to the River: Al Green with Davin Seay

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, November 2000

"Gen’lmen, we just havin’ church here." Six words which - directed at me and a fellow soul buff at the Full Gospel Tabernacle church by ...

Peter Green: Ronnie Scott's Club, London

Live Review by Keith Altham, MOJO, June 1998

THE FIRST time I ever reviewed Peter Green in concert, he was with Fleetwood Mac at the Albert Hall in the '60s; a lean, bearded ...

Al Green: Love, Happiness And Convictions

Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 29 April 1975

2008 introduction: Known as the "Prince Of Soul," Al Green had built up a strong audience thanks to a string of hit singles and best-selling ...

The Gun Club: Miami

Review by j. poet, Creem, February 1983

THE GUN CLUB plays for keeps. Their songs crackle like dry corpse skin turning to parchment under the caress of a rattlesnake belly. Jeffrey Lee ...

Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Danger Lurks Beyond The Doors

Profile by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 25 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 ...

Guns N' Roses, Izzy Stradlin: Izzy Stradlin

Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, March 2001

SHAKING THE notoriety gained following six years on the road with Guns N' Roses was never going to be the easiest of tasks. But Izzy ...

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Hall & Oates: H2O (RCA)

Review by Leyla Sanai, New Musical Express, 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 ...

Emmylou Harris: Luxury Liner

Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1977

A CLASSICALLY CONCEIVED album for one such as myself – two songs by Parsons, one by the Louvin Brothers, a Rodney Crowell, a Mr. Guy ...

Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky

Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 3 May 1975

THIS IS AN album that has been quite eagerly anticipated, mainly because of the reputation Emmylou Harris built for herself with her participation as co-vocalist ...

George Harrison: My Walk-On in the Life of George

Memoir by David Dalton, Gadfly, 12 March 2002

"FIRST OF ALL," my friend Richard said, "he was a Beatle, how could he die?" They were immortal, weren't they? Gods, even if flawed. A ...

Debbie Harry: It's About Time, Isn't It?

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Q, December 1986

SO WHY, WE must ask, is Debbie Harry back right now, exactly? Has she brought out her brand new single, 'French Kissing In The USA', ...

PJ Harvey: An Interview

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, Summer 2004

RBP: Not to suggest that Uh Huh Her must be entirely autobiographical – or "confessional" – but you don’t sound terribly happy in these songs. ...

Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 12 May 1972

THOUGH SOMEWHAT quiet on the recording scene of late, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the original wildman of our music, is still attracting large audiences in the ...

Hawkwind: In Search Of Space

Review by Jeff Walker, Phonograph Record, May 1972

IT'S BEEN an eternity since I've writhed to a record on a physical level, but I still recall fondly those stoned hours spent engrossed in ...

Hawkwind: Lock, Edmonton

Live Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 17 January 1976

IT'S ALL A far cry from Alfred Jarry. ...

Isaac Hayes: Chronicle/For The Sake Of Love

Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, 18 November 1978

IT'S MY CONTENTION that, whatever bizarre circumstances caused the flurry of lawsuits circulating round Isaac Hayes prior to the demise of Stax Records, and the ...

Richard Hell: The Return Of The Bug-Eyed Monster

Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 13 January 1979

RICHARD HELL AND GIOVANNI DADOMO VISIT THE BOAT SHOW ...

Jimi Hendrix: Blues (MCA)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Guitar World, 1998

Let’s get the paradoxes out of the way right up front: the blues was a musical space to which Jimi Hendrix would always return in ...

Jimi Hendrix: The Music

Essay by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 26 September 1970

THE IMPORTANCE of Jimi Hendrix as a musician was sometimes forgotten behind the man's sexuality and the flamboyance of his act and appearance. ...

John Hiatt: Bottom Line, New York

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Times, August 1990

A SKINNY troubadour with a throaty, abrasive growl of a voice, John Hiatt slides in to the American rock dream somewhere between Ry Cooder at ...

Steve Hillage: Motivation Radio

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 October 1977

When a guy sings to you "we've all been born together in this special place and time to raise the world," where does your humble ...

The Hollies’ Cloud

Report and Interview by Steven Rosen, Los Angeles Free Press, February 1973

FOR THE PAST five years it seems that the Hollies have been laboring under a Sisyphean curse. Every time they latched on to a silver ...

Buddy Holly: Why Buddy Holly will never fade away

Retrospective by Philip Norman, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2009

ON A BASIS OF simply counting heads, rock music surpasses even film as the 20th century's most influential art form. By that reckoning, there is ...

Alan Hull, Lindisfarne: Alan Hull 1945-1995

Obituary by Chris Ingham, MOJO, January 1996

WHEN I WAS 15 – AND FIVE YEARS AN EX-PAT GEORDIE – MY contemporaries idolised Strummer and Weller. I wanted to be like Alan Hull. ...

The Human League, The League Unlimited Orchestra: The League Unlimited Orchestra: Love And Dance (Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 3 July 1982

LOVE'S THEME, YOUR MAGIC SPELL IS EVERYWHERE ...

Humble Pie: Thunderbox

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 16 March 1974

STEVE MARRIOTT – hair flying, jaw set at an aggressive angle, knees akimbo and arms flailing over his jutting guitar – is one of the ...

Ian Hunter, Mott The Hoople: Ian Hunter: Through the Glasses Darkly

Interview by Jonh Ingham, Creem, August 1975

THOSE SHADES! Oceans of mid-Atlantic green plastic bounded by translucent brown frames, black electrical tape wound in large balls around the tips to protect the ...

Hüsker Dü: Flip Your Wig

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985

I'VE GIVEN THIS some thought. Let's suppose – and it's not a weak notion – that four groups bond together the one significant play in ...

The Incredible String Band: Incredible String Band

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, March 1971

"The Beatles are British I suppose," said Bob Dylan in the first of his two post-accident interviews, "but you can’t say they’ve carried on with ...

Iron Maiden Tattoo America

Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1983

A DREAM. I'm lounging on the balcony of a Beverly Hills hotel staring out over the pool when there's a knock on the door. In ...

Chris Isaak

Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991

"We're playing the same halls as before, we just get to go on a few hours later." ...

The Isley Brothers: Go For Your Guns (Epic)

Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 9 July 1977

"YOU GET some writers saying, 'Why don't you do something like you did before?' They think they really want it but at the same time ...

Michael Jackson: Blood On The Dance Floor

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, July 1997

HISTORY IS written by the victors. Or, in our times, is remixed by the fashionable. ...

Michael Jackson: Out of His Life: Michael Jackson

Report by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 17 August 1984

BY NOW, of course, you’ve been told more than you could possibly want to know about Michael Jackson. Such has been the media saturation of ...

Millie Jackson: Odeons Birmingham And Hammersmth

Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 4 February 1978

Millie's preoccupations, said The Guardian, are sex, sex and more sex; can't argue with that. ...

Brian Jackson, Gil Scott-Heron: Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson: Winter in America (Charly)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, August 2005

A MASTERWORK of ghetto melancholia and stark political gravitas, Winter in America showcases Scott-Heron and Jackson at their most witheringly unsentimental but also their most ...

The Jackson 5, Diana Ross: Diana Ross: Diana! (BBC 2)

Film/DVD/TV Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 8 October 1971

MOTOWN'S MUCH-heralded first independent production centred on Diana Ross, proved to be all it was cracked out to be – and more! Screened on B.B.C. ...

Mick Jagger: Coming Under The Thumb: Mick Jagger

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, You, 20 September 1987

"You have to set an example," says the middle-aged father of four. But can this really be the drug-taking, rebellious, orgiastic Mick Jagger speaking? It ...

Mick Jagger: Wandering Spirit

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 2 March 1993

HE MAY BE a wandering spirit, but Mick Jagger sure doesn't travel light. This simple fact of life informs both the major tragedies and minor ...

The Jam: Direction Reaction Creation

Review by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, May 1997

IF WE ACCEPT pop as the religion of youth in the last quarter of the 20th century, then there can be no more striking example ...

The Jam: London Hammersmith Odeon

Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 31 December 1977

FRAGMENTATION STRIKES DEEP... as punk "culture" is guided firmly into several easily categorizable (and therefore easier controlled)/marketable segments(divided we consume), it's clean teen night. ...

Etta James: Empress In Exile

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 14 April 1984

MOST EVERY year now Ms Jamesetta Hawkins – Etta to you – will at the behest of Dingwalls Boss (Goodman, that is) fly over ...

Jane's Addiction: Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco

Live Review by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, January 1998

Set list: Ocean Size/Ain't No Right/Then She Did/Stop/Three Days/Mountain Song/Summertime Rolls/Jane Says/Classic Girl/Chip Away/Ted,Just Admit it/I Would For You. ...

Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing At Baxter’s

Review and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 23 November 1967

Jefferson Airplane finally finished their third LP Halloween week after two months of off-and-on recording in Los Angeles. It’s called After Bathing at Baxter’s, has ...

Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship: Up The Revolution? F**k The Revolution!

Review and Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, October 1994

PLANEBRANES. THAT'S WHAT obsessive aficionados of Jefferson Airplane and all that venerable group's offshoots – Jefferson Starship, Starship (two different enterprises, confusingly enough), Mickey Thomas's ...

Jefferson Starship: Central Park, NYC

Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1975

THEY MAY HAVE changed their surname, but Jefferson Starship have arrived at a conciliatory relationship with their past, and with mixed results. With Marty Balin ...

The Jesus & Mary Chain: The Jesus And Mary Chain: Stoned and Dethroned (Blanco y Negro)

Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 13 August 1994

WHEN YOU ARE the Jesus and Mary Chain and your life is willingly bounded by certain influences – let's rise once more from our orthopaedic ...

Jethro Tull On The Road

Interview by Ira Robbins, Circus, 20 January 1976

"JETHRO RETIRE HURT!" blared the headline in a major British magazine just over two years ago, when a spokesman for the group announced an "indefinite" ...

Jethro Tull: Thick As A Brick

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1972

JETHRO TULL's admirers are wont to believe that the lads are an inventive, entertaining, eminently witty, oft profound rock group, with a propensity for satire ...

Joan Jett: I Love Rock 'N' Roll (Boardwalk)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1982

IF ANY OF rock's male marauders (say Triumph, or Rush) opened up an LP with a stop 'n' start thumper about spotting a 17-year-old number ...

Elton John: Jump Up! (Geffen)

Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1982

REMEMBER THE 70's? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the ...

Elton John: Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, January 1973

Elton John is a fast worker. He just about has to be because he allows himself only ten days to write and rehearse all the ...

