https://www.scmp.com/rss/13594/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Every Clockenflap throws up a surprise people’s champion that’s talked about long after the festival has finished – more than even the headliners. Young British rockers The 1975 were one. The large ensemble The Turbans were another. What they’ve all had in common is a certain party spirit that lifts a festival from merely a gig to an event. One band that fits that description on this year’s bill are New Zealand favourites Fat Freddy’s Drop, the seven-headed soul party animal that puts the fun in... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2032950/party-rockers-fat-freddys-drop-promises-unique-hk-versions-songs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2032950/party-rockers-fat-freddys-drop-promises-unique-hk-versions-songs?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Oct 2016 00:00:30 +0000 If you thought US indie icon Kurt Vile’s lugubrious singing style was the product of a similarly laid-back character, you’d be mistaken. The composer of some of the sweetest folk music of the past few years is a verbal dynamo. Slovenly and doleful on record, the Hong Kong-bound performer is supercharged in conversation. “My wife studied Chinese and has been there a few times and I know a little bit from her and I’m 36 years old so I know a little bit about Chinese culture to some degree, but... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2027309/kurt-vile-jimmi-hendrix-folk-rock-his-upcoming-hong-kong-gig?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2027309/kurt-vile-jimmi-hendrix-folk-rock-his-upcoming-hong-kong-gig?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Oct 2016 03:00:30 +0000 Morrissey’s sold-out concert in Hong Kong this week comes at an interesting time in the life of the former Smiths frontman. Manchester’s favourite son spent most of last year being uncharacteristically quiet after news emerged that he’d been treated for cancer. But that silence was broken in spectacular style earlier this year with the announcement of a major world tour. Since then it’s been hard to avoid him – and the good news for his fans is that he’s just as cantankerous as ever. While he’s... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2024050/hong-kong-welcomes-morrissey-unrepentant-and-still-bristling-ever?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2024050/hong-kong-welcomes-morrissey-unrepentant-and-still-bristling-ever?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Oct 2016 00:04:34 +0000 Few international bands can claim Hong Kong as a spiritual home the way that Suede can. The indie front runners of the UK Brit-pop scene have performed live in the city five times and will be returning for a sixth concert on August 16. And it’s all thanks to the fans. Suede’s Hong Kong contingent are among the band’s most ardent followers, says bassist Mat Osman. “When we first went, we were told the crowd would be full of expats – bankers,’’ says Osman over the phone from London. “What was... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1994888/suedes-fervent-hong-kong-fans-lure-band-back-their-sixth-concert-city?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1994888/suedes-fervent-hong-kong-fans-lure-band-back-their-sixth-concert-city?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 26 Jul 2016 05:01:18 +0000 For three decades, Fatboy Slim has been the superstar DJ to beat them all, the man who made the turntable bigger than the guitar and who did more that anyone to move the club night from the dingy dive to the football stadium. With catchy good-time tunes welded to big bouncing beats, the British star made dance music part of the cultural background, laying the foundation for the rise of EDM’s monolithic assault on the supremacy of rap as the world’s favourite music. Not bad for the kid born... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1988828/ahead-macau-gig-dance-music-pioneer-fatboy-slim-explains-his-five-fs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1988828/ahead-macau-gig-dance-music-pioneer-fatboy-slim-explains-his-five-fs?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Jul 2016 04:49:35 +0000 Right now, the only place to be for fans of The Radio Dept. is as far as possible from the band’s European home. The cult Swedish indie rockers are so fed up with playing in their own front yard that they’re only taking gigs in Asia. And even then, the more remote the better. “We said we were not going to tour before the next album is out, but then we got this offer to play in Mongolia,” frontman and founder Johan Duncanson says during a break in rehearsals at the band’s studio in Stockholm. “We... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1975008/why-swedish-band-radio-dept-will-only-play-gigs-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1975008/why-swedish-band-radio-dept-will-only-play-gigs-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Jun 2016 05:01:48 +0000 The past five years have been a whirlwind of success for French electro-pop outfit M83, thanks to a multi-million selling album that won a global fanbase by being featured in a string of Hollywood blockbusters. But now M83 are ready to do things a little differently, with a project shrouded in such secrecy that frontman Anthony Gonzalez can give only the merest hint about its nature. Hong Kong-bound Olivia Newton-John talks Grease, the power of change, and curing cancer “I’m working on a project... