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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Burt Bacharach: a direct line to a lost musical world
The effect of seeing Bacharach live at the Royal Festival hall was to be hit by more top-40 songs that…
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Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers: a revolutionary adventure in rhythm
On their fourth album, the Mercury Award-winning band fuse avant-garde pop and hip hop to create a truly exhilarating sound.
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Sam Smith’s video is not “pornographic” – this is bigotry dressed up as debate
Sexy pop videos are nothing new, so why the outrage? The response to “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” has…
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Sam Smith’s Gloria is a bland, contrived pop record
The brilliance of “Unholy” shows up how little originality is to be found on this autotuned, cliché-ridden and inauthentic album.
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Not even Taylor Swift can overshadow the 1975
Joined by a special guest at the O2, Matty Healy mused on masculinity as his band paraded their irresistible brand…
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The Britpop nostalgia complex
The writer who christened the genre watched its droll ingenuity become boorish excess. Is it ripe for resurrection?
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The best albums of 2022
New Statesman staff choose their favourite records of the year.
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Why Girls Aloud were the most inventive act in Noughties pop
Twenty years since the release of their debut single, it’s clear that this talent show girl group rewrote the rulebook…
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