You do begin to wonder how the Pet Shop Boys keep managing to court critical favour, then you hear a record like ‘Minimal’ and that godfathers-of-electro tag makes sense. A little bit of New Order here, a touch of Kraftwerk there and a big dollop of dry English humour - in other words your typical classic Pet Shop Boys tune.
You know that your pop star interviewee is confident about the quality of his splendid new album, when he's happy to talk about everyone else under the sun. So it is with Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant as he gives the thumbs up or down to Eminem, Liza Minelli, Kylie Minogue, So Solid Crew, Boy George and Westlife. Keeping score: Stuart Clark
After two decades of electro-pop hits, the PET SHOP BOYS have gone back to basics with their new album Fundamental – and thrown some timely political digs into the mix while they’re at it. But the real battle is getting people to take them seriously.
How do they manage it? Few acts have thrived doing exactly the same electroclash thing over two decades and nine studio albums, but the Pet Shop Boys seem totally exempt from the gravitation laws that govern chart success.
Get your freak on to the second single from the forthcoming Witching Hour. Poptastic retrograde female vocals evocative of, good lord! The Pet Shop Boys. Content-wise we’re dealing with a similar kind of lyrical verse. On the right side of trashy fun, but just lacking in that mincing lasciviousness for which you could rely on Neil Tennant.
Anyone who’s familiar with the internet’s funniest site, popjustice.com, will know they’ve taken Norwegian alt-pop group Lorraine under their wing in a fierce way. Despite the website’s insistence, there remains a distinct possibility it might not be the best track to have ever existed. It actually comes across as akin to fellow Scandie group Kent, what with their atmospherics and languid singing, while there’s distinct hints of the Pet Shop Boys in the bones of the song’s structure. We’ll concede to this though: it’s the catchiest track from this fortnight’s bunch.
Advertising maestro, Warhol/Burroughs associate and portrait photographer BRUCE WEBER talks about his re-released biopic of jazz lost-boy Chet Baker, Let's Get Lost.
Dismissed in some quarters as a poor man’s Pet Shop Boys, one-keyboard-trick ponies or Brit-crap also-rans, Dubstar are much more than any of the above.
Producers to the stars, Deep Dish have won numerous awards (including two Grammys), supported Madonna, remixed The Stones, Michael and Janet, The Pet Shop Boys and many more, played Versace couture fashion shows, DJed in the world’s most famous clubs, have had plenty of top 20 hits and were voted the second best DJ/ production outfit in the world by Rolling Stone magazine.
Producers to the stars, Deep Dish have won numerous awards (including two Grammys), supported Madonna, remixed The Stones, Michael and Janet, The Pet Shop Boys and many more, played Versace couture fashion shows, DJed in the world’s most famous clubs, have had plenty of top 20 hits and were voted the second best DJ/ production outfit in the world by Rolling Stone magazine.
Nouveau synth-pop and shoegazer drones mightn’t seem like the wisest bedding for Tom Waits’s compositions, but Scarlett and Sitek know exactly what they’re doing.
SINÉAD O’CONNOR HAS pulled out of the Wotapalava festival, which is travelling to 17 American cities in July, and features a number of artists with gay credentials.
They began as an acid house act doing a disco cover of Neil Young's 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart'. Then they took a break, discovered big beat and became wine waiters for cult author Douglas Coupland. There's never a dull moment with Saint Etienne
Erasure - namely Vince Clarke and Andy Bell have been creating electronic pop for over a decade. John Walshe catches up with them on a recent promotional tour.
Ahead of their much anticipated Electric Picnic spot, Bloc Party talk about going mad in Westmeath and explain why it’s time for a post-punk concept record.
Brendan Wade and Paul Bell have both enjoyed long and varied musical careers. Now as THE SWANS they speak to ADRIENNE MURPHY about their soon-to-be-released new album.
JJ72 FANS DESPERATE for new material will be pleased, nay, thrilled to hear that the band are making a number of exclusives available through their .com website.
Taking time out from a hectic schedule of stage, studio and club work the one and only Boy George sets the record straight on Eminem, Graham Norton, Elton John and the new homophobia
They’re loud, they’re proud and they “endorse” really heavy amplifiers. Also Lafaro are partial to a spot of inter-band shagging. That’s what their website claims anyway. You are right to be intrigued.
The first time The Killers played Oxegen they fretted whether anyone would turn up to see them. Now they’re sweeping in to headline the main stage. They talk to us about being chased by papparazi, growing up in Middle America and sharing a bill with Bono and, er, Gary Barlow
Martin McCann, lead singer of Sack has been ‘out’ for a number of years now. Here he talks about his homosexuality and its impact on his music. Interview: George Byrne.
