Music news

• I’m a devout agnostic. But, like Nick Cave, I hunger for meaning in our chaotic world | John Harris

  15-09-2024 13:34
  
  The spiritual aridity of modern life can be tough to handle. Maybe that’s why the singer, and his new album Wild God, have struck a chordThere is a tension in 21st-century life that may come close to defining how millions of us now live. Whenever we want to commune with other people, we need only reach for an object the size of a Twix and there they all are: scores of acquaintances and a veritable galaxy of complete strangers, offering insights and opinions on a huge range of subjects. But
  
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• From Charli xcx to Chat Pile: Guardian readers’ favourite albums of 2024

  23-12-2024 15:39
  
  Tyler, the Creator’s ‘pure vocal power’, Jamie xx’s ‘sheer genius’ and Ashe’s ‘beautiful storytelling’ – our readers pick out the new music that has most impressed them this year• The 50 best albums of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024I often feel overwhelmed by the lengths some people will go to literally watch the world burn. Chat Pile seem to understand this. Cool World demonstrates the rage we should all feel towards
  
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• Dirty Three, Amyl and the Sniffers and Emily Wurramara: the best Australian albums of 2024

  23-12-2024 15:00
  
  Revelatory comebacks, career highlights, old-school riffs and a brave and radical debut. Your guide to Australia’s best music Key track: Chewing Gum Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I take karaoke seriously. I’ve got a good falsetto’: Asim Chaudhry’s honest playlist

  23-12-2024 08:00
  
  The actor and writer used to be obsessed with Michael Jackson and loves Teddy Pendergrass, but which rap banger does truly inhabit when passed the mic?The first song I fell in love withI was obsessed with Michael Jackson as a kid, to the point where we went to Butlin’s and there was a thing where they’d record you in a music video in front of a green screen, and I did Thriller. I just loved the synths, funk and disco but also the horror.My karaoke go-toJuicy by Notorious BIG. I
  
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• Ramones family row puts the skids on US punk pioneers’ biopic

  22-12-2024 11:00
  
  Removal of director from band’s parent company threatens to derail Netflix adaptation of divisive memoirA movie based on New York band the Ramones could be coming apart after a legal battle that in many ways mirrors the trajectory of the dysfunctional punk pioneers.After years of legal turmoil over the Ramones estate, co-owned by the families of late singer Joey and guitarist Johnny, a legal ruling appears to have put a stop to a Netflix book adaptation of the band’s story by the sin
  
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• Music: Kitty Empire’s 10 best albums of 2024

  22-12-2024 10:00
  
  Americana’s classiest duo weather the storm, Kendrick Lamar has the last word, UK jazz soars – and Charli xcx unleashes the power of BratRead the Observer critics’ review of 2024 in full1. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Woodland(Acony, August)Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’s return was prompted by the near loss of their life’s work when a hurricane damaged Woodland, the folk duo’s recording studio. That averted destruction was mirrored in these beautifu
  
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• Peaches: ‘Who should play me in the biopic? Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers’

  21-12-2024 20:00
  
  The electroclash musician on living with Feist, her love of stinky hard cheese, and an embarrassing encounter with KelisWhat has been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?Oh my god, so many. Here is a story I’ve never told. Kelis asked me to come to her studio and work on a beat for her – this was in her Bossy era. I had a bit of a cold but I was not giving up this opportunity. But I had only one beat to play. She got there, she listened and said, “This is cool.&rsquo
  
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• Paul McCartney review – a dizzying, bittersweet, life-encompassing journey through time

  21-12-2024 15:00
  
  O2 Arena, London
  An eras tour of a different kind finds the 82-year-old former Beatle on tremendous form, packing a three-hour show with hits, flashbacks and real emotionTowards the end of Come on to Me – a song about sexual chemistry from the near-end of the Paul McCartney solo catalogue – the 82-year-young musician whips off his blue jacket, displaying its elegant patterned lining. The reaction is wildly appreciative, if not quite the one that once met this former teenybopper idol
  
