Hit Singles

Hit Singles

Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh: “If you fight a wave, you’re gonna wipe out”

For Kristin Hersh, songcraft is a bit like surfing. “The surfers, their approach to their boards is like my approach to my guitar,” she says of the associates of her pro-surfer son Bodhi. “Their approach to the ocean is my approach to music itself. And something about their chill vibe is not weed, but meeting the ocean halfway with the board, and I meet music halfway with the guitar, which does about half the work. Your job is then to disappear and not get in a way. If you fight a wave, you’re gonna wipe out. And if I fight the song, it’s gonna die in my hands. I’m gonna wipe out.” Advertisement Over the course of her Uncut Q&A chat with Tom Pinnock – the second of the weekend, to a rain-braving crowd at the Talking Heads stage and with Hersh arriving in her very first pair of “actual British wellies!” – many of Hersh’s quirky and unique angles on music and its mysterious making are touched upon. She discusses her synesthesia: the D minor chord is “like an ochre”, E major 7 “burnt orange”. Her practice of writing songs for Throwing Muses or 50 Foot Wave on band-specific… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Incredible String Band celebrated at End Of The Road, Day 2

“These little things out in the woods are so magical,” says Matt Berninger during his Friday afternoon Uncut Q&A, and all around him End Of The Road takes the challenge head on. Just a short time later, members of London’s Broadside Hacks collective arc out across the Garden Stage, enclosing Mike Heron and his daughter Georgia Seddon. They’re here to celebrate the work of Heron’s psych folk innovators The Incredible String Band – or predominantly their first five albums – and grace it with a kind of fervent fragility. Advertisement The Celtic folk of “Chinese White”, cracked and intricate, approaches the edge of breakdown; “Maya” drifts by on a psychedelic Eastern lilt, for all its yells of “Jesus and Hitler!” Seddon takes on a keening “Cold Days Of February” but it’s not until the closing stretch that Heron takes the vocal fore, his delicate husk of a voice imbuing “Log Cabin Home In The Sky” an hymnal “Air” and a shortened, ambient gospel “A Very Cellular Song” with a weightless lustre. Incredible? Pretty much. At the Talking Heads stage, meanwhile, New Orleans’ Sabine McCalla is bringing antique Southern blues and soul to life like Simone without the crackle. With just… Read More →

Hit Singles

Matt Berninger: “I can’t get over Keith Richards’ fence”

Matt Berninger is planning to take us to church. “I feel like this is God,” The National frontman turned solo End Of The Road headliner told Uncut’s Tom Pinnock at the first of three Uncut Q&As at this year’s EOTR festival. “This is the community, this is church. The church is supposed to be a group of people who believe in trying to figure out the mystery of love and life and kindness and surviving how hard it is to be a person.” “In many ways,” he continued, “music, rock festivals, rock clubs, Royal Albert Hall, Mercury Lounge, the Buffalo Bar, those are sanctuaries of spirituality and vision. Artists are trying to figure out God. In songs, everybody’s just trying to figure out the meaning of their own life and their own heart and their own existence, the good artists, that’s what they’re all doing.” Advertisement It was a thoughtful and illuminating first crowd question, from a woman who’d met her husband at a “euphoric communal” National show and wondered who did the same for Berninger (answer: Leonard Cohen). And it followed a light-hearted chat that opened on his tourbus Star Suite that morning (“The best thing about going solo… Read More →