Pete Cummins, has just released his first album as a solo performer, from which the single ‘Flowers In Baghdad’ was picked up by Neil Young’s website chart
Billy Bragg’s larynx, sexual politics, and Jilly Cooper paperbacks. What’s it all about? NICK KELLY finds out when he beams himself up to the planet DUBSTAR.
The nebulous nature of To Rococco Rot's aural odyssey was best summed up by the Saint Etienne title, The Sound Of Water, which the industrious Germans co-produced last year. The nicely titled Music is A Hungry Ghost sees them swap sound notes with New York DJ and musician I-Sound on yet another long-playing showcase of eclectic electronica.
There's a nice little guitar strum courtesy of Kurt Cobain, then David Grohl hits home with the sticks. Chris Novoselic's bass grinds in and before you know it you're powerless against the euphoria of one of the year's truly excellent songs, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.
From studying at the Brit School of Performing Arts and providing backing vocals for Westlife, to her Terry Wogan-facilitated assault on the charts and subsequent elevation to bona-fide star status, former Belfast resident Katie Melua has packed an enormous amount into her 19 years.
When massive attack decided that they'd meet the press in Dublin, stuart clark got just thirty minutes to prepare for the
interview. But he still manages to talk to 3d about music, football, the band's new album Mezzanine - and the difficulties of making sweet leurve to the sound of your own records.
UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN FREQUENTING THE LATE-NIGHT HOSTELRIES OF DUBLIN, YOU’RE UNLIKELY TO HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE IN A BATTLE OF WITS, ER, MANO A MANO, WITH ACE QUIZ MASTER GEORGE “I KNOW A LOT MORE THAN YOU DO” BYRNE. WORRY NOT. THAT’S WHAT THE HOT PRESS QUIZ OF THE YEAR IS FOR. NOW GO FOR IT. SECONDS OUT!
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men boys of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the Svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn t know.
This may be a debut album, but there's nothing new on display here. From Elvis to Eminem, there stretches a long line of white musicians who have made marketable a sound that African-Americans have already polished to the sheen of high art.
Whether with THE SMITHS, ELECTRONIC, THE PRETENDERS or in brown trouser mode sharing a stage with PAUL McCARTNEY, GEORGE MICHAEL and NEIL FINN, he remains, by his own admission, the best JOHNNY MARR-style guitar player around. GEORGE BYRNE meets the cat others like to copy.
Ten, nine, eight… we count down the contenders for 2003. Words Hannah Hamilton, Colin Carberry, Niall Stokes, Richard Brophy, John Walshe, Eamon Sweeney and Stuart Clark
They make few out and out pop albums like this any more, with songs that shamelessly attempt to make you fall in love with them at first sight and wherein catchy hooks (sorry) are far more important than meaningful lyrics.
STEPHEN MORRIS takes time out from humming the theme to Green Acres and terrorising everyone within a five-mile radius of his newly-aquired Yorkshire farm (with his equally newly-acquired heavy artillery) to talk to STUART CLARK about his and Gillian Gilbert's New Order offshoot The Other Two.
Although dissatisfied with mainstream media and wary of having his own work pigeonholed, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr revels in his role as elder statesman to a generation of maverick musicians and is no less proud of his new album, Boomslang.
It was a year of cut-backs, cut-ups, cut-offs, cock-ups, condoms, market crashes and country music! A year also where the song and anti-song vied or dominance – and both survived.
It s the morning after the night before and BRET EASTON ELLIS feels like he s got Marilyn Manson playing inside his head. A dinner date with fellow penslinger Irvine Welsh has gone seriously pear-shaped and like his most famous literary creation, the Californian is fit to kill. STUART CLARK offers tea and solpadeine, and in return gets the lowdown on American Psycho, trans-Atlantic stalkers and why both Air Supply and the Teletubbies are evil. Pix: Cathal Dawson.
With compass in hand and their newly unfurled Map Of The Universe nestling comfortably on their laps, Blink are boldly going where few Irish bands have gone before. But what happens when they get to Cork and Ballybunion? Intrepid explorer LIAM FAY dons his rucksack, climbs aboard the Blinkmobile and survives to tell the tale.
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men boys of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the Svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn t know.
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland’s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men – boys – of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it’s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn’t know.
Hailing Annie Berge-Strand, a Norwegian former DJ and sometime Royksopp collaborator, as the saviour of sussed chart music is possibly an unfair prognosis. Yet halfway through Anniemal, her cheeky and eloquent debut, you almost start to believe it.