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• ‘I don’t deal in nonsense’: Tulisa on ‘revenge porn’, tabloid stings, celibacy, success and survival

  19-12-2024 06:00
  
  After a stint on I’m a Celebrity, the N-Dubz singer is preparing for her next act. She discusses the trauma she has lived through – and why she still has faith in the future
  Why does anyone go on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!? Sometimes there’s an obvious reputation-washing agenda, which annoyingly seems to work – people who are really hated come out more popular (Matt Hancock, for example). Other times it looks as if they need the money. For Tulisa,
  
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• Move over, Mariah! The cheesiest, weepiest, silliest, booziest European Christmas bangers

  18-12-2024 17:59
  
  Bye Bye Bing and Brenda! Bonjour Janek and Piramis! Here’s our guide to the foreign festive anthems that get the whole continent schmoozing under the mistletoe. Warning: this article contains accordionsStep inside a shopping centre in Catalonia or walk around a Christmas market in the Ruhr valley right now and you’ll find it impossible to escape Brenda Lee rockin’ around the Christmas tree, or Wham! saving themselves from tears. Yet countries in continental Europe also have the
  
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• Aphex Twin: Music from the Merch Desk (2016-2023) review – Santa’s sack overspills with AFX bounty

  18-12-2024 12:34
  
  (Warp)
  Compiling the highly sought-after limited vinyl releases sold at recent festival sets, this surprise 38-track release filled with bangers and beauty is a trove for fansThe near transcendentally awful cover art of this 38-track compilation, released with little fanfare this week, will already be familiar to hardcore Aphex Twin fans. Intrigued by a crappy southern hip-hop-style knockoff T-shirt flooding Etsy, team AFX simply made its own “meme top” to sell at recent festival app
  
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• The 50 best albums of 2024: No 4 – Clairo: Charm

  17-12-2024 15:00
  
  The singer-songwriter’s best album yet conjures low-lit jazz bars with swelling, sultry songs of attraction and desire, fleshed out with flurries of brass and vintage Wurlitzers• The 50 best albums of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024‘It’s all I really want,” Clairo sighs on Sexy to Someone, Charm’s lead single. Accompanied by ditzy Mellotron and wide-eyed flute, the song verges on romcom territory, with singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill as the unluc
  
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• Matt Goss on love, loss and his brother Luke: ‘I don’t want to lie any more. We’re completely estranged’

  17-12-2024 06:00
  
  The Bros frontman is back touring the UK after an 11-year Vegas residency. He discusses mega-fame, political correctness, loneliness and the joy of long-term successIt’s not hard to spot the pop star in the restaurant – fabulous highlights, diamond rings on his fingers and a sheepskin coat that could double as a tent. At 56, Matt Goss’s face is as smooth as parchment paper. But if he’s had work done, it’s good work. He could pass as a thirtysomething footballer.Goss
  
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• The 10 best folk albums of 2024

  16-12-2024 17:00
  
  Traditional songs in dub, Irish keening with touches of Yoko Ono and shape-note hymns with sound-processing were among the year’s records renewingan ever elusive genre• More on the best music of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024With Welsh traditional music flourishing in experimental arrangements and settings thanks to artists such as Cerys Hafana and Lleuwen, Peiriant’s second album (its title means returning) adds to that thrilling sense of motion. Rose Linn-Pearl&r
  
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• ‘That’s the Christmas No 1!’ How East 17 made festive favourite Stay Another Day

  16-12-2024 16:01
  Brian Harvey said, ‘I’m not singing this shit!’ – and threw his headphones on the floor. It took two days to get the performance out of himI didn’t see the band going much further than two or three singles, but our early dance hits built up such a fanbase that we had to keep going. The dance era was coming to an end and Britpop was exploding, but then this American rock band Extreme had a huge hit with a power ballad, More Than Words, so I thought it would be OK to
  
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• The 50 best albums of 2024: No 5 – Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter

  16-12-2024 15:00
  
  This freewheeling embrace of the singer’s roots was also a triumphant reclamation of a genre that had long shunned its Black origins• The 50 best albums of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024Beyoncé weaves Cowboy Carter’s origin story into the album’s opening track, Ameriican Requiem. Against a psychedelic country-gospel backdrop that unfolds with both determination and frustration, she establishes her southern roots – Alabama, Texas, Louisiana &ndash
  
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• ‘Uptown Funk makes me want to move, it makes me happy’: Lorraine Bracco’s honest playlist

  16-12-2024 08:00
  
  The Sopranos and Goodfellas star danced to Sinatra as a child and bought the Turtles with her babysitting money. But which rocker makes her cry?The first song I remember hearingFly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra because of my parents. I grew up in Brooklyn and I remember dancing to that in the house.The first song I fell in love withAt Christmas time, we would all gather round and watch The Wizard of Oz. When the witch came on, I would jump into my father or mother’s lap. I remember watch
  
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• Zakir Hussain, legendary Indian tabla musician, dies aged 73

  16-12-2024 07:04
  
  The classical musician, who performed with George Harrison and Van Morrison, died in a San Francisco hospital on SundayZakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to global audiences, has died aged 73.The Indian classical music icon died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, at a hospital in San Francisco on Sunday, his family said in a statement. Continue reading...
  
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• Paul McCartney review – extraordinarily sublime and humblingly beautiful

  15-12-2024 17:16
  
  Co-op Live, ManchesterStretching an almost three-hour set from the Quarrymen through to the ‘final Beatles single’ this is like an arena-sized Last Night at the Proms, with Beatlemania‘I’m just going to take a little moment to enjoy it for myself,” says Paul McCartney, standing aside to take in an atmosphere which is like an arena-sized Last Night at the Proms, with Beatlemania. This extraordinary first of two nights at this venue, as McCartney’s Got Back tour
  
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• Slipknot review – metal mammoths deliver exhilarating sonic brutality

  15-12-2024 11:30
  
  First Direct Arena, Leeds
  Heads bang, moshpits burst into life and riffs eviscerate every corner of the room as the band tear through their debut album 1999 in a visceral sensory hazeUntil you’ve tried it, don’t knock the singular joys of watching a grown man in a horned gimp mask whack a steel keg with a baseball bat. Comical stage antics and horror theatricality have always been a part of Slipknot’s nucleus, but their exhilarating concert spectacle is no joke.Celebrating its
  
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• Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite review – fitting tribute to a century of jazz

  14-12-2024 17:00
  
  (In+Out)
  As saxophonist and band leader Marshall Allen turns 100, his evergreen outfit effortlessly draw on their rich history, as classics meet the cosmicOne way to celebrate your 100th birthday is with a new album, which is Marshall Allen’s response to his centenary. A distinctive and often wild alto saxophonist, Allen has dedicated his creative life to the Arkestra, the group founded by “cosmic jazz” pioneer Sun Ra (born Herman Blount), which he joined in 1957 and which he h
  
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• TV on the Radio review – US indie rockers roll back the years

  14-12-2024 15:00
  
  Islington Assembly Hall, LondonCelebrating the 20th anniversary reissue of their debut album, the New Yorkers remain masters of delayed gratification in a cracking set of hits pastTV on the Radio kick off the first night of their sold-out three-day residency in north London with a deceptively mellow thrum – the kinetic sort that holds the promise of electricity. The band were originally a pivotal force at the start of the millennium, nourished by the New York ecosystem that gave birth to g
  
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• One to watch: Nia Smith

  14-12-2024 13:30
  
  The Londoner’s reggae-spiked soul has earned her support slots with Mahalia, Tems and more – and now her debut EP brings more of that low-frequency coolAmid all the dystopian hellscapes the 21st century has ushered in, we should savour the mercies. Air fryers. The Shazam app. And shoals of promising young female artists such as 21-year-old Nia Smith. Historically, each big record company picked one “soul/urban/R&B” prospect, backed them half-heartedly then gave up whe
  
