Support The Quietus
Our journalism is funded by our readers. Become a subscriber today to help champion our writing, plus enjoy bonus essays, podcasts, playlists and music downloads.
Spotlighting the impact of cultural landmarks
Fifty years ago today, David Bowie released his debut album on the same day The Beatles gave the world Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pete Paphides reflects on their shared cultural history and canny grasp of the times
With its roots in both the avant garde and novelty music, cut & paste came of age in 1987 with the likes of Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, Coldcut, Steinski, Bomb The Bass and M/A/R/R/S. Angus Batey traces the history of this magpie movement
Why is it so difficult to revisit the strident political albums of one's youth? David Bennun returns to the once inflammatory Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury and finds it’s so much smaller now, and didn't it all used to be fields around here?
Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary talks to Ben Graham about the making of the band's classic 1987 album, Locust Abortion Technician, and how its traumatic closing track was actually influenced by a Carly Simon Bond theme
Dan 'The Doom' Franklin speaks to Chief Wizard Jus Oborn and gets the low down on how eschatological panic, Sabbath and drum & bass influenced Britain's most heaviocious band to give birth to the new millennium in the form of Come My Fanatics...
DJ Shadow and Angus Batey have one thing in common: neither of them are sure that Endtroducing is the former's best LP. On the anniversary of one of the most discussed electronic LPs of the mid-90s the pair discuss the merit and status of the landmark album
Wolfgang Voigt's ambient techno project turns 20 this year and is celebrated by a new box set on Kompakt. Long term fan David Stubbs sees Gas as a bridge between Krautrock and "the great dancefloor movements of the late 20th/early 21st century"
Diamonds And Pearls may have been the first Prince album to feature The New Power Generation but it also marked the period where he began falling from critical favour. It is, however, an album that has aged extremely well, argues Lesley Chow. [NB: This feature was written before Prince's untimely death earlier this year]
In revisiting The Afghan Whigs' 1996 album, Aug Stone speaks to Greg Dulli about its creation, finding not only their masterpiece — exceeding the oft-touted Gentlemen — but also the band's soul record. (Photograph by Danny Clinch)
Angus Batey was the reviews editor on Vox when Be Here Now was released; here he lifts the lid on the sense of panic that Oasis' third album caused in the world of music journalism. But in his love for this album is he mad for it, or just mad?