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1940507/m83-bring-their-stellar-grooves-and-sweeping-cinematic-pop-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/1940507/m83-bring-their-stellar-grooves-and-sweeping-cinematic-pop-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 May 2016 09:00:45 +0000 Hong Kong boasts strong ties with Australian pop – the city hosted Kylie Minogue’s first-ever live concert, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence grew up in Hong Kong and Air Supply come so often they might as well live in the city. Now it’s the turn of the world’s hippest guitar band: Tame Impala play the MacPherson Stadium in Mong Kok on April 19, and if the speed with which tickets sold out, or the success of the band’s latest record or the reception they got at recent gigs are any gauge, it’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1934215/how-hong-kong-bound-tame-impala-became-worlds-hippest-guitar-band?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1934215/how-hong-kong-bound-tame-impala-became-worlds-hippest-guitar-band?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:26 +0000 To the uninitiated, The Libertines are a tabloid cartoon of punching pals who couldn’t handle the excesses of rock’n’roll fame. But behind the headlines that have swirled around one of the biggest coup bookings at this year’s Clockenflap festival is a band that have battled demons, drugs and violence to become one of the most vital and visceral acts in the world. Having reunited earlier this year after more than a decade of one-off gigs and rumours of a reformation, Pete Doherty, Carl Barat,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1880425/libertines-are-reunited-and-ready-rock-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1880425/libertines-are-reunited-and-ready-rock-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Nov 2015 22:00:45 +0000 When Muse  last played in Hong Kong in 2010, the conspiracy-theory-obsessed three-piece staged a gig that was heavily laden with implied doom – robotic machinery, monolithic slabs that seemed to pulse with life and roving lasers hinted at a hidden menace that was yet to come. With their latest album and tour, that hellish reality has arrived. As its title suggests, Drones explores the dehumanising effects of drone warfare. The music is stripped back and basic, in contrast to the synth-heavy... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1860112/muse-bringing-stripped-back-drones-show-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1860112/muse-bringing-stripped-back-drones-show-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Sep 2015 22:05:49 +0000 When Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder signs off an interview with the words "Gotta go or I'll miss the school run," you know his declarations of being a reformed and sober man are genuine. Where once there were parties and drugs, these days Ryder's life is filled with domestic chores, strict health regimens (more on that later), the business of launching a solo career and visiting Hong Kong for the first time with the newly resurrected original Happy Mondays line-up this month. "I'm just not... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1842501/happy-mondays-back-road-after-25-years-pills-bills-and-telly?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1842501/happy-mondays-back-road-after-25-years-pills-bills-and-telly?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Jul 2015 06:15:45 +0000 The Smiths' eponymous 1984 debut album established them as a musical force to be reckoned with, but it was their follow-up that made them Britain's newest and most uncompromising social commentators. The principal theme occupying Meat is Murder couldn't be broadcast more loudly: lead singer Morrissey's militant vegetarianism had become one of his most talked-about characteristics. That and the flowers he'd wave while performing or stuff into his back pocket. But while the public perception of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1835637/remembering-smiths-album-meat-murder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/music/article/1835637/remembering-smiths-album-meat-murder?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:44:07 +0000 The Knife's Silent Shout cut a swathe for Swedish pop bands Swedish music is a major part of the international art scene, and we can thank The Knife for that. Brother and sister duo Olof and Karin Dreijer blasted open the gates on the Scandinavian nation's electronic music community with a sound that managed to be both icily foreboding and euphoric. Arguably they reached the peak of their artistic creativity with the final album, 2013's Shaking the Habitual. But it was 2006's Silent Shout that... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1826779/nostalgia-trip-three-takes-theme-knives?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1826779/nostalgia-trip-three-takes-theme-knives?