Daniel Johnston: An Outsider's Songs of Pain and Longing: Daniel Johnston

Report and Interview by Chris Campion, Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2003

LOCKED ON his own in an Xfm recording booth, Daniel Johnston casually flips through the weathered ring binder that holds his songbook and begins to ...

Rickie Lee Jones: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 12 February 1983

IT'S ALREADY well known how the great Casting Director in the sky limited women to a few suffocating roles in American popular culture: the mother ...

Joy Division: University Of London, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 February 1980

I DIDN'T KNOW which way to turn. In every corner of the second floor of the anonymous university building there seemed to be some group ...

Judas Priest: Killing Machine

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 9 December 1978

THE LEAD SINGER sweats redly, tuffness of the strategic stud decorations unable to blind the look of uncertainty in his eye for the camera as ...

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Coconut Kid as Cruise Caruso: Kid Creole

Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 23 May 1981

KID CREOLE And The Coconuts release their second long player, title Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, in a couple of weeks' time. A 12-song 'concept ...

The Kinks: One For The Road (Arista)

Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 26 July 1980

WITH ITS predecessor Low Budget having finally catapulted The Kinks into the American Top Ten after what seems a lifetime of cult status, what could ...

The Kinks : Remembrance Of Kinks Past

Retrospective and Interview by David Dalton, Gadfly, March 1999

TAKE A LOOK at that face, the face of Ray Davies, it's the classic Dickensian mug, the face of a silent movie comedian, a vaudevillian, ...

Kiss: Destroyer (Casablanca)

Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 17 April 1976

WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that the total eccentricity of approach, the gross make-up and the blanket heavy metal music would have eventually ensured that Kiss ...

Kiss: Inside Kastle Kiss

Interview by Pete Makowski, Sounds, 13 February 1982

"What Alice Cooper was to dead babies and corpses, Kiss became to fire breathing and sadomasochism. With Kabuki-whitened faces, they leap on stage puking blood, ...

Gladys Knight and the Pips: "'If I Were Your Woman' is the long awaited follow up to 'Grapevine'" says Gladys Knight

Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 5 February 1971

THE NEW Year is only a month old yet already something of great note has occurred in the chart stakes in the States. Gladys Knight ...

Kraftwerk: Ralf Hütter – He's More 'Aaaaaah'

Interview by Simon Witter, Dummy, Spring 2006

2008 Note: When I met Ralf Hütter in London in early 2006, it was ostensibly to hear about the release plans Kraftwerk had for that ...

Lenny Kravitz: Come in, sit down, skin up…

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993

Enter, why don't you, Lenny Kravitz's psychedelically appointed freak pad, where herbular smells prevail, outdoor footwear is outlawed and co-habitees number willowy blondes and cantankerous ...

LaBelle: Phoenix

Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1975

SOME KEY ITEMS – a barrier breaking (‘first blacks’) performance at the Metropolitan Opera; the anthemization of ‘Lady Marmalade’; Nona Hendryx's proud lesbianism – have ...

Lambchop: Aw C'mon/No You C'mon

Review by Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, 1 February 2004

LIKE OUTKAST'S Speakerboxx/ The Love Below, the eighth album by Nashville's premier artisan country/ soul collective is a double-disc set designed to prompt endless speculation ...

Led Zeppelin Are Not Prefabricated

Interview by Keith Altham, Top Pops, 13 September 1969

WHEN is a hit single unnecessary? Apparently when it is a group like Led Zeppelin who have never released a single but have reached super ...

Led Zeppelin: Coda

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 December 1982

THAT THERE is no appreciable difference between 'We're Gonna Groove' from 1969 and 'Wearing And Tearing' from 1978 – the opening and closing tracks in ...

Arthur Lee, Love: Arthur Lee: 'I've been black all the time,' admits controversial star

Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 17 May 1975

He also admits to a severe case of baldness. Otherwise it's still ARTHUR LEE, back in Britain with a new Love ...

Elvis Presley, Leiber and Stoller: Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller: By Royal Appointment

Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, March 1995

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the greatest rock 'n' roll songwriting team of all time, have their songs celebrated in the musical Smokey Joe's Cafe ...

The Lemonheads: Lemonheads: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 19 June 1994

HOW HAS EVAN Dando managed to survive the Russian roulette games and hoop-jumping required of a heart-throb by the shark-infested music industry? How does he ...

John Lennon: Please, Your Majesty, Can Our John Have A Free Pardon?

Interview by Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 19 January 1974

Heavy breathing over the phone as ANDREW TYLER gets the lowdown from LENNON in L.A. Genius is police harassment, says the Walrus ...

John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Plastic Ono Band: John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band (Apple)/ Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band (Apple)

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971

BOTH OF THESE records are remarkable in some aspect, a sort of East-West five years after Butterfield and Allan Watts. Certainly, until this point, John ...

Level 42, Squeeze: Level 42; Squeeze: Crystal Palace, London

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1991

THE MICRO-economic indicators at Crystal Palace Bowl are contradictory: the touts are offering tickets at "less than box office price" but with the opening act ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Live At the Star Club (Bear Family)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, November 1989

WHAT IS IT about Jerry Lee Lewis that so fascinates us and makes us love a character so inherently unlovable? He only had a handful ...

Linda Lewis, The Staple Singers: The Staple Singers/Linda Lewis: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 12 February 1974

IF ANYONE ever asked for a definition of soul, the best advice you could give them would be to go to a concert by the ...

Lindisfarne Tell All

Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, 11 March 1972

DEFINING Lindisfarne's success is rather like pulling the wings off a butterfly at present but there seems little doubt after having seen them on stage ...

Little Feat Albums

Overview by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, March 1975

Sailin' Shoes (Warner Bros K46156)Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros K46200)Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Warner Bros K56030) ...

Little Feat: Forum, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 13 September 2000

THERE WERE THREE groups who vividly chronicled life in post-Woodstock America. The Band sought refuge from the psychedelic intensity of the period in the country's ...

Little Richard: Lewisham Odeon, London

Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 12 July 1975

THE DEBUT DATE of Little Richard's UK tour at the half empty Lewisham Odeon was little short of a disaster. Possibly the person least to ...

Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren (A&M)

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, February 1975

WELL, THIS IS more like it. Nils Lofgren, in his first solo attempt, has come up with a smashing album that restores him to the ...

Nils Lofgren: I Came To Dance

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1977

MAYBE NILS LOFGREN always was sort of a dummy. But his heart was in the right place (on his sleeve), he was capable of inventing ...

Love: Forever Changes

Sleeve notes by Ben Edmonds, Elektra Traditions, 2001

June 1967. Peace and love wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and nowhere was this seen more clearly than under the smog-orange skies ...

Love: The Great West Coast Enigma

Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, April 1970

IN 1967, a record called Da Capo by a practically unheard-of Los Angeles group called Love appeared on the Elektra label. ...

Nick Lowe: Jesus Of Cool

Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 25 February 1978

YOU KNOW how it is. You hear one word and you're tantalised into eavesdropping on the rest. Bars at receptions are a good place for ...

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Gimme Back My Bullets (MCA 2744)

Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 31 January 1976

FOR SUCH A great continent, America has given the outside world very few real rock and roll bands. ...

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Memories Of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Rudge

Retrospective by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, 2001

LYNYRD SKYNYRD WAS MANAGED BY my friend Peter Rudge from late 1973. Rudge’s main pre-occupation at this time was The Who, for whom he’d worked ...

Madness: The Italian Nutty Brigade

Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 25 October 1980

All aboard the trans-Europe express as Madness go from Rome to Amsterdam, by Paolo Hewitt ...

Madonna the Missus

Essay by Ben Thompson, The Independent, May 2001

IN HENRY JAMES' 1873 short story ‘The Madonna of the Future’, the American protagonist visits the city of Florence, where he encounters a strange and ...

Madonna: True Blue

Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986

OF ALL CURRENT superstars, none has manipulated the apparatus of fame more astutely than Madonna. Like Prince, she recognized the virtue of a one-word name ...

Magazine Article!

Interview by Jon Savage, New York Rocker, April 1978

"Well I say what I mean/I say what comes to my mind" – 'Boredom' "Whatever makes me tick/It takes away my concentration" – 'Breakdown' ...

Magazine: Maybe It's Right to Be Nervous Now (Virgin, 3CDs) ****

Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 22 September 2000

FOLLOWING AN initial period of liberation, punk, like all revolutionary forces, soon substituted new orthodoxies for those it had blown apart. ...

Manic Street Preachers: This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours

Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998

FOLLOW-UP TO 1996's chart-topping Everything Must Go. Named after a line in a speech by miner's son and NHS founder Aneurin Bevan. ...

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Review by Lloyd Bradley, Q, October 1990

Confrontational classics from Bob Marley ...

Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rastaman Vibration (Island)

Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 1 May 1976

"Chase them crazy bald heads out of town" ...

Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: The First Genius of Reggae?

Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 24 February 1973

BOB MARLEY, slightly-built and quiet to the point of diffidence, is a leader. He's the master of Reggae, the man who's about to give it ...

Bob Marley & the Wailers: Burnin': Bob Marley and the Wailers take Britain

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995

Babylon is freezing. The Wailers arrive on a mission to ignite below-zero Britain. Thus begins the demise of the original band and the rise of ...

John Martyn: Mad Dog Days

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004

Two-CD set of mainly live jazz-folk genius from the early ‘70s to the mid-‘90s, with bonus DVD interview from last year. ...

John Martyn: Up To Date With John Martyn

Interview by Andy Childs, ZigZag, March 1977

ONLY SIX WEEKS or so gone, and already it looks as if 1977 is going to be a cracker of a year for rock music! ...

John Mayall: The Turning Point

Review by Loyd Grossman, Fusion, 17 October 1969

A TURNING POINT in British blues music may have been reached last May when Mick Taylor and Colin Allen left John Mayall's band. Following their ...

Curtis Mayfield: People Get Ready!

Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, March 1996

THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAVE SEEN THE BOX-setting of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Bob Marley and a fair few other giants of black ...

Curtis Mayfield: Where He's Been And Where He's Going

Profile and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Let It Rock, October 1972

AFTER SUCH COMMITTED, socially conscious compositions as 'This Is My Country', 'Mighty Mighty, Spade and Whitey' and 'Choice Of Colours' Curtis Mayfield believes the time ...

MC5: MC5 - A True Testimonal (Future/Now Films)

Review by Lindsay Hutton, Rock's Backpages, November 2002

SEVEN YEARS in the making, this is a multi-dimensional boot up the jacksy to the increasing legion of lazy tosspots that compares anything with a ...

