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It's not just Jay-Z and Kanye West: The beatification of hip-hop

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:38:39 GMT

During game five of the NBA finals series on Sunday night, which saw Miami Heat’s “saviour” LeBron James fail to keep the San Antonio Spurs from taking the lead, another self-proclaimed Messianic figure, Jay-Z (or J-Hova), decided to surprise fans by dropping details of his new album, due out at the beginning of next month.

Meet the positive pop star role-model dreamt up by a nine-year-old

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:30:20 GMT

Watch out Rihanna, Catherine Bennett wants your crown. A new pop star, created entirely from the imagination of a 9 year-old girl, has arrived to challenge the overt sexualisation of the bikini-clad singers who dominate the charts.

The Playlist: Kanye West / Hunx and his Punx / Washed Out

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:00:46 GMT

Kanye West

Our one-track minds: singles bounce back

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:00:27 GMT

When the indie-pop band Ash announced in 2007 that they would release only singles instead of albums, they had a point. Six years later, as physical album sales continue to fall, singles continue to grow in popularity. The music industry breathed a sigh of relief this week with the news that singles sales are at their highest ever. So accustomed are we to reading about the death of music-buying, that it comes as some surprise that by the time we reach December 2013, this year will have been the biggest year on record for singles sales.

Bo Bruce: The real winner of The Voice

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:00:09 GMT

In the week that saw The Voice’s first champion Leanne Mitchell fail to enter the UK Top 100 chart with a debut album which sold just 895 copies, I find myself interviewing someone who is arguably the real winner from the 2012 BBC talent show: Bo Bruce. It was something of a shock when Bruce, a pixie-ish 28-year-old, came second in Auntie’s answer to The X Factor last June. She had been the bookmaker’s favourite all along. And hours after she failed to take the crown, her self-released EP Search the Night rocketed to No 2 in the iTunes download chart, even beating world-conquering Coldplay.

Caught in the net: Sparkling single says that Beck is back

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:00:02 GMT

Fresh from last year's Song Reader sheet-music project and five years after his last full album, Modern Guilt, Beck (below) is back with a wealth of new material. Recently he showcased a sparkling new single, “Defriended” – it's at youtu.be/pDSjOM42HZU. The song is an expansive ballad flitting between electronic sonics and more organic sounds with an undertow of Beck's usual melancholia. The track, not pegged to any LP release, is reportedly preceding another standalone single this summer followed by two new albums. The first, due in the autumn, is said to be a small acoustic effort, while the latter will be a more varied affair.

Life after Oasis: Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher continues to look back in anger

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:13:00 GMT

"Cheeky bastard." Liam Gallagher is glowering – I think so, anyway – behind his stay-put Ray-Bans. But who is the subject of his ire this time? Is it traitorous brother Noel? Is it Mumford & Sons, this mouth-almighty's current favourite whipping boys ("Looks like they've got fucking nits and eat lentil soup")? It it, perhaps, Sir Alex Ferguson, who, on the day of our meeting in a north London rehearsal facility, has announced his triumphant retirement as manager of Manchester United, enemies of Liam's cherished City? Or is Liam addressing me?

Mark Owen: 'I had to learn if there was anything more to me than a good bum'

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:09:18 GMT

He’s performed in the world’s biggest stadiums, sold 50 million records as a member of Take That and been the recipient of screaming adulation for more than 20 years. But something is still gnawing away at Mark Owen. “I won Best Bum,” he recalls. “But I had to learn whether there was anything more to me than having a good bum. I still don’t know whether there is really.”

Life after Oasis: Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher looks back in anger

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Fantasy Band: Charlie Boyer, Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:57 GMT

Drums: Angus Maclise

Caught in the net: New mixtape from a voice of the future

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:36 GMT

I voted for Joey Bada$$ (pictured) in last year's BBC Sound of 2013 poll. He didn't make the list but I maintain the young Brooklyn rapper is a voice to listen out for. “Word Is Bond” is his new track, released last week and trailing his upcoming mixtape Summer Knights. Find it at snd.sc/16nv7eP. Like his excellent mixtape 1999, still freely available at theproera.com/music/joey-badass-1999, the new single finds Bada$$ rhyming confidently over beats and samples, here provided by Statik Selektah, that recall the classic 1990s era hip hop of the likes of Nas' debut Illmatic – those piano loops are irresistible. As if to burnish his throwback credentials he references, among other things, George Pataki, the long-serving former Governor of New York, who first took office in 1995.

