Tag : Music

Tag: Music

The 50 best albums of 2023, No 8 – Blur: The Ballad of Darren

Blur’s ninth album is an ideal combination of middle-aged regret with swooning pop, a strong profession summation• See the other top 50 albums• More on the best music of 2023• More on the best culture of 2023Previous to the discharge of The Ballad of...

On my radar: Graham Coxon’s cultural highlights

The musician from Blur and the Waeve on the magic of Spain’s Alhambra, chip butties and his love of jazz biographiesGraham Coxon was born in West Germany in 1969 and raised in Derby and later Essex. He studied high-quality art at Goldsmiths, quitting...

Blur: The Narcissist review – a band finally at ease with themselves

(Parlophone)The first single from upcoming album The Ballad of Darren chugs alongside to a motorik beat, rising to an anthemic refrain that appears to be reflecting on the band’s profession pathThere are two sides to Blur’s sporadic reunions. There a...

Blur’s Dave Rowntree: ‘I still wake at 3am thinking I’ve frittered my life away’

Drummer, lawyer, composer, politician… Blur’s busiest member on the troubled childhood that influenced his new solo album, Radio Songs, and the band’s summer time reunion gigsA few weeks earlier than Christmas, and the planning conferences have just...

Blur to reunite for one-off Wembley show next year

Band will headline at the London stadium on 8 July for his or her 35th anniversary, supported by Slowthai, Self Esteem and JockstrapBlur have introduced a one-off 2023 present to take place at London’s Wembley stadium on 8 July. It is going to be the...

Verse, Chorus, Monster! by Graham Coxon review – Britpop’s unlikely lad

In a disarmingly candid memoir, the Blur guitarist relates the insanity of fame and habit, his unease with Britpop, and how people led him to greener pasturesAs Blur bossed the 90s, and Damon Albarn’s bouncy songs about Englishness got here to exempl...

Graham Coxon: 'I was a mardy brat in my 20s … I'm quite mellow now'

Blur’s guitarist displays on the state of pop music, swearing, and why he’s glad he doesn’t should put on makeup any moreGraham Coxon enters the studio by way of a thick cloud of vapour. “Banana and yoghurt,” he declares cheerfully. I had expected Co...

Bert Inspired: a Concert for Bert Jansch review – fond renditions and a lot of guitar tuning

Previous Fruitmarket, GlasgowGraham Coxon, Bernard Butler and Robert Plant be a part of a diverse, stellar lineup and pay good-looking tribute to the guitar hero Jazz-folk veterans, Britpop pin-ups, basic rock icons, up-and-coming singer-songwriters...

Graham Coxon: Bert Jansch's music is a great gift for everyone

Forward of two tribute live shows this weekend, Blur’s guitarist remembers the nerve-racking experience of meeting one among Britain’s biggest musiciansIt took me some time to completely respect Bert Jansch. Perhaps as a result of I associated him wi...

From Bat For Lashes to David Lynch: 10 years of Loud and Quiet magazine

To rejoice a decade of Loud and Quiet magazine, they’re throwing an exhibition of stellar rock images. Editor Stuart Stubbs takes us by means of a few of his favorite photographs10 Years of Loud & Quiet journal is at Oslo, Hackney from 23 October...

Blur: 'We used to take it in turns to punch each other'

Back in Hong Kong, where they recorded their album The Magic Whip, Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave speak about falling out and making up, the state of British pop music and why 90s Britpop was a wasted alternativeHong Kong in July is usually a disorient...

All in the Downs review – a memorable Shirley Collins celebration

Queen Elizabeth Corridor, LondonAn emotional star-studded tribute to a people legend, with a rare look by the singer herselfThis emotional live performance featured a exceptional array of celebrities and one people legend, who was celebrating her 80t...

Are we out of time? Damon Albarn carried off stage following five-hour set

Blur frontman’s show with Africa Categorical at Roskilde in Denmark lasted until 4am, and was only stopped as soon as ‘Huge Dave’ intervened Damon Albarn’s appearance at Roskilde music pageant on four July ended with an intervention, when the Blur fr...

On my radar: Thea Gilmore’s cultural highlights

The singer-songwriter on the return of Blur, the loneliness in Edward Hopper’s work, BBC TV satire W1A and the inspirational environment of LiverpoolSinger-songwriter Thea Gilmore grew up in Oxford before leaving residence in her teens to work in a r...

Blur: The Magic Whip review – friends reunited for a beautiful comeback

Blur’s made-in-Hong-Kong album, their first for 12 years, overflows with pretty songs and touchingly reveals a band now fortunately reconciledThere are two sorts of band re-formation. The first is so compellingly simple that the “basic” bands that ha...