Tag : Culture

Tag: Culture

The 50 best albums of 2023, No 8 – Blur: The Ballad of Darren

Blur’s ninth album is a perfect mixture of middle-aged remorse with swooning pop, a strong profession summation• See the other top 50 albums• More on the best music of 2023• More on the best culture of 2023Prior to the release of The Ballad of Darren...

Blur: The Narcissist review – a band finally at ease with themselves

(Parlophone)The first single from upcoming album The Ballad of Darren chugs alongside to a motorik beat, rising to an anthemic chorus that seems to be reflecting on the band’s career pathThere are two sides to Blur’s sporadic reunions. There are the...

Fatoumata Diawara: London Ko review – exuberance rules

(Wagram)With star friends to the fore and Damon Albarn co-producing, the fashionable Malian singer-songwriter speaks her thoughts on her wide-ranging third studio albumThe Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara has all the time been concerning the future. T...

Gorillaz: Cracker Island review – bittersweet tunes for anxious times

(Parlophone)A considerate eighth album blends Damon Albarn’s state-of-the-world considerations with the skills of collaborators from Stevie Nicks to ThundercatRegardless that their eighth LP discovered this cartoon band decamping to California to wor...

Gorillaz: Cracker Island review – smaller, subtler, and better for it

(Parlophone)Damon Albarn has reined within the excess – although there are nonetheless cameos from the likes of Dangerous Bunny and Stevie Nicks – for a trim album that is likely one of the band’s greatestRight here’s a sobering thought for anybody o...

Blur’s Dave Rowntree: ‘I still wake at 3am thinking I’ve frittered my life away’

Drummer, lawyer, composer, politician… Blur’s busiest member on the troubled childhood that influenced his new solo album, Radio Songs, and the band’s summer time reunion gigsA couple of weeks before Christmas, and the planning meetings have just fin...

Blur to reunite for one-off Wembley show next year

Band will headline on the London stadium on 8 July for his or her 35th anniversary, supported by Slowthai, Self Esteem and JockstrapBlur have announced a one-off 2023 present to happen at London’s Wembley stadium on 8 July. It is going to be the long...

‘Like them, we’re fragile’: how Randall Poster assembled his star-packed birdsong project

The esteemed music supervisor enlisted stars similar to Mark Ronson, Nick Cave, Beck, Sean Penn and Tilda Swinton for an formidable new challengeWithin the early days of Covid, when lockdowns held tight, even the loudest cities fell into silence. Wit...

What links Punchdrunk’s Burnt City to Patti Smith and John McEnroe?

As the celebrated theatre group launches a new immersive show, comply with it down the rabbit gap by way of Damon Albarn, Meryl Streep and Glenda JacksonThe theatre company Punchdrunk has expanded what’s attainable on stage – and spawned many immersi...

What links The Great British Menu to the underbelly of the 00s New York scene?

From Miquita Oliver by way of American Attire to Oxfordshire cheese, we tumble down a five-course rabbit holeThe Great British Menu (BBC) kicked off its 17th season this month. Not MasterChef: The Professionals, nor own-brand MasterChef, nor The Grea...

Taylor Swift criticises Damon Albarn for saying she doesn’t write her own songs

The Blur and Gorillaz frontman apologised to Swift, claiming that a ‘conversation about songwriting’ in the LA Occasions was ‘lowered to clickbait’Taylor Swift has referred to as out Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur and later of Gorillaz, on Twitter...

Tony Allen: A Retrospective review – sprawling tribute gets the crowd on its feet

Royal Pageant Hall, LondonAt virtually three hours, Damon Albarn, Femi Koleoso, Ben Okri and co still struggled to encapsulate the complete gamut of Allen’s creativityIn the 18 months since pioneering Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen died, the extent of h...

Damon Albarn: The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows review – beautifully haunting

(Transgressive)Probably the most pushed artists of the Britpop period, now unbothered by business success, is again with a second solo album that drifts alongside in a melancholy, stoned mistWhen Might’s Glastonbury livestream finally creaked into li...

On my radar: Damon Albarn’s cultural highlights

The musician and composer on a magical efficiency by Udo Kier, a west African drumming app and where to find a style of PalestineDamon Albarn was born in east London in 1968. Concerned with music from a young age, he studied at East 15 Appearing Facu...