Stuart Maconie
In his career as a writer and journalist, broadcaster and author Maconie has written for Q, Word Magazine, Elle, The Times, The Guardian, the Evening Standard, Daily Express, Select, Mojo, Country Walking, Deluxe and was an assistant editor for the NME.
121 articles
List of articles in the library
The Primitives: International 2, Manchester
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 7 May 1988
OH TRACEY Tracey, we drool in unison. How did we get here. From Morrissey's T-shirts to the foaming lips of Steve Wright, from the indie-ghetto ...
Public Enemy: Hummingbird, Birmingham
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 21 May 1988
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! ...
Scritti Politti: That Obscure Object of Desire
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 20 August 1988
THE MEPHISTO of sophisto, GREEN GARTSIDE, and his slightly cool vehicle SCRITTI POLITTI have once more pulled into view with their new single 'First Boy ...
Billy Bragg: Workers Playtime (Go! Discs LP/Cassette/ CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 17 September 1988
YOURS SINCERELY ...
Hugo Largo, That Petrol Emotion: That Petrol Emotion, Hugo Largo: Hummingbird, Birmingham
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 1 October 1988
IF CRITICAL plaudits were big bucks then, whilst erstwhile chum Feargal busked for small change at Leicester Square, That Petrol Emotion would be laughing all ...
Michael Nyman: Drowning By Numbers (Virgin/Venture LP/ Cassette/CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 8 October 1988
WE DON'T want to know about Michael Nyman, they said. We want to hear about genuinely talented people like Kylie Minogue and the Godfathers. Well ...
Prefab Sprout: Protest Songs (Kitchenware LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 24 June 1989
THIS SPRING, I spent a very pleasant afternoon in a bar with Paddy McAloon and, inevitably, the conversation got around to Protest Songs, the Sprouts' ...
Primal Scream: Primal Solution
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 5 August 1989
Indie heroes of yore PRIMAL SCREAM are back, straining at the leash with a harder, greasier, rocking new single 'Ivy, Ivy, Ivy'. STUART MACONIE hears ...
The Blue Nile: Hat's Entertainment
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 9 September 1989
Five years after their highly acclaimed debut LP A Walk Across The Rooftops, THE BLUE NILE are back, to the sound of much rejoicing and ...
Michael Nyman: The Nyman/Greenaway Soundtracks (Virgin Venture LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 20 January 1990
NYMAN'S LANDSCAPES ...
My Bloody Valentine: The Artery Of Noise
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 21 April 1990
After an 18-month gap MY BLOODY VALENTINE are back on vinyl making a right bleedin' racket with their new EP Glider. STUART MACONIE discovers Creation's ...
The Beautiful South: Scallifornia Dreamin'
Report by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 12 May 1990
THINK CALIFORNIA and you'll think Beach Boys, suntanned nymphets in cut-offs, surf, soda and the therapy industry. Oh and possibly raisins. You won't be thinking ...
New Order: Love Will Terrace Apart
Report by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 19 May 1990
Have a word, Ref! What's this — top disco situationists NEW ORDER in top "positive vibe" England World Cup squad anthem shock! A winning combination, ...
Was (Not Was): Motown Brothers
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 2 June 1990
WAS (NOT WAS) make perfect pop (not poop). They also know the names of several philosophers! STUART MACONIE wants to lick the barbequed goat pizza ...
George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice Volume One (Epic LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 1 September 1990
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ...
Dream Command: Fire On The Moon
Review by Stuart Maconie, Vox, October 1990
DREAM COMMAND HAVE evolved, at least in part, from The Comsat Angels, and this is a fact you are not likely to forget as Fire ...
The La's: This Could Be The La's Time
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 20 October 1990
It took three years to make, it cost an unfeasibly huge sum, it's stuffed with great songs – but THE LA's still hate their new ...
Overview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 19 January 1991
Bring your good taste to be slaughtered! To mark Iron Maiden's ground-breaking success (any bleedin' excuse — Ed), STUART MACONIE investigates the subtle and many-faceted ...
Motorhead: Don't Lemmy Be Misunderstood
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 2 February 1991
Where would today's corpse-violating moshing madmen be without grebo gurus MOTORHEAD? Where indeed, cackles decent, fun-loving working class Tory and all-round smart geezer Lemmy and ...
Rick Astley: Free (RCA/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 2 March 1991
RICK ASTLEY's new album is called Free. What can this mean? Surely, Rick is not implying that he was once merely a performing surf to ...
Report and Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 4 May 1991
His voluminous trews tell only part of the story. MC HAMMER may well be as huge as the cut of his keks saleswise, but at ...