MC5: The MC5: High Time

Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, September 1971

WHENEVER I USED to say I liked the MC5, I would always preface the statement with some remark like "sure, I know they're a bunch ...

Paul McCartney: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, July 1991

I HAVE A MENTAL image of Paul McCartney that I carry in my heart like a mother's locket. It's one of those moody black ...

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle (Warner Brothers)

Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 6 March 1976

"THERE’S A song of Kate McGarrigle’s, which Maria Muldaur sang on her first LP, called ‘Work Song’, which is about all the old songs that ...

Roger McGuinn: Byrds Man Waits His Turn Turn Turn

Interview by Debbie Kruger, The Courier Mail, 9 April 1998

HEROES AREN'T ALWAYS hard to find. Roger McGuinn, founding member of seminal '60s group The Byrds, seems to make a career these days of being ...

Roger McGuinn: Roger And Out

Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 4 May 1974

"JEEZ, I HOPE the sound guy is straight tonight." said Al. "The guy who did it last night didn't have a clue. Might wind up ...

Malcolm McLaren: Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, and McLaren

Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Artforum, December 1984

MALCOLM McLAREN is a new sort of artist, your Barbarian Renaissance Man, the missing link between Leonardo and Conan. He has been the enfant terrible ...

Meat Loaf: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 1981

THEY'VE ASKED me to make this as short as the Loaf in question is large – but there’s a painful amount to be said. The ...

John Mellencamp: John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow (PolyGram)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 3 September 1985

NOW IS PROBABLY not the time for all good men to sing about their country. That's because most good men are bound to come up ...

Mercury Rev’s Dark Dream

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian, August 2001

ON MAY 28, 1998, Jonathan Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" of Mercury Rev sat rather dejectedly in a diner in Woodstock, New York, and talked about ...

George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990

SOME THREE YEARS and 14 million copies later, George Michael follows up his solo debut Faith with an album that should prove to any lingering ...

Steve Miller Band: Recall The Beginning…

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 27 April 1972

WAY BACK in the Sixties, three bands in particular were responsible for recharging my rock fanaticism – Procol Harum, the Byrds, and the Steve Miller ...

Mink DeVille: Just Another Tough'n'Tender Street Poet Outta New Yawk

Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 13 August 1977

Now Spanish music plays in my hallway And the wind blows through my door And my mind is out on the corner And my eyes ...

Joni Mitchell Starring at Troubadour

Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys Valley News, 24 January 1969

THE CROWD was larger, more expectant this time, as they waited for Joni Mitchell to mount the Troubadour stage Tuesday night and begin her return ...

Joni Mitchell: The Renaissance Woman

Interview by Robin Eggar, The Sunday Times, 11 February 2007

At last the times have caught up with Joni Mitchell – musician, artist and now inspiration for a ballet ...

Money Mark: Organ Blinder — Keyboard Money Mark: Mark's Keyboard Repair (Mo'Wax MW034 20 tks/39 mins/FP)

Review by Everett True, Melody Maker, 2 September 1995

You may not know it, but you've already chilled to Money Mark's Starsky'n'Hutch keyboard grooves on the last Beastie Boys record. Now he's kickin' it ...

The Monkees: Instant Replay: Does Anyone Dare Remember The Monkees?

Interview by Harold Bronson, Coast, 1 September 1971

Here we come, Walkin' down the street.We get the funniest looksFrom everyone we meet. ...

The Moody Blues: Moody Blues: Saints Or Sinners?

Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 20 October 1973

SO THE Moody Blues have just finished then cathedral-rock tour of Europe and Britain – their first British dates for over a year. As usual ...

Keith Moon: Moon Beams

Report and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 8 March 1975

LOS ANGELES: In the last six months, he's jammed with Ray Manzarek at the Whiskey, played with John Sebastian at the Troubadour and recently, at ...

Van Morrison: Gonna Rock Your Gypsy Soul

Report and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 28 July 1973

"IT'S SHOWTIME, ladies and gentlemen! And here's the one you've been waiting for – the Caledonia Soul Orchestra with ... VAN MORRISON!" ...

Morrissey, The Smiths: The Year Of The Smiths

Comment by Barney Hoskyns, The Virgin Yearbook, 1984

GAY MEN PAVED pop’s way this year. With Boy George’s wardrobe fully open, all the closet cases came spilling forth: Burns and The Bronskis, Frankie ...

Morrissey: Kill Uncle (Sire)

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 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 ...

Motorhead Guitarist Is Running On All Cylinders

Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 10 October 1986

WURZEL BURSTON'S road to Motorhead qualifies as one of rock's more implausible success stories. Originally a drummer, Burston switched to guitar at the advanced age ...

Motorhead: Friars, Aylesbury

Live Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1978

JUST GONE 7.30 and the punter queue is already half in. About a thousand punks, bikers, 'Awkwind 'Eadbangers and 48 hour fun-makers have turned up ...

Mott the Hoople: Wildlfe

Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1971

THE OUTCOME of the battle has yet to be conclusively determined, but my scorecard gives the race for "The Most Beloved Rock And Roll Band ...

The Move: The Best Of The Move

Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, May 1974

IF THER IS one band whose legendary attributes and entangled history need no longer be catalogued, that band is the Move. True, of all the ...

Maria Muldaur: Sweet Harmony (Reprise) *****

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 28 February 1976

SALVATION HAS come down from the heaven's in the shape of Maria Muldaur's third album which finds the artist growing in leaps and bounds, moving ...

My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

Review by Martin Aston, Q, January 1992

FACED WITH MY Bloody Valentine's formative fumblings, few would have predicted that this garage lurch could metamorphosise into the swooning melody crush that constituted 1988's ...

Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson Live (RCA)**

Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 9 October 1976

WILLIE NELSON has been in country music for the better part of twenty years as a songwriter and performer, while, arm in arm with Waylon ...

Willie Nelson: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Andrew Mueller, The Independent, 5 April 2005

AT THIS LATE stage, attending a Willie Nelson concert is more a gesture of pilgrimage than anything else. Nelson, now 71, with a ponytail that ...

N.E.R.D.: N*E*R*D: Fly or Die (Virgin)****

Review by Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, 21 March 2004

IF ITS ILLUSTRIOUS predecessor – 2001's visionary soft-porn psychedelic soul masterpiece In Search of... – was anything to go by, the release of a new ...

Michael Nesmith: Ex-Beat Group Crazy In Weirdo Film Project

Interview by Mick Houghton, Sounds, 16 April 1977

MIKE NESMITH's career has taken a surprising number of twists and turns over the years, from writing songs for Linda Rondstadt in the early Sixties, ...

Randy Newman: The Devil Made Him Do It: Randy Newman

Interview by Roy Trakin, Addicted To Noise, 31 October 1995

"IT'S HARD TO keep a good man down" goes the refrain to one of the songs on Randy Newman's musical version of the Goethe tale, ...

Randy Newman: 'I'd Like to Have a Hit'

Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 15 June 1974

Randy Newman may have an image problem — but he's got an impeccable track record. America's great songwriter talks to Robert Partridge ...

New Order: The Best of New Order (London)

Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1994

LESS A SUCCESSOR TO THE SUBSTANCE compilation than an update, The Best Of New Order takes a very short-term view of the group's career, reprising ...

New Order: Brixton Ace, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 March 1983

THE OMENS WERE poor. Judging from the new single, 'Blue Monday', you could be forgiven for supposing that New Order are simply the latest Factory ...

New York Dolls: Up and Down in Paris and London: The New York Dolls trash Europe

Book Excerpt by Nina Antonia, Omnibus Books, 1998

An extract from Too Much Too Soon: The New York Dolls by Nina Antonia, first published by Omnibus Press in 1998. (208pp, currently available in ...

Nico: Drama Of Exile (Aura)*****

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 4 July 1981

TANGLED UP in myth, perspective gets shot all to hell. Even the official biographical sheet accompanying this album repeats the old chestnut that John Cale ...

Harry Nilsson: Son Of Schmilsson

Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, September 1972

WELL, WELL. Harry Nilsson has sure thrown a big pebble into the music puddle. There's not much to say about the things you hear in ...

Nirvana: With The Lights Out (Geffen)

Review by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 18 November 2004

POSTHUMOUS RELEASES FROM from departed artists often flail to do the impossible – to provide the music so violently and abruptly silenced by, say, Jeff ...

Nirvana: Take The Money and Run

Interview by Keith Cameron, Sounds, 27 October 1990

If any of the US underground bands are likely to break through into the mainstream, then it's got to be NIRVANA. Currently being courted by ...

Ted Nugent: Divorce, Ted Nugent Style

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 May 1979

TED NUGENT (Hammersmith Odeon, second house): "There can come a time when you baby turns to you and says 'I'm splittin'' and you're so sad ...

Ted Nugent: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 12 March 1977

WE'VE HEARD a great deal lately about how Ted Nugent abjures drugs and alcohol. Perhaps that's his mistake. The occasional soul searching high might have ...

Gary Numan: The Principal Pleasure Of Being Gary Numan

Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, June 1980

GARY NUMAN is a nice guy. Seriously. And what I want to know – and what he wants to know, too, though he's probably too ...

Laura Nyro: Union Chapel, Islington, London

Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1995

WHEN LAURA PLAYED MONTEREY, nerves and rushed rehearsals saw her flounder as the hairies waited for Hendrix. Tonight there are enough baldies in the pews ...

Oasis live: Jones Beach, NY

Live Review by Edward Helmore, sonicnet.com, 7 September 1996

Fresh from their MTV award performance, during which singer Liam Gallagher spat, swore and threw beer at the audience, Oasis came to this seaside stage ...

Sinead O'Connor: I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got

Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1990

ON THE FACE of it, Sinead O'Connor is an unlikely person to be setting such a cracking pace into the new decade. ...

Mike Oldfield: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Mike Oldfield Finds Out That Success Has Its Problems

Interview by Fred Dellar, Smash Hits, 10 January 1980

MIKE OLDFIELD strokes the tabby cat that sits on his lap. Though in the comfort of his own home, he's uneasy, unsure. It's a bad ...

Will Oldham: The Prince Of Darkness

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 12 March 2001

"I created Billy and let him take care of the performing. It's not me, Will Oldham, who gets up on stage." ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 30 April 1983

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark are a triumph of packaging over content. The same principle that determines the lavishly striking sleeves by Peter Saville extends ...

