Radio 2 has been through the wringer of late. But in the fallout of the Brand'n'Ross H-bomb it is important to remember the station's more interesting late-night gambles. Every Tuesday evening for half an hour, just after Radcliffe and Maconie (Monday-Thursday, 8pm-10pm) have warmed our ears with their records and brew-like northern baritones, we get a show that pays homage to the organ; not the sort that Brand is obsessed [...]

Say this phrase softly: Saturday morning programming. Isn't that lovely? These three words should fall on week-weary ears like manna from heaven, summoning up the ghost of DLT meandering his way daftly through a quiz. But where, in 2008, is that gentle comic touch? With TV stuffed to the gizzards with smug cookery shows, Jonathan Ross's sarcastic tongue becoming sharper by the Saturday, and Fi Glover's drollery reaching priggish heights, [...]

If you were a much-loved crooner of advancing years, your pockets nicely lined with the rewards of your career, what would you do? Ease your aching joints on to a gold lamé chaise longue? Embark on a life of long lunches and fine wine? Or look at your track record, rip it to shreds and go back to square one? In 2008 it has, it seems, become de rigueur to [...]

With Madonna turned freshly 50 and opening her Sticky and Sweet tour at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, what can she do to shock us? Emerge topless with a daffodil between her teeth? Poke fun at the age-bashers by emerging on a Stannah stairlift? Or go for the easy option: enter on a throne, wearing boots and fishnets and wielding a cane? The third option it is, but after 25 years of [...]

When I look at this year's Nationwide Mercury shortlist, teeming with great musicians and fabulous tunes, I am proud as a peacock. Why? Because I'm one of the judges - and I think this year is a belter.

But what does the Mercury shortlist tell us about Britain today? For a start, it tells us that British musicians are fresh and forward-thinking. Some of the nominees may wave at the [...]

Trussed up in blue like a tiny proud peacock, mammaries cantilevered to the heavens, with a wig of peroxide candyfloss sealing the deal: there's no feminist icon quite like Dolly Parton. The 62-year-old first lady of country is back in Britain to promote her first album in six years, Backwoods Barbie. Quite a title, that - Jordan could have snapped it up if she had forgone the Hello! spreads to [...]

Ten years after Oasis soaked up the multicol oured madness of the Beatles and Blur updated the woozy whimsy of the Kinks, a very different kind of psychedelia is on the tip of every cool musician's tongue. Step forward, the harmony-drenched sounds of new American psychedelia, and its own generation of alternative rock groups. This scene, led by bands such as Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective, shares one [...]

Throughout their 28-year career, REM have always stood a little awkwardly among rock music's parade of gaudy gods and heroes. Watching the three of them stroll on to the Royal Albert Hall stage, you can see why.

For a start, they don't look like rock stars. The suited and booted Michael Stipe looks like John Malkovich's wide-eyed, wizened twin, the guitarist Peter Buck looks like a man who would be [...]

In early March, Björk's world tour promoting her latest album, Volta, reached the International Gymnastics Centre in Shanghai. Fans came to the Olympic venue bearing flags they had made in honour of the singer's latest single, "Declare Independence". The song, a heavy techno anthem with its tongue in cheek, tells listeners to start their own currency, make their own stamp, and to raise their flag "higher, higher!". Björk played the [...]

At 00.48am every day, night-time radio begins, ushered in by Viking, Cromarty and German Bight. It finishes at 5.20am, ushered out by the same. Between the twin poles of the Shipping Forecasts, I have always assumed that magic and madness occurs. Nightworkers' ears get warmed by the softness of the World Service, the minds of clubbers are melted by repetitive beats, and outsiders are spoken to by a trillion Alan [...]