Morrissey Comes Out! (For A Drink)
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 18 May 1991
Shock! Horror! Girls throw themselves at his feet! Luridly manicured skinheads fling bouquets! Europe quivers beneath his majesty! MORRISSEY talks to the NME! As his tumultuous ...
Sepultura: Who Wants To Be A Brazilian Air Guitarist
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 13 July 1991
Stuart Maconie goes autograph hunting with Latin America's biggest thrash band ...
Dire Straits: On Every Street (Vertigo/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 14 September 1991
SO HERE it is, Slowdive fans, the most important LP ever made. If you see what I mean. It is six years since the last ...
Lloyd Cole: Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe (Polydor/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 14 September 1991
WEIRD BARD ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 21 September 1991
PULP have waited a very long time to become overnight sensations with their space age disco anthem 'Count Down', but in a world of footwear-fixated ...
The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Joy Division, New Order: Anthony Wilson: Renaissance Manc
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 30 November 1991
FACTORY: aloof, elegant, misunderstood Mancunian home of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, possibly the coolest record label in the world — but there are ...
Retrospective by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 18 January 1992
AND SO, we hear you say, tell us more about the origins and development of this exciting music you call Techno. ...
Primal Scream: Elysée Montmartre, Paris
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 1 February 1992
"QU'AVEZ VOUS donc envie de falre? On veut ete libre, libre de falre ce qui nous plait, s'en mettre plein la lampe et falre la ...
Ride: Sex And The Singles Band
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 8 February 1992
They are the model '90s pop group; sensitive young men with floppy hair and languid tunes, displaying cherubic belligerence laced with existential angst. But surely ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 20 February 1992
READ THIS! READ THIS! READ THIS! CHIC, the band who soundtracked 1,001 euphoric late-'70s Saturday nights and gave rock cred to disco music, are back ...
Curve: Never Mind The Parabolics
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 22 February 1992
Are Curve the manic, desperate and unhinged prince and princess of post-Mary Chain doom pop, or just a couple of old chancers out to make ...
The High Llamas: You Can Call Me Alpaca
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 22 February 1992
Former Microdisney man SEAN O'HAGAN is busy keeping that band's wry popsmithery alive in his new outfit, THE HIGH LLAMAS, mellow practitioners of the lost ...
Manic Street Preachers: Cardiff University
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 29 February 1992
"All revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door"J K Galbraith ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: Honey's Dead (blanco y negro)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 21 March 1992
WOULD WE have thought, seven long years ago, when news of The Jesus And Mary Chain swept the land like an ugly rumour, that we'd ...
808 State: Club Citta, Kawasaki
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 28 March 1992
FLASH IN JAPAN ...
Blur: Blast Of The Famous International Game Boys
Report and Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 28 March 1992
It's not all Calpis Walter, Pocari Sweat and smoking Keiths while on a rock 'n' roll jaunt in Japan, y'know. Sometimes you rediscover BLUR, completely ...
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 16 May 1992
A FANATIC, they say, is someone who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim. The Smiths spawned many fans — I know, I ...
Deee-Lite: Infinity Within (WEA/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 20 June 1992
LYCRA DISNEY ...
Kylie Minogue: She Came, She S.A.W., She Conquered
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 22 August 1992
In the great theme park that is the British Popular Experience, KYLIE MINOGUE represents a national treasure, which is not bad going for an Australian. ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 5 September 1992
They're grandly egocentric, they're glad to be fey, they think they're God's gift — and they might be right. Heaven knows, they're visceral now, and ...
The Verve: Verve: Mill At The Pier, Wigan
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 24 October 1992
IT'S USUALLY Sunday supplement journalists who go to Wigan to hang around the notorious King Street area, sneer at the pier, observe the fights in ...
Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet: The Juliet Letters (WEA/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 23 January 1993
SINGING OF a cynic's world-view in 'A Sad Burlesque', Elvis Costello mentions 'The pitying smirk'. Funny, a pitying smirk is exactly what the young and ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1993
IT'S SAID THAT The Smiths chose such a prosaic name to throw the fabulous, doomed glamour of their music into dramatic relief. Charles Thompson aka ...
Pink Floyd: 25 Million Gloomy Punters Can't Be Wrong
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1993
Right now, someone, somewhere on this planet is playing Dark Side Of The Moon. Released 20 years ago this month, its mixture of blues and ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, May 1993
BARNEY SUMNER slips snugly into line between his three chums. As one, they turn to face the camera. But Barney's face bears the pained expression ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, May 1993
BEFORE ALL this took off, Brett Anderson, Suede's 25-year-old singer, would gloomily tick off each passing birthday as another year gone without his appearing on ...
