Category Archives: Pop and rock

‘A generation that decided to fight’: making music amid chaos in Venezuela

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As they endure a political crisis that has led millions to flee, Venezuela’s musicians are striving to make life worth living

‘Everything here happens at gunpoint,” someone tells me when I arrive in Caracas. Venezuela is in crisis, suffering from a lack of power, water and basic supplies and enduring widespread violence on the streets: the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence estimates that the country has the world’s highest murder rate at 81.4 per 100,000 people. According to the UN, around 4.5 million people have fled since 2015, escaping an economy in a state of hyperinflation and the authoritarian rule of president Nicolás Maduro.

The chaos has intensified recently, as opposition leader Juan Guaidó – recognised as the true president by more than 50 countries – was forced to storm a barricade of riot police to gain access to the country’s national assembly. Donald Trump has now rolled out economic sanctions to try to squeeze Maduro out of power – but they will squeeze an already embattled Venezuelan public, too.

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‘The road will kill you’: why older musicians are cancelling tours

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Health concerns have caused a number of high-profile singers to quit the road but what will it all mean for the industry at large?

In a chilling quote from much-loved music documentary The Last Waltz, about The Band’s final concert in 1976, leader Robbie Robertson looks straight into the camera and ominously says: ‘The road will kill you.”

At the time, he was just 34. Yet, over four decades later, musicians of his storied era are still on the road – and facing escalating health issues as a consequence. Since the start of this year, Ozzy Osbourne, 71, had to cancel his 2020 tour to seek treatment for issues related to his recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Elton John, 72, had to ditch dates on what was already advertised as his goodbye tour, after declaring himself “extremely unwell”. Madonna, 61, was forced to scratch a bunch of shows from her British tour due to “overwhelming pain” from injuries she sustained on the road which already caused her to nix some US dates. Meanwhile, Aerosmith felt compelled to disinvite drummer Joey Kramer from their Grammy performance, over alleged difficulties the 69-year-old was having keeping the beat, while the group itself has had to scratch dates due to various health issues experienced by Steven Tyler. Then, just this last week, the 56-year-old frontman of Metallica, James Hetfield, needed to cancel shows to, in his words, “look after my mental, physical and spiritual health”.

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‘She exists out of time’: Umm Kulthum, Arab music’s eternal star

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With a voice adored by Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and millions across the Arab world, Umm Kulthum rejected gender norms with her powerful, political music. But can her 90-minute songs work in a new stage musical?

You hear the Umm Kulthum cafe before you see it. Violins swoon and a monumental voice surges from a doorway in Cairo’s Tawfiqia neighbourhood. Outside, couples smoke shisha on plastic chairs, dwarfed by two immense golden busts depicting the singer known variously as “the star of the east”, “mother of the Arabs” and “Egypt’s fourth pyramid”.

Umm Kulthum recorded about 300 songs over a 60-year career and her words of love, loss and longing drift reliably from taxis, radios and cafes across the Arab world today, 45 years after her death. Despite singing complex Arabic poetry, she influenced some of the west’s greatest singers. Bob Dylan said: “She’s great. She really is.” Shakira and Beyoncé have performed dance routines to her music. Maria Callas called her “the incomparable voice”.

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Pop star Duffy says she was raped, drugged and held captive

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Welsh singer made statement on Instagram saying she was held captive for several days

Aimee Duffy, the Welsh pop singer known as Duffy who retreated from the public eye following her hugely successful debut album Rockferry, has said she was drugged, held captive and raped by an unidentified person.

In a statement on her official Instagram account she said: “The truth is, and please trust me I am OK and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.”

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‘I want to scream when I hear The Specials’: readers on the songs they can’t listen to any more

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Following Guardian writers on the songs they can no longer listen to, here are some of the soundtracks you mentioned

Third year at university, the bloke I was flat sharing with played Ghost Town by The Specials every morning as his alarm. Every morning for a damn year. I used to like Ghost Town, it’s one of the great protest songs (and its appearance on Father Ted is sublime). Now I want to scream whenever I hear it. It was like torture. Melvazord

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Andy Gill, influential guitarist with Gang of Four, dies aged 64

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Gill’s guitar sound inspired Kurt Cobain, Michael Stipe and Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose debut album he produced

Andy Gill, the guitarist with Gang of Four, whose sound influenced generations of post-punk bands, has died aged 64.

The news was announced by the band on their social media channels on Saturday. No cause of death has yet been announced, but they referred to him as “listening to mixes for the upcoming record, whilst planning the next tour from his hospital bed”.

