Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I had only the faintest awareness of who Kate Bush was. She appeared virtually locked in the embrace of Peter Gabriel in the video for “Don’t Give Up” on “Top of the Pops”. I knew she was considered a “serious”, earnest artist, and that she had an uncanny knack of being perennially nominated for the Best British Female at the BRITs, including in years in which she appeared relatively inactive. As biographer Graeme Thomson puts it in his (really quite good) book “Under The Ivy”, she was also the industry’s corporate sweetheart: a…

The Pet Shop Boys’ “Electric” Tour is a 105-date behemoth, spanning eleven months and visiting comfortably over 30 countries. For all of that coming, seeing and conquering, however, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe arguably face a uniquely difficult – if not unenviable – gig in topping the bill of the final day at Bingley Music Live.

Pause for a brief bit of background. As festivals go, Bingley – which has undergone various incarnations since its original establishment in the early ‘90s; and mushroomed since joining the multiple-stage event-set in 2007 – is a bit of an odd animal. A champion…

Fri 26 Sep – Kiss Me Once Tour 2014

During 2013 I read a slightly obscure, slender and yet oddly riveting 1980s novel by Nicholson Baker, "The Mezzanine". Baker's main protagonist observes the world with the realisation that in late-capitalism our memories, however unreliable, aren't so much free-standing impressions in our brains as multi-layered, often proxy constructions, yoked to and made manifest in the objects we fill our lives and homes with: the consumer goods and products that we see in commercials and supermarket aisles.

Almost no-one would claim that the run of 13 straight near-identikit Stock/Aitken/Waterman Top Ten hits…

Back in the misty depths of the comparatively recent past (aka 2009), I was initially sceptical about the La Roux sound/concept. There were several signs that didn't augur well. The notes that only dogs could hear in "In For The Kill". The controversy-baiting sound bites. The whiff of one-trick-pony Eighties pastiche; the general Sunday-broadsheet-hype…

Then, over the course of that spring and summer, the songs themselves started to worm their way under my skin. Thanks in part to a transformative Skrillex remix, "In For The Kill" virtually snuck in from behind and - bucking the nadir of the late-noughties trend…

Fri 18 Apr – Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Sophie Ellis-Bextor ("SEB" hereafter!) is, it's fair to say, fairly giddy. Her self-funded fifth studio album, "Wanderlust", released in January 2014, has just been certified silver, and has already outperformed its ill-fated, delay-beset predecessor, 2011's Make A Scene, five times over. It's the start of a long holiday weekend for the vast majority (if not all) of the audience, who could also be forgiven for being in a slightly raucous mood. To SEB's expressed astonishment, however, they're "quiet during the quiet bits", itself no mean feat in an age of gig-going where the distraction…

Sat 5 Apr – Goldfrapp, We Were Evergreen

There’s an intriguingly unscripted, incongruous between-song moment mid-way through Goldfrapp’s York Barbican performance. Though the associated tour is primarily in support of the duo’s sixth studio-set Tales of Us, a brooding, slightly eerie collection of musical vignettes addressing (among other things) such traditionally party-pooping themes as infidelity, murder, and transgenderism; the otherwise-reverential atmosphere is suddenly punctuated with a shrieked, borderline-pleading heckle. “…Play ‘Rocket’!!!” cries out one anonymous lady somewhere in the crowd, clearly having the time of her life but apparently also chomping at the bit for a gear-change.

A mischievous murmur…

I can sometimes feel slightly odd, having greedily devoured (and loved) all five of Goldfrapp's previous studio albums. Maybe it's just an unusual type of person who's as enthralled by faux-glam-disco-sleaze as they are by ambient-psych-folk (although Alison and Will's sound has of course encompassed umpteen other things, and perhaps the one thing that they can be relied upon to produce each time is something that eludes precise definition anyway). I bailed on hearing their sixth opus, Tales of Us, at its official premiere (a stiflingly hot Manchester International Festival), perhaps due to a feeling of trepidation…as a diehard fan,…

Tue 3 Sep – Björk

On a balmy, early September evening in London, pipe-organ renditions of selected highlights from Bjork's vast, now twenty-years-long solo back catalogue usher her loyal fanbase (who, despite a preponderance of impeccably-groomed facial hair among the men, elude precise characterisation as any one single demographic) into Alexandra Palace's Palm Court, the antechamber for this one-off show, tickets for which were pounced upon when it was unexpectedly announced back in June. (The gig is, in turn, closing a two-year tour which is unlikely to be mimicked or bettered any time soon). Although the tunes are familiar, given…

Having lived with this album for a week now - and other reviews/opinions for slightly longer! - I can't guarantee that what follows will sound like an entirely original assessment of Madonna's 12th album. For those who are interested, though, here goes…

"Girl Gone Wild"
Kind-of the love child of Celebration, Sorry and Get Together, album opener "GGW" finds Madonna on familiar, self-plagiarising territory. It starts with a portentous spoken-word prayer intro with synthy strings before descending into a common-or-garden four-to-the-floor number. The phrases "The room is spinning/Must be the tanqueray" and "Here it comes/When I hear them 808 drums"…

So, my top ten (in no particular order)….

1. Beth Ditto "I Wrote The Book" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UECeJzd-G30&ob=av2e)

All the promise of "Cruel Intentions" - her 2009 collaboration with Simian Mobile Disco - and then some (James Holden repeated his production trick of course in November, with Little Boots' "Shake"). My enduring memory of this track is it going down a storm on the dancefloor at our wedding. The video is also an example to other "artistes" (… mentioning no names!) of how a Madonna homage should really be done!

2. Cut Copy "Pharaohs and Pyramids" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxF4Ps7tl0Y)

This track has a build-up…