Wendy James: Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, May 1993
EVERYONE LIKES a happy ending. Only a churl or an inveterate cynic could begrudge Wendy her return to some degree of credibility with this her ...
The Cure: How Did This Get To Be A Superstar?
Profile and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1993
Who are you calling laughable, dull, unattractive, doleful, po-faced, lazy and badly attired? He forgot gloomy and morbid, but you get the picture. Despite a ...
Manic Street Preachers: Gold Against The Soul
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1993
THE MANICS go for gold with their all-mature second album. They're bach...with a vengeance! Attitude is the most overrated concept in modem pop. What it ...
Manic Street Preachers: Academy, Manchester
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1993
SULTRY: Manic Street Preachers neither stale nor cartoon punks. ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1993
"ER, A PINT of lager, did you say?" The barmaid is distracted. She has every right to be. Her current customer cuts rather a visual ...
Rage Against the Machine: Cross: Rage Against The Machine: Élysée Montmartre, Paris
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1993
Grrrr! It's Rage Against The Machine. ...
Pet Shop Boys: Very and Relentless
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, November 1993
WAY BACK WHEN, a sneering critic once challenged the writer F Scott Fitzgerald to write a novel in six words. Fitzgerald went away and came ...
Kate Bush: Little Miss Can't Be Wrong
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1993
She might be a self-confessed power head, prone to control freakery and studio-hermitdom and a total stranger to the nightclub dancefloor... "bit I'm never grumpy, ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, December 1993
Pulp are the world's most patient overnight sensation... The punk rock roots in Sheffield. The naive first album. The naive second album. Moz envy. The wheelchair. Art ...
Half Man Half Biscuit: Lads, I Feel Another Title Coming On…
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, January 1994
EMERGING FROM the dark of the Mersey tunnel into the almost dark of autumn in Birkenhead, the first thing the visitor sees are the giant ...
Crowded House: The Fine Art of Surfacing
Report and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, February 1994
SATURDAY NIGHT in Glasgow, traditionally the comic's most difficult audience, and it's time to give a big hand to two young fellows with a bright ...
Aphex Twin: Armed and Fairly Dangerous
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, March 1994
AND BY their conspicuous celebrity consumption you shall know them. When Rick Wakeman entered rock's upper echelon, he armed himself with a fleet of Rolls-Royces. ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, March 1994
….AND DID THOSE FEET IN ANCIENT TIME stomp some cops... during the Miners' Strike, lay into a Nazi or two and then head south in ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1994
A PERFORMER as singular as Elvis Costello invites any number of critical perspectives and, needless to say, few gain his approval. Still, here's one. Through ...
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Holly Johnson: Holly Johnson: A Life Of Johnson
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1994
Diagnosed as suffering from an AIDS-related illness, Holly Johnson decided to write his life story before the tabloids did it for him. ...
Level 42: The Most Famous Thumb in Rock
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1994
NOW WHO would live in a house like this? one thinks, as the taxi traverses the length of the drive and passes between the ornamental ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1994
Goodbye, big-bloused flower-fondler; cheerio, depressed devotee of deathly doom; toodle-oo teetotal football-fearing perma-hermit; we'll sithee, bespectacled Billy NoMates. At 34, Morrissey is no longer the ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1994
THE TROUBLE WITH Saint Etienne is they're too clever. And this should be said while wiping the lager foam from your lips and turning over ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: The Ballad of Redditch Jail
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, April 1994
If a star goes 'inside', it's usually for drugs or drink driving. Not so for Rob Collins of the Charlatans. He went for a quiet ...
George Clinton, Primal Scream: Primal Scream and George Clinton: You're My Best Mate You Are
Report by Stuart Maconie, Q, May 1994
FORTY SECOND Street. Outside, Manhattan shivers and cowers beneath a coverlet of snow and prepares for the next much-forecasted blizzard. It's minus 10. Worse, there's ...
Senser: Stacked Up (Ultimate TOPP 008) ****
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, May 1994
FURIOUS Senser: they too can "do a Levellers". ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, May 1994
ROCK MUSIC likes to think of itself as radical, revolutionary and scarily anarchistic, but really it's so arse-clenchingly conservative it must leave Portillo and Lilley ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, June 1994
TO USE the vernacular of our friends in the American therapy industry, today's music business is not "a nurturing environment". One might use the expression ...
