Hit Singles
Zappa
There aren’t many musicians harder to squeeze into documentary film format than Frank Zappa. With 62 albums released during his lifetime, plus dozens more after his 1993 death, and a musical style that combines compositional complexity with sophomoric humour, Zappa’s career is impervious to today’s playlist and streaming doc synopses. In his film, director Alex Winter represents this impossible task by returning again and again to the Zappa archives, shelves stacked floor to ceiling with audio and video tape in the basement of his former home. But the 129-minute film largely punts on trying to wrap its arms around...
The Weather Station Ignorance
The first thought: wow, this is different. Through her first four albums as The Weather Station, the songs of Tamara Lindeman seemed like private musings, the sort of words we might find ourselves saying out loud to an absent friend, sibling, lover. The most intimate and honest thoughts, sometimes only half-formed and tentatively presented, finding a vehicle in songs that employed the conventional folk-based singer-songwriter mode as a flexible and unobstructive armature, edging into the realm of grunge-lite on her last studio recording, three years ago. She was moving through the music like a traveller through slowly changing landscapes....
Mary Wilson: “We were just in it to make music”
Originally published in Uncut in 2015 Marvin Gaye What’s Going On TAMLA, 1971 Mary Wilson: The LP cover captures him in all his beauty as a man and as a thinker, and the songs take us into the new generation that was at hand. They touch me in my very core. I could feel the pain in the words and realised I was not the only one who felt the heaviness of what was going on in the world. Marvin’s was not a common trait found in the industry – he was a philosopher trapped in his own beliefs...
Bob Marley Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide
Continuing his 75th birthday celebrations, we present the deluxe expanded Ultimate Music Guide to Bob Marley. Following the artist from his early collaborations with Lee Perry, to his breakthrough and global stardom, it’s the definitive guide to the legend and his music. Get up, stand up! Buy a copy here, with free P&P to the UK
Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to Bob Marley
Buy a copy of Uncut’s Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to Bob Marley by clicking here For anyone who – like me – first became aware of Bob Marley when the artist was a recently-deceased musician lately become a benign and spiritual presence over pop music, his album Legend a fixture at the top of the album charts, the story of his journey from longtime music business trier to global superstar is an utterly compelling one. Recent celebrations of what would have been his 75th birthday have occasioned an opportunity to tell in detail the story of that remarkable transformation....
Edel MJ Creates Music Inspired By Real Life On “Three Hearts”
California-based artist Edel MJ cements his rising career with a hot new Latin joint titled “Three Hearts.” The soon-to-be hit displays the artist’s vivid palette made of a high dose of charisma and soothing vocal skills. He demonstrates his talent in merging trap, reggaeton, and r&b on “Three Hearts.” The song was dropped via Higher Living Music. Edel MJ’s sound is full of warmth, intimacy, sensuality, and grooviness. The song has a perfect sound design and production that allow it to shine bright from beginning to end. Edel MJ puts an incredible amount of soulfulness into the piece, making...
Goat Girl On All Fours
Those casting a casual glance at Goat Girl’s arrival a few years back might have thought of them as gothic punks, mixing the Bad Seeds and The Libertines on singles like “The Man” and “Cracker Drool”. Exploring the patchwork quilt of their self-titled debut, though – 19 songs in 40 minutes – stranger worlds might have revealed themselves. It all began with a nightmarish minute of queasy synth, piano and drum machine on “Salty Sounds”, and even evoked The Residents on interludes “Dance Of Dirty Leftovers” and “Hank’s Theme”. It was lo-fi, awkward and charming. For their second effort,...
Nancy Sinatra Start Walkin’: 1965-1976
Quentin Tarantino scored the opening moments of 2003’s Kill Bill: Volume 1 to Nancy Sinatra’s forlorn performance of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”. It’s a canny pick, even if the title of the Sonny Bono-penned number made it an obvious choice for Hollywood’s pre-eminent record-nerd auteur, who’d just given his viewers their first glimpse of Uma Thurman’s character as she’s shot in the head by her unseen lover. While Sinatra’s voice possesses a delicacy that starkly contrasts with the bloodshed to come, the lyrics hint at darker things, as do the feelings of love, hurt and resignation...
Sonny Rollins: “Musicians can live a charmed life”
The current issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online here, with no delivery charge to UK addresses – features a rare interview with 90-year-old saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins. In the extract below, the last living legend of bebop discusses the 52nd Street jazz scene, his stint in Rikers Island prison for armed robbery, and how Charlie Parker helped him kick heroin… You were born in Harlem in 1930, during what was known as the Harlem Renaissance. What kind of place was it in your childhood? It was an extraordinary environment. We were surrounded by...Recent Posts
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