Dan Cairns

United Kingdom

Music Editor and Features Writer at The Sunday Times

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thetimes.co.uk

Articles

James Blunt: ‘Have I settled down? No’

Oct 10, 2024 | thetimes.com | Dan Cairns

Over lunch in The Fox & Pheasant, the swanky pub he owns in Chelsea, west London, James Blunt gives every impression of contentment. And why wouldn’t he? In the 20 years since he broke through with his debut album, Back to Bedlam, an international hit that would go on to sell more than 12 million copies and is now being reissued to mark its anniversary, Blunt, 50, has cemented his position as pop’s least likely star.
The best albums of 2024 so far

May 16, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns |Will Hodgkinson |Clive Davis

What’s the best record of the year? Here our critics pick the best albums of 2024. From R&B to indie hits, this guide has you covered. We will update this list regularly, so make sure to check it out again. What’s your favourite album of the year? Are there any you think our critics have missed?
Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift review - a five-star pleasure

Apr 18, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

Her prolific work rate puts most of Taylor Swift’s rivals to shame — five studio albums and four back-catalogue-reworking Taylor’s Versions in the past six years, not to mention the record-breaking and seemingly endless $1 billion-plus Eras tour, which finally rolls into Britain in June. Quantity is no guarantee of quality, of course, but the singer’s track record since the divisive Reputation in 2017, when her star seemed as if it might be on the wane, has been phenomenal.
Amy Winehouse’s 20 best songs ranked - the critic’s verdict

Mar 30, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

I first met Amy Winehouse in 2003, after a heads-up from her publicist, who is a close friend. We gathered at a small studio in central London and — after she had run through a handful of songs that would feature on her debut album, Frank, which would be released later that year — she shot me a look from across the room that combined slyness and vulnerability.
PJ Harvey, pop’s chameleon: ‘I could have been a banker’

Mar 16, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

Who do you think of when you hear that there is to be a musical adaptation of a novel by Charles Dickens? Who could bring the grit, range and spirit of Dickens to a modern audience? The National Theatre believes it has the answer. For her latest project, Polly Jean (PJ) Harvey has written the music for London Tide, an adaptation of Dickens’s final completed novel, Our Mutual Friend. The singer-songwriter, 54, is as surprised as anyone.
Bananarama: ‘DJs would leer about which one of us they fancied’

Mar 2, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

One of the many things that endeared Bananarama to their fans when the trio of Sara Dallin, Keren Woodward and Siobhan Fahey first lurched into view in 1982, all uncoordinated dance moves and raid-the-dressing-up-box fashion, was the sense that the band were enjoying life — up for a party and determined to make the most of it. This made them deeply identifiable and magnetic.
Everything Everything’s Jonathan Higgs: ‘Our inspiration? Liz Truss and Ronnie Pickering’

Mar 1, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

In terms of where pop is in 2024 — TikTok, sped-up songs, algorithmic uniformity — the Manchester art-rock four-piece Everything Everything are an anomaly. The two-time Mercury prize nominees and regular festival headliners are unapologetically intellectual. And they are still going strong, seven albums into a career that began in 2007. Everything Everything’s genius is to set complex lyrics to music that, while undoubtedly left-field, possesses an immediacy that fits squarely into the pop bracket.
The 20 best bands from Manchester ― from the 1975 to the Smiths

Feb 24, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

Britain has no shortage of great musical cities: Birmingham, Glasgow, London, Newcastle, Bristol and — obviously ― Liverpool have all given us bands that have changed the course of music and imprinted themselves on generations of fans. Manchester is no slouch in this regard: it’s given us everyone from the Bee Gees to Joy Division and Oasis, and the Smiths to Simply Red and the 1975. Is there something in the water? In terms of types of music, Greater Manchester’s track record is bracingly diverse.
Idles are not a punk band . . . and I’m not working class

Feb 10, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

Idles rose to fame with the word “punk” tacked on their backs. The chart-topping band from Bristol raged against the establishment, following in the tradition of bands such as the Sex Pistols, citing Joy Division and Gang of Four as influences and taking aim at Rishi Sunak’s politics in their 2021 song The New Sensation. But their lead singer Joe Talbot refuses to be put in a box. “We’re not a punk band,” he says.
Shaznay Lewis on the rise and fall of All Saints

Feb 3, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Dan Cairns

All Saints tore up the Nineties in a blaze of hit singles, multiplatinum albums and lurid headlines. The Londoners Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt and the Anglo-Canadian siblings Nicole and Natalie Appleton were that decade’s stroppy Rolling Stones to the Spice Girls’ beady-eyed Beatles.