Hit Singles
Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies (reissue, 1973)
Supporting the old trope that you must suffer for your art, Alice Cooper got an opus out of a toothache. On “Unfinished Sweet”, the deranged heart of the band’s sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies, frontman Vincent Furnier sings some lowdown dental blues, describing the pain like a “Saint Vitus dance on my molars tonight” and wincing at the paranoid hallucinations prompted by the laughing gas. The rest of the band are just as committed to the ludicrous concept, with Glen Buxton duetting with a dental drill before colliding head-on with a surf-rock/spy-theme breakdown. At no point does dentistry...
Perfect Circle
On a Thursday night in February at the famous 40 Watt club in Athens, Georgia, REM fans got to witness the closest thing we may ever see to a full-band reunion. As actor Michael Shannon and guitarist Jason Narducy brought their touring celebration of 1984’s Murmur to REM’s hometown, members of the original band began joining the the fray, until Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe were sharing a stage for the first time in 17 years. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE “Bill asked us if...
Introducing the 500 Greatest Albums of the 1990s…Ranked!
1991, according to the title of a documentary about Sonic Youth, was “The Year Punk Broke”. What they meant by this was that 1991 was finally when punk – the traditional music of abrasion, alienation and catharsis – finally became commercially successful. It was a strange turn of events, as if this wasn’t in the first place an absurd expectation for such music. In truth, while exciting music was certainly being made by Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney and Babes In Toyland and others featured in Dave Markey’s documentary, the majority of the actual breaking was being done by...
Live! Paul Weller, The Lighthouse, Poole (04/04/24)
Paul Weller is not going gently into that good night. On the cusp of turning 66 – the title of his upcoming album – the ever-changing mod-rock godfather remains an edgy, bristling, wired presence onstage; still fired by youthful belligerence despite that sleek silver swoop of hair. Kicking off a short British tour in Poole, Weller keeps his stage banter genial but spare, giving little away. A Palestinian flag hangs behind him, a reminder of his long legacy of political statements. With barely a lull across two frenetic hours, he plays even gentle folk-pop ballads like he is itching...
Hear Beechwood Sparks’ “Torn In Two”
Beechwood Sparks return with their first new music for 12 years. You can hear “Torn In Two” below. DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE “Torn In Two” is taken from their upcoming studio album, Across The River Of Stars, which is released on July 19 by Curation Records. Advertisement Their first album since 2012’s The Tarnished Gold, Across The River Of Stars has been produced by Black Crowes‘ Chris Robinson. Across The River Of Stars will be available on vinyl, CD and DD formats. You can pre-order a...
Nico The Marble Index/Desertshore (reissues, 1968, ’70)
At once terminally forbidding and inexhaustibly alluring, Nico’s The Marble Index belongs among those ultra-modernist works that stand aside from their art without regard for the consequences. Like James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake or Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it seems destined to offer an eternal challenge even to those who choose to fall under its obscure spell. This latest reissue, coupled with Desertshore, its successor/sibling, demonstrates that five and a half decades have failed to dent a vital component of its greatness: an obstinate refusal to explain itself or to succumb to the pattern whereby the avant-garde is absorbed and...
Ride Interplay
Bliss it was to be alive in 1990, but to be young was very heaven. When Ride first stormed out of the gates in that shoegaze spring, they had an irresistible coltish energy to them. The presiding eminences of the time (My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, House Of Love and The Stone Roses) had all already been around the block a few times, and made their youthful missteps away from the public eye. But the Oxford four-piece emerged blinking into the immediate glare of public acclaim, knocking out immaculate EP after EP like a teenage Robbie Fowler racking up...
I’m New Here Oisin Leech
“It was this mixture of total excitement and total fear,” says Oisin Leech of his decision to make a solo album. “I had no idea what was going to happen. But when we’d finished, Steve Gunn turned to me and said: ‘I think you’ve done something special here. There’s not many people making records like this.’” DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Produced by Gunn, Cold Sea is Leech’s first venture outside of The Lost Brothers, the folk duo he formed with Mark McCausland in 2008. It finds the singer-songwriter...
Total Blam-Blam! Inside this month’s free Uncut CD
Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in… DAVID BOWIE IS ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE Advertisement 1 MINT MILESunbreaking Silkworm’s Tim Midyett returns with the second Mint Mile album, Roughrider, mixing up the sounds of his old band with the ragged swing of...Recent Posts
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