Hit Singles

Goat and Caribou summon the spirits at End Of The Road, Day 2

Friday starts perfectly with a welcome splash of sunshine and spot of solo guitar bliss courtesy of crack Texan fingerpicker Hayden Pedigo. He ably transports us to the flat, wide plains around Amarillo, where, as he informs us, “you can see your dog running away for three days”. Ellie O’Neill’s technique is just as dazzling, but her songs have a darker tint, littered with broken bones and emergencies both physical and emotional; she reappears on the Piano Stage later, performing a breathtaking version of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”. Advertisement Cornwall’s Daisy Rickman casts a spell over the Garden Stage with her dreamy, deep-voiced folk-jazz mantras, driven by a novel combination of banjo and saxophone. When she covers “All’s Tomorrow’s Parties”, it could be Nico herself up there holding court. Rosali hasn’t been able to bring her full band over from the States, but instead we do get to witness her first ever duo show with her North Carolina homegirl HC McEntire. It means a song like “Rewind” shifts tone slightly, from rousing defiance to bittersweet hymn of regret. Ben Chasny’s solo set as Six Organs Of Admittance Occasionally veers closer to one-man heavy metal than it does to… Read More →

Hit Singles

Listen to Neil Young’s new protest song, “Big Crime”

Neil Young has debuted a brand new song, “Big Crime“. He performed it live with his band the Chrome Hearts on August 27, 2025 at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, Illinois, USA, during his current Love Earth World Tour. Advertisement You can watch fan footage below. “Big Crime” is in keeping with Young’s recent political protest songs “Big Change” and “Let’s Roll Again“, from his latest album Talkin To The Trees, which have addressed Donald Trump‘s second Presidency. In “Big Crime“, Young sings about “big crime in DC at THE White House” and “billionaire fascists“. Advertisement IYoung also sings, “Don’t want soldiers on our streets” – presumably, a reference to Trump’s recent mobilization of the US military into Los Angeles and Washington. It is perhaps relevant that Young debuted the song in Chicago, where Trump is also threatening to deploy troops. The lyrics, as per Archives and Sugar Mountain, are: No more great againNo – no more great againThere’s big crime in DC at THE White HouseDon’t need no fascist rulesDon’t want no fascist schoolsDon’t want soldiers on our streetsThere’s big crime in DC at THE White HouseThere’s big crime in DC at THE White HouseGot to get the fascists out… Read More →

Hit Singles

Half Man Half Biscuit’s All Asimov And No Fresh Air reviewed: biting dispatches from veteran outliers

An irrepressible figure around Liverpool for decades, Geoff Davies’ death in September 2023 left a significant void. In the early ’70s, Davies had co-founded Probe Records – catalyst for the city’s punk scene, where the likes of Pete Burns, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie worked behind the counter – before starting up his own Probe Plus label in 1981. He signed numerous local bands, none more impactful than Half Man Half Biscuit. The surprise indie success of 1985’s Back In The DHSS (budget £40; sales 50,000) opened the door to a career HMHB never expected, largely due to Davies’ tenacity in spreading the word. So it’s entirely apposite, 30 years on and another 15 albums later, that All Asimov And No Fresh Air is dedicated to his memory. Advertisement It would doubtless make Davies chuckle, rammed as it is with the kind of poetic ingenuity, absurd fiction and savage wit that makes leader Nigel Blackwell such a unique satirist. Blackwell’s MO has essentially remained unchanged. Consistent with being a gatekeeper of cultural sanity and taste – calling out pomposity, pretension, lack of manners and rampant mediocrity wherever he sees fit – there’s something warmly reassuring about a HMHB song. And… Read More →

Hit Singles

Wood Guthrie’s Woody At Home, Volume 1 & 2 reviewed: legendary cache of songs restored

When Bruce Springsteen accepted the 2021 Woody Guthrie Prize, awarded annually by the Woody Guthrie Centre, his set included “Deportee”, a song he’s performed since 1981. Carefully chosen from Guthrie’s huge catalogue, it’s a beautifully composed excoriation of the way the US treats migrant workers, written by Guthrie after a plane clash in 1948 killed 28 farm workers – referred to in coverage at the time only as “deportees”. Guthrie sought to humanise these anonymous workers, while challenging the iniquities of the system in which they were forced to exist. The song has been performed by Dylan, Joni, The Byrds and many more – but while the words are Woody’s, the music is not. That’s because a recording by Guthrie himself did not exist, until now. Woody At Home (Volumes 1 & 2) contains 22 tracks recorded by Woody Guthrie in 1951 and 1952, including a version of “Deportee” as Guthrie meant it to be heard. The original melody is a talking blues, while the lyrics have a dramatic, empathic shift to the first person. There’s also a version of “This Land Is Our Land” with three new verses, plus another 13 songs that have never been heard at all…. Read More →

