The earworms of Erik Satie
The dapper composer who invented background music was driven by a profound if offbeat religiosity.
ByMusic books
Discover the best music books, with the New Statesman’s expert reviews, from biographies to pop histories.
Capitalism (Taylor’s Version)
Swift is a self-made billionaire and the most profitable live musician in history. What can her ascendance teach us?
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The Yoko Ono problem
As David Sheff’s new biography reveals, decades of suspicion aimed at the provocative artist, musician and widow have obscured her…
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The Beatles’ brilliant friendship
The Paul McCartney-John Lennon bond is a great story of boys and men, class and fame, love and jealousy
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Berlioz’s Christmas hit
The composer was not religious but saw his L’enfance du Christ as a deeply human story – and audiences deemed…
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How Kathleen Hanna brought women to the forefront of punk
The Bikini Kill singer was raised by a dangerous father, developed a finely tuned radar for sexual threat, and turned…
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Pop’s gay revolution
How stars from Little Richard to David Bowie used their sexuality to set popular culture free.
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The young prole rebels of Dexys Midnight Runners
Denied an audience with frontman Kevin Rowland, the author Nige Tassell asks the band’s army of musicians to tell its…
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How the Liverbirds disrupted the rock ’n’ roll boys’ club
The all-female band shone briefly in Sixties Hamburg, but were prevented from flourishing in a male-dominated scene.
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How to get kicked out of the band
An entertaining study of sacked musicians reveals the tensions that give pop its power.
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The invention of the Teddy boy
How the subculture emerged from postwar London’s tribal landscape of fashion, class and violence.
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The Scala was a place with no boundaries, our teenage sanctuary
A film about the cult all-night cinema and a memoir by my friend take me back: how motivated we all…
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Michel Faber’s tin ear
The novelist’s arresting study of the power of music is marred by a clumsy structure and snobbish tone.
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Requiem for a world war
Jeremy Eichler’s Time’s Echo shows how four great 20th-century composers captured the horrors of conflict.
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Bernie Taupin: good lyricist, bad writer
The songs he wrote with Elton John may be works of art. His bloated memoir is not.
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The women classical music forgot
Leah Broad’s Quartet restores the pioneering work and colourful lives of Britain’s finest female composers.
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Bruce Springsteen and the spectre of stardom
In 1981, the singer sensed his future fame – and retreated. Nebraska, his darkest and most personal album, was the…
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What does Rick Rubin actually do?
The star producer’s supremely vague manual on creativity does nothing to explain his craft.
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The rise and fall of the British music press
In their glory days magazines such as NME and Melody Maker defined youth culture – but the quality of the…
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Books of the year 2022
New Statesman writers and guests choose their favourite reading of the year.
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