Paul Morley on pointless lists

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coldplay, lily allen, manic street preachers, mia, muse, pj harvey, pop

Published Nov. 28, 2009 at 7:05 p.m.

Why get worked up about a shopping list of albums? Unless it's my shopping list… ... I don't know about you – and I'll just get this out of my system before the ghost of Christmas past comes to give me what for – but if there's one thing worse than a carefully collated pseudo-objective quasi-cool neo-diagnostic list of the best 50 albums from the previous year or decade published in the run-up to Christmas that narrowly and predictably reflects merely the general taste, cultural character,

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Radiohead: band of the decade

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british, new order, radiohead

Published Nov. 28, 2009 at 7:08 p.m.

They went into the Noughties prepared to jettison much of what had made them huge in the 90s. They leave the decade as an entirely singular and innovative band ... It's easy to forget, but Radiohead almost never made it into this decade. After OK Computer the Oxford quintet refused to do the obvious and become a conventional stadium rock act: instead they started again, binning most of the guitars along the way. Initial sessions for 2000's electronica-influenced Kid A were characterised by

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Michael Jackson: now for the encore

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cast, james, pop, prodigy, seven, shed

Published Oct. 3, 2009 at 6:08 p.m.

In Los Angeles, lurid and bizarre allegations continue to swirl around Michael Jackson even as the film of his final concert rehearsals prepares to hit screens this month ... Everyone, perhaps, in the end, gets the funeral they deserve. If Michael Jackson has really been looking down at his send-off – as many of his more ardent internet acolytes believe him to have been – then, freed from earthly cares, he will certainly have appreciated some of the ironies of it: all of his dreams and most

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Spandau Ballet, the Blitz kids and the birth of the New Romantics

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british, depeche mode, pop, punk, seven

Published Oct. 3, 2009 at 6:08 p.m.

A movement that went on to dominate the charts and fashion worldwide grew out of a small club scene in London in the early 80s. One insider recalls how Steve Strange and Spandau Ballet revitalised the UK music scene ... When my phone rang in January 1980, little did I realise its message meant: "Put out the cat. You're coming to the party of your life." The voice on the other end spoke without pausing: "My name's Steve Strange and I run a club called the Blitz on Tuesdays and I'm starting a

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Gang Of Four

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college, gang of four, providence, punk

Published Sept. 22, 2009 at 11:46 a.m.

Thirty years after the seminal punk-funk album 'Entertainment' , Andy Gill and pals return for more angular fun ...

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Andy Gill meets Andy Gill

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gang of four, p

Published Sept. 17, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.
516553-andy-gill-meets-andy-gill

When Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill's wife, Time magazine's London Bureau Chief Catherine Mayer, arrives home from work, she gets out a camera to take a picture of myself and her husband together. "I'm fed up having to deny I'm married to you," she explains. I can sympathise, but if she's fed up with the confusion, imagine how Andy and I feel, having now spent three decades denying we're each other ...

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Bat for Lashes: she's not wicked, nor kooky. And don't tell her she's like Tori Amos

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amy winehouse, lily allen, mercury prize, pop, punk, seven, streets, wire

Published Sept. 5, 2009 at 6:06 p.m.

Follow Natasha Khan, the artist known as Bat for Lashes, across a series of revealing interviews in New York and Britain as the cult artist hits the mainstream with her album Two Suns and a Mercury nomination ... Natasha Khan does not feel herself. She is standing in the living room of a cramped Brooklyn apartment on a frosty January morning. If first impressions count, then the 29-year-old performer is not sure that she is making the right one. She is wearing a blonde bob wig and scarlet

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Dizzee Rascal: Tongue 'n' Cheek | CD review

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lily allen's, mercury prize, pop

Published Sept. 5, 2009 at 6:05 p.m.

(Dirtee Stank) ... The best thing to come out of Bow since the train out of Bow, it's nonetheless bewildering that Dizzee Rascal now finds himself on the verge of national treasure status. Rewind to 2002 when 17-year old plain Dylan Mills wrote I Luv U, his take-no-prisoners update on the age-old battle of the sexes ("it's a shame you got had by the whores!"), set against a squelching bass and chattering drums. It sounded like nothing else on earth, and shone a light on east London's emerging

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Paul Morley: Imagine a world without the Beatles. Would anyone except Oasis notice the difference?

Tagged with:

britpop, oasis, pop, post-punk, punk, sex pistols

Published Sept. 4, 2009 at 11:23 a.m.

Imagine a world without the Beatles. Would anyone except Oasis notice the difference? ... I don't know about you, but if there had been a world where Lennon and McCartney never met, possibly because they were on different buses, or one lost his threepenny bit and had to walk, and therefore the Beatles never existed, then, at the very least, it would be very difficult to begin an essay like this wondering what the world would be like if the Beatles never existed ... I turned into a teenager in

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Gang of Four, Macbeth, London

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gang of four, gang of four's

Published Aug. 25, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.
474656-gang-of-four--macbeth--london

Just three songs into the Gang of Four's "secret" show at this tiny pub in London's trendy-but-shabby Hoxton, and vocalist Jon King is swinging from the lighting rig and howling gleefully. Is this any way for a man in his fifties to behave? ...

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