Tag: anniversary

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The Beatles’ White Album at 50 – revisiting pop’s archetypal double album

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Released 50 years ago today [November 22], The Beatles’ “White Album” is popular music’s quintessential double album. That doesn’t necessarily mean best – although The Fab Four’s eponymous entry surely ranks among a handful of contenders for that title – but simply the ultimate; the epitome of excess. The most representative, referred-to and replicated case of the beleaguered 2LP package. Double albums are stereotypically bloated, ego-fuelled, idiosyncratic, genre-hopping, directionless affairs as baffling as they are beautiful – all of which might serve as a fitting introduction to The Beatles’ ninth LP. Both the cause and effect of infamous infighting which … Continue reading The Beatles’ White Album at 50 – revisiting pop’s archetypal double album

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Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, five years on – a future-disco car crash which never stopped flaming

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This week Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories turns an incredible five years old. I grappled awkwardly with the record at the time – penning the below review for Time Out – and was both on and off the money. Yes, … Continue reading Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, five years on – a future-disco car crash which never stopped flaming

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How Jan Garbarek, Anouar Brahem and a Moroccan (mis-)adventure kick started my lifelong love affair with ECM records

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I can distinctly remember the first time I heard the playing of Anouar Brahem, because the circumstances were so cinematically odd. As a wanderlust-struck student, sitting outside a cheap café in Tangier, Morocco – a day after completing a three-week … Continue reading How Jan Garbarek, Anouar Brahem and a Moroccan (mis-)adventure kick started my lifelong love affair with ECM records

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Joni Mitchell: A celebration

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This month marks the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s debut album, Song to a Seagull – a modest, then-overlooked release which subtly sounded the arrival of one of the most singular, influential voices in the history of popular music. A voice we’ve sadly, but almost certainly, heard the last word from. The 74-year-old has released just one LP of new material in the past two decades, and the likelihood of suspending retirement slimmed further after suffering a life-threatening brain aneurysm in 2015. Indeed, Mitchell appeared to voluntarily bring the career curtain down at the close of last year, with the … Continue reading Joni Mitchell: A celebration