by Ed Biggs No amount of hypnotherapy will make anyone who heard it forget how poor Richard Ashcroft’s last album United Nations Of Sound was back in 2010. To hear this totemic figure of Britpop, who defined the zeitgeist in 1997 with The Verve’s multi-million selling masterpiece Urban Hymns, stoop to such depths in a flawed attempt to re-brand himself would have been hilarious if Ashcroft hadn’t been responsible for such
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by Ed Biggs Hot Chip’s signature song, the maddeningly catchy chart smash ‘Over And Over’, very quickly became their passport to mainstream attention and remains one of the most distinctive songs of the noughties. However, less attention is paid to its parent album The Warning, which truly displayed the London quintet’s talents after something of a false start.
by Ed Biggs The final instalment of the triptych of masterpieces that made up Bob Dylan’s imperial phase of the mid-1960s, Blonde On Blonde is arguably the most impressive album he has ever recorded. Thought to be the first ever ‘double album’ in rock history, his seventh album is an exhaustive (but not exhausting) tour through Dylan’s ever-evolving musical and songwriting repertoire.
by Ed Biggs Released a little over two years ago, Eagulls’ self-titled debut was one of the rare post-punk revival records over the last decade that has truly understood the dynamics of the genre and also revitalised it with something quintessentially now. Few have channelled the ghost of Ian Curtis as successfully as lead singer George Mitchell, but the sound behind Eagulls was aggressive and urgent, driven by existential panic and
by Ed Biggs Given the endless summers, sun, surfing and convertibles with which The Beach Boys’ early career is always associated, the manner in which they delivered Pet Sounds, one of the very first undisputed masterpieces in pop, was rather curious and somewhat unexpected. Its release certainly blindsided many at the time, as critics were baffled by this resplendent, carefully orchestrated and not entirely danceable song cycle of love, heartbreak, depression,
by Ed Biggs Throughout his short but dazzling career thusfar, James Blake has always come across as somebody determined to re-cast electronic music into something deep, innovative and distinctively modern. Anyone who heard his chilling, minimalist deconstruction of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ half a decade ago, a demonstration of his ability to say so much with so little, to utilise the silence in and around his skeletal music to his
by Ed Biggs In the two decades since Ash first demolished the British charts with their debut album 1977, few can claim to have been such a quintessentially ‘singles band’ as the Northern Irish three-piece. Rock music’s perpetual adolescents, stuck in a Neverland-like mindset of endless childhood summers, first romances and house parties, their singles were the essence of teenage lust, of unrequited desire, of both shyness and youthful confidence.
by Ed Biggs Nearly 50 years after his career began with Roxy Music, the legendary musician, composer and producer Brian Eno is still not content with resting on his laurels, still intent on breaking new ground and staking new territory for himself as well as his peers. Occasionally, his music fleetingly fits in with or fuels the zeitgeist (check out his 1974 debut Here Come The Warm Jets or 1977’s Before
by Ed Biggs The story of London post-punk cult heroes Wire is one of those where the artist’s influence is way out of whack compared with their actual sales figures. Their 1977 debut Pink Flag was post-punk before punk was even finished with its three-note thrashings, and two feverishly creative albums in 1978’s incredible Chairs Missing and 1979’s almost impenetrable 154 followed before the group disintegrated through creative differences.
by Ed Biggs Coming just a couple of months after its lead singer’s last solo album, Please Be Honest is the 23rd by the indie institution / saga that is Guided By Voices. In their 30-year career that’s seen dozens of line-up changes, their Fading Captain Robert Pollard has been the only constant figure on the good ship GBV in a rotating cast of faithful musical fellow-travellers and occasional deckhands.