Hit Singles

Dave Davies – My Life In Music

LITTLE RICHARDHere’s Little RichardSPECIALITY, 1957Little Richard took my breath away when I first heard him, and he was always in the forefront of all my music. He was raucous and loud and made you wake up and want to rock. I’ve been thankful to him for his influence and humour – his music is sensational and a one-off, never to be repeated. “Long Tall Sally” was inspiring, so we thought it would be a fun cover to do with The Kinks. Ours holds up as a fun and grittier version. I met Little Richard in an elevator once and I thought he was really funny, but he didn’t say anything about The Kinks’ version of his song. He was very into himself but I liked that about him. He was quite a character. ANITA O’DAYAnita O’Day Swings Cole Porter With Billy MayVERVE, 1959I first saw Anita O’Day in the movie Jazz On A Summer’s Day [about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival] which Ray and I went to see together as teenagers. I was gobsmacked by her performance. Cole Porter was a great songwriter, Billy May made great arrangements and Anita O’Day’s voice is really exciting, so together they were a… Read More →

Hit Singles

Mavis Staples announces new album, Sad And Beautiful World

Mavis Staples has announced details of a new studio album, Sad And Beautiful World, which is released on November 7 on ANTI-. You can hear her rendition of Kevin Morby‘s “Beautiful Strangers” below. Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Nathaniel Rateliff), Sad And Beautiful World also includes cameos by artists who have become part of Staples’ world: Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, MJ Lenderman, Justin Vernon. Advertisement [embedded content] “It isn’t easy to put into words what it feels like having one of the best, most important vocalists and cultural figures of both the 20th and 21st century sing one of my songs,” explains Morby on the impact of Staples recording his song. Advertisement “But hearing Mavis sing ‘Beautiful Strangers’ is hands down the greatest moment and highest honor of my career. Far beyond any kind of accolade or acclaim — having one of my biggest heroes sing something I wrote is the most validating and flattering thing that could ever happen to me as a songwriter and person. Thank you, Mavis. Mavis also wields that extremely rare power to take a song somebody else wrote and make it entirely her own. As the person who penned ‘Beautiful Strangers’, I feel I have… Read More →

Hit Singles

Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends reviewed: a deep-diving tribute to R.E.M.

“a fitting hint of calm derangement” Hands crossed on his chest in a stoic cap and shades, or summoning down a chorus with arms stretched wide, he’s suitably enigmatic. The voice is a perfect Georgian tremble, albeit brushed here and there with a touch of Eddie Vedder. As he tells the tale of a man building a wall down the middle of his house to live in different sides as the mood takes him, there’s a fitting hint of calm derangement. If Michael Shannon, Hollywood star of Knives Out and Nocturnal Animals among many other notable movies, is auditioning for the starring role in a Michael Stipe biopic, he’s a shoo-in. Advertisement He has, though, gone seriously method. Having previously played full-album cover shows of records by Lou Reed, The Modern Lovers, Neil Young and The Smiths in Chicago over the course of a decade, in 2023 Shannon and a backing band put together by sometime Bob Mould and Robert Pollard bassist Jason Narducy began touring a 40th anniversary tribute show to R.E.M.’s Murmur across the States. Click here to read our interview with Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and R.E.M. “a committed and powerful impressionist” Skipping Reckoning’s birthday, they mark four decades of Fables Of… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Smiths’ Mike Joyce announces memoir, The Drums

