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.
ByPop music
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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Will there be a great CD revival?
Forty years after their launch, compact discs remain cheaper and more sonically reliable than vinyl.
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The high-art cabaret of Christine and the Queens’ Redcar
At a circus venue in Paris the next evolution in the musician’s theatrical pop shows how real life seeps into…
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The Proclaimers are still Britain’s best male rock singers
At a recent gig in Leicester, the duo were just as much a juggernaut as they have always been.
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Has pop reached peak Jack Antonoff?
From the music of Taylor Swift to Lorde, the producer’s sound is inescapable – and too much of even a…
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The Spiceworld generation
Twenty-five years ago, the Spice Girls told Gen X to “move over” – and whispered feminist slogans to nascent millennials.
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How Robbie Williams became the ultimate British pop star
With his swaggering yet self-aware lyrics and rousing melodies, Robbie Williams is the king of laddish, early Noughties pub culture.…
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How Morrissey became irrelevant
At a gig in south London, the singer seemed trapped by nostalgia for his early career – and a terminally…
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Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing “takes advantage” of music fans
Coldplay, Harry Styles and Bruce Springsteen have profited from ticket prices that rise with demand to many times more than…
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The menace of Beatlism
28 February 1964: I refuse to believe the Beatles and their like are what the youth of Britain want.
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Harry Styles and the paradox of male sexuality
Men’s lust is simpler if the man in question doesn’t seem completely straight.
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The book Pete Doherty didn’t write
This “memoir” is essentially a transcript of hours of rambling interviews. Even the Libertines frontman himself thinks it’s “completely shocking”.
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In a fractured world, Glastonbury is a much-needed sanctuary
Festivals are easily romanticised, but alongside the glitter and the dancing they demonstrate how humans might better live together.
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Macca and the Stones? The past has a death grip on our culture
Boomer pop line-ups at Glastonbury and Hyde Park show the hegemony of the nostalgia industry is not going away.
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