The Only Ones: Even Serpents Shine (CBS)

Review by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 1979

SINGLES can often be deceptive signposts for forthcoming albums. When ‘You've Got To Pay’ slipped out a few weeks back, it didn't augur well for ...

Yoko Ono: Scream And Scream Again

Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, September 1986

Yoko Ono: Beacon Theater, New York, May 22, 1986 ...

Orange Juice: Rip It Up

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982

I JUST played Buddy Holly's version of 'Rip It Up' to remind me, although Edwyn Collins gives the impression he is unfamiliar with such iconography. ...

Roy Orbison: The Complete Sun Sessions (Varese Sarabande)

Review by Gary Pig Gold, In Music We Trust, January 2004

FOR THOSE WHO may be only marginally aware of The Big O's 1950's recordings (ie: via Creedence's credible cover of 'Ooby Dooby' 'way back when), ...

OutKast: Live in London

Live Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, April 2001

THE LAUREL And Hardy of phuture rap ...

Robert Palmer: Some People Like What I Do

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 November 1976

BRIGHT LIGHTS, big city...it's a reception in honour of the Staple Singers and the Meters at a club down in Greenwich Village, prior to their ...

Graham Parker And The Rumour: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 14 April 1979

WHILE NO ONE was looking, Graham Parker has nimbly and single-mindedly stepped through his inner tangles and finally balanced purpose with expression and also brought ...

Graham Parker: Journey To The Centre Of Your Spine

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 3 March 1979

A CONCRETE BARN with a stage at one end: cables, cases, dust. A hyper-active dog in the grip of irresistible sexual forces is scooting around ...

Evan Parker, Jah Wobble: Jah Wobble & Evan Parker: Passage To Hades (30 HERTZ)

Review by David Toop, The Wire, February 2001

PERHAPS THIS IS a disingenuous flash of hindsight on my part, but I'm convinced that when I heard Public Image Limited's first album, back in ...

Van Dyke Parks: Clang Of The Yankee Reaper (Warner Bros.)

Review by Penny Valentine, Street Life, 15 November 1975

ONE DAY I got this strange note from America. It said: "Thanks for the review of my single. It is the first good review I've ...

Van Dyke Parks: The Greatest Collaborator

Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, July 1999

VAN DYKE PARKS knows people who know. He always has. He has the CV of Woody Allen's Zelig, is in the corner of the picture ...

Gram Parsons: Another Side of This Life (Sundazed)

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2001

Unheard mid-’60s folk recordings taped in Florida by Gram’s pal Jim Carlton. ...

Pavement: Mojo Rising: Pavement

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1995

WE SHOULD HAVE seen it coming, really. While other leading practitioners of lo-fi American rock – Beck, Sebadoh, Royal Trux, The Grifters, Guided By Voices ...

Pearl Jam: 'You, My Son, Are Weird!'

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993

They’ve a singer, Eddie Vedder, who makes Lou Reed look like a happy-go-lucky bloke; they’re vilified in the press and manically suspicious of The Biz. ...

John Peel: An Audience With John Peel

Interview by Nick Doherty, Jockey Slut, 2002

Celeb 1: Howie B: With this playlist culture, when do you decide what's going to be played on your radio show? ...

Penetration: Moving Targets (Virgin)****

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 14 October 1978

WE'RE NOT the same, you're not the same, they're not the same. ...

Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978

WRECKLESS UBU: Waiting For The End ...

Pere Ubu: The Art Of Pere Ubu

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1981

IT'S AN IRONIC twist of fate that Pere Ubu's latest visit to the UK should be prefaced by Rough Trade's reissue of the band's debut ...

Carl Perkins: 'Blue Suede Shoes'

Profile by Colin Escott, The History of Rock, 1981

One song rocketed Carl Perkins to stardom ...

Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: Pop-aganda

Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 3 September 2004

Potemkin and the sound of a Pet Shop Boy ...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: 10 Questions for Tom Petty

Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, May 1999

What's your fascination with San Francisco? Two years ago you staged 20 shows at the Fillmore, and now you're here for seven days. ...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty

Interview by Cynthia Rose, City Limits, 3 December 1982

With his 1976 debut album, Tom Petty became a rock star. It seemed he was cast in the classic mould – a hip young American ...

Phish: Rise Of The Phishheads

Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1996

ON A STARRY SUMMER NIGHT at Bearsville Studios, New York, the four members of Phish are bracing themselves for the inevitable Grateful Dead question. ...

Pink Floyd: Echoes – The Best Of

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2001

GLOOMY BUGGERS, the Floyd. War, death, bitter childhood, alienation, indoctrination, madness, greed, vicious animal husbandry, imprisonment, old age and, inevitably, death. Hi ho, it's off ...

The Pixies Facing The Fire Squad

Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 3 November 1990

The pixies are the best band on the planet. Discuss. ...

Robert Plant: Pictures at Eleven

Review by Mick Farren, Trouser Press, October 1982

IT'S ALWAYS HARD to know what to do when the drummer drops dead. The Who and the New York Dolls recruited new ones and pressed ...

Robert Plant’s Record Collection

Guide by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990

BACK IN the Spring of 1968, things aren't looking too rosy for 19-year-old singer Robert Plant. His promising group The Band Of Joy have just ...

Poco: One Of The Great Mysteries Of Rock

Profile and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 29 September 1973

Five years and six albums after they formed Poco remain one of the great mysteries of rock and roll – a band who have lurked ...

The Pogues: The Sweet Smell Of Success

Report by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 28 March 1986

TODAY THE WORLD, TOMORROW THE WORLD ...

The Police: Nottingham City Hall

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 7 January 1984

RICHARD COOK’S extraordinary vision of The Police (NME, 2nd Dec.) prompts one to reconsider the profound difference between The Police – those awful sing-a-long-a-suicides ‘So ...

Iggy Pop: The Idiot

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1977

IT'S TWO O'CLOCK in the morning and I'm playing The Idiot for the fifth time running. Can't stop, it's so compelling...but very VERY strange. ...

Iggy Pop: Roseland, New York, NY

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 11 April 1996

In 1967, when The Doors released their first LP, a young ex-drummer named James Osterberg formed the Psychedelic Stooges to voice the primal urges of ...

Pop Will Eat Itself: Canoe Dig It?

Report by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 6 October 1990

All Hands on Dick as Dave 'Chippolata' Harper of RCA goes canoeing with Pop Will Eat Itself done up in rubber in downtown Staines, home ...

Prefab Sprout: Catching Up with Paddy Mac

Interview by Chris Ingham, unpublished, November 1999

This is an unpublished interview with Paddy McAloon on the release of 38 Carat Gold: The Best Of Prefab Sprout. ...

Prefab Sprout: The Enchanter: Paddy McAloon

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, 1988

PADDY McALOON is an anomalous figure in the British Pop climate of the late '80s. One of our precious few songwriters of any worth, he ...

Elvis Presley: He Made Old Men's Blues Sound Young: Remembering Elvis

Comment by Michael Gray, Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2002

WE REMEMBER his ignominious end, and the cavalcade of white Cadillacs driving through Memphis for his funeral 25 years ago this month, but mostly the ...

The Pretenders: Packed

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, June 1990

CHRISSIE HYNDE CAN certainly never be accused of flooding the market: barring a Best Of, Packed is only The Pretenders' fifth album in 12 years. ...

The Pretenders: Sheffield University

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979

Duty Now For The Past? ...

The Pretty Things: Pretty Things: Silk Torpedo

Review by Alan Betrock, Phonograph Record, January 1975

THE PRETTY THINGS are back, and this time, with a new label and expected tour, can realistically be expected to enter the American top-40 album ...

Primal Scream

Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 1 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 ...

Prince: The Best of the Patchy Years

Guide by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1997

IN MANY WAYS the ultimate ‘80s self-made man, Prince spent the decade inventing and reinventing himself. The scope of the man’s ambition was mindboggling; the ...

Prince: The Wit & Wisdom Of Prince Rogers Nelson

Comment by Bill Holdship, Creem, July 1985

HE'S DEFINITELY AN American superstar – one of the most important of the '80s – and his ascent still appears to be just above ground ...

Procol Harum: On The Road with Procol Harum

Interview by Harold Bronson, UCLA Daily Bruin, 11 November 1971

"DIABOLICAL," KEITH REID whispered, resting in a chair at a San Diego nightclub that someone described as looking like a reconverted bowling alley. He was ...

Procol Harum Triumph Over Worms

Report and Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 19 February 1977

That seems to be the gist of it. Like, if you're attacked by worms, here's some good news from a bunch of lads who've suffered ...

The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 7 August 1997

RARELY HAS a pop trend been so shamelessly spoon-fed to America as the hold-all genre dubbed "electronica". Rarely, indeed, has the music industry tried so ...

Professor Longhair: Ronnie Scotts, London

Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 15 April 1978

I HAVE immense admiration for Professor Longhair ...

Professor Griff, Public Enemy: Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet ; Professor Griff and the Last Asiatic Disciples: Pawns in the Game

Review by Ira Robbins, Request, 15 April 1990

IN THE 1960s, youthful poets, inspired by radical politics and Woody Guthrie, took up acoustic guitars to deliver topical commentary in a folk music setting. ...

The Psychedelic Furs: Psychedelic Furs: Feels Like The Furs Time

Interview by John Mendelsohn, Creem, January 1982

IN 1977, DURING the so-called Summer of hate, yet another refugee from a London art college got fed up with silk-screening "advertising crap" and resolved ...

Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: The Flowers Of Romance (Virgin)

Review by Jon Savage, The Face, April 1981

A typically caustic, sardonic title: the thorn in the rose. If much of the current chart has much of the grace and flow of 1966 ...

Public Image Ltd.: The Odd Combo

Interview by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 16 June 1979

Danny Baker goes on the PiS with PiL ...

Pulp: This Is Hardcore

Review by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1998

JARVIS COCKER is that most British of pop creatures, the Nerd-as-Superstar. Like the young Morrissey, he’s the spindly misfit, the scrawny mis-shape who outwitted the ...

Pulp: Non Stop Erotique Cabaret

Report and Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 4 June 1994

"I WAS WONDERING", says Jarvis Cocker. "There was a baboon in the top floor of a flat behind where we played in Paris last night." ...

Suzi Quatro: Oh, Suzi Q!!

Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1983

How Quatrophenia conquered the UK "SUZI QUATRO MADE A WELCOME CHANGE from the wimpy, folksy girls who were rock’s only other female representatives at ...

