Music News
Joni Mitchell’s 80s: how the Canadian songwriter became a fearless, futurist auteur
Some viewed Wild Things Run Fast, which turns 40 next month, as a betrayal of her roots. Looking back, the reality is far more complicated
Read more » | Desktop version »‘There’s endless choice, but you’re not listening’: fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music
Former streaming service subscribers on why they have ditched mod cons for MP3s, CDs and other DIY music formats
Read more » | Desktop version »Can’t get tune out of your head? Try this | Letter
Letter: Pianist Susan Tomes passes on advice that she received from a psychotherapist to chase away dreaded earworms
Read more » | Desktop version »In This Brief Moment review – Darwin, Genesis and whirlygigs in Brett Dean’s mindblowing cantata
Dean’s five-part evolution cantata was brought to vivid life by Nicholas Collon and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Read more » | Desktop version »A church with open doors: the ecstatic power of Pharoah Sanders
The spiritual jazz legend was a man of few words – but his expansive, effusive playing said everything
Read more » | Desktop version »Aida review – dour staging gains colour from the pit
Robert Carsen’s new production of Verdi’s opera of Egypt and Ethiopia has ditched the cliches of exoticism to replace them with troubling images of contemporary conflict
Read more » | Desktop version »Has streaming made it harder to discover new music?
Services such as Spotify and Apple Music give us access to the entire history of popular songs. But has that access made us lazy listeners? And could TikTok or TV really help us rediscover our passion for discovery?
Read more » | Desktop version »Venice Biennale Musica review – things old, new, borrowed and bleurgh
The contemporary music strand of the Italian festival brought a typically elegant and thoughtful music theatre work by Michel van der Aa; less successful was Yvette Janine Jackson’s ‘radio opera’ Left Behind
Read more » | Desktop version »Country star Margo Price on her memoir: ‘My editor said whiskey is basically a character’
Price survived alcoholism, hardship and tragedy to become a star, as she recounts in her brutally honest new book. ‘I had panic attacks, thinking about all of this being out there,’ she says
Read more » | Desktop version »Gurrelieder review – Schoenberg’s soundworld thrills under Gardner’s baton
Conductor Edward Gardner opened the London Philharmonic’s season with a detailed and focused performance of Schoenberg’s formidable cantata.
Read more » | Desktop version »‘Suga Mama by Beyoncé is the aspirational milf anthem’: Olga Koch’s honest playlist
The comedian is a karaoke evangelist and had a religious experience watching Maggie Rogers. But which ‘cool band’ does she lie about liking?
Read more » | Desktop version »Carducci Quartet review – assured intricacy and exuberant intensity traces an environmental thread
Covering three works, including a European premiere of a piece by John Luther Adams, the quartet explored its full range of colour in this return to familiar surroundings
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