Now known more for his fearsome reputation as a curmudgeonly r&b; shouter in a hat, at one point in the dim and distant past, Van Morrison was, well... a happy curmudgeon. In the early '70s his magnificent voice and mystic vision were wedded to an id...
New Zealand's Flight of the Conchords are seriously funny – Grammy nominated and single-handedly (can a duo be single handed?) keeping the Christmas stocking filler market afloat, they've been well and truly welcomed to the collective bosom of the co...
It's long been my conviction that writing about music is one of the most widespread follies of modern times.
Each month, hundreds of thousands of words about music are written by people wearing converse trainers. What does it mean? Why bother descri...
Whereas 1984's Purple Rain had seen Prince merge the on-screen and on-record perfectly, remaining a classic to this day, Parade can't quite claim to be as essential. Again a soundtrack to one of the Purple One's excursions into cinema, it supports th...
Let me get this off my chest first of all, Tim Westwood is a twat.
Tim Westwood, or just Westwood, was BBC's "main man" for the world of hip-hop and reggae in the early 2000s; it wouldn't be until 2002 that they would properly embrace this side of mu...
In 1992 Kate Rusby was, you fondly imagine, a nervy teenager who couldn't have dreamed of the outstanding career that lay ahead. The notion of a gentle young singer from Yorkshire with a mostly traditional repertoire lighting up a largely moribund Br...