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Taylor Swift discloses fight with eating disorder in new documentary

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‘There’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting,’ she tells Miss Americana director Lana Wilson

Taylor Swift has disclosed her experiences with an eating disorder in a new documentary. In Taylor Swift: Miss Americana, which received its premiere at the Sundance film festival last night, Swift says that she would starve herself to the extent that she felt as if she might pass out during live performances.

The 30-year-old star said she would make a list of everything she ate, exercised constantly and shrank to a UK size two; she is now a size 10. “I would have defended it to anybody who said ‘I’m concerned about you,’” she tells the film’s director, Lana Wilson.

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‘It hurts to be torn apart’: Justin Bieber’s wife Hailey hits out at online trolls

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The frequent target of trolling tells her 24m Instagram followers social media ‘is SUCH a breeding ground for cruelty towards each other’

Hailey Bieber has hit out at online trolls and said “it hurts to be torn apart on the internet”.

The model and wife of Justin Bieber is frequently targeted by fans of Selena Gomez, who previously dated the Canadian pop star.

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Madonna, Motown and Mongolian metal: the music to listen out for in 2020

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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

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Kelly Fraser, Inuit singer-songwriter, dies at 26

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Fraser, from Canada, gained attention for Inuit-language cover of Rihanna’s Diamonds and advocacy for indigenous culture

Kelly Fraser, a Canadian pop artist who gained attention for an Inuit-language cover of Rihanna’s Diamonds, part of her advocacy efforts for her indigenous culture, has died. She was 26.

Thor Simonsen, Fraser’s friend and producer, said he was told the day after Christmas by the singer-songwriter’s family that she had died. The family declined to release details, including the cause of death, Simonsen said.

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Allee Willis, songwriter behind Friends theme tune, dies aged 72

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Willis penned hits for Earth, Wind & Fire, and wrote score for musical The Color Purple

Allee Willis, the US songwriter behind the Friends theme tune as well as hits such as September by Earth, Wind & Fire, has died aged 72.

She had suffered a sudden heart attack and Willis’s partner, Prudence Fenton was described as being “in total shock” over the news.

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‘I never wanted a normal life’: Billie Eilish, the Guardian artist of 2019

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Her debut album confirmed her as the most exciting pop artist of her age. In the week she turns 18, Eilish talks about fame, fandom and her fears of adulthood

Billie Eilish was a star long before 2019. For a lot of 13- and 14-year-olds she was a game-changer the moment her song Ocean Eyes appeared on Soundcloud in 2015: an artist who spoke directly to her audience because she was her audience, a teenage girl who had co-written the song as a piece of homework and uploaded it for her teacher to access. But 2019 was the year that Eilish’s impact on pop became unavoidable: a show-stealing performance at Coachella; the youngest person to be nominated for all four biggest Grammy categories; the loud praise of fellow musicians from Tyler, the Creator to Thom Yorke; and a raft of younger artists operating under her influence.

Most importantly, the release of her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, confirmed her as the most exciting pop artist of her age: a dark, adventurous, eclectic set of songs, that appeared blithely unconcerned with chasing trends. Recorded at home by Eilish and her elder brother Finneas, without co-writers or big-name producers, it showed that, in a world of pop stars desperate to be seen as auteurs, Eilish genuinely is one – a fact underlined by her directing the impressively disturbing video for single Xanny. She turned 18 yesterday.

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Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You reaches US No 1 after 25 years

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‘We did it,’ Carey says, after streaming services finally help seasonal hit to top spot

It is perhaps the most cherished, euphoric and vocally impressive Christmas song of all time, but Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You had never reached the US No 1 spot – until now.

When it was released as part of an EP in 1994, US chart rules meant it couldn’t compete with singles. Later reclassified as a standalone song in 2000, it has been a seasonal fixture in the charts ever since – and after 25 years has finally reached No 1.

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Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson dies aged 61

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The voice behind It Must Have Been Love had suffered from health problems after undergoing radiation treatment for a brain tumour

Marie Fredriksson, who as the singer of Roxette was one of the most recognisable voices in 1980s and 90s pop, has died aged 61 following a long illness.

Her family said in a statement to Expressen, a newspaper in her native Sweden: “It is with great sadness that we have to announce that one of our biggest and most beloved artists is gone.”

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Viva Selena! How a murdered pop star gives hope to Latinos

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Twenty-five years after her death – and with a Netflix series on the way – Selena’s approach to straddling Mexican and American identities is proving invaluable in the age of Trump

On a sticky Sunday in August, more than 5,000 people are standing through sporadic torrents of rain to attend a free outdoor concert in New York’s Central Park. The event, Selena for Sanctuary, has been organised in response to the Trump administration’s severe policies on undocumented individuals, and the crowd has gathered to support immigrant-rights organisations such as Make the Road New York – all in the name of the pop star Selena Quintanilla.

