Musician with the bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy who wrote award-winning songs for theatre, TV and filmsAdam Schlesinger, who has died aged 52 from complications of Covid-19 infection, found critical kudos and a dedicated following with his band Foun…
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Music
Laurel Halo’s lockdown listening: ‘There’s this element of human touch’
The electronic musician picks intimate and comforting music to get you through the coronavirus pandemicI was joking recently that electronic musicians have been self-isolating for years, so we are practiced at this. All my gigs were cancelled, and so t…
Read moreLaura Marling: Song for Our Daughter review – the intimate album we need
(Partisan/Chrysalis)Written to an imaginary child about ‘what it is to be a woman in this society’, the singer’s seventh album is alternately intimate, sneering and sad, and lavished with gorgeous melodiesLaura Marling has described her seventh solo al…
Read moreLA Originals: a Netflix documentary about an influential hip-hop duo
Estevan Oriol and Mister Cartoon talk about a new film focusing on their ascension within the star-studded LA hip-hop world after a chance meeting in 1992 It’s 1992, and two lowriders walk into a Penthouse Players record release party at the Hollywood …
Read moreRadiohead’s Ed O’Brien: ‘Humanity has only really learned from disaster’
The guitarist is recovering from coronavirus – a pandemic he says is a global wake-up call – and releasing the solo album he finally plucked up the courage to makeEd O’Brien believed Radiohead’s turbulent years were behind him. It was 2001 and the guit…
Read moreBob Dylan’s 50 greatest songs – ranked!
As fans puzzle out the epic Murder Most Foul, we count down the best of Bob, from the murderous fury of Pay in Blood to the pure genius of Simple Twist of FateStreet Legal delivered fans a shock: Dylan fronting a large band, with female backing singers…
Read morePigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: ‘When music is loud, niggling troubles just go’
The Newcastle heavy metal band deal with the big questions of life, God and death with ‘therapy through noise’ – while shirtlessWhen three future members of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs first started jamming as teenagers in leafy Richmond in Nort…
Read more2Pac: where to start in his back catalogue
In Listener’s Digest, our writers help you explore the work of great musicians. Next up: the raw and radically revealing work of late LA rapper 2PacMe Against the World (1995) Continue reading…
Read moreDonovan: ‘Can you believe the Beatles and I were paying 96% tax?’
The 60s folk troubadour is on an environmental mission, in tribute to Greta Thunberg. He discusses love, success, Brian Jones – and how drugs became big businessDonovan, born Donovan Phillips Leitch in Scotland in 1946, was famous enough before he was …
Read more‘I was shattered’ – Paul Weller, Booker T and more on the day the Beatles split
Fifty years ago today, the counter-cultural whirlwind that was the Beatles ended. Musicians, fans and insiders relive the devastating day their era-defining story came to an abrupt close On 9 April 1970, a press release about a 27-year-old solo artist …
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