The Smiths‘ Mike Joyce is releasing a memoir, The Drums, through New Modern on November 6. Says Joyce, “I’ve been asked numerous times, ‘What was it like being in The Smiths?’ That’s one hell of a question to answer! On most occasions, my answer’s been, ‘Have you got a couple of days to spare?’ It felt like going into any detail to explain what it was really like would be impossible. The only way it seems to do that would be to commit to paper. It’s been quite a journey going back forty years to re-live some of the experiences encountered during my time with the band. I hope readers feel I’ve answered that question.” Adds Pete Selby, managing director of New Modern: “As the self-confessed biggest Smiths fan in the world, Mike is able to reflect on his time with the band through the eyes of a passionate, loving observer as well as being a trusted and irreverent chronicler of those five astonishing years when he was the backbone of one of the greatest groups of all time.” Joyce’s memoir comes in hardback, ebook and audio.

Hit Singles

Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s rare Born To Run outtake, “Lonely Night in the Park”

Bruce Springsteen has released a rare Born To Run outtake, “Lonely Night In The Park“, to mark the album’s 50th anniversary. You can hear the track below. Tracked during the Record Plant sessions for Born To Run, and heavily considered for album inclusion at the time, “Lonely Night In The Park” can now enjoy it’s first official release. Featuring Springsteen with The E Street Band, the release is accompanied by a selection of rare photographs from Eric Meola’s Born To Run album cover shoot, which you can see below. Photo: Eric Meola Photo: Eric Meola Photo: Eric Meola Photo: Eric Meola Photo: Eric Meola When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Hit Singles

The 200 Greatest British Records of the 1990s…Ranked!

You need to be yourself “It’s about…” On the other end of the line a few years ago, Brett Anderson is pausing for a moment to find precisely the right words before he decides what the excellent 1992 debut single by his group Suede is in fact about. Advertisement After some more consideration, and locating the words, he returns. “The Drowners”, he says thoughtfully, “is about …rolling around in acres of engorged flesh.” As you’ll read in this latest Ultimate Record Collection, the great British records of the 1990s can be about this – but also about much more besides. Ane even if times have changed many of the key British bands of the decade – Oasis, Pulp, Suede, My Bloody Valentine – are enjoying a period of renewed creative strength and popularity. Obviously the headlines have recently been dominated by the successes of the Oasis Live ’25 tour. Elsewhere, Suede and Pulp have recently made impressive new albums. Meanwhile, recordings by other key artists Primal Scream, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Portishead – remain as important and influential as ever. In this new magazine, Uncut’s team of experts have compiled the 200 best albums and singles to make sure you don’t… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Beatles’ announce expanded editions of their Anthology documentary series and albums

Peter Jackson is creating a new episode of the TV series The Beatles‘ Anthology series is being revisited on screen, on record and in print. The original eight-part Anthology documentary series was first broadcast in November 1995 across eight episodes. A restoration of the series has been overseen by Apple Corps’ production team, working with Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films & Park Road Post teams along with Giles Martin, who has created new audio mixes for the majority of the featured music. Advertisement The series has been expanded to include a new, ninth episode, created from previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage of Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr coming together around the release of the original series. The series streams exclusively on Disney+ Beginning November 26. © Apple Corps Ltd The new edition features expanded episodes on Disney+ and a new volume of the companion albums The three-volume Anthology Collection, originally curated by George Martin and now remastered by Giles Martin, has also been expanded to include Anthology 4. This new volume includes 13 previously unreleased demos and session recordings and other rare recordings. It also includes new mixes of The Beatles’ Anthology-associated hit singles: “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”, given… Read More →

Hit Singles

The Replacements to release Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) – listen to an unheard “Androgynous” now