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jun 2015 14:45:30 +0000 Piece of Mind Iron Maiden EMI/Capitol Before Oasis, there was Iron Maiden. Long before Manchester's gobbiest pop stars even thought of flicking two fingers at a paparazzo, East London's rock titans were strutting round the world as the consummate lad band. From their music (fast and loud) to their outside interests (soccer, beer and war films), the West Ham United-supporting rockers have made no bones about their credentials. They're not macho, like British contemporaries Def Leppard, or sexist,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1763067/nostalgia-trip-piece-mind-iron-maiden-god-and-ghouls?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1763067/nostalgia-trip-piece-mind-iron-maiden-god-and-ghouls?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Apr 2015 10:51:40 +0000 Love Tracks Gloria Gaynor Polydor The camp gravitas of the rolling piano intro to Gloria Gaynor's biggest hit says everything you need to know about why I Will Survive remains one of the pop era's most enduring successes. It's over the top, it's bold, it's pompous, it's sassy ... and it's brilliant. With an opening that gives Gaynor's anthem to defiance and resurrection a heroic entrée, I Will Survive has, indeed, survived, outliving the Love Tracks album from which it was lifted. It remains a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1736620/i-will-survive-helps-gloria-gaynor-album-love-tracks-endure?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1736620/i-will-survive-helps-gloria-gaynor-album-love-tracks-endure?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Mar 2015 14:41:35 +0000 The last time British indie rockers The 1975 came to Hong Kong, they were just getting their first taste of the big time. Since that gig, at 2013's Clockenflap festival, they've become a chart-topping and world-dominating colossus, picking up the tag of the globe's hardest-working band. The group's gig at The Vine Centre in Wan Chai on Tuesday, January 27 will be the latest in a series of tours that saw them play 195 shows in 2014, something which clocked up enough road and air miles to get them... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1680526/1975-inveterate-indie-tour-band-back-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1680526/1975-inveterate-indie-tour-band-back-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:00:45 +0000 The last time British indie-pop band The 1975 came to Hong Kong, they were just getting their first taste of the big time. Since that gig, at 2013's Clockenflap festival, they've become a chart-topping and world-dominating colossus, picking up the tag of the globe's hardest-working band. The group's gig at The Vine Centre in Wan Chai on Tuesday, January 27 will be the latest in a series of tours that saw them play 195 shows in 2014, something which clocked up enough road and air miles to get... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1688376/1975-inveterate-indie-tour-band-back-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1688376/1975-inveterate-indie-tour-band-back-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:06:50 +0000 Bastille are ready to storm Hong Kong again, two years after our home-grown rock festival launched the indie-pop band to international success. Clockenflap 2012 was the London-based rockers' first major festival appearance, and their debut gig outside Europe. Soon after, they shot to the top of the charts in Britain and the US before embarking on a sold-out tour of the States. Now the four members of Bastille are coming back for more, with a new album in the wings and a new sound. "We had a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1661485/two-years-after-their-clockenflap-debut-bastille-go-strength?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1661485/two-years-after-their-clockenflap-debut-bastille-go-strength?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Dec 2014 14:45:15 +0000 Four decades ago next Sunday, the first chapter of pop's least likely success story was written on a stage in Brighton as the British seaside town hosted the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. Clad in tight satin outfits and platform boots that would have made even David Bowie blush, four suburban Swedish musicians known as Abba blew away the fusty traditions of the otherwise folksy contest with a song that would set them on the road to superstardom. To this day, the Beatles are the only band to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1459233/abba-and-momentous-1974-eurovision-song-contest-victory?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1459233/abba-and-momentous-1974-eurovision-song-contest-victory?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Mar 2014 08:21:23 +0000 Rumours of a reunion are rife as the 40th anniversary of the Swedish band's Eurovision breakthrough promises a return of Abbamania with a raft of special events to mark the occasion. Bookies in Britain had been offering odds of 14/1 on a reunion after Agnetha told a magazine she and Frida had discussed singing together and refused to rule out a one-off gathering for 2014. However, those odds were cut when Björn later said it would never happen - the band members were too old to take the stage... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1459232/how-likely-abba-reunion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1459232/how-likely-abba-reunion?