Travis: Return of the invisible band

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:07 GMT

Fran Healy, the frontman of Travis, one of Britain's most enduring popular bands and the pioneers of melodic indie, has had an eventful morning. En route from his Berlin home early this morning, the singer and songwriter left his passport behind at the airport. “A father was saying goodbye to his daughter, which made me cry,” he says, by way of explanation. “The past couple of days I've felt…” His eyes mist up. “I'm a father – my son is seven and he's so cool at the moment, so maybe it was that. Anyway. Nice to meet you.”

The Playlist: Chvrches / Royksopp / Cloud Control

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:06 GMT

Chvrches

From The Who to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones: The albums that make you wish you’d been there

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:02 GMT

The Who Live at Leeds (1970)

Pop festival of the week: Meltdown Festival, Southbank centre, London SE1

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:00:00 GMT

After Antony Hegarty's "future feminism" manifesto at last year's Meltdown, Yoko Ono grabs the curator's reins with a view to celebrating "strong female energy".

KT Tunstall: 'This is more emotional stuff than anything I've ever done'

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:12:11 GMT

Poised behind a mic in a cliff-top, open-air amphitheatre at the bottom end of Britain – the waves crashing below, the seabirds hooting above – KT Tunstall surveys her surroundings, and her audience, and declares: “I'm glad the scenery is amazing 'cause the gig might be shit.”

This is Girl Power that you don't want to mess with

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Savages have built their formidable reputation on what might best be described as musical full-frontal assault: incendiary live performances and uncompromising aesthetic values. They play Parklife Weekender on Sunday and you wonder if Manchester is ready for them. At least in an art centre's veggie café, an oasis of calm among Islington's traffic-choked streets, one half of the band exudes a more relaxed air. Jehnny Beth, the singer who left her native France to pursue a music career, offers glimpses of impish humour, while guitarist Gemma Thompson studiously answers questions.

Agenda: 'American Psycho: the Musical'; dog beards; The Eden Sessions; sport drought

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Middle-class problems: Provenance

Crash course: Music festivals

Fri, 31 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

TIMELINE

Kodaline: Busking their way back from reality

Fri, 31 May 2013 18:00:29 GMT

On a busy shopping street in Boston, rising Irish quartet Kodaline are proving quite the attraction. They have decided to busk in every city they visit on the American tour they've been on for the past three weeks. A crowd gathers; some even sing along, proving they must be making a bit of an impression Stateside (it's their third time here so far this year).

Caught in the net: A high-pitched hometown homage

Fri, 31 May 2013 18:00:08 GMT

LA musician Julia Holter (pictured) returns in August with her third album in three years in the shape of Loud City Song. Last year's much praised Ekstasis was a stand-out, full of great experimental baroque pop, strange electronics, fine songwriting and Holter's lovely high-pitched vocal.

The promotional bumf cites Colette and Frank O'Hara as influences on this album themed around Holter's relationship with her hometown, all of which might make one uneasy, but in her skilled hands it should all be OK.

The first track from Loud City Song has been a released and it is an intriguing opening effort. “World” is an extremely sparse affair with those high-end, poised vocals leading the charge over spare hints of synths and strings. The song can be heard with its lo-fi, LA-shot video at youtu.be/BmT7GKPsxto.

The Playlist:Black Manila / Melvins / Ciara

Fri, 31 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Black Manila

World festival of the week: Songlines Encounters Festival, Kings Place, London N1

Fri, 31 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

The second festival from the world music magazine features encounters, flirtations, l'amour fou and blind dates between acts from all over the world.

Karen Mok: Hong Kong’s unstoppable queen of music and movies sets her sights on the West

Fri, 31 May 2013 17:15:32 GMT

To her millions of fans across Asia, she is Karen Mok, action movie heroine, celebrity lingerie designer and a stadium-filling pop singer. But the outspoken star, who now hopes to spearhead an Asian musical invasion of the West, has as much claim to Swansea as Shanghai.

What would Shoshanna say? Girls star Zosia Mamet and sister Clara fail to impress fans with Kickstarter campaign

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:43:05 GMT

There are no “emojis” to describe Girls star Zosia Mamet and her sister Clara’s (as yet) failed attempt to raise $32,000 from fans to help launch their music careers.