Anniversary
Spotlighting the impact of cultural landmarks
Anniversary
A Game Of Two Halves: Spacemen 3’s Recurring 30 Years On
Though they’d split by the time of its release, Recurring wasn’t so much a farewell from Spacemen 3 as a calling card for Pete Kember’s Spectrum and Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized. Julian Marszalek gets caught in the middle 30 years on
Anniversary
How Jack Johnson Burned A Path For Some Of The World’s Worst Artists
There was grey and gravel-flavoured BlokeMusic before him. But, argues David Bennun, the tepid indie-folk mumbler’s commercial success ensured that an awful lot more came after him – and we’re still living with the consequences 20 years on
Anniversary
Been Around The World: The Magical Odyssey Of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You
A concept album that transcended its concept, a stealth mix-CD, global disco, sampledelic exotica, yacht rock by other means: the Australian group’s debut was many things, writes David Bennun - and above all it was, and remains, a joy
Anniversary
Have A Drink On Me: 40 Years Of AC/DC’s Back In Black
Out of tragedy came triumph. But that didn’t shake AC/DC out of their state of arrested development – it simply cemented it to capture the joys of adolescence for generations of adolescents to come. Julian Marszalek gets his schoolboy shorts on
Anniversary
40 Years Later: Closer & The Last Days Of Joy Division
Because of the death of Ian Curtis and the nature of the band's last recordings, Joy Division's Closer is an album around which a stillness has settled. In truth, says Jonathan Wright as he talks to Peter Hook and Paul Morley, no band evolved so rapidly. All Joy Division portraits courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Anniversary
Feel The Crushing Steel: Grace Jones And The Compass Point Trilogy
Compass Point Studios, and its house band the Compass Point All Stars, were going to be Chris Blackwell and Island Records’ defining statement to the world. Instead, they provided Grace Jones’s. And that, says David Bennun, looking back at the three extraordinary records she made there between 1980 and 1982, is more than enough
Anniversary
The Priest & The Beast: Iron Maiden And British Steel Turn 40
Forty years ago this month, two British bands released albums that would set the course for metal over the following decade. But it’s not the similarities between Iron Maiden and British Steel that are most telling, it’s the differences
Anniversary
Crack Actor: PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love at 25
In 1995, Polly Harvey reinvented herself as a pink catsuit-wearing vamp peddling an album of stormy gothic American blues. But was it really such a surprise? Ben Hewitt argues the transformation only put up in lights what Harvey had already shown: she was an actor as much as a singer
Anniversary
In Fair England: Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief At 50
Yes they probably invented folk rock but also, on their landmark third album, Fairport Convention, presented a view of England that has now been lost... one of violent division along lines of class and gender but one that was also positive and questing, says Michael Hann
Anniversary
Magnificent Cheat: Revisiting Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged In New York
Rather than simply play acoustic versions of their hits, Nirvana treated MTV’s Unplugged show as an opportunity to turn their own music on its head, to connect it to American roots and European glam. 25 years on, the resulting album, MTV Unplugged In New York, stands as their finest work, says David Bennun
