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DIG THIS! Fave Raves and Rabid Enthusiasms for February 2003

Review by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, February 2003

RADIO SHOW OF THE MONTH ...

Fairport Convention: Fairport Convention, What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking

Review by Jim Irvin, The Word, April 2003

Three reissued albums find Fairport Convention on the edge of greatness ...

Review by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, May 2003

DURAN DURAN were, of course, the original band who wanted to combine the Sex Pistols with Chic. Taking their name from a character in the ...

Lisa Maffia: First Lady

Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 1 August 2003

JUST BECAUSE So Solid Crew are paranoid, it doesn't mean someone isn't after them. Since the 30-odd-strong UK garage cartel emerged from Battersea in south ...

Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangare, Tinariwen, Afel Bocoum: Various Artists: Le Festival au Desert

Review by Charlie Gillett, bbc.co.uk, September 2003

The Best Live Album Ever? ...

Jim White: Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See

Review by Jude Rogers, The Word, May 2004

Pumped full of drive — Jim White's off-kilter alt.country ...

Who, The: The Who: Then & Now and Singles Box Set Volume 1

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, June 2004

Two best-ofs, including first new studio recordings in 22 years ...

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks

Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 20 June 2004

RECORDED in New York over two days in 1968, Astral Weeks still sounds like nothing before or since. Unlike other classic albums, Pet Sounds, say, ...

Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour: Various Artists: Golden Afrique, Vol 1

Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, February 2005

MOST OF THESE wonderfully atmospheric, seminal recordings were made in West Africa during the 1970s, a decade when a regime change was happening in recording ...

Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow

Review by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 16 September 2005

DEVENDRA BANHART, the itinerant Texan minstrel with a base in San Francisco, has come a long way since his low-fidelity, high-word-count debut Oh Me Oh ...

David Gilmour: On An Island

Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 3 March 2006

OUT IN CYBERSPACE reunion rumours swirl with niggling persistence, but David Gilmour's perpetual half-smile masks an unyielding nature. Asked about a putative Pink Floyd re-formation ...

Plan B: Who Needs Actions When You Got Words 

Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 16 June 2006

AS EUREKA moments go, Ben Drew's was so obvious it seems perverse that he didn't think of it before. ...

Janet Jackson: Discipline

Review by Carol Cooper, Village Voice, 26 February 2008

SURE, MADONNA repeatedly toyed with BDSM in her videos, but she never publicly admitted to breast and genital piercings like Miss Jackson did. So, in ...

Last Shadow Puppets, The: The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age Of The Understatement

Review by Paul Moody, Uncut, May 2008

NOW IT ALL makes sense. Anyone who, on hearing Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare, wondered where Alex Turner had mislaid his melodies now has their ...

Housemartins, The: The Housemartins: London 0 Hull 4

Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, 24 May 2009

LIKE THE all-conquering Madness during the first half of the '80s, the Housemartins pulled off the admirable trick of shoehorning well-considered social comment into the ...

Tinchy Stryder: Catch 22

Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 16 August 2009

A VETERAN at the age of 22, already on his second album (2007's Star in the Hood won him a Best Newcomer nomination at that ...

Kylie Minogue: Aphrodite

Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 2 July 2010

With a new single and album that mark a return to form and after her Glastonbury debut, Kylie is more loved than ever. ...

Sam Cooke: Portrait Of A Legend 1951-1964 (ABKCO Records)

Review by Gary Pig Gold, Rock's Backpages, February 2011

MOST EVERY single time the 20th century's greatest singer-songwriters find themselves getting lionized or even litanized, it seems one towering figure is strangely, sorrowfully AWOL. ...

George Russell: The Complete Remastered Recordings On Black Saint & Soul Note

Review by Rob Young, The Wire, May 2011

THE LYDIAN Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation is seldom invoked these days, but jazz composer George Russell's theoretical attempt to lift jazz up and away ...

Lady Gaga: Born This Way (Polydor) ***

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 May 2011

FIRST THINGS FIRST: that cover is simply awful, its adolescent heavy-metal imagery — "ride me, wild one!" — effectively destroying in a single stroke Lady ...