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.
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.
Essays, investigation and opinion on today’s cultural landscape
Riffing on the themes he explores in his new book The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language, Keith Kahn-Harris shares his love of diacritics and explains how the heavy metal umlaut might be less teutonic than it first appears
Aliya Chaudhry grew up being told that rock music wasn't for her. Yet in recent years, the emo and pop punk scenes she loves have started to become far more diverse, as she explores here with contributions from artists such as Pinkshift (pictured)
"30 years of hurt" has often felt like it applied to the bombastic jingoism related to England, but all that is changing with Gareth Southgate's diverse, intelligent team and their rise to the finals of the Euros, argues Tim Burrows. Image: Catherine Ivill/Getty
Fiona Mozley’s Hot Stew has been praised for its exploration of a changing Soho , but Victoria Holt argues that the novel erases the reality of sex worker life, becoming a form of the gentrification it seeks to condemn. Photos thanks to Juno Mac
For years Anita Lane was overshadowed by her collaborator and ex-boyfriend Nick Cave. Eleanor Philpot argues that we instead need to see the singer as an artist whose exploration of female sexuality was way ahead of its time
It was only when Jeffrey Boakye moved out of London that he realised his sense of Black British identity was overly-rooted on the capital. Here, he explores two very different stories of Black life in Hull to argue that we need to look less to America while looking toward a deeper understanding of Black life at home
When Aug Stone explored a rumour he’d heard about “Nick Cave’s Bar”, he found a joint where Blixa Bargeld bartended, bizarre performance art took place, and the drugs meant everyone kept drinking long into the morning
As a teenager, Denzil Bell felt that his religious beliefs and his love of grime were incompatible – until he heard the lyrics of Ghetts and Stormzy. As Ghetts releases a new LP, Bell explores the relationship between Christianity and grime
Remembering what it was like to grow up in the shadow of AIDS, Luke Turner argues that Russell T Davies' moving drama It's A Sin provides an overdue opportunity for society to recognise its complicity in the crisis, as well as similar injustices today
The ending of visa-free travel for artists threatens the livelihoods of many musicians, especially in the underground. Yet while fighting for change to these Brexit rules, we must consider the wider implications for those beyond the EU, and how attitudes to migration reflect Britain's colonial history, argue Fielding Hope, Mariam Rezaei and Stewart Smith
Kunt & The Gang's offensive attack on Boris Johnson was one last year's top-selling singles. Tim Burrows looks at the work of the Essexploitation songwriter and argues that there's still an important place for his brand of offensive pop in 2021
Coronavirus has forced us to reexamine our relationship with the non-human, argues Luke Turner as he explores far-right interest in environmentalism and questions of who has access to or rights over our green spaces. This is an extract from Unsound Festival's forthcoming Intermission essay collection
After a gifted German cellist called Anja Thauer took her own life in 1973, her story all but disappeared. Why? While making a Radio 3 documentary, Phil Hebblethwaite discovered that it may have been intentionally kept from the history books
The first in a new series. Now that a question mark hangs over the future of live touring, we ask some of our favourite artists to tell us about some of their more eventful experiences on the road. Ren Schofield, aka Container, casts his mind back to a bumpy few days visiting Eastern Europe
New mothers who also make music face innumerable challenges when it comes to continuing in their creative work, yet it's a rarely discussed subject. Jude Rogers called up Elizabeth Bernholz (AKA Gazelle Twin) and Becky Jones (AKA Saint Saviour) to discuss the highs and lows of juggling babies with songwriting
For years, Sym Gharial struggled reconciling his Sikh heritage with his love of rock & roll. Here he tells tQ how after years of poor mental health and recovering from addiction issues he was able to find a new sense of himself with a new musical project, Primitive Ignorant
Sign up for a weekly delve into the tQ archives.
