It’s time to scrap the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
This self-congratulatory country club of popular music is outdated and irrelevant – resigned to playing catch-up with our culture.
ByPop music
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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John Niven’s chronicles of chaos
The author on the hedonism of Britpop and the long shadow of his brother’s suicide.
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Muna’s anti-capitalist pop
The queer pop band has two focuses: making music, and making sure success doesn’t turn them into “evil landlords”.
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Drake’s poetry collection isn’t literature
The Canadian rapper’s boastful new book is merely a marketing tool for his music.
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Why is Taylor Swift re-recording her old albums?
The singer’s decision to release new recordings of her old albums reflects a bitter struggle over music rights.
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Lana Del Rey: a great American poet
She began her career as a conventional, if self-aware, pop star. Her recent records are the work of a singer-songwriter…
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The Ballad of Darren is one of Blur’s best records
The band’s new album, like all their greatest work, is suffused with melancholy.
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Blur and the strange death of Britpop England
Their gig at Wembley Stadium was their biggest yet. But do the nostalgic guitar sounds of the 1990s have wider…
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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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The abuse of the Bay City Rollers
Even if I hadn’t read the tabloid stories about the band’s struggles, they’d be top of my list in the…
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In the house of Harry Styles
The pop star’s fans have their tricks and traditions to make a stadium gig feel as intimate as possible.
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How Pulp launched the second summer of Britpop
A Tory government in crisis, cargo trousers on trend and indie anthems everywhere – at the band’s joyous reunion show,…
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Reuniting Everything But the Girl, pop culture’s high priest, and perfecting the art of the selfie
Now our album is being released, I feel like I could cry at any moment – while reaching for the…
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The great pop plagiarism boom
Ed Sheeran is defending another of his hit songs in court. Why are so many songwriters accusing each other of…
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Sam Smith and the return of the Satanic Panic
The conservative hysteria around pop music, sexuality and Satanism has a long history.
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How Busted defined the moody teen pop of the Noughties
The manufactured-yet-rebellious boyband exemplify the accelerated highs and personal lows of British music between the Millennium Bug and the smartphone.
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The magic of a Self Esteem concert
Rebecca Taylor’s empowering, maximalist pop comes alive on stage: this is an irresistible communal spectacle.
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From Roald Dahl to Ian Fleming, censorship is good for the book trade
Releasing bowdlerised books into a predictable storm of ridicule and then making the “classic texts” available is clever business.
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How the tabloids outed George Michael
A new Channel 4 doc explores the media’s glee at the singer’s arrest for “lewd acts” in 1998. But in…
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