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• Wham’s Andrew Ridgeley looks back: ‘Fame or anonymity? I choose famous anonymity’

  14-12-2024 10:30
  
  The singer-songwriter on the early days of Wham!, his ‘Count Dracula’ grandfather, and an ice-cream disasterBorn in Surrey, Andrew Ridgeley, 61, formed Wham! with his school friend George Michael. From 1982, the band dominated the charts with hits such as Club Tropicana, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Freedom and I’m Your Man. This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of their single Last Christmas, which has become festive classic; a commemorative EP is out now. Ridgeley
  
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• Bubble Love: Bubble Love review – Ross From Friends’ high-energy pop-club side project

  13-12-2024 13:00
  
  (Scarlet Tiger)
  Producer Felix Weatherall adopts another guise, swapping lo-fi analogue for a disorienting burst of alternative dance musicFelix Weatherall, the London producer best known as Ross From Friends, has spent much of his career escaping other people’s preconceptions. He emerged in the mid-2010s as the most popular face of the so-called “lo-fi house” or “YouTube house” scene – not really a scene, as much as a collection of producers making analog-sou
  
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• Lauren Mayberry: Vicious Creature review – a solo statement of intent

  13-12-2024 12:30
  
  (EMI)
  The Chvrches singer’s debut album skips from punk to pop, wilfully unbothered about current notions of coolAfter more than a decade at the helm of synth-pop success story Chvrches, Lauren Mayberry has spoken of wanting her solo project to be a retort to being reduced to “a girl in a band”; an opportunity to indulge in the femininity and play that operating in a male-dominated environment never allowed her.The best bits of this debut solo LP are where this sense of fun and
  
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• Angel Olsen: Cosmic Waves Vol 1 review – intriguing half compilation, half covers

  13-12-2024 12:00
  
  (somethingscosmic)
  Five rising artists each perform one of their songs, then the US singer-songwriter covers another one of their tracks in a set of woebegone eleganceAngel Olsen’s last album was 2022’s country-tinged, grief-wrought Big Time; a stopgap EP, Forever Means, came out in 2023. Cosmic Waves Volume 1 feels like the work of an artist buying more time, but in a good way – investing in community via her own bijou label. This compilation amplifies five lesser-known artist
  
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• Lennie De Ice, British producer who pioneered sound of jungle, has died

  11-12-2024 14:54
  
  No cause of death given for artist whose track We Are IE had a huge impact on the breakbeat-driven, bass-focused sound of jungle, drum’n’bass and dubstepLennie De Ice, the British music producer whose track We Are IE helped to shape the jungle genre in the 1990s, has died.His friend and fellow producer Matthew Copeland posted the news on Facebook, writing: “You will for ever be the soundtrack of our generation god bless my brother fly high and keep the party going up there.&rdq
  
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• The 10 best jazz albums of 2024

  10-12-2024 07:00
  
  A Mercury prize winner, a host of fresh collaborations and a posthumous release of a much-lauded live performance are all among the year’s standouts• More on the best music of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024The South Korean former pop singer and jazz composer Jihye Lee woke up the wider jazz world with a daring and sophisticated debut, 2021’s Daring Mind. This superb successor invites contemporary trumpet maestro Ambrose Akinmusire to add his own magic, as Lee mingl
  
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• ‘God Save the King makes me sick’: Bobby Gillespie’s honest playlist

  09-12-2024 08:00
  
  The Primal Scream man is resolutely unromantic and really dislikes the royals, but what does he put on at a party when ‘everyone’s had a few’?The first single I boughtBlockbuster by the Sweet in 1973 from Soundtrack Records on Cathcart Road in Glasgow age 11 or 12, after seeing them on Top of the Pops. I loved all the Sweet singles after that.The song I do at karaokeI don’t think I’ve ever done karaoke. I hate hearing people murder songs. If I had to do it, I’
  
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