Music news

• 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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• ‘We’ve been through the wringer’: Doves on addiction, breakdowns – and touring without singer Jimi Goodwin

  30-12-2024 14:00
  
  Their new album Constellations for the Lonely ranks among their best work. But as they prepare to go on the road, the Williams brothers talk about their momentous decision to play without GoodwinJust over four years ago, Doves were on the crest of a wave. Their first album in more than a decade – The Universal Want – had been rapturously received, helping them notch up their third UK No 1. All set to perform it live, the tour was suddenly cancelled due to frontman Jimi Goodwin’
  
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• ‘I’d turn that off if I was having sex!’: Joanna Page’s honest playlist

  30-12-2024 09:00
  
  The Gavin and Stacey star associates Paul Weller with dolphins and doesn’t think Fleetwood Mac are sexy. But who does she swear along to to in the car?The first song I fell in love with
  Wild Wood by Paul Weller, when I was in the National Youth Theatre of Wales, staying away from home for the first time, spotting dolphins in the sea in Aberystwyth.The first single I bought
  My grampa bought me Joanna by Kool & the Gang and Mickey by Toni Basil from Woolworths in Swansea. When I got olde
  
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• Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre sample song by London learning disabilities charity

  29-12-2024 16:14
  
  Prolific US hip-hop artists have used the track Watermelon Fantasy, created in 2018 by Daylight StudioSnoop Dogg has worked with artists including Stevie Wonder, Katy Perry and Mariah Carey – and now a small London charity for people with learning disabilities has joined that list.The rapper, with Dr Dre, sampled the song Watermelon Fantasy, released by the charity Daylight Studio in 2018, for the single Outta Da Blue from their new album, Missionary, which was released on 13 December. Con
  
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• What music stars were really listening to in 2024: ‘I appear on my own top 10 three times .. every stream helps!’

  28-12-2024 12:55
  
  Spotify’s end-of-year summary (other streaming services are available, of course) is our chance to show off how much cool stuff we listened to this year. So what do the stars’ top track lists look like? And what were their guilty pleasures?Britain’s 2024 Eurovision entrant Continue reading...
  
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• Barcelona electro-punk duo Dame Area: ‘Seeing other women playing weird stuff made me want to try’

  27-12-2024 16:00
  
  Blending noise and techno, the pair are determined to make dance music more than a ‘functional, metronomic thing’ – and to never play the same set twiceFrom Barcelona
  Recommended if you like Throbbing Gristle, Boy Harsher, Pelada
  Up next Headline London show in MayDame Area aren’t bothered about making hits – in fact, when the Spanish-Catalan electro-punk duo see a song catching on in their live shows, they might remove it from the set list. “We never wan
  
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• ‘A taste of Ibiza in grotty King’s Cross’: memories of closed UK nightclubs

  27-12-2024 13:55
  
  As venues continue to shut down, six people remember dancing nonstop, loved-up vibes and sticky carpets‘It’s not just a dancefloor’: the precipitous decline of UK nightclubsNightclubs across British towns and cities have been declining steadily over recent years, with 65 closures this year alone. The Covid pandemic has been a big factor as 480 nightclubs shut their doors between June 2020 and June 2024.Here, six people share memories of their favourite clubs in their 90s and 00
  
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• ‘There is magic in the world. There’s something bigger’: the ecstatic visions of musician Clarissa Connelly

  27-12-2024 13:00
  
  Recalling Kate Bush and Perfume Genius, the Copenhagen-via-Scotland artist blends the ancient and avant garde – and finds revelation in loss and deathFrom Fife/Copenhagen
  Recommended if you like Kate Bush, Astrid Sonne, Julia Holter
  Up next Performing at the ICA, London, 19 February; album three in the worksEvery Christmas, Clarissa Connelly rewatches Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, waiting for the scene in which Ismael shows Alexander a mummy and their faces turn in unison. &l
  
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• The best songs of 2024 … that you haven’t heard

  27-12-2024 13:00
  
  From singing about a smoke break to an unusual tribute to John Grant, Guardian writers pick the greatest songs of the year with the smallest of followings“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ru
  
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• Desi rap, deep jungle and truck-stop concrète: five-star albums you may have missed this year

  27-12-2024 12:30
  
  From Jordana’s sprightly soft rock to Pataka Boys’ collagist UK-Punjabi hip-hop, our writers pick their must-listen gems from 2024• More on the best music of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024Who could read the description “truck stop concrète” and not be intrigued? The San Diego sound collagist Phil Geraldi’s two-track cassette for Not Not Fun sketches a journey across the American plains in which the glow of a gas station canopy is as integra
  