Ray Davies: Three Minutes: Ray Davies
Interview by Stuart Maconie, MOJO, June 1994
It's an exacting, exhilarating discipline: everything you want to say condensed into 180 seconds. "It's the ultimate song structure and I hope it'll never die." ...
Nick Drake: Way To Blue (Island)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1994
IN FEBRUARY 1972, upon the release of Pink Moon, Nick Drake's third and final album proper, the press information issued by Island Records ran, in ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, July 1994
CAN TECHNO ever really be about anything? Or, should we say, about anything more meaningful than fluffy clouds and getting substantially out of it. Than ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, July 1994
AT FIRST GLANCE it looks like history repeating itself. The hegemony of a bunch of well-fed. critically-sanctioned dopeheads assaulted by the authentic, splenetic roar of ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1994
Glamour! Sex! Unlimited platinum credit accounts at Top Shop! Insurrectionist teenage punkettes Shampoo want all of these things and more. Is there a Svengali in ...
Techno! Techno! Techno! Techno!
Report by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1994
New! From the makers of Betamax, the eight-track cartridge, and the Sodastream™ — more faddish hardware that'll be redundant within six months! Or will it? ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, October 1994
Farewell then, writer's block, hello topiary ...
Culture Club, Duran Duran, Heaven 17, The Human League: Top Of The Pops and The '80s Brit Pop Boom
Overview by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994
YOU CAN tell if they're boys or girls these days, that's the trouble. Just look at them, these so-called modern pop phenomena. ...
Suede: Bark Psychosis: Suede: Dog Man Star (Nude) ****
Review by Stuart Maconie, Select, November 1994
Introducing the ban… Oh, too late! But rejoice! Brett and co have made high drama out of their crisis. ...
Oasis: Nine Months That Shook The World
Overview by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994
IT'S A terrible name. Terrible. It immediately and unjustly tags them as one of those risibly mediocre makeweights of the so-called 'baggy" explosion. It is ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994
When U2 swapped their Romany drifter look for the PVC strides and comedy shades, there was, after the initial confusion, a general hum of approbation. ...
Manic Street Preachers: Smile, It Might Never Happen
Report and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1994
'THE INTENSE Humming Of Evil', 'Mausoleum', 'Archives Of Pain', 'Die In The Summertime'. Even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is ...
The Human League: Didn't We Used To Be The Human League?
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, February 1995
WITH SOME groups, it is records on the Stax and Okeh record labels; with others it is fine wines or the tailoring of Messrs Miyake ...
Elastica: Elastica (Deceptive BLUFF 014)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1995
Brisk: never has such blatant thievery been such fun. ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1995
ICELAND, OR Lydvelid Island to give it its native name, is the westernmost state of Europe. It is a land of magnificent geo-physical architecture; three ...
Morrissey: Do You F***king Want Some?
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1995
Morrissey's back in the ring with a violently good LP, Southpaw Grammar, and he's having a Cantona-styled pop at anyone in his path: Hugh Grant, ...
Supergrass: Hey Hey We're The Cheeky Monkeys: Supergrass
Profile and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, October 1995
IN SPINAL TAP, that penetrating cinema verité dissection of the music industry, various scenes are offered as examples of the rampant absurdity of the rock'n'roll ...
Jethro Tull: Roots Before Branches (Chrysalis)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, October 1995
Flutes in rock. Hmmm. Thijs Van Leer of Focus. Does James Galway's epochal rendition of Annie's Song count? It's really just Ian Anderson, isn't it ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, February 1996
Grass-roots devotion runs deep when it comes to M People: the Mercury-scooping dance behemoth for the discerning disco-bobulator. "Sharon and Tracy have always had more ...
Burt Bacharach: See You Later, Elevator!
Profile and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1996
Imprisoned in music's metaphorical lift for years, Burt Bacharach has emerged on to a mezzanine packed with thousands of dewy-eyed disciples. "It's sensational news," he ...
The Blue Nile: Peace At Last (Warner)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1996
AS PROLIFIC AS the Easter Island statue makers and with almost as underworked a PR, The Blue Nile will feature heavily when Arthur C. Clarke's ...
Pet Shop Boys: Bilingual (Parlophone CDP CFD 170)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, October 1996
HumanPet Shop Boys: proving there is life beyond irony ...
Steely Dan: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1996
Steely Dan: a mixture of pathos, elegance and brisk timekeeping. ...
Prince: Liberated: Prince: Emancipation ****
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, January 1997
: new label, old work rate ...
Pet Shop Boys: Savoy Theatre, London
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, August 1997
Exuberant! Pet Shop Boys goosing the good folk of Evita-land ...