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Mar 2014 08:21:23 +0000 Fear of a Black Planet Public Enemy Def Jam/Columbia Has there ever been a more direct, immediate and even threatening mission statement in the title and cover art of any record than that of Public Enemy's third album? On the rear cover of Fear of a Black Planet, band members Chuck D and Flavor Flav are portrayed at an apparent military command meeting poring over a map of the world, surrounded by "ministers" Terminator X and Professor Griff, and consulting their beats and samples maestros,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1368636/rewind-album-fear-black-planet-public-enemy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1368636/rewind-album-fear-black-planet-public-enemy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Dec 2013 08:51:41 +0000 It's not what you know but who you know. For Veronica Falls, had it not been for the help of some influential friends, the British indie rockers may never have enjoyed the level of success that has resulted in a headline Asian tour that brings them to Hong Kong this month. To those uninitiated in the finer points of indie music, gigs with Crystal Stilts and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, plus the patronage of Scottish popsters Teenage Fanclub, may mean little. But to the genre's cognoscenti,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1345390/indie-rockers-veronica-falls-know-people-right-places?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1345390/indie-rockers-veronica-falls-know-people-right-places?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:39:14 +0000 Let It Bleed The Rolling Stones Decca/London There's a convincing case to be made for The Rolling Stones' trio of albums straddling the 1960s and '70s being the most accomplished run of records in pop history. Beginning with 1968's Beggars Banquet and ending with 1971's Sticky Fingers, they chart the band's progress from psychedelic explorers to stadium-filling mega-band. Between them they contain probably 90 per cent of the Stones songs you'd include on a "best of" mixtape, Sympathy for the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1339602/rewind-album-let-it-bleed-rolling-stones?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1339602/rewind-album-let-it-bleed-rolling-stones?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:36:46 +0000 Led Zeppelin IV Led Zeppelin Atlantic Many songs are revered and reviled in equal measure, but only one has both the majesty and grating pretentiousness to provoke both emotions in a single listener. Stairway to Heaven, probably Led Zeppelin's most famous track, lives a double life. Depending on your mood, it is either a soaring epic of power-chord brilliance played by the greatest band ever, or over-indulgent nonsense screeched by the epitome of rock excess. At any one time Stairway is either... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1295484/rewind-album-led-zeppelin-iv?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1295484/rewind-album-led-zeppelin-iv?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:00:00 +0000 There's a Riot Goin' On Sly and the Family Stone Epic In the late 1960s, Sly and the Family Stone were the ultimate peace, love and harmony band. Multiracial and upbeat, their brand of funk, pop and soul was calculated to project a vision of a united world. It's no surprise they provided some of the most intoxicatingly inspirational moments at the Woodstock festival in 1969. After a series of uplifting and joyous albums, they had conquered America at a time of growing racial and social unrest... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1286230/rewind-album-theres-riot-goin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1286230/rewind-album-theres-riot-goin?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Flaunt It Sigue Sigue Sputnik Parlophone In the mid-1970s, Britain's punk rockers warned there was no future; a decade later, some were laughably boasting they were the future. In 1985, two bands dominated the music press with claims that they would transform the pop landscape. One of them, Big Audio Dynamite, was led by sacked Clash guitarist Mick Jones. Despite their claims of originality, they were a pretty conventional outfit that combined hip hop (which was still yet to be a musical force),... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1275962/rewind-album-flaunt-it-sigue-sigue-sputnik-1986?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1275962/rewind-album-flaunt-it-sigue-sigue-sputnik-1986?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 For a band with such an abrasive name and a frontman who looks as if he'd sooner punch you than sing to you, F***ed Up can be ever so polite. "Hey sorry," begins an apology-strewn message from founder Mike Haliechuk after receiving a gentle reminder that this interview is due. It's a missive so meek as to suggest the legends of violence and debauchery that swirl around the Canadian hardcore punk band are exaggerated. Those legends are many - from bloody carnage onstage and smashed MTV studio... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1166492/canadian-band-fed-just-messing-you?