Suzi Quatro: Suzi Quatro

Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, May 1974

SUZI QUATRO is a real cutie, rootie tootie, not sweet hog honey like Linda Ronstadt but a tight roller derby queen with juice and enuf ...

Queen: Jazz (Elektra)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1979

FOR A FEW weeks in 1978, an FM radio station in New York City was trying, earnestly and imaginatively, to create rock 'n' roll counter-programming. ...

Queen: Sheer Heart Attack

Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975

HAVING BEEN duly, uh, blown away by the opening tracks on their previous two albums, I prepared to savor the first cut on Queen's Sheer ...

Quicksilver Messenger Service: Solid Silver

Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, February 1976

WELL, THE GREAT name of Quicksilver Messenger Service is resurrected yet again, this time with perhaps more credibility than on previous occasions. A sticker on ...

Radiohead: 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' and the Poetry of Perspective

Book Excerpt by Tim Footman, Chrome Dreams, 2007

Excerpt from Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album ...

Radiohead’s Back Pages

Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, 1997

DESPITE THE best efforts of such explosive talents as Suede, Polly Jean Harvey and the Manic Street Preachers, 1992 was not a great year for ...

Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate (Warner Bros.)

Review by Penny Valentine, Sounds, November 1975

BONNIE RAITT is an intriguing talent, firmly rooted in the music of men like Otis Rush and Fred McDowell whom she met and worked with ...

Bonnie Raitt: The Bonnie Raitt Collection

Review by Mark Cooper, Q, September 1990

THE RELEASE OF this 20-track retrospective of her nine Warners albums must be sweet revenge for Bonnie Raitt. ...

The Ramones: Ramones

Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1976

"I don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youSo why you wanna walk around with ...

The Ramones: Rock'n'Roll High School (Sire Import) ****

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 7 July 1979

THE ERA of the compilation is upon us, and this soundtrack album of smarties and arties is another rapid fire job, featuring the next best ...

Phil Spector, The Ramones: End of the ‘70s: the Ramones Get Spectorized

Book Excerpt by Everett True, Omnibus Books, Fall 2002

An extract from Hey Ho Let’s Go – The Story of The Ramones by Everett True, published by Omnibus Press in 2002. (344pp, currently available ...

Raspberries: Starting Over

Review by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, September 1974

IT'S A TEEN-CLUB midsummer Saturday night at Papa Joe'sParlour-pizza, pinball, pretzels, and pop-available without I.D. Raspberries, with no fewer than three Top Forty hits in ...

Raspberries: The Raspberries: Raspberries

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, 6 July 1972

RASPBERRIES opens with the finest burst of lightweight English rock I've heard all year, a raunchy 16-bar guitar intro, and followed by a verse that ...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Uncle Sam's Revenge: Red Hot Chili Peppers at London’s Dingwalls

Live Review by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 14 September 1985

FROM THAT catastrophe-fraught fusion chamber where funk meets guitar noise comes the world’s most crazily perfect punk-funk band, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Tonight Husker ...

Otis Redding

Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977

"I FIRST MET HIM IN 1962," SAYS STEVE Cropper who co-wrote two of Otis's hits, 'Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa' and 'Dock Of The Bay', ...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Freaky and Stylish: When the Chili Peppers Met Dr. Funkenstein

Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, 'Fornication' (Omnibus Press), 2004

By 1985 the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band in trouble. Their self-titled debut album, released the year before, had been a disaster, and ...

Lou Reed: Rock N Roll Animal

Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, May 1974

AND IT CAME TO PASS in the 1970's that rock culture began to doubt whether it existed at all, and every time that two or ...

Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, 18 May 2000

THE PREMIER PARAGON OF subterranean New York cool’s post-Velvet Underground career has never been anything other than unpredictable. For every Berlin there’s been a Metal ...

R.E.M.: Automatic For The People

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1992

MILLIONS HAVE BEEN waiting on the new R.E.M. album, and almost none of them is barmy. ...

R.E.M.: Rock Reconstruction Getting There

Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, September 1985

FABLES OF YEARS spent on the road. Decadent tales of groupies and drugs and arrogance and misspent lives near the top. You won't find any ...

The Replacements: Replacements: Pleased To Meet Me

Review by Ira Robbins, Creem, August 1987

LIKE SOME STRAY dog you find in an alley, Minneapolis's Replacements are a scruffy mongrel of a band: uncontrollable and ugly, but somehow irresistable. You ...

Charlie Rich - The Silver Fox

Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 12 April 1975

IN WHICH CHARLIE Rich, understandably exhausted after a twenty year struggle to Make It, manages to record one side of an album and then runs ...

Cliff Richard

Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1983

CLIFF RICHARD HAS DONE MUCH more than merely survive on the British pop scene. He remained a chart act and pin-up in the Eighties, still ...

Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap

Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1997

KEITH RICHARDS says he’d never thought of making a solo album until Mick Jagger announced that he didn’t want to tour to promote the Rolling ...

Jonathan Richman: In Love With The Modern World

Profile by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 17 September 1977

On the eve of Jonathan Richman's first British tour, Ian Birch traces his career ...

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers: Jonathan Sings

Review by Bill Black, Sounds, 30 June 1984

IT'S BEEN a long time since Jonathan Richman's last album, Back In Your Life, and apart from the release of some interesting Kim Fowley produced ...

Smokey Robinson: Quiet Storm

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 May 1975

HOW MUCH SUGAR do you take? ...

Tom Robinson Band: Tom Robinson: Right On, Mister!

Profile and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, June 1978

THE ABILITY TO walk into a room and make someone you've never met feel like they've known you for years is called 'charm.' The ability ...

Tom Robinson Band: Tom Robinson: Staying True

Profile and Interview by Simon Frith, The Observer, June 1986

THEY MET AGAIN, after all these years, in a hotel corridor in Manchester, John Lydon and Tom Robinson, the yin and yang of punk politics. ...

The Rolling Stones: This Is A Stone Age!!

Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express Summer Special, Summer 1966

THE ROLLING STONES are a five-man revolution in the pop world. When they first appeared on the disc scene in 1962 they proceeded to defy ...

The Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood: Ronnie Wood: New Stone Tries a Solo

Report and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, July 1979

WHEN TP FIRST interviewed Ron Wood, back in the fall of 1974, the Faces' guitarist and ex-Beckite was more than happy to answer questions about ...

Linda Ronstadt: Living In The U.S.A.

Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, 30 September 1978

OVER HER PAST few albums and, curiously, ever since she won a wall full of awards, something has been happening to Linda Ronstadt's "interpretative" powers. ...

Linda Ronstadt: The Linda Ronstadt Coverup!

Interview by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, November 1974

IN 1970 DAN Wakefield, who had just published his first novel, Going All the Way (a heartbreakingly hilarious chronicle of America's dismal sex life in ...

Roxy Music: The Sound Of Surprise

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 1 July 1972

PAUL THOMPSON's tom-toms ground slowly to a shuddering halt as Eno's synthesiser simulated the sound of Firestone Wide Ovals being pushed past their limit around ...

The Runaways

Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 12 November 1977

THE HOUR OF MY VINDICATION is at hand. I'm sitting in the lobby of a London hotel waiting for the Runaways to descend from their ...

The Runaways: The Runaways

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, September 1976

OOWHEE!! This platter boasts one of the most fetching sleeves I've had the pleasure to mas...ogle at. On the front the glitteringly attired Cherie casts ...

Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything?: 30 Years On

Interview by Rob Steen, unpublished, December 2001

I RANG TODD in his Maui studio in December 2001, while he was remixing Something/Anything? for 5.1 Surroundsound. ...

Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star (Bearsville)

Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 14 April 1973

A MAZE. A truly amazing album. That might well have been the subtitle of this latest excursion into the land of magic from henna-haired hero ...

Rush: Breaking Into America… Canada's Answer To The New York Dolls?

Report and Interview by Michael Gross, Circus Raves, November 1975

DETROIT'S MICHIGAN PALACE was full to the brim. Though the rock 'n' roll style of the early '70s has faded into a rebirth of hippiedom ...

The Saints: I'm Stranded

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1977

HEY! THIS IS a nice surprise! Almost out of nowhere comes this rip-snorter of an album when all we'd had from The Saints before was ...

Santana at The Tabernacle, London

Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2000

WHEN THE ENTRANCE to the gig is bathed in the harsh glare of high wattage floodlights like the Academy Awards walkway, and you have to ...

Santana: Moonflower

Review by Mick Brown, Sounds, 15 October 1977

THIS IS THE album that should have been called 'A Period of Transition'. Not that it has anything to do with Van Morrison, but it ...

Leo Sayer: Endless Flight (Chrysalis)*****

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 30 October 1976

I WAS prepared to hate this album. The diminitive song and dance man had begun losing his inimitable glow. Another Year needed stronger polishing while ...

Boz Scaggs: Silk Degrees

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 19 June 1976

THIS BOY certainly eats up producers. ...

Scritti Politti: Everything's Gone Green

Retrospective by David Stubbs, Uncut, December 2001

David Stubbs on Scritti Politti's subversive pop-soul masterpiece, Songs To Remember ...

Bob Seger: Back in '72 (Palladium / Warners)

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1973

BOB SEGER'S 'Rosalie' is so strong it could break you in half. But it is the only song here that is close to what I ...

Bob Seger: The Distance

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1983

THERE'S A NEW furrowed-brow earnestness now emerging in American rock 'n' roll, a grainy neo-realism that depicts workaday lives in ways that were once the ...

The Sex Pistols

Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977

THE RECORD INDUSTRY is waking up. In October there were rumours about huge deals on the horizon, and Polydor look set to be the first ...

The Sex Pistols: Kiss This

Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992

NEARLY 15 YEARS after John Lydon quit the Sex Pistols, effectively ending them bar a few final pranks, his subsequent band, PiL, find themselves no ...

Sham 69: Tell Us The Truth

Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 11 February 1978

"ELLO MUSH...this one's all about getting' yer 'ead kicked in." ...

Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

Review by Charlie Gillett, Let It Rock, August 1973

Paul: middle class rock, O.K.? ...

Simon & Garfunkel: Simon And Garfunkel: Live From New York City, 1967

Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, September 2002

NEITHER AS gritty as Dylan or as political as Ochs or Baez, Simon And Garfunkel's folk-rock style had a cool, preppy awareness and an alluring ...

Nina Simone, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London

Live Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 10 December 1977

YOU CAN'T keep tabs on everybody all the time. It wasn't until this concert was announced that I realised there hasn't been much heard from, ...

