The winners of every category at the 2024 Brits, updated as the ceremony progresses
• Brit awards 2024: women dominate as Raye scores record-smashing six wins
• Brit awards 2024: as it happened
Blur – The Ballad of Darren
J Hus – Beautiful and Brutal Yard
Little Simz – No Thank You
Raye – My 21st Century Blues – WINNER!
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
Audience comes to Scottish singer’s aid at Pyramid stage, while late-arriving US star performs a cappella after midnight curfew
As this year’s Glastonbury festival comes to a close, here is a look back at some of the weekend’s most memorable moments.
Continue reading...As her breakthrough album Born to Die turns 10, we pick the best of an artist whose beautiful, damned aesthetic changed the course of pop
Apparently inspired by the suicide of a friend and remixed by Cedric Gervais into that rarest of things – a party-starting Lana Del Rey banger – Summertime Sadness was a hook-laden highlight of her second album Born to Die, later becoming a key text in the #prettywhenyoucry “sad girl” aesthetic Del Rey inadvertently spawned.
Continue reading...Adele, Ed Sheeran, Abba, Lana Del Rey and Drake all found success in 2021 by delivering more of the same – a result of how our chaotic lives, on and offline, are informing our taste
The biggest album launch of 2021 began with a social media statement tacitly assuring fans that nothing had changed. Adele was once more in a state of heartbreak – “a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil … consumed by my own grief” – and that the contents of her album 30 would reflect that, as mired in romantic misery as its predecessors, 25 and 21. It was the musical equivalent, she said, of a friend who comes over “with a bottle of wine and a takeaway” to discuss the disastrous state of your love life.
The second-biggest album launch of 2021 was preceded by its creators proudly announcing they had written it “absolutely trend-blind”. Abba had traversed a considerable musical distance over the course of their original career, buffeted by the shifting musical trends of the 70s and early 80s – from the clompy Europop of their debut album to the sophisticated, chilly electronics of The Visitors, by way of glam and sleek disco – but Voyage would offer them preserved in amber, exactly as they were in the late 70s, unspoiled by any musical trends from the 40 years since their split.
Continue reading...Musician posed with fans at a Los Angeles bookshop wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not fully cover her nose and mouth
Fans of Lana Del Rey have criticised her for wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not appear to fully cover her nose and mouth at a surprise poetry reading and book signing event.
The musician read from her new collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, and posed with fans at a Barnes and Noble store in Los Angeles at the weekend, wearing a net facial covering that did not seem to assist in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Continue reading...The singer-songwriter said ‘there has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me’, citing her lyrics on ‘submissive roles’
Lana Del Rey has hit out at the accusations that she “glamorises abuse” that have trailed her throughout her decade-long career. In a lengthy text post to her Instagram account, the 34-year-old singer criticised “female writers and alt singers” who she says have blamed her “minor lyrical exploration detailing my sometimes submissive or passive roles in my relationships” for “[setting] women back hundreds of years”.
She wrote: “In reality I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships all over the world.” She said she had been “honest and optimistic” about her “challenging” relationships: “News flash! That’s just how it is for many women.”
Continue reading...The queen of pop gets intimate, Taylor Swift feels the sunshine and Stormzy takes on the world … plus, classical celebrations begin for Beethoven’s 250th
Continue reading...