Music

A new Scissor Sisters album is always a cause for celebration. Throughout their career, which began with an idiosyncratic burst of wildly colourful dirty infectious pop when “Take Ya Mama” was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in 2004, they have defied many of the usual conventions of pop music. Three Continue Reading

Great news today! An email from the always musically adventurous indie rock outfit from England, Bloc Party, composed of Kele Okereke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Russell Lissack (lead guitar), Gordon Moakes (bass guitar, synths, backing vocals, glockenspiel), and Matt Tong (drums, backing vocals) lobbed its way into my inbox overnight declaring Continue Reading

It says a great deal about the calibre of this year’s grand final songs that three of my favourite dance songs of the moment are all from the hallowed halls of Eurovision. Of course there are some who will counter, my boyfriend chief among them, that a whole raft of Continue Reading

Another big night in the giant light-covered dome that is the Crystal Hall in Baku. While the spectre of each country’s flag being realised as a series of coloured stripes on the impressive shell of the stadium had worn off a little, what hadn’t dimmed for one minute was the Continue Reading

What a magnificent eyeball-searing night. The stage was a brilliant mix of autumnal reds, oranges and yellows, bright enough to rip your retina to shreds if you stared at it too long, the hosts were ridiculously perky with an interactive patter written by the same person who scripts Oscars telecasts, Continue Reading

There is nothing perfect in this scratched and bruised world of ours. No one knew that better than the founders of Eurovision who, faced with a Europe divided as never before after the horrors of World War Two, decided that what the fractured continent needed was a bright shiny singing Continue Reading

Ah the relief of not being the ones packing your bags for the far flung climes of home! The 18 countries picked for semi final two no doubt watched the losers of semi final one shuffling off into the cold dark night of Eurovision oblivion, where not even a candle, Continue Reading

  So at last we can stand close and gaze upon the vast and glittering edifice that is Eurovision towering above us! What was once a far off promise of possible pyrotechnics, would-be Russian grandmothers, and the possibility of pop so fantastic it would make custard congeal with joy (I Continue Reading

So no doubt it’s been keeping you up at night wondering how awesome the stage will be upon which the countries of Eurovision will strut their talented stuff? Well fret in sleepless ignorance no more. For behold, I bring you glad tidings of great Eurovision joy – yes I know Continue Reading

If you wandering the streets of Baku right now, anticipation welling up inside of you like day old dogs you really shouldn’t have eaten, you’ll know it’s less than 24 hours till the first semi-final takes place at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. But as the rehearsals have shown, the Continue Reading