Nina Simone: To Love Somebody/Here Comes The Sun/Emergency Ward/Black Gold/It Is Finished

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 2002

EUNICE WAYMON never intended to be a pop singer. Her ambition was to be the first great black female classical pianist. She took up playing ...

Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982

ONETHIS RECORD is something of a glow. Whatever your preference you will find it memorable and instructive. Find its qualities and fix your place. Be ...

Simply Red: Hammersmith Odeon

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 1984

IT HAS to be said that this plumpish, carrot-mopped bloke stomping around like a kid in a playpen hardly looks the part of STAR. And ...

Frank Sinatra: The Capitol Years (Capitol)

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, January 1999

Box set featuring all twenty Capitol albums 1953-61 plus rarities disc ...

Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie And The Banshees: The Unacceptable Face Of '78

Interview by Jon Savage, Sounds, 24 June 1978

'Overground – from abnormalityOverboard – for identityOverground – for normalityOverboard – on identity'– 'Overground' ...

Slade: Slade In Flame (Polydor)

Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, February 1975

Some things I'm sure of: Noddy Holder is a great rock singer, up there with the best of British, with John Lennon, even. And Slade ...

Slade: Slade Alive!

Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, 12 October 1972

DESPITE WHAT you may have heard of "skinhead rock" or "Seventies teddies", Slade is exactly the opposite of a gimmick band. You’ll not find synthesizers, ...

Percy Sledge: The Best Of Percy Sledge

Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 13 December 1969

PERCY SLEDGE is here for a three-week tour, and to coincide with it Atlantic have released a single, 'True Love Travels On A Gravel Road', ...

The Slits: Holland Park School, London

Live Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, January 1978

I BURBLED MY feelings about The Slits for four pages in ZZ75 last July, and happily that resulted in crazed Radio One producer and Zigzag ...

Sly & the Family Stone: Sly and the Family Stone: Bournemouth Opera House

Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 2007

YOU'RE A LIFE-LONG fan of a band that fell apart long before you were old enough to see them play. Suddenly, you hear that the ...

Sly & the Family Stone: Sly Stone: Small Talk

Review by Pete Wingfield, Let It Rock, November 1974

BY SLY'S SLUGGISH standards, it's not that long since the last album, Fresh; maybe married life has given him a creative surge. ...

The Small Faces: Small Faces Thought ‘Sunday’ Too Much Of A Joke

Report and Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 4 May 1968

ONCE more unto the magic cave – better described as Andrew Oldham’s emporium from whence all things Immediate happen – and the office where I ...

The Small Faces: 'Itchycoo Park'

Retrospective and Interview by John Pidgeon, Record Hunter, March 1991

The first Small Faces single written by Marriott and Lane, 'I Got Mine', flopped on release as the follow-up to 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It' ...

Smashing Pumpkins: Adore

Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1998

BILLY CORGAN certainly had his work cut out for him after 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. ...

Patti Smith: At Last, The Lower Manhattan Show

Report and Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 22 May 1976

Patti Smith at the Roundhouse, facing fans, friends, fungoids and straightforward weirdos – Britain's first live chance of checking out the 'legend'. MILES went as ...

Patti Smith: Patti noises off

Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, January 1998

PATTI SMITH, the cultural dynamo who claims to have "several decades left in me yet" is never one to court convention. With no plans to ...

The Smiths: Fox Theater, Detroit

Live Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, December 1986

IT ALL BOILS down to the collapse and decay of the British Empire. You could blame it on Margaret Thatcher. Or on Joy Division. Or ...

Soft Cell: Soft See Cell Warfare

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, January 1982

The Soft White Underbelly of Soft Cell ...

Soft Cell: Sweet Cell Music

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 21 March 1981

MARC ALMOND has never quite been able to live down our scathing pic caption which accompanied the review of the landmark Some Bizzare Album. ...

Soft Machine: The Soft Machine: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 July 1976

IT WAS a surprise to see so many people in the heat and the gloom of the Hamersmith Palais to see Soft Machine, because in ...

Sonic Youth: Kim Gordon

Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, September 2005

BACKSTAGE AT V Festival, the queen mother of punk rock shelters from the punishing sun. With her dirty-blonde hair and boho-bag-lady chic, Kim Gordon cuts ...

Sonic Youth: Young At Art

Interview by John Robb, Melody Maker, 24 August 1991

As they prepare for their appearance at this weekend's Reading Festival, Veteran art rock terrorists talk to Johnny Robb ...

Spandau Ballet: Last Dance Of The New Romance: Spandau Ballet’s Diamond

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 March 1982

IT SEEMS like Spandau Ballet are having trouble, and they're not sure how to face up to it. The concept of Spandau has grown ...

Sparks: Angst in My Pants

Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, July 1982

SPARKS' HIT STREAK in the mid-'70s produced America's best Anglophiliac rock ever – so good, in fact, that English teenyboppers made them tops of the ...

The Specials: More Specials

Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980

YOU REMEMBER the scene from Hollywood: overnight the lovable brat grows up into the most compelling person in the room. Suddenly – you're beautiful! ...

Spinal Tap Redux

Interview by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, December 2013

I LISTENED to some of it in my youth, but spent most of my post-teenage years trying to avoid this crap: pandering, patronizing, mono-dimensional, unimaginative ...

Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 1997

THE CULMINATION OF A SEVEN YEAR mission to empty his crowded mind onto tape, Ladies And Gentlemen...is Jason Pierce's clamorous meisterwerk. A record that's splendidly ...

Bruce Springsteen

Report and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 16 March 1974

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN was confined to the boardwalk life on New Jersey. He lived over a drug store "in all the craziness of downtown", prayed for ...

Bruce Springsteen: Talking To The Boss

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Vox, September 1992

FOLKLORE TELLS us there was a time, about 25 years ago, when meeting the stars was a simple matter. You just had to hang out ...

Squeeze: The Albany, Deptford

Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 6 August 1977

THE ALBANY is one of those places – and there aren't many – that can get packed to the rafters, sweaty and messy, and still ...

Ringo Starr: Blast From Your Past (Capitol)

Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, March 1976

IT'S HARD TO figure our just what constitutes the biggest detriment to a healthy music scene these days; the dearth of flesh & blood artists ...

Status Quo: 'We're Not Musicians — We're Players!'

Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 10 January 1976

STRIDING into his road-manager's sitting room, Francis Rossi quips, "no comment " and then spins on his heel as if a fast retreat is on ...

Steeleye Span: Making Sense Of Original Sin...

Report and Interview by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 20 December 1975

IN BRITAIN we voted to stay in. In Eire and Denmark they voted to go in. In Norway the public answered the call to European ...

Steeleye Span: So Who ARE These Limeys Playing Folk Music?

Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973

IT TAKES approximately 11 hours to fly from London to Los Angeles. You get off the 'plane, and the heat fills your lungs like a ...

Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 23 May 1974

STEELY DAN is the most improbable hit-singles band to emerge in ages. On its three albums, the group has developed an impressionistic approach to rock ...

Steely Dan: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 1996

THEY QUIT TOURING IN '74; broke up in '80. Now the arch hipster auteurs of literate, cynical, smart-ass rock jazz – the creators of some ...

Cat Stevens in the Talk-In

Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 22 May 1971

You're very rare in music today in that you managed to virtually disappear for two years when you were ill and then came back ...

Cat Stevens: Buddha And The Chocolate Box

Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, May 1974

ON THE COVER of Cat Stevens' new album is a Japanese buddha of the Heian Period. On the back is a koan or parable depicted ...

Rod Stewart

Profile and Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 21 August 1976

ROD STEWART has never been predictable. As a songwriter he thrives on controversial topics. Sandwiched between more conventional songs like 'Maggie May' or 'You Wear ...

Rod Stewart: Never A Dull Moment

Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, November 1972

ONE CAN ALWAYS COUNT on Rod for superb vocalizing, but his recordings sometimes slip because of the spottiness of the material, from marvelous to mediocre. ...

Stephen Stills: Behind The Malicious Rumours

Interview by Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973

EVER SINCE he wrote 'For What It's Worth' Stephen Stills has had his share of criticism. And oddly enough it's often been more personal than ...

Stephen Stills: Crazy After All These Years

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983

MR STILLS and I are watching a video of some playing by Crosby, Stills And Nash. The composer leans back in his chair, a whisky ...

Sting: I Ask The Questions by Sylvie Simmons: Sting

Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996

STING – pop star, actor, philisopher , father, Rover car salesman and generally all-round bit of a god – is trying to steal my job. ...

Sting: Nothing Like The Sun

Review by Dave Rimmer, Q, November 1987

"WITHOUT FREEDOM FROM the past," sings a typically philosophical Sting on one track called 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', "things will only get worse." ...

The Stone Roses: Island of Lost Soul: The Stone Roses at Spike Island

Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, 1990

Sun, sea water and cement factories. Not your idea of Ibiza perhaps, but according to our resident mad Manc John Robb, this is the start ...

The Stranglers

Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, November 1976

AMONG THE hordes of bands currently playing London's pub and club circuit, the Stranglers are leading contenders to break out and hit unsuspecting mass audiences ...

The Stranglers: La Folie

Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, March 1982

WANT TO FEEL prematurely old? This, if you can believe it, is the Stranglers' seventh British album. While most alumni of the '77 punk explosion ...

The Strawbs: Jacks Out For The Strawbs

Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, August 1973

THE BEST, and possibly only, way of breaking in a new band is to retreat into the country, converge on the local inn and set ...

The Strawbs: New Victoria, London

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 January 1976

AFTER AN ABSURDLY dramatic entry, this much loved male sextet took their places with a white suited Dave Cousins in the limelight. ...

The Strokes: Monarch, London, February 7

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2001

U2 WERE rocking the Astoria across town, but the hotter ticket by far was this New York five-piece who sound like pure 1969 Live Velvets ...

Suede

Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, December 1993

"HELLO! WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE?!" asks Brett Anderson rhetorically, staring at the fluff he has just removed from his ear. "I haven't taken these ...

Suicide: Glory Boy

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 1 June 1985

DUE TO an allergy to cats, Martin Rev is forced to huddle next to an open window in manager/producer/believer Marty Thau's feline thronged apartment. ...

Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1979

‘HOT STUFF’ just isn't that terrific a record, no matter what the charts or current critical backlash dogma say, and it doesn't do any good ...

Super Furry Animals: Power To The Furries! Gruff Rhys Speaks

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, July 2003

Welsh wunderkinder the Super Furry Animals return this week with the fabulous Phantom Power. Cardiff’s furriest bard talks to Barney Hoskyns about love, war and ...