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1166492/canadian-band-fed-just-messing-you?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Whitesnake Whitesnake Geffen/Warner Bros Think big hair, think histrionic guitars, think women cavorting over cars. Think Whitesnake. For a moment in the 1980s, the biggest band from Middlesbrough (closest contender, soft-pop crooner Chris Rea) were the kings of the Los Angeles hair metal scene. They may not have scaled the heights of day-glo ludicrousness reached by American peers such as Poison and Motley Crue, but David Coverdale's blues-rockers-turned-glam-metal squealers did win British... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1150899/rewind-album-whitesnake-whitesnake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1150899/rewind-album-whitesnake-whitesnake?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Thee Oh Sees are a tangle of contradictions. While the scuzz-rockers are at the vanguard of San Francisco's psychedelic revival, they are old enough to remember the city's first era of peace and love. Although they harness the recording and promotional potential of new technology, they have led the way in reviving the defunct flexi disc. And as their peers lazily stick to the album-tour-rest formula, Thee Oh Sees instead record whenever the urge takes them and fill the gaps in their schedule... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1150926/their-terms-their-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1150926/their-terms-their-time?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Brian King sounds confused when asked to cast his mind over 2012, a year that saw his band Japandroids become the new darlings of North America's rock scene, with a sophomore release that made album-of-the-year lists. "People ask what's it like to have these reviews and to make these lists, but we have to say we don't know because we felt so cut off" during that time, the guitarist and vocalist says by phone from Vancouver, Canada. It was a "whirlwind year - but we spent so much of it on tour,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1125536/rock-band-japandroids?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1125536/rock-band-japandroids?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 They don't sing and they don't dance, yet they love Girls Aloud; they are punk and reject rock orthodoxy, yet they have been labelled as progressive rock; and, while their live performances can gallop along at heart attack-inducing speed, their songs can last anything up to 10 minutes. For British band 65daysofstatic, concepts such as genre and style have little currency. They have been called everything from post-rock to math rock to new progressive, but no label has ever really captured the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1119875/it-all-adds-math-rockers-65daysofstatic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1119875/it-all-adds-math-rockers-65daysofstatic?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Document R.E.M. I.R.S.   R.E.M.'s world as they knew it ended in autumn 1987, when the release of their breakout fifth album propelled them from the obscurity of America's burgeoning alternative underground to global stardom. But the resultant fame eventually left the reclusive rockers feeling anything but fine. Even today, Document remains a powerhouse album, its crunching guitars, stadium-worthy choruses and angry lyrics making it one of the standout recordings of the post-punk era. It... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1114413/rewind-album-document-1987-rem?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1114413/rewind-album-document-1987-rem?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, pub. Hamish Hamilton If you feel a pang of guilt for being tired of Christmas before it's even happened, worry not - you're in good company. Father Christmas finds it all a bit of a drag too. At least he does in Raymond Briggs' charming 1973 graphic novel Father Christmas, where Santa Claus is portrayed as an old curmudgeon who grumbles about his job in the matter-of-fact way of an ordinary elderly gentleman. In one of his beautiful and timeless works, the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1109795/rewind-book-father-christmas-raymond-briggs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1109795/rewind-book-father-christmas-raymond-briggs?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Not long ago, local officials seriously considered issuing gig-goers with gloves to dampen the sound of clapping from Hong Kong stadium. But times have changed, and the city is now preparing to welcome a band that is widely seen as the loudest in the world. For almost three decades, US alternative rockers Dinosaur Jr have been a watchword for loud. The three-piece's ear-splitting brand of distorted guitar rock, fusing hardcore punk with psychedelic melodicism, when played live has been known to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1059524/gloves-earplugs-here-come-dinosaur-jr?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1059524/gloves-earplugs-here-come-dinosaur-jr?