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• ‘Too many people try to over-intellectualise music’: RIP Magic, London’s buzziest buzz band

  27-12-2024 11:00
  
  Splicing indie-rock with weird electronics and snottily menacing vocals, this duo stick out from the rest of the capital’s scene – and have turned Tyler, the Creator’s headFrom London
  Recommended if you like Dean Blunt, Nine Inch Nails, Suicide
  Up next Debut single in 2025Most London bands are so predictable. Oh, you make “jagged post-punk”? And reflect “the malaise and ridiculousness of life online”? Cool. Join the pile. Have fun playing Wide Awake fest
  
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• ‘Wherever he sends us, we’re willing to go’: Annie and the Caldwells on God, gospel and a debut album 40 years in the making

  26-12-2024 17:00
  
  Fearing pop would lead them to the devil, Annie Caldwell recruited her daughters into her band. They’re now sending audiences into ecstasy with disco-tinged soul gospelFrom West Point, Mississippi
  Recommended if you like The Harlem Gospel Travelers, DJ Greg Belson’s Divine Disco compilations
  Up next Single, Wrong, on 28 January. As-yet untitled debut album to followOn Instagram, you can find a clip of Annie and the Caldwells’ recent appearance at Le Guess Who? fe
  
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• ‘Attention spans are short. People want that dopamine hit’: Jordan Adetunji, the Belfast boy gunning for Grammys glory

  26-12-2024 15:00
  
  Competing against Beyoncé, Future and others in the melodic rap category, the open-minded young vocalist explains how he ‘manifested’ his successFrom Belfast
  Recommended if you like Drake, Bryson Tiller, Cash Cobain
  Up next New music anticipated in early 2025Standing among legends such as Beyoncé, Future, the Weeknd and Erykah Badu in the nominees for this year’s best melodic rap performance Grammy is Jordan Adetunji (pictured above), a 25-year-old from Belfast. W
  
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• Beyoncé NFL half-time show review – country ho-ho-ho-down live-streamed on Netflix is playful and infectious

  26-12-2024 02:42
  
  Show livestreamed on Netflix is first live performance of material from country-themed album Cowboy CarterSome of Beyoncé’s most iconic moments have been on an American football field. Her barnstorming 2013 Super Bowl performance, complete with a Destiny’s Child reunion, was outdone by her guest appearance during Coldplay’s 2016 half-time show as she paid homage to the Black Panthers and freaked out a sizeable section of the US establishment (“It is now ‘cool
  
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• French flirting, flute fusion and love flowin’ free: the best old music we discovered this year

  25-12-2024 15:00
  
  A little crate-digging can yield buried treasure – as our music writers found this year when they discovered everything from Taiwanese pop star to Cher’s disco eraThis year I completed Duolingo in French, but found myself no closer to being able to carry out what I would call a conversation. (Exchanging likes and dislikes doesn’t count.) I decided to go Paris to practise on some unsuspecting locals, procured via Hinge. One man proved surprisingly game: he not only spoke excelle
  
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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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• The 50 best albums of 2024

  20-12-2024 15:00
  
  Topped with Charli xcx’s swaggering yet vulnerable Brat, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 26 Guardian music writers
  • More best music of 2024
  • More on the best culture of 2024*** Continue reading...
  
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• You and I are gonna live forever: why 2024’s pop was all about sharing the moment

  20-12-2024 10:00
  
  Pop may be full of solo artists and individually tailored streams, but the Eras tour, Brat summer and Oasis reunion showed we still long to be part of a crowdThe past year brought with it intriguing musical movements, not least a sudden pivot towards country by a succession of mainstream pop stars. Heralded by Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album and amplified by the release of Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, the trend also brought huge hits for the hitherto-unknown Shaboozey and Dasha,
  
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• Bob ‘Slim’ Dunlap, guitarist in the Replacements, dies at 73

  19-12-2024 11:25
  
  The well-loved ‘replacement Replacement’ joined the band after being a janitor at a local music venue where they played early showsBob “Slim” Dunlap, who replaced Bob Stinson on guitar in cult Minneapolis band the Replacements, has died at 73.In 2012, Dunlap suffered a stroke. In a statement after his death, his family said he died from complications that arose thereafter. Continue reading...
  
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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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