Supergrass: In It For The Money (Parlophone)

Review and Interview by Max Bell, MOJO, May 1997

IT SEEMS UNLIKELY THAT SUPERGRASS will ever scale the wails of hype built around those British bands whose media inflated self-importance exceeds their artistic merit. ...

Supertramp On a Bum Trip

Interview by Steven Rosen, Sounds, 15 May 1976

SUPERTRAMP HORNMAN and funnyman John Helliwell gazed longingly out the A&M Records publicity office window at the burgundy Dino Ferrari. ...

Sweet: Desolation Boulevard

Review by Gary Sperrazza!, Phonograph Record, February 1975

FOR A BAND prophesied to be one of the major forces in pop in the Seventies, the Sweet still remain the most misunderstood band of ...

Sweet: Sounds Girl In Sweet Nude Bathing Horror

Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 19 June 1976

THE ERSATZ raunch, bump and grind of 'The Stripper' blares out over the Sportshalle in Cologne. Thousands of minute German teenyboppers are creaming in excitement ...

Matthew Sweet: In Reverse

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1999

AFICIONADOS OF clean, clever, honed American pop have had to make do with meagre rations of late. Thank God that 1999 has at least produced ...

Talking Heads: Still Making Sense?

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Q, April 1988

Talking Heads were once unconventional art-school types looking for an audience on the underground rock circuit. Now they’re unconventional multi-media types who convene annually for ...

Talking Heads: The Rock Garden, London

Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 21 May 1977

WHY NOT somewhere that can handle crowds properly, like the Nashville? Why on earth were Talking Heads put on at the Rock Garden? Do answer ...

Tangerine Dream: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 26 June 1976

T-DREAM HAVE BEEN described as everything from 'the most advanced development of progressive rock' to 'electronic muzak'. The band generates controversy probably because people are ...

James Taylor: Universal Amphitheatre, LA

Live Review by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 16 August 1975

JAMES TAYLOR'S UNIVERSAL Amphitheatre gig, though predictable at times, established new beginnings for the folkster as he returned to the Southland for the first time ...

Teenage Fanclub: The Forum, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1996

ONE HESITATES TO USE the word "heartwarming" about the endurance of the unassuming Scotsmen who go by the name of Teenage Fanclub, but at a ...

Television: Prime Time: Television

Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, The History of Rock, 1983

THE RULES OF punk/new-wave music laid down in 1976-77 stated that bands should avoid displays of technical virtuosity, should profess a loathing for rock’s history ...

Television: The Blow Up (ROIR)

Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 11 December 1982

BACK IN the mid-'70s then-rock journalist Patti Smith penned the following valentine to Tom Verlaine's Television: "Boycott rock and roll on TV – who wants ...

Ten Years After: Alvin Lee On The Hassles Of Being A Success

Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc and Music Echo, 25 March 1972

ALVIN LEE is currently suffering from a surfeit of everything. He's had too much touring, too much hype, too much idolatry. Nowadays the band can't ...

Thin Lizzy

Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1978

CHANCES ARE GOOD that this time last year you had never heard of Thin Lizzy, let along heard them. Young veterans of the British music ...

Richard Thompson

Interview by Joe Matera, Australian Musician, Spring 2003

HE'S ALREADY ACHIEVED more as a songwriter and instrumentalist than most musicians could do in a lifetime. His sound is familiar, with ties to practically ...

Richard Thompson: Hand Of Kindness

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983

From a maker of acclaimed albums, something that is more of the same, as dependable as any itching in the heart, toothache, telephone bill: it ...

Richard and Linda Thompson: Richard & Linda Thompson: Hokey Pokey

Review by Jerry Gilbert, ZigZag, September 1975

THE SINGULAR most remarkable aspect of this album is its manifestation of Richard Thompson's capacity to absorb. And if that sounds a long winded way ...

Throbbing Gristle: The Factory, Manchester

Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 2 June 1979

WHEN I WAS watching Throbbing Gristle where were you? ...

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.

Review by Nina Antonia, MOJO, July 1994

THIS IS NOT PUNK: THIS IS EDDIE COCHRAN and Gene Vincent dragged screaming into 1977. ...

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: The Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 1 October 1977

'Living in the jungle, it ain't so hard/But livin' in the city, it can eat out, eat out your heart...' ...

Allen Toussaint: The Jazz Café, London

Live Review by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2006

THOUGH HE IS the greatest living exponent of the extraordinary New Orleans piano tradition that produced Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Huey Smith, James Booker, Dr ...

Pete Townshend: The Lifehouse Chronicles

Review and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, December 1999

Some day all music will be made this way. In 1970 it seemed so barking mad the band asked him to drop it. Now, Pete’s ...

Pete Townshend: Genius of the Simple

Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, December 1971

Pete Townshend is a little worried about the advancement that is being made with musical equipment and recording studios. "The technology is beginning to overtake ...

Traffic Lightens Up for American Tour

Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, 24 October 1974

NEW YORK – Looking only slightly recovered from a two-day-old case of jet lag, Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi strutted into the Providence Civic Center dressing ...

Traffic: Traffic Without Dave

Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 13 January 1968

TRAFFIC is now on the move again but as a trio. So it was that I scaled the eight flights to drummer Jim Capaldi's Earl's ...

T. Rex: The Unobtainable T.Rex

Review by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980

AND SO, it appears, we are on the brink of a new T.Rex faith. Well, as one who defended the Bolanian right at school in ...

The Triffids

Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1987

The Triffids, authors of the greatest Australian country and western album, address the darker undercurrents beneath the sparkling antipodean surf. ...

Ike & Tina Turner: Tina Turner Peels Potatoes as She Raves Over 'River Deep'

Interview by Tracy Thomas, New Musical Express, 15 July 1966

"I WAS knocked out by 'River Deep' the first time I heard it," exclaimed Tina Turner, peeling potatoes over the sink of her Los Angeles ...

Ike Turner: Ronnie Scott's, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 February 2002

IF YOU didn't know Ike Turner was 70 before this show, you certainly did within minutes of his swaggering entrance. ...

Ike & Tina Turner: Her Man, His Woman

Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 17 April 1976

RECORDED AND FIRST released as the Get It, Get It L.P. on the L.A. Cenco label circa 1965, this album was snapped up by Capitol ...

Tina Turner: London, Wembley Stadium

Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, July 2000

NESTLED BETWIXT the iconic twin towers of Wembley Stadium lies a sumptuous banqueting hall that’s completely rammed to its very rafters with the affluent and ...

U2: Boy

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 25 October 1980

I LOVE U2. I worry about U2. Hearing their debut single 'Out Of Control' and seeing them play in Ireland, I fell for their undismayed ...

U2: A Perspective

Essay by Mark Cooper, Q, 1991

WHEN U2's recent Number 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...

UB40: 1980-83

Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1983

UB40, A MULTIRACIAL reggae group whose name derives from the code on British unemployment cards, emerged from Birmingham in 1980, right around the time the ...

Ultravox

Profile and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, January 1981

HEY BUNKY, are ya feelin' low because the whirlwind East Coast tour you were promised turned out to be two weeks at Vinnie's Peppermint Lounge ...

Ultravox! New Music From A Doll's House

Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 19 March 1977

CONTRARY to what Stranglers' bassist, Jean Jacques Brunel, is reputed to think, Ultravox! are not "a bunch of session musicians put together by Island records." ...

The Undertones: the Famous Five go to Finland

Profile by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 6 August 1981

IN JULY in Helsinki, Finland, the only darkness you can find is inside buildings with no windows. Buildings like the "Travastia Klubi" where the Undertones ...

Uriah Heep

Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 8 September 1973

THIS INTERVIEW had the most ordinary of beginnings. David Byron and Uriah Heep's Press Miss and myself left the other four members of the band ...

Luther Vandross: Forever, For Always, For Love (Epic)

Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 27 June 1987

ON THE soft focus cover shot, the transformation is complete: Luther the beige mannequin with compulsory wet look is a world away from the roly ...

Van Halen: Fair Warning

Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981

The worst thing about labels is their sticky side. But the next worst thing about them is that they attract flies, and that can put ...

Suzanne Vega: New Waif Music

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Sunday Express Magazine, 1 November 1987

Suzanne Vega is, on her own admission, a most unlikely rock star. On stage at Sydney’s Town Hall, rooted to the spot and hung with ...

Velvet Underground: 1969 — The Velvet Underground Live

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1974

THE LAST YEAR has seen sufficient scholarly exegeses on the subject of Lou Reed to see us through the decade; and the release of 1969, ...

The Velvet Underground: Loaded

Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 24 December 1970

LOU REED HAS always steadfastly maintained that the Velvet Underground were just another Long Island rock 'n' roll band. But in the past he really ...

Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly And See

Review by Lenny Kaye, MOJO, October 1995

The brief, brilliant life of The Velvet Underground, from jug-band rags to hypercool chronicles – experiments, cast-offs, fights and all – on five CDs. Immortal, ...

The Verve: Manchester Roadhouse

Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 17 June 1995

SO THAT’S what it sounds like. A long, curdled up intro, all ghostly pyrotechnics and a death rattle of drums, then suddenly, whoosh! And the ...

The Vibrators: Pure Mania

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 11 June 1977

MMM. PSYCHO daisies. Hid her wid de axe/you better relax. More zoop bop cartoon funnies – this time the movie's speeded up. Laugh this one ...

Sid Vicious: Max's Kansas City, NYC

Live Review by Ira Robbins, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978

ON AN unusually busy New York rock night, the attraction of an ex-Pistol was apparently sufficient to pack Max's out for a couple of sets ...

Gene Vincent: Born To Be A Rolling Stone (Topline Records)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, December 1987

TO SEE JUST how far a former great rock and roller can sink, check out the 12 pieces of aural excrement that comprise Gene Vincent's ...

Bunny Wailer: Original Bunnyman Echoes His Roots: Bunny Sings The Wailers

Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 17 January 1981

AS TO WHY Bunny Wailer has chosen this moment to come down from the hills and ransack the files of old Wailers material – well, ...

Loudon Wainwright III: Album III

Review by Bud Scoppa, Creem, January 1973

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE to forget the sight of Loudon Wainwright singing: head turned upward and wobbling loosely on his hunched shoulders, his face contorted in response ...

Rufus Wainwright: The Backpages Interview: Rufus Wainwright

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 2 June 2001

When Rufus Wainwright’s eponymous debut album appeared three years ago, it was as though the golden age of maverick American singer-songwriters had never ended. ...

Tom Waits: The Backpages Interview: Tom Waits

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 26 April 2002

Thomas Alan Waits is about to release two albums simultaneously – Alice and Blood Money. In this previously unpublished interview from the spring of 1985, ...

