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Oct 9, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Graeme Thomson
Before each show on the recent The The tour – reviewed in these pages last week – the pre-recorded voice of singer Matt Johnson politely asked the audience to refrain from using mobile phones when the band was performing. In Edinburgh, while Johnson was speaking, the chap next to me was preoccupied filming an empty stage.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Graeme Thomson
Before each show on the recent The The tour – reviewed in these pages last week – the pre-recorded voice of singer Matt Johnson politely asked the audience to refrain from using mobile phones when the band was performing. In Edinburgh, while Johnson was speaking, the chap next to me was preoccupied filming an empty stage. As it happens, most of the crowd complied most of the time, but proscribing phone use at concerts is increasingly challenging. A few artists are up for the fight.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Graeme Thomson
‘At the record company meeting/ On their hands – at last! – a dead star!’ Back when Morrissey was more concerned with writing a decent lyric than sour internet tirades, ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ by the Smiths summed it all up rather neatly: a living pop star is all well and good, but a dead one is far less troublesome – and considerably more profitable.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Graeme Thomson
‘At the record company meeting/ On their hands – at last! – a dead star!’ Back when Morrissey was more concerned with writing a decent lyric than sour internet tirades, ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ by the Smiths summed it all up rather neatly: a living pop star is all well and good, but a dead one is far less troublesome – and considerably more profitable. Some artists only really get going once they’re dead.
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Sep 16, 2024 | 
radiotimes.com | Graeme Thomson
If it sounds like the kind of success that can be life-changing, Osman seems terribly grounded about it all: "In some ways my life hasn’t changed at all, because I’m doing the thing I love and that I’m proud of," he says. "I certainly spend more time locked away in a room with a cat on my lap. I’m used to working in big teams in telly, and this is just me in front of a computer screen. I worried that it wouldn’t suit me, but it seems to."Indeed, it does.
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Sep 11, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Graeme Thomson
Song for song, line by line, blow for blow, Elvis Costello remains the most consistently fascinating songwriter Britain has produced in the past 50 years – an opinion which seems these days to be mostly confined to a smallish section of an ageing demographic. Certainly, Costello’s music has, as far as I can tell, proved largely resistant to TikTokification, even if Olivia Rodrigo did ‘pay homage’ (nicked, with the author’s approval) to the riff to ‘Pump It Up’ for her song ‘Brutal’.
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Sep 11, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Graeme Thomson
Song for song, line by line, blow for blow, Elvis Costello remains the most consistently fascinating songwriter Britain has produced in the past 50 years – an opinion which seems these days to be mostly confined to a smallish section of an ageing demographic. Certainly, Costello’s music has, as far as I can tell, proved largely resistant to TikTokification, even if Olivia Rodrigo did ‘pay homage’ (nicked, with the author’s approval) to the riff to ‘Pump It Up’ for her song ‘Brutal’.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Graeme Thomson
Lana Del ReyBramham Park, Leeds As the American superstar starts singing another slow, sad, rather beautiful song, my mind begins to drift. I’m thinking that our appreciation of music is so much about the who, the when and perhaps most crucially the where; the significance of place is an under-examined element in our relationship with what we’re hearing at any given moment.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Graeme Thomson
Text size Line Spacing Comments Share Share Graeme Thomson The Ava Gardner of the ketamine age: Lana Del Rey, at Leeds Festival, reviewed Linkedin Messenger Email Lana Del Rey Bramham Park, Leeds As the American superstar starts singing another slow, sad, rather beautiful song, my mind begins to drift. I’m thinking that our appreciation of music is so much about the who, the when and perhaps most crucially the where; the significance of place is an under-examined element in our relationship...
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Graeme Thomson
Declan McKennaEdinburgh PlayhouseChilly GonzalesUsher Hall, Edinburgh Towards the end of Declan McKenna’s snappy, enjoyable 90-minute set at the Edinburgh International Festival, something quite powerful occurs. The English singer-songwriter returns alone to the stage for the encore and proceeds to play a version of ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ with only his electric guitar as accompaniment. It becomes a strange, emotionally layered moment.