Many Irish holiday-makers will be heading for the United States this year. But there’s much more on offer in that vast playground than the dubious prospect of sweltering in the crushing heat of an Orlando football stadium in June. Jackie Hayden travelled with a bunch of media types to the small town of Lynchburg in Tennessee and visited the source of one of the world’s great spirits, Jack Daniels, making some musical connections along the way.
Full profiles on Faithless, Antony & The Johnsons, Slayer, The Who, Bell X1, Status Quo, The Flaming Lips, 50 Cent, Madness, Christy Moore, Elton John and Lionel Richie.
Mika's wide sonic palette has already been touted (by himself and others) as a trump card, but this listener detected a sizeable gap between ambition and achievement throughout Life In Cartoon Motion.
With Cameron Crowe s Almost Famous putting rock hackery on the silver screen, no less, Peter Murphy wonders if Seventies rock journalism is the new rock n roll. Helping him with his enquiries: PAUL MORLEY and GREIL MARCUS
For their tenth studio album Vince Clarke and Andy Bell go the whole hog, pouring forth a dozen mainly well-known covers candidly entitled Other People’s Songs.
Without wanting to condone their hero’s chemical excesses, Babyshambles aficionados would be forgiven for worrying that a newly rehabilitated Pete would mean an end to the gloriously anarchic Babyshambles shows of the past. Judging by this Heineken Green Spheres gig however, they may rest easy.
In Ireland, conspicuous celebrity replaced politics. The press didn’t get to interview the Taoiseach so they documented the social activities of his Press Secretary P. J. Mara.
Any resurrection of Dusty Springfield's career should be applauded. It's almost unanimously accepted that she was the foremost British Sixties diva. Only the undeservedly spurned Julie Driscoll was capable of competing with her. But sadly, A Very Fine Love plays far too safe, submerging and almost drowning her in its mainstream marketing strategy.
Any resurrection of Dusty Springfield's career should be applauded. It's almost unanimously accepted that she was the foremost British Sixties diva. Only the undeservedly spurned Julie Driscoll was capable of competing with her. But sadly, A Very Fine Love plays far too safe, submerging and almost drowning her in its mainstream marketing strategy.
The band churn out the dreariest material from both Sam’s Town and Day & Age, and – although I’m definitely in the minority – I find myself feeling a bit bored.
Tim Booth is not a man who has ever been unduly troubled by contemporary notions of cool and un-cool. In the early nineties, when Nirvana were storming the barricades, Primal Scream had the nation under an acid-drenched groove and Kevin Shields was in the process of reinventing guitar music with Loveless, Booth and his cohorts in James were encouraging patrons at Student Union discos all around Britain to literally sit down to the strains of the anthemic stadium rawk number, er, ‘Sit Down’.
THE CRITICS PANEL WHO VOTED FOR THE TOP 30 ALBUMS AND SINGLES OF THE YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: BILL GRAHAM, LIAM FAY, GEORGE BYRNE, STUART CLARK, LORRAINE FREENEY, TARA McCARTHY, GERRY McGOVERN, NEIL McCORMICK, DERMOT STOKES, OLIVER P. SWEENEY, SIOBHAN LONG, STEVE AVERILL, ANDY DARLINGTON, COLM O’HARE, JOE JACKSON, HELENA MULKERNS, DAN OGGLY, CATHY DILLON, NIALL CRUMLISH, OLAF TYARANSEN, PATRICK BRENNAN, JACKIE HAYDEN AND NIALL STOKES.
The presence of Madonna feels almost incidental, as Price deals in back-beats and a pounding glib electro-clash. What comes out the other end, sparkling yet full of post-modern grit, is a Madonna song for people who don’t like – or even are actively hostile towards – Madonna.
Billy Bragg's larynx, sexual politics, and Jilly Cooper paperbacks. What's it all about? NICK KELLY finds out when he beams himself up to the planet DUBSTAR.
The final year of the millennium saw dance music reach to more creative, dizzying heights than before. Digital Beat was there every step of the way. Report: Richard Brophy.
They’ve embraced the big sound of America but The Killers still aren’t fully comfortable with the burdens of stardom, reveals frontman Brandon Flowers.
Music Review | Live
19% | 7 Sep 2006
They said it couldn’t be done, but this year’s Electric Picnic achieved the impossible by being even more joyous, vibey and action-packed than its predecessors. Hot Press was in the thick of things as 200 acts and 30,000 music lovers descended on one very big house in the country.
