Revisiting a great album from January 2012: FOE – Bad Dream Hotline

The alternative hip hop trio embark on their first studio album, including collaborations with Danny Brown, EL-P and Diplo

You stand alone on a vast, empty plain. All around swirl ghostly lights, some in the sky, some right nearby, all have a translucent, transcendent beauty. Great sheaves of light glide in from far off on an unseen horizon and slide slowly, like the first rays of light in a primordial age. It’s a cold…

The year was 1976. David Bowie had recently starred in his first feature length film, The Man Who Fell To Earth, a weird cross between Doctor Who and Citizen Kane with the surrealism cranked to eleven. It’s not hard to look back at the film’s themes of decadence and disconnection and not see a link to the star’s…

I don’t like to revel in the misery of others, but the tensions and uncertainties affecting Blur helped make one hell of a record.

The Blue Album is pure pop-rock perfection, standing out above an era epitomised by grunge. It marks the high point of the genre, and has never been bettered in this reviewer’s humble opinion. It is honest, it is stupid, it is clever, it is heartbreaking, it is joyous, and it is most importantly of all…

Bias should have no place in objective journalism so I apologise if some does creep into this review, for Bloc Party are one of the groups (if not the group) that first exposed to me a new music genre and helped build on my musical interests. Silent Alarm is the dramatic debut from the band,…

After the band’s outstanding headline set at this year’s Reading Festival, The Edge looks back at the album which kicked off The Strokes’ career and set the tone for many indie bands to follow. Ten years ago, the music scene was littered with pop bands from the likes of S Club 7 to N Sync,…

He’s the third highest-selling artist of all-time. He is the creator of the best-selling album ever. He is probably the most widely known name in music history. You don’t get much bigger than Michael Jackson. And while most will refer to his 1982 effort Thriller as his best work (his magnum opus, if you will),…

The 20th anniversary of Nevermind by Nirvana has just passed, with a re-release and radio and television programmes dedicated to the best loved album by the trio. Earth’s debut Extra-Capsular Extraction has also been around for two decades now, but its own anniversary slipped by without a mention. Perhaps it is time that this is…

Although it would be hard to choose one favourite Beatles album, Revolver was most definitely one of the best and most revolutionary records of their career. Released in the summer of 1966, The Beatles’ seventh album Revolver broke all the former rules of popular music, and marked a new phase and sound in the band’s career.…