Anniversary
Spotlighting the impact of cultural landmarks
Anniversary
Fuck Posterity: Serge Gainsbourg, Hip Hop & His Swan Song, You’re Under Arrest
You’re Under Arrest - the final album of Serge Gainsbourg - is often cited as the one where he tried his hand at hip hop. Jeremy Allen argues that it was more a consolidation of a proto-rap master after years of innovation and petty musical larceny
Anniversary
Diamond D, Pete Rock, CL Smooth & The Birth Of The Rapper Producer
A quarter of a century ago, Diamond D and Pete Rock pioneered a new kind of artist: the rapper-producer. Angus Batey looks back on their remarkable debut LPs and wonders where it all went wrong for them, for rap, and for us
Anniversary
25 Years On: Happy Mondays’ Yes Please! Revisited
Yes Please! is the runt of the Happy Mondays’ litter, an album more likely to turn up on lists of career-ending releases and studio disasters than on playlists and radio. But as Yes Please! approaches its 25th anniversary, could this least redeemable of albums be due a critical re-think? Ben Cardew pushes for a place in history for this unique work of ageing, regret and disaster
Anniversary
Quit Your Jingle-Jangle: The Smiths’ Strangeways Here We Come Revisited
The Smiths’ last studio album was their most ambitious, adventurous and experimental, too. Thirty years on, Ben Hewitt looks back on the forward-thinking record that could have been the start of a new chapter, rather than a full-stop
Anniversary
It Was Fifty Years Ago Today… Pete Paphides On David Bowie’s Debut LP
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
Anniversary
Bits & Pieces: Angus Batey On The History Of Cut And Paste
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
Anniversary
How The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy Lived Down To Their Name
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?
Anniversary
The Day Of The Locust: Paul Leary Of The Butthole Surfers Interviewed
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