The Replacements are reissuing Let It Be as an expanded, deluxe edition. The group’s 1984 album is reappearing, remastered, alongside a host of live and studio rarities, some previously unreleased, on October 24. Advertisement The extra material includes Goodnight! Go Home!, a live set from Chicago‘s Cubby Bear venue from that year, while Live At City Gardens, a set recorded at a Trenton punk venue is available only via the Rhino website. To go with the announcement, The Replacements have released an alternative version of “Androgynous”, complete with different vocal take and a longer piano intro – listen to the track here. The tracklist for the 4LP version of Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) is: Advertisement 1 I Will Dare2 Favorite Thing3 We’re Comin’ Out4 Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out5 Androgynous6 Black Diamond7 Unsatisfied8 Seen Your Video9 Gary’s Got A Boner10 Sixteen Blue11 Answering Machine12 Gary’s Got A Boner (Alternate Version)13 Favorite Thing (Alternate Version)14 Perfectly Lethal15 Temptation Eyes16 Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive17 Heartbeat, It’s A Lovebeat18 Answering Machine (Home Demo #1)19 Answering Machine (Home Demo #2)20 Street Girl (Takes 1 and 2)21 Sixteen Blue (Alternate Version)22 Unsatisfied (Full Length Version)23 Androgynous (Alternate Version)24 20th Century Boy25 Hey Good… Read More →

Hit Singles

Sanam’s Sametou Sawtan reviewed: confrontational, progressive and at times deeply beautiful

Even by Lebanon’s standards, the period from 2019 to 2021 was a turbulent period in the country’s history. In October 2019 protests against political corruption and the government’s poor handling of the stagnating economy erupted across the country. A new government was formed, yet this too crumbled in the wake of the huge explosion that rocked Beirut’s port area in August 2020. Rolling blackouts, shortages of fuel and medicines and general economic woe kept the protests – many of which were driven as much by women as men – continuing well into 2021. If the problems are still very much present, the turmoil did have one unexpected result. Previously keeping to their own districts of Beirut, the musicians in the city’s underground rock and experimental scene were sparked into greater collaboration by the collective action of the protest movement. The most prominent group to come from that melting pot so far is Sanam. Advertisement Originally coming together to back Faust’s Hans Joachim Irmler at 2021’s Irtijal festival, the six Lebanese musicians stayed together afterwards to create their own group. With their drums, bass, electric guitar and vocals they’re able to harness the power of Western rock music, but their sound… Read More →

Hit Singles

Cass McCombs: “Music should be personal”

“Plenty of dust rippling through time…” In the run-up to Interior Live Oak, his alchemically melodious new LP, Cass McCombs’ plan was to strip the songs’ arrangements to their communicative basics. “When you do that,” he says, “it’s amazing how swift everything moves. Choice can often be a burden so when you’re working with the essentials, it can be exhilarating. If the song is written well enough it really doesn’t need very much except to be understood in a very rudimentary way. Jason [Quever, co-producer] and I fell back into our approach from years ago, him on drums, me on guitar. Plenty of dust ripping through time.” That reconnection with the past shows in the set’s contemplative, at times elegiac mood: “Music should be personal, it should speak from the soul. I don’t think the slickness of session musicians can hold a candle to what friends can do – that’s what lasts, this personal connection.” Advertisement As with 2022’s Heartmind, some of Interior Live Oak deals with the deaths of close friends; yet McCombs has no advice on how to tackle those experiences. “I’ve lost some close people but I have no profound insight on how to grieve. Actually, I… Read More →

Hit Singles

Allen Toussaint’s Toussaint reviewed: New Orleans master steps out on solo landmark

Watching Allen Toussaint late in his career, after his post-Katrina collaboration with Elvis Costello, The River In Reverse, finally legitimised him as a solo performer, he cut a warm-hearted, gentlemanly figure. Lacking a star’s ego or showmanship, he amply compensated with impish charm and eccentric wit. His mild, modest voice barely brushed his songs, and he amiably acknowledged his own albums’ negligible appeal next to the hits he wrote, produced and arranged for fellow New Orleanians Ernie K-Doe (“Here Come The Girls”), Irma Thomas (“Ruler Of My Heart”), The Meters (“Look-ka Py Py”) and Dr. John (“Right Place, Wrong Time”). He was in his element at the piano, hands skipping and flicking the keys in second-line style, priceless pop history reaching back to Professor Longhair at his fingertips. Toussaint was an “oblique character”, a visitor to his studio observed in 1974, as he made his fourth stylistically varied attempt to record his best-known album, Southern Nights, gripped by uncharacteristic uncertainty when he turned his A&R talents inwards. “I try to write songs according to how I visualise their personality,” he said of his other clients, yet he struggled to apply the process to himself. “I don’t respect my voice,” he… Read More →

Hit Singles

Inside our new free Uncut CD: Sounds Of The New West Vol. 7!

