One half of the disco duo Baccara who found fame with the 1977 hit Yes Sir, I Can BoogieThe mysterious power of pop music knows no bounds. After Scotland’s footballers beat Serbia in a penalty shoot-out in November 2020, thus qualifying for Euro 2020, …
Parklife festival review – proof that Manchester is still mad fer it
Heaton Park, ManchesterA young crowd – who could make even twentysomethings feel fossilised – gleefully accepted their city’s rave mantle, losing it to Megan Thee Stallion, Bicep and moreHosting 80,000 rain-resistant punters each day, Parklife festival…
A decade after she died, I can finally grieve the Amy Winehouse I knew and loved
Coming to terms with the loss of my friend Amy Winehouse, amid the media frenzy that surrounded her death, has taken me 10 yearsGod knows what I must have looked like: a bedraggled 25-year-old dressed as a psychedelic game hunter with glitter smeared a…
Arts shows star in new Radio 4 line-up after storm at axing of film programme
Mark Kermode will co-host show exploring ‘unexpected links and discoveries’ in screen historyA film show and a new weekly music programme on Radio 4 will be part of a huge shake-up of arts programming at the BBC due to be unveiled on Monday.Screenshot …
Michael Chapman: British folk musician dies aged 80
Esteemed guitarist, whose playing influenced Elton John and David Bowie, died at home, his family saidThe British guitarist Michael Chapman has died at the age of 80. In a post to Instagram announcing the news, no cause of death was given, but it was s…
‘I knew I was pushing buttons’: Kacey Musgraves on breaking country music taboos
She’s already broken out of Nashville to become an unconventional pop superstar. Now she’s stretching the limits of country again – with the help of psychedelics and a four-poster bed in her studioIt is mid-morning in Nashville and Kacey Musgraves is p…
Kacey Musgraves: Star-Crossed review – a tragedy of wifely strife
(Interscope/Polydor/MCA Nashville)The bliss of Musgraves’ Grammy-winning Golden Hour sours on this follow-up, with a breakup narrative that is a little too tidyEverything about the run-up to Star-Crossed, Kacey Musgraves’ fifth album, suggested high dr…
‘Rewrite Rule, Britannia!’ What would you do with the Last Night of the Proms?
Its patriotic songs ignited a culture war last year. Is it time to rethink the Proms’ closing concert? A panel of leading musical figures suggest some alternative ways of approaching the contentious eveningThe Last Night of the Proms is a fantastic opp…
Garbage’s Shirley Manson: ‘Grange Hill was my best friend – it saved my life’
Ahead of a reissue of her band’s classic Beautiful Garbage, the Scottish frontwoman remembers her teenage passions, from the fiction that terrified her to the Edinburgh nightclub that set her freeAround 1980 this book was in the window of every booksho…
On DSCH: Shostakovich and Stevenson/Igor Levit | Andrew Clements’s classical album of the week
Igor Levit(Sony Classical, three CDs)Pairing Stevenson’s Passacaglia on DSCH with Shostakovich’s equally epic 24 Preludes is a unique combination of rarity and virtuosityTwo years ago, Igor Levit devoted a recital at the Wigmore Hall to Ronald Stevenso…