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Highlights of the Dinosaur Jr discography Dinosaur (1985) Reputedly costing just US$500 to record, the band's debut is a ferocious mix of heavy metal and punk. While it lacks the direction or consistency of later albums, it does establish J. Mascis' slurred, stoner vocal style as de rigueur in American rock. You're Living All Over Me (1987) The album that consolidated Dinosaur Jr's sludge-rock dynamism also saw Mascis enter his despotic phase within the band. Bassist Lou Barlow vented his... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1059520/dinosaur-jrs-top-discs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1059520/dinosaur-jrs-top-discs?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) The Kinks Pye/Reprise ALBUM (1969) The Kinks Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) Pye/Reprise If you believe the myth, London in the 1960s was swinging: Britain's music ruled the waves; its fashion designers were the hottest property on the world's catwalks; and culturally, its capital was the centre of the universe. Everybody was having a great time - except those who couldn't afford to hang out at the hip Soho clubs, buy... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1049519/rewind-kinks-arthur-or-decline-and-fall-british-empire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1049519/rewind-kinks-arthur-or-decline-and-fall-british-empire?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Appetite for Destruction Guns N' Roses Geffen Sharp observation and wit are not qualities often found in heavy rock, whose primal force is the natural home to bluster and blather. Guns N' Roses, however, upset that maxim with one of the most highly regarded debut albums in rock history. For a brief moment Appetite for Destruction put to bed the notion that metal was just about girls, guns and booze, and introduced the concept of heavy rock as intelligent, even poignant, social comment. In track... https://www.scmp.com/article/1006773/album-1987?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1006773/album-1987?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack Various artists Polydor There aren't many songs that so perfectly represent an entire musical genre like the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive epitomises disco. As soon as the laid-back swagger of the opening few bars bursts from the speakers, it's difficult to resist the temptation to leap into a wide-legged stance and point in the air as if you just don't care. Yes, it's cheesy, insufferably jaunty and, of course, irrepressibly pervasive. But there's... https://www.scmp.com/article/1002806/album-1977?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1002806/album-1977?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Ziggy played guitar for the first time 40 years ago this week, beaming one of rock's most iconic albums down to earth in an explosion of glitter and eye-liner, and reshaping the way pop was performed and packaged. In the fictional world of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, David Bowie's alter-ego was an alien prophet sent to rescue a doomed planet. In the real world, the concept album, released on June 6, 1972, helped save pop from stagnation. It also helped... https://www.scmp.com/article/1002811/alien-agenda?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1002811/alien-agenda?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It took the London Olympicsto bring Blur back together andIan Brown's allegedly costly divorce to galvanise the Stone Roses into reforming. But for The Jesus and Mary Chain, it was an offer to play a little-known festival in China that prompted the influential 1980s noiseniks to pick up their guitars anew. 'The offer came in and none of us had been to China before and it sounded interesting; we thought let's just do it,' says Jim Reid, who with brother William makes up the heart of one of... https://www.scmp.com/article/1001431/cold?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1001431/cold?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Kurt Wolff Gregor Samsa's life is not his own. Events that shape his existence happen despite him and even his plans to take control of his destiny are plagued by doubts about how this might affect others. Little of this seems apparent to Gregor until, by some inexplicable turn, he wakes up one morning reborn as a cockroach. This absurd event is one of literature's greatest moments; an unbelievable transformation, casually thrown at the reader in a single... https://www.scmp.com/article/1000185/book-1915?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1000185/book-1915?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Gilded Palace of Sin The Flying Burrito Brothers A&M/Columbia Gram Parsons is one of rock's great 'could-have beens'. Blessed with an angel's voice, steeped in country and the blues, a gifted guitarist with an obsession for music, he died before his immense talents were given the opportunity to fully flower. His devotion to all things rock, especially the lifestyle, ensured he was only with us for a short while, dying at the age of 26 of a drug overdose. Even so, he left behind a body of... https://www.scmp.com/article/998849/album-1969?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/998849/album-1969?