The new October 2025 issue of Uncut comes with a free CD – Volume 7 of our much-loved Sounds Of The New West series. The compilation includes 15 of our favourite new tracks from the world of Americana, country, folk and roots rock, with an emphasis this time on the stranger, eerier side of the continent. Advertisement There’s ragged, stumbling rock from the likes of Friendship, Case Oats, Wednesday and Florry, experimental Appalachian folk from Sally Anne Morgan and Joseph Decosimo, dour balladry from Jeffrey Martin and Eve Adams, and even ambient Americana from Shrunken Elvis. See below for the full tracklisting and more… ORDER A COPY FROM US HERE Advertisement 1 FriendshipBetty FordWe start our seventh volume of Sounds Of The New West with this fine cut from the Philadelphia group’s fifth album, Caveman Wakes Up. Dan Wriggins weaves a mini-movie, inspired by watching a documentary on the life of the former First Lady, while behind him the group are laidback and ramshackle in all the right ways. 2 Case OatsBitter Root LakeThe Chicago duo of Casey Walker and Spencer Tweedy have, with Last Missouri Exit, made one of the strongest debut albums of 2025 so far. Here’s a… Read More →

Hit Singles

That’s Them In The Spotlight

“The place went nuts!” On a chilly Thursday night in February, Michael Stipe took the stage at the 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia. Peter Buck was already there playing guitar and Stipe just wanted to sing backup on “Pretty Persuasion” with arguably the best tribute band in the world right now, featuring such R.E.M. superfans as Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon, veteran indie guitarist Jason Narducy and members of The Mountain Goats, Wilco and Poi Dog Pondering. “I’m no dipshit,” says Shannon. “I know people would rather watch Michael Stipe than me, so I gave him the floor. He didn’t disappoint.” [embedded content] Mike Mills jumped up to sing along, and halfway through the Reckoning track, guitarist Dag Juhlin spotted Bill Berry at the side of the stage. He motioned manically for him to get up there and Berry happily obliged. It wasn’t a reunion necessarily, but it was certainly an event. “The 40 Watt exploded,” says Narducy. “We were all looking at each other in disbelief. Everybody got choked up.” Advertisement Word spread fast around Athens and the following night the crowd at the 40 Watt was electric with anticipation. “I heard all about the festivities from the night before… Read More →

Hit Singles

“Light Me Up” Signals a New Era for Tyra

“Light Me Up” pushes Tyra into a more vibrant and energetic space, leaving behind some of the shadows that defined her debut, “Thank You For Leaving.” The Swiss dark pop artist delivers a faster, brighter track that still carries the emotional weight fans expect. This single expands her sound while deepening the honesty and intensity at the heart of her music. The song opens with a kind of haunted nostalgia, reflecting on innocence lost and dreams washed away. The verses build patiently, with her voice fragile but unwavering. Then the chorus bursts open, catching fire with the kind of melody that stays with you long after the track ends. There’s urgency here, but also hope. In lines like “Light me up when I’m feeling down”, Tyra reaches for connection through the static, offering vulnerability without apology. The production is clean, atmospheric, and built around contrast. Synths flicker like city lights. Beats hit hard enough to move a crowd, but the real movement is emotional. Tyra’s voice dances between softness and strength, anchoring the track in raw truth. The bridge hits especially hard, touching on isolation and abandonment with a brutal clarity that never turns self-pitying. What sets Tyra apart isn’t… Read More →