Spiritualized: Red Box, Dublin
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1997
Groovy — Spiritualized transcend time and space. ...
Madonna: Ray Of Light (WEA) ****
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1998
She's dumped Warren Beatty, she's been Eva Peron and she's had Carlos The Tackle's child. Now it's time to go back to work... ...
Saint Etienne: Town Hall Crypt, Middlesbrough
Live Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1998
What's a nice, fey band doing in a place like this? ...
UNKLE: Psyence Fiction (Mo'Wax)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1998
Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft, one of Metallica, a Beastie Boy: all on the same record. Whoo! ...
George Michael: Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best Of... (Epic 491705 4/2/8)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1998
Game Boy Growing up is so hard to do. ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1998
How do you follow a 28-million seller? Simple, pretend you're Sylvia Plath ...
Blur: The Prehistory of Blur: 'We Were Very... Purple'
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1999
A mohican, Artaud, pyjama bottoms, The Cardiacs, sackings, Pernod, dressing up as the Ayatollah Khomeini: all of this and more in the story of Blur ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1999
WE JOIN the story in the autumn of 1995. 'Country House' has beaten 'Roll With It' to Number One and the critics are in short-lived ...
Geri Halliwell: Pungent Spice: Geri Halliwell: Schizophonic (EMI) ***
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, August 1999
She's covered all the bases. She hasn't covered them all well. ...
James: Millionaires (Mercury 5463862)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1999
WELL-OFFThey've struck gold. Again. ...
Bernard Butler: Tunnel Visionary — Bernard Butler: Friends & Lovers (Creation CRECD236)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1999
He's found his niche and he's sticking to it. ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 2000
SOLO ALBUMS — like roof thatching and monocle manufacture — are now something of a lost art. ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 2000
MAYBE WE SHOULD all get a little perspective on this. Radiohead are five blokes from Oxford; they've been at it nearly 10 years now; their ...
Sparklehorse: King Of The Wild Frontier
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, Summer 2001
He lives on a 400-acre farm, comes from a family of coal miners and drives 15 miles to buy cigarettes. So why is Sparklehorse's Mark ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, December 2007
THE '70S BEGAN and ended in turmoil, with strikes, crises, terrorism, class war and new political orthodoxies on the march. ...
Various Artists: A Complete Introduction To Northern Soul (Universal)
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, January 2009
A COMPLETE HISTORY? Yes. A Short Introduction? Yes. But A Complete Introduction? Surely a contradiction in terms. ...
Half Man Half Biscuit: 90 Bisodol (Crimond)
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, November 2011
Antacid, pierced glook and regional epithets — the enduring joy of a new album from Birkenhead's finest satirists. ...
Talk Talk: The Party's Over/It's My Life/The Colour Of Spring/Spirit Of Eden
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, April 2012
It was only when Talk Talk dropped the pop and headed into the ether that they created the template for serious modern rock. ...
Richard Hawley: Standing At The Sky's Edge
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, May 2012
It's trippy up north. Richard Hawley has made a full-blown, widescreen psychedelic rock album — and it's a masterpiece. ...
Dexys Midnight Runners: Dexys: One Day I'm Going To Soar
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, June 2012
The rebooted Dexys' soulful and stirring despatches are hobbled by stiff arrangements that never really take flight. ...
Morrissey: Autobiography (Penguin)
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, The Observer, 19 October 2013
IT CAME UPON a midnight clear. Or just after anyway, if you downloaded the eBook or queued in one of the several bookshops that opened ...
David Stubbs: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 22 August 2014
Krautrock is a term that is bandied about alarmingly freely by bloggers, hipsters and, most of all, bands, desperate for its reflected cool — but ...
Comment by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 4 February 2015
With school music spending down and the benefits system crippled, the voices of pop have lost their bite. ...
Johnny Marr, The Smiths: Johnny Marr: Set The Boy Free
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, Daily Mail, 26 November 2016
Written in disarmingly unaffected prose, Johnny Marr's long-awaited autobiography avoids all the rock and roll clichés. ...
The lost world of the music weekly: Why NME was the last of an extinct species
Comment by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 14 March 2018
ONE EVENING IN the late 1980s, returning from my part-time job teaching "scallies" ethnomethodology in Skelmersdale, I opened a letter with a London postmark. It was ...
David Bowie, John Lennon, Keith Richards: Mike Roberts: How Art Made Pop (And Pop Became Art)
Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 16 January 2019
From Roxy Music to Florence and the Machine, a new book chronicles the long, fertile and symbiotic relationship between pop music and the art schools ...
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