Music

Malmö! Yes Malmö has won the three way “contest” between the capital Stockholm, Gothenberg in the west of Sweden, and itself. The city’s Hartwall Arena, which houses 15,500, considerably less than Baku’s Crystal Hall, will play host to Europe’s annual festival of song. Found in 1275 when that part of Sweden Continue Reading

If you have read anything on this blog before, it will have become mighty obvious that I am not exactly fresh out of high school. Not that I am eyeing up a glittery red Zimmer frame to buy with all the fervency of teenage girls spotting Justin Bieber, but I Continue Reading

  The first thing that strikes you about this superlative album from 21st century Canadian rockers, Metric, is the otherworldly aura that permeates every one of its almost pop songs. (They were founded in 1998 in Toronto but their first album, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? came in Continue Reading

One of the great dilemmas of loving such a broad cross section of music, and hence the many amazingly talented artists who populate each one in their own distinctive way, is how to choose what to listen to next. The budget and my time stretches only so far… of course Continue Reading

The world’s most beloved purveyors of ska pop are back with a new album produced by pop god, Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, Push and Shove (out September 25), a single to kick things off, “Settle Down” (released July 16, with a video, directed by the uber-talented Sophie Muller who was at Continue Reading

OK confession #1 : I lived through ALL of the 1970s. Confession # 2: And in that time, I either listened to Evie and Nana Mouskouri (ask my parents about those choices please) or ABBA (obsessively; this one was entirely my choice) or in the latter part of the decade, Continue Reading

Now that the glitter-strewn waters of Eurovision have ebbed, and taken with them their bright shiny pieces of Europop (although they do linger with no complaints from me), there is room for other music to emerge and haunt my iPod. Here are the tunes that surged with Darwinian-determination to the Continue Reading

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