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The Guardian - Back to home

Music

  • Glastonbury 2023
    Festival officially begins amid torrential downpours

  • Behind bars
    How rap lyrics are used to convict Black British men

    Exclusive: Crown Prosecution Service claims no one is convicted solely via lyrics, but shocking new research finds juries being shown music and dance as evidence of guilt

  • Live review
    Rancid – pure punk rock creates arena-scale moshpit

    Unexpectedly bumped up to a much larger venue, the US rebels put on a joyous show without any compromises to their DIY aesthetic or swaggering anthems
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Interviews

  • ‘People want the healing power’
    Master Musicians of Joujouka, the mystical Moroccans opening Glastonbury

  • Meshell Ndegeocello
    Making music is the rare moment that I feel raceless and genderless

  • ‘It’s about disappointment – which everyone can relate to’
    Shed Seven on Chasing Rainbows

  • ‘I felt violated. It was a dark period for all of us’
    Sigur Rós on their nightmarish recent years

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Album reviews

  • Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Asake: Work of Art – Nigerian star’s brilliance means every track could be a single

  • Jazz album of the month
    Michael Blake/Chroma Nova: Dance of the Mystic Bliss – joyously audacious jazz

    • Bettye LaVette
      LaVette! – a formidable soul survivor

    • Killer Mike
      Michael – killer hooks and swaggering, tender introspection

    • Meshell Ndegeocello
      The Omnichord Real Book – infectious futurist jazz

    • Bettye Lavette
      Lavette! – more heart-on-sleeve power from the soul veteran

    • Sigur Rós
      Átta – how much amorphous euphoria can you take?

    • Alexis Petridis's album of the week
      Janelle Monáe: The Age of Pleasure – hot-girl-summer hedonism

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Live reviews

  • Christine and the Queens
    Phantasmagoric drama and musical transcendence

  • Depeche Mode
    Who knew synth-pop could be this colossal and life-affirming?

    • Kitty Empire's artist of the week
      Kurt Vile and the Violaters – solid gold stoner rock

    • Muse
      Sublimely ridiculous rock’n’roll camp

    • Joni Mitchell review
      First headline show in two decades is three hours of total joy

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Add to playlist

  • ‘Bowie said my Space Oddity was the most poignant version ever’
    Chris Hadfield’s honest playlist

    • One to watch
      Waterbaby

    • Sam Smith & Madonna: Vulgar review
      A tame attempt at manufacturing outrage

    • From Jessie Ware to Yaeji
      The best albums of 2023 so far

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Obituaries

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From the archive

  • ‘The Queen’s gone round the bend!’
    HM in pop, from Slowthai to the Smiths to Blur

    She’s been called a fascist, a parasite and a pretty nice girl who doesn’t have a lot to say. So are all pop songs about the monarch treasonous? And are they really directed at her?
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  • Do you remember the first time?
    Jonathan Coe, Róisín Murphy and more on their artistic debuts

    What drew Howardena Pindell to painting circles? Is the album Sleaford Mods pressed just 50 copies of any good? And which TV spoof sent Kiell Smith-Bynoe viral? Writers, musicians, artists and actors recall their earliest works – warts and all

  • ‘John Lennon was violent. He’d fight about anything’
    The inside story of Merseybeat, the UK’s early pop explosion

    Early 1960s Liverpudlian pop may have been dominated by the Beatles, but it was a thriving scene whose acts filled the charts. Its artists explain why wild success gave way to heartbreaking failure

  • ‘We made horse semen into little shakers’
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  • ‘Touch mic and shell it!’
    How British freestyle rap videos became a global phenomenon

  • Anarchy in Hertfordshire!
    The real story of the Sex Pistols’ earliest gigs

  • ‘We are the great unwashed!’
    Iron Maiden, Metallica and more on 20 years of Download

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