At the end of a strange and difficult year, it’s reassuring to find that some things remain constant. Like Uncut’s Review Of The Year, for instance – which occupies 35 pages in this month’s issue. Within it, you’ll find our Top 75 New Albums and Top 30 Reissues, as well as Best Films and Books of 2020. This year’s list has been compiled from charts submitted by 52 contributors (a record number, I think), who voted for 400 new albums and 170 reissues. There are also interviews with some of the artists who’ve helped shaped 2020: Elton John, Jarvis...
CLICK HERE TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR Paul McCartney, Uncut’s Review Of 2020, Neil Young, Elton John, Jarvis Cocker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucinda Williams, AC/DC, The Kinks and Moses Boyd all feature in the new Uncut, dated January 2021 and in UK shops from November 12 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, this time comprising 15 tracks of the year’s best new music. PAUL McCARTNEY: As he prepares to release McCartney III, the man himself calls us up to discuss the new lockdown-recorded album, his ongoing communion with John Lennon,...
Diana Jones has Emma Thompson to thank for shifting her writer’s block. While recovering from a long illness caused by a gas leak in her New York apartment, her creativity already numbed by the last presidential election, Jones kept bumping into the British actor around town. This, in turn, led to a friendship that resulted in Jones becoming interested in Thompson’s work with the Helen Bamber Foundation, which supports refugees and asylum seekers. Song To A Refugee gathers together the songs that subsequently poured out. Driven by the need to rehumanise those who’d been reduced to statistics by governments...
As a new compilation and an accompanying documentary tell the story of The Style Council, Paul Weller and his bandmates relive those halcyon days in the latest issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here. Perhaps their most striking moment – in today’s climate, at least – is their ninth single, the punchy “Walls Come Tumbling Down!”, which tackled political oppression and complacency over a pounding beat. “The song was a product of the time, as the band was,” says Weller. “Sometimes I think I wasn’t affected by the ’80s – it’s...
As Autumn will soon come to an end, we decided to pick the Top 10 best hip-hop releases we’ve heard this fall. Many well-known artists dropped new releases, and lots of new artists came to the scene. Below you will find our top pick for the season. 10. “Early Bird Night Owl” – Elzhi “Early Bird Night Owl” from Elzhi reminds us once again how underrated the talented artist is. The genre needs to pay more tribute to him as his releases like “Early Bird Night Owl” spark emotions no other artist is capable of providing. 9. “Time’s Up...
In the latest issue of Uncut – which is in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here – Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett of Metallica talk us through the finest albums of their career. In this extract, they reveal how they made their classic 1991 self-titled effort, also known as ‘The Black Album’, on which producer Bob Rock helped Metallica reboot themselves for a new decade. LARS: When we were done with And Justice For All and the subsequent two-year tour there was no place to go on that path. We’d hit the wall. The last...
Once in a lifetime. That’s how often you expect a confluence of talents like those gathered in Talking Heads: the visionary polymath songwriter, the seasoned multi-instrumentalist, the minimalist drummer, and the bass player whose funky pulse helped drive it all inexorably forward. Buy Uncut’s Ultimate Music Guide to Talking Heads now! And, aside from a fleeting reunion in 2002 (three days of rehearsal accompanied by their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame), that was very much the story – a musical event never to be repeated. David Byrne left Talking Heads for an eccentric and magnificent...
Once in a lifetime… Presenting the Ultimate Music Guide to the arty, unparalleled Talking Heads. From the nervy minimalism of their debut to the full-on panglobal funk orchestrations of Stop Making Sense, via solo records, the Tom Tom Club, suits large and small. As David Byrne writes in his exclusive foreword: “the chance to be disruptive and possibly revolutionary was an irresistible lure…” Buy a copy online by clicking here! Advertisement
It’s now five years since the release of Carrie & Lowell, an album of such exquisite intimacy that felt perhaps the record Sufjan Stevens had been carrying all his life. In the years between there have been other projects – film soundtracks, singles and collaborations, including this spring’s Aporia, made in partnership with his stepfather, Lowell Brams. But The Ascension is Stevens’ first full-length solo recording since 2015, and it is a very different creature to its predecessor: banjoed prettiness given way to experimental electro-pop; precise and particular lyricism set aside for broad, swathing choruses. This feels an anxious,...
It’s impossible to separate Songhoy Blues and politics. Formed in 2012 as a direct result of being forced from their homes, after rebel jihadists took control of northern Mali and outlawed all music, the band were refugees in their own land when they attempted to start new lives in the capital city of Bamako, down in the south. They took their name from the centuries-old ethnic group they belonged to, just as their music was conceived as a desert blues celebration of a displaced culture. A guest slot on Maison Des Jeunes, from Damon Albarn’s Africa Express, led to...