Tom Waits: Ronnie Scott's, London

Live Review by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 12 June 1976

HE TAKES the stage with what he describes as his don't care-a-shit shuffle. Very apt ...

Rick Wakeman: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 13 April 1974

IN CLASSICAL music terms, this composition might be described as "lightweight" or of "little consequence." But as far as popular music is concerned, Rick's composition ...

Scott Walker: Scott; Scott2; Scott3; Scott4; Boy Child (Fontana/Mercury)

Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 2000

Scott’s first four post-Walker Brothers solo outings plus a revamped ‘best of’. Originally issued between 1967 and 1969. They got better but sold less and ...

The Walker Brothers: Harmony and rivalry from the Walkers

Retrospective by Fred Dellar, The History of Rock, 1982

In the mid sixties, just as every worthwhile group in Britain seemed to be setting up tours in the States, Scott Noel Engel, John Joseph ...

Joe Walsh: So What

Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975

WHAT A DISTRESSINGLY large percentage of the perfect strangers with whom I happen to chat while waiting in line for ball games, premieres of motion ...

War: Delivering the Ghetto

Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, November 1995

GIVEN THE CHOICE that exists in the Golden Earring department, it's scandalous that we've been forced to wait this long to hear War on CD. ...

Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: Born To Laugh At Tornadoes (Geffen)

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 November 1983

AMERICA HAS been dressed by improper minds. Corralling the year's important American records – Swordfishtrombones, Girl At Her Volcano, Burlap And Satin and Born To ...

Muddy Waters: I'm Ready (Blue Sky)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1978

IT ISN'T JUST the natural process of attribution and the creative stagnation afflicting his competitors that have made Muddy Waters the premier master of his ...

Weather Report: The True US Art Form

Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 31 July 1976

"PEOPLE ARE beautiful everywhere," says Josef Zawinul. "I think a real open person, I don't care what music he is playing, is going to be ...

Jimmy Webb: Pizza on the Park, London ***

Live Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 28 October 1999

WHEN THE Boo Radleys wrote a song called 'Jimmy Webb is God' they presumably weren't gripped by a vision of the Lord playing a gig ...

Paul Weller: Wild Wood (Go! Discs)

Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 1994

SOMETHING TO mull over. Paul Weller has been having hit records for 16 years. Wild Wood – the follow-up to his wildly-underrated debut solo outing ...

Barry White

Profile by Bob Fisher, New Musical Express, 14 December 1974

Some things turn me on...like the way you might say a word or the way you wear your hair and have a certain smile on ...

Tony Joe White: Homemade Ice Cream

Review by John Pidgeon, Let It Rock, October 1973

TONY JOE WHITE just loves to play the ingenu. The sleeve of Homemade Ice Cream has photographs of him "up at Turkey Creek" and titles ...

The White Stripes: Astoria Theatre, London, 21st November

Live Review by The Rev. Al Friston, Rock's Backpages, 24 November 2001

THE MOTOR CITY IS BURNING – on London's Charing Cross Road. An hilariously heraldic "City Of Detroit" flag – with a Latin inscription translating as ...

The White Stripes: White Stripes Or Shite Hype?

Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2003

NEXT WEEK the White Stripes release their latest single, a highly distinctive reading of the Burt Bacharach standard 'I Just Don't Know What To Do ...

The Who: 30 Years Of Maximum R&B

Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1994

APART FROM THE BARRON KNIGHTS AT BERTRAM MILLS Circus, the first group I ever saw live was The Who: It could have been Spooky Tooth, ...

The Who: My Generation Deluxe Edition (Polydor) ****

Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 2002

BEFORE NEW, larger sound systems ushered in rock in 1966-7, there was beat music, a tighter, more driving sound based on pushing club-scale amplification to ...

The Who: Tommy

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, May 1969

A DOUBLE ALBUM can often prove a boring disappointment these days, with the gimmick presentation becoming more important than the quality of the music. Pete ...

Lucinda Williams: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, May 2003

I LAST SAW Lucinda Williams live about ten years ago when she supported Mary Chapin Carpenter in London – not an auspicious show. She seemed ...

Wings Over America

Report by Michael Gross, Blast, August 1976

SEVENTH AVENUE looked like a refugee camp for the great unwashed. No matter where you turned, all you could see was people. ...

Wings: Band On The Run

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 1 December 1973

"IT'S NOT A concept," says Paul McCartney, but there is a thread to Wings' newie Band On The Run. The feeling expressed throughout is one ...

Johnny Winter: Johnny Winter And Live

Review by John Morthland, Creem, June 1971

HOW, YOU MIGHT be asking yourself, could this not be a killer album? After all, it may have taken two albums and several tours, but ...

Steve Winwood: 'I'm Gonna Do an Album a Week!'

Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 17 May 1973

IT'S BEEN MANY a long year since Steve Winwood has made impact as an individual on the English rock scene. ...

Wishbone Ash: Ash's New Leaf

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 21 February 1976

IT IS NOW ten months since Wishbone Ash packed up their troubles and settled in the USA, choosing a spot in Westport, Connecticut, that is ...

Bobby Womack: Gettin' To It

Profile and Interview by Steven Rosen, Music World, April 1973

BOBBY WOMACK HAS been making music for twenty long years, an odyssey that carried him from the working quarters of Cleveland to the rocking corners ...

Bobby Womack: Live at the Dallas Arcadia

Live Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 21 September 1985

"BLACK MUSIC is being broken down. It's no longer black music. This is not a discussion or argument...what I'm saying is that it's a reaffirmation ...

Stevie Wonder: Characters

Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, March 1988

THIS IS ALMOST as satisfying a return to form as Sugar Ray Leonard's victory over Marvelous Marvin Hagler and practically as much of an upset. ...

Stevie Wonder: Innervisions

Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 27 September 1973

THE GREENING OF MOTOWN continues apace, with performers who once flourished under the company's autocratic guidelines (the Four Tops, Gladys Knight) seeking success elsewhere while ...

Ronnie Wood: I've Got My Own Album To Do

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 7 November 1974

RON WOOD, whose role in the Faces has paralleled Keith Richard's function in the Rolling Stones, has put together what is less a solo album ...

World Party: In A World Of His Own

Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990

Karl Wallinger’s wilderness years were ended when he formed World Party. Gone forever the endless dabblings that took him from the rock ‘n’ roll inferno ...

Link Wray: Be What You Want To

Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 24 May 1973

LINK WRAY, father of chicken-shack recording, is back with his second album since emerging from the dim glint of rock history. Be What You Want ...

Robert Wyatt: Shleep

Review and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, 1997

Soft Machine and Matching Mole legend makes triumphant return. Sterling work from all-star supporting cast Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Evan Parker, Annie Whitehead and Phil ...

Tammy Wynette: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 14 June 1975

THREE MONTHS ago Tammy Wynette was little more than cowboy fodder in Britain, appealing only to a small body of country freaks. But, one smasheroo ...

XTC: Black Sea

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980

XTC'S FOURTH outing, called, for no apparent reason, Black Sea, greets the reviewer like nothing so much as a bowl of Frosties on a wet ...

XTC: A Chat with Andy Partridge

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, CDNOW.com, 2000

HAILING FROM unglamorous Swindon, 70 miles west of London, XTC were clever-clever new-wavers who quickly outgrew the late 70s punk scene and matured into purveyors ...

The Yardbirds: The Yardbirds Featuring Eric Clapton, The Yardbirds Featuring Jeff Beck

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 27 March 1976

STRANGELY ENOUGH, the thing that hits you first about these albums is not so much the excellence of the two gentlemen named in the titles ...

Yes: Fragile

Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 16 March 1972

THE SURE AND STEADY pace at which Yes has progressed through their four albums seems to suit them just fine, and in Fragile the fruit ...

Yes: Dinosaurs

Interview by Roy Trakin, Creem, February 1988

"YES, WE ARE five individuals. That's what makes it what it is, how good it is and as complicated as it is. Each of us ...

Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 26 April 1986

IF IT'S careening kick-start country, a whisky wise distillation of old forms you need, come round here. Boisterous fiddle, the pound and pounce of six-string ...

Neil Young: Still a Young Man's Game

Interview by David Sinclair, The Times, 23 May 2003

HE CALLED one of his albums Rust Never Sleeps. But does Neil Young ever sleep? In the 12 months since he last played in Britain, ...

Frank Zappa: Chunga's Revenge

Review by Mark Leviton, Creem, March 1971

THIS ALBUM IS a preview of what is the ultimate rock opera-symphony, 200 Motels, which is constantly growing and taking on amazing proportions. ...

Frank Zappa: The Lost Episodes

Review by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, March 1996

DESCRIBED BY UTILITY Muffin Kitchen engineer Spencer Chrislu as a "sort of stealth project", this excellent little album of studio leftovers was put together by ...

Warren Zevon: Crystal Zevon's Story: Warren from A to Z

Interview by Fred Schruers, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2007

Through interviews and diaries, the musician's ex-wife chronicles the hedonistic life of one of the genre's bad boys. ...

Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon (Ayslum) ****

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 26 June 1976

THIS ALBUM is a surprise. With a recent spate of LA flavoured albums released simultaneously I was suffering from a bad case of West Coast ...

The Zombies: Time Of The Zombies

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1974

THANKS TO THE SUCCESS of Argent, Colin Blunstone, and the 'Monster Mash', the long-neglected Zombies are again coming to light. London's fluke smash with the ...

ZZ Top: Recycler

Review by Jeremy Clarke, Q, November 1990

ON RECYCLER, ZZ Top jettison the hi-tech adventurism of Afterburner, their last album, released in 1985, which, despite the brilliance and wit of tracks like ...

ZZ Top: Long Beach Arena, California

Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 March 1980

ALMOST THREE years ago ZZ Top became ZZ Stop, pensioned off the steers and circus animals Texas-style that went with their live performances and went ...

Cry Me A River! The 100 Most Heartbreaking Records of All Time…(100-51)

Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, December 2001

Hands up who's never been reduced to tears by a love song. There can't be many of you out there. ...

Like A Hurricane: The 100 Most Intense Records Ever Made

Guide by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, March 2001

One way or another, all music is about emotion, even when it’s about lack of emotion. But some records reach the parts others never can, ...

Very Noughtie: RBP's Best Albums, 2000-2009

Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, December 2009

WHILST CONCEDING that we are all "listed out" after a solid decade of anniversary-fixated list-o-mania – lists of lists of lists! – we at RBP ...

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