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Essays, investigation and opinion on today’s cultural landscape
Lifelong Watford FC fan Keith Kahn-Harris looks at Elton John's time as chairman of the club, his friendship with Graham Taylor, and asks why the music industry couldn’t offer the megastar the solace that football could. Images all courtesy Alan Cozzi Archive & Watford FC
The streaming services have become locked into an arms race to see who can own the end of year reveal, says Eamonn Forde. It's just that the artists who are, arguably, being badly treated and the listeners who foot the bill are the ones doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to branding and marketing
Referencing two new albums, the compilation Synthetic Bird Music and Kate Carr's A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds, plus Daphne du Maurier's avian horror and one of England's oldest documented songs, Summer Is Icumen In, Daryl Worthington asks how the rich interlinked history of bird song and human music has changed over the centuries and what it now means in a time of climate crisis
The online ticket resale industry is still exploitative and worryingly unregulated. Professor Guy Osborn of Westminster Law School and Professor Mark James of Manchester Law School present their latest research on this controversial practice and make a case for a new Labour government bringing in legislation to deal with it
On the release of soft soap film Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin, Daniel Dylan Wray asks if music documentaries made in conjunction with their subjects can ever be anything other than a PR exercise, or "doc washing"
When asked to write the sleeve notes for a new box set covering the two decade-long career of Kirsty MacColl, Jude Rogers realised that most people tended to associate the singer with two things, yet the story told by See The Girl, is one of artistic richness and talent in the face of an industry that barely cared
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Among the chart topping radical pop hits of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Art Of Noise, contemporary composer Andrew Poppy was, on the surface of it, an oddity on ZTT. Here Paul Morley explains why he was an ideal fit for the label
We’ve recently had to strip back what the Quietus does, closing down our film and arts sections and have reluctantly put our books section on ice. In order to protect our music coverage we need at least another 350 people to subscribe to the site, says editor John Doran, but just look at what you get in return…
Music and intoxication have gone hand in hand since prehistory, but the relationship of music and cannabis is particularly strong and complex, says Jono Podmore, a former habitual smoker, as he investigates a groundbreaking new study which may get us closer to understanding these links
Jennifer Lucy Allan explains how a childhood love of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's avant-folk duo Mulligan & O'Hare opened her ears to the avant-garde, and realising that the most 'serious' music can often be a total hoot
At the end of the 1960s, Bond was old hat as the hippies wafted their locks over culture. John Higgs, author of a new book on 007, the Beatles and British identity, explores the culture war that raged over follicular extravagance
This summer, Fat White Family supported Liam Gallagher at his Knebworth enormagig. Writing for tQ, Lias Saoudi recalls the excesses of ego, self-debasement, see-through Spanx and sachets of butter required to face the bucket hat hordes.
Twenty-five years ago, Ian MacMillan was an arts writer and TV producer witnessing the madness of the YBA's Sensation exhibition first hand. Looking back, he argues it was representative of a shallow yet maximalist moment in British culture
Revolting teenagerhood continues as we reach 14 years of bringing you the best new music – here's how you can become a subscriber, support what we do and get instant(ish) access to exclusive releases by Hey Colossus and Vanishing Twin
The Carling Weekend was a rite of passage for many youngsters, but JR Moores got more than he bargained for when he attended Leeds Festival in 2002. He recalls police helicopters, burning portaloos and petulant headliners; and asks "What was that all about?"
There is more extraordinary music writing by women than ever before, yet female writers are still facing a host of barriers that their male counterparts are not. From online abuse to tokenism from editors, Jude Rogers recounts the realities of her life in journalism, and her hopes for the future of the industry
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