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Idiot Iggy Pop RCA Few artists can claim to have created a new genre of rock through just one album. Iggy Pop, however, did it twice. Arguably, his debut record with The Stooges (titled The Stooges) in 1969 forged the template for the 1970s punk movement. And then his first solo outing, The Idiot, provided the mould for the more adventurous and artistically febrile post-punk movement. It encoded the futuristic tenets of the late-70s, early-80s movement that took punk's DIY ethos and... https://www.scmp.com/article/997081/album-1977?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/997081/album-1977?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Winter in America Gil Scott-Heron Strata-East Gil Scott-Heron became a counter-cultural sensation with his damning attack on American society in the 1970 track The Revolution Will Not be Televised. The commercial success of Winter in America four years later took that polemic global. Scott-Heron, with long-time writing and performing partner Brian Jackson, scored his first worldwide hit with the single The Bottle lifted from the album, a collection of pointed critiques of American life and... https://www.scmp.com/article/992370/album-1974?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/992370/album-1974?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Kings of the Wild Frontier Adam and the Ants Epic 'A new royal family, a wild nobility, we are family.' As rallying cries went, the opening to Adam and the Ants' first chart-busting album had it all: it was punchy, unifying and rebellious, threatening to gather the feral tribes of youth and oust the old establishment. It was a concise and direct declaration of intent from its singer, Adam Ant, the young art-school upstart of the London underground music scene whose raging determination to... https://www.scmp.com/article/991119/album-1980?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991119/album-1980?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 He's partial to wearing schoolgirl gymslips, has often gone before an audience in a dress and, on at least one occasion, got so drunk that he stripped on stage and clenched a banana between his buttocks But The Damned's guitarist and punk legend, Captain Sensible, has grown up a little since those days, and for the band's first show in Hong Kong, he's chosen something a little more sedate... but only just. 'I'll be wearing a one-piece furry pink outfit,' the Captain proudly boasts of the... https://www.scmp.com/article/991123/youll-be-punkd-and-youll-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991123/youll-be-punkd-and-youll-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Kick Out the Jams MC5 Elektra Many bands have taken their names from their hometowns, but few managed to distil the essence and character of their city like the MC5, or Motor City Five. The proto-punk rockers looked and sounded like the Detroit of the 1960s from which they emerged: dirty, gritty, wild, noisy, dangerous and very, very political. And like the cars produced in the belching factories that gave Detroit its Motor City soubriquet, the MC5 were welded to Detroit's tough, outsider... https://www.scmp.com/article/982003/album-1969?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/982003/album-1969?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Viking Press Ken Kesey - American counter-cultural figurehead, Beat writer and chronicler of his times - experienced something of an epiphany while working in a California metal hospital. He came to believe the methods used by the institution to keep its patients under control were backed by a philosophy not unlike that used by society at large to suppress behaviour seen as unacceptable. As such, it was impossible to tell who was really mad - the... https://www.scmp.com/article/979382/book-1962?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/979382/book-1962?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Timeless Goldie FFRR Readers old enough - and lucky enough - to have attended Goldie's 1998 performance in Tsim Sha Tsui will recall the huge turnout, rapturous response and euphoria the British drum 'n' bass DJ, artist and actor elicited. Those following the drum 'n' bass movement would have been aware the sound had been around for almost half a decade. But it was only after the English Midlands-born Goldie arrived on the pop scene with his groundbreaking 1995 debut album, Timeless, that the... https://www.scmp.com/article/978666/album-1998?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/978666/album-1998?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Metal Machine Music Lou Reed RCA In 1975, angry at his record company's apparent disregard for his talents, upset by his dwindling commercial clout and irritated by a music press that had all but condemned him to rock's scrap heap, Lou Reed tried to commit artistic suicide. He released a double album of unlistenable atonal noise. Literally, noise. There is nothing on Metal Machine Music's four sides of ear-crunching cacophony that could be called music - no melodies, no rhythms, no vocals. Yet... https://www.scmp.com/article/973662/album-1975?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/973662/album-1975?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0000