Selena has been dead for nearly 25 years. The superstar was shot and killed in 1995, at the age of 23, by her fanclub manager, Yolanda Saldívar. Yet at the concert, she seems more present than ever: fans wear T-shirts emblazoned with her wide, red-lipped smile. Others wear one-piece jumpsuits and jackets with gleaming rhinestones, nods to the sparkling stage outfits Selena would often make herself. From the stage, a parade of up-and-coming bilingual artists belts out covers of her classic cumbia hits: Mexican-American indie star Cuco offers his take on Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, dream-pop newcomer Ambar Lucid sings Techno Cumbia, and Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis performs Como la Flor. Their songs are a celebration during a turbulent time, reflecting how Selena still serves as a symbol of hope in the fight for immigrants’ rights.

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Melanie C: ‘I’ve had an incredible career. It’s time I accepted myself’

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It’s 20 years since Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm went solo, but, she says, it has taken until 2019 – ironically, the year of the band’s reunion tour – for her to really find herself

It’s often said that meeting a Spice Girl feels a lot like encountering a cartoon character. You can see it with unfiltered Mel B, poised Victoria and Emma, still resolutely family-friendly at 43. Geri’s modern lady-of-the-manor act is the antithesis of her old outrageousness, yet she is still swimming in camp. But with Mel C – or Melanie C as she styles herself these days – that’s not the case.

Even if she was your favourite Spice Girl, and you have never met one before, and she turns up to your interview in a closed Kings Cross bar wearing a hoodie and trackies – just as she would have done when Melanie Chisholm became Sporty Spice 25 years ago – it’s still only the little things that nod to the fact she was in one of the biggest girl groups of all time. She speaks quietly, often in an awed whisper, and is not beholden to the propaganda-like version of the Spice Girls’ story that some of her bandmates uphold.

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Adam Cohen on Leonard: ‘It was daunting finishing my dad’s last music’

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Leonard Cohen’s final songs can now be heard on the album Thanks for the Dance. Here his son Adam talks about their emotionally complex relationship

“There are some songs I’m half way through that are not bad,” Leonard Cohen said in his final interview, published in the New Yorker on 17 October 2016. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs.” Three weeks later, on 7 November, having released his 14th album, You Want It Darker, Cohen died in his sleep after a fall in his home in Los Angeles. The task of finishing those songs was passed, at Cohen’s request, to his son, Adam. The results can be heard on Thanks for the Dance, released last Friday.

“Essentially, I wanted to take the listener on an unconscious journey through the sonic signatures of my father’s career, without it sounding like a regurgitation,” says Adam Cohen, who, in his soft Canadian cadences and carefully constructed sentences, can sound uncannily like his father. “My dad always rejected invitations from producers like Rick Rubin and Don Was to make a retro record that sounded like his older stuff. He said he didn’t want to do the nostalgia act.”

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Taylor Swift says she’s being banned from singing her old hits at AMAs

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Singer appeals to fans for help in escalation of feud with Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta

Taylor Swift’s performance at the American music awards is in doubt, as is the future of a new Netflix documentary about her, the singer has claimed, thanks to an ongoing feud with “tyrannical” music managers Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta.

Related: Taylor Swift returns to US court after appeal over copyright lawsuit

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Kesha: ‘The world’s going to burn up – I might as well have a good time’

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Traumatised by her legal struggles with producer Dr Luke, the once hedonistic pop star felt she didn’t deserve to be happy. But now she is back with a new album – and ready to party again

I’ve never forgotten the first time I saw Kesha. It was at T in the Park 2011, an otherwise unmemorable weekend festival in Scotland. During her main-stage performance, the woman then known as Ke$ha told the crowd that she had one pressing question. “Is there,” she said, prolonging the anticipation, “enough glitter on my titties?” The noisy consensus was no, there was not, so her accomplices doused her in a can of lager and an explosion of gold that left her looking like the daughter of C-3PO and Dolly Parton.

These gleeful exploits defined Kesha Rose Sebert as a pop star for a while. She followed her defiantly trashy 2010 debut, Animal, with the equally riotous Warrior in 2012, becoming a trailblazer for hedonistic pop. Then she disappeared. In 2016, a new image emerged: Kesha wearing a white suit, sobbing in court as she tried to escape her contract with the producer Dr Luke (AKA Lukasz Gottwald), whom she accused of sexual and emotional abuse including date rape and bullying that led to her developing an eating disorder. He denied the allegations. Her case was dismissed. While she could pick new collaborators, she still had to record for his label, an imprint of Sony, and he countersued for defamation.

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