In the summer of 1983, British politics was in a fractious place. In June, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government roared to re-election after victory in the Falklands, eviscerating Michael Foot’s Labour party. Within weeks, new chancellor […]
Dan Carey’s studio is notoriously hectic at the best of times, but today takes the biscuit. The air is thick with hangovers, the tabletops strewn with empty champagne bottles and Carey’s head has been freshly […]
‘I heard Roxy Music at a Scouts gathering and was hooked’ I was obsessed with Roxy Music as a teenager. I heard their first two albums at a Scouts gathering and was hooked. Every week, […]
Back in the 00s, the idea of making an Aquaman movie was deemed so ridiculous that the Hollywood bro comedy Entourage spent much of its second and third seasons taking the mickey out of the […]
As I survey the garden from my miniature spaceship – watching a team of minions breaking down a brick wall over there, another transporting treasure (a discarded rubber duck) back to base, and a third […]
Every old band T-shirt comes with a story, and this can make them desirable garments even for non-rock fans. As part of Yves Saint Laurent’s “vintage” collection, you can now buy a Nirvana T-shirt for […]
It’s late in the evening on election night 1997, shortly after the enormity of the result has become clear; former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, under whom the party had begun its “long trek back towards […]
Latino Twitter is how I got my foot in the door as a writer. I was fresh out of college in 2013, working at a bookstore in Oklahoma City and desperate to get bylines of […]
In rock star portraiture, it behooves a writer to avoid straightforward presentation of cliche. The story of a troubled virtuoso tormented by their own genius, turning to drink and drugs, then flaming out before their […]
In early 2022, when Daniyal Ahmed set off on a road trip from Karachi in Pakistan into the neighbouring province of Balochistan , his only contacts were a few distant connections who he hoped would […]
When Helen Grant was a young girl in boarding school, she would hide the fact that her father was Peter Grant, the music manager who turned Led Zeppelin into the world’s first stadium rock phenomenon […]
The high drama and unplumbable emotional depths of England’s footballing adventures have long been heightened by song, from official tournament tie-ins such as New Order’s World in Motion to fan-generated favourites such as dance track […]
It was the first official account of Elizabeth I’s reign, one of the most valuable sources on early modern Britain, commissioned by her successor, King James I. But, for 400 years, no one has been […]
The premature death in 1982 of one of Brazil’s most treasured musicians left her homeland reeling. “Brazil without Elis,” mourned one front page after the legendary singer Elis Regina unexpectedly died at the age of […]
Sir Brian May revealed he’s an unexpected fan of Avril Lavigne and Pink, but confessed he barely has time to listen to music. The Queen guitar god, 75, has heaped praise on pop punk princess […]
It once played host to the sound of staff announcements, bored children and tense couples arguing over wardrobes with semi-pronounceable names. Now, a 608,000 sq ft Tottenham warehouse that was home to an Ikea for […]
A jury has ruled that a handwritten will by Aretha Franklin found in a sofa is valid. When the Queen of Soul died in August 2018, her family believed she didn’t leave a will and […]
The Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer took revenge on his patron after a bitter row over pay by placing his own self-portrait in a 1500s altarpiece that he painted for him, according to research. The Nuremberg […]
Morrissey has written to Jet2holidays urging the tour operator to drop its association with marine parks that continue to use captive orcas and dolphins for entertainment. In a letter to the Jet2 chief executive, Steve […]
The Black Hills, a cluster of primordial rock fingers and forested knolls in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming, is so called for the dark shade of its ridges. From space, it appears as an […]