It’s been some time since a swaggering Nick Cave has threatened his listeners with violence. Cave’s last record, 2019’s Ghosteen, mourned the sudden loss of his teenage son Arthur with a gut-howl of grief and a parade of horses, boats, suns, young children and Buddhist folk tales, all wrapped up in violinist Warren Ellis’s keening sounds. But midway through this surprise 18th studio album –...
“Iwas expecting sevens out of 10 at best,” says saxophonist Lewis Evans, discussing reviews of his band’s debut album. “Not everyone likes what you do. You discover that on Twitter when you’re played on 6Music: 20% really like it, 50% don’t give a shit and 30% absolutely hate it.” Despite that demographic breakdown, Black Country, New Road find themselves in a whirlwind of hype. Fusing post-rock...
A friend and carer of Steve Bronski, the co-founder of 1980s pop trio Bronski Beat, has revealed that he died in a fire at his flat in central London last week. News of Bronski’s death emerged on Thursday when fellow band member Jimmy Somerville announced on Twitter that he was “sad to hear Steve has died”, describing him as “talented and a very melodic man”. The cause of his death has not been...
Steve Bronski, a founding member of the influential British synth-pop trio Bronski Beat, has died, a source close to the group has confirmed. The BBC reported his age as 61. No cause of death was given. His bandmate Jimmy Somerville described him as a “talented and very melodic man”. “Working with him on songs and the one song that changed our lives and touched so many other lives, was a fun and...
Sinéad O’Connor has postponed her 2021 tour in order to enter a year-long treatment programme for trauma and addiction. Writing on Twitter, O’Connor said that 2020 had been the culmination of six years of suffering. She had this year become addicted to “a drug other than weed”, which she has used for 34 years, after being profoundly affected by the death of “someone beloved”. She also experienced...
Police are investigating after the grime artist Wiley posted a tirade of antisemitic comments on Twitter and Instagram. The musician has been dropped by his management company and temporarily banned from posting on Twitter after a series of social media posts were made on accounts belonging to him on Friday and Saturday. A Metropolitan police spokesperson told the Guardian: “We have received a...
Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon outside his New York apartment in 1980, has been denied parole for the 11th time. A parole board at Wende correctional facility near Buffalo, New York, denied Chapman’s release, though detailed reasons have not been given. He will have to wait two years before applying for parole again. Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, who was with him when he was shot four...
The suggestion that Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory should be axed from the Last Night of the Proms is not, as No 10 suggests, a distracting focus on the symbols rather than the substance of a problem (Rule, Britannia! will be played at the Proms but not sung, BBC confirms, 24 August). Symbols matter. They act as dog-whistles and means of legitimising discriminatory ideologies. The...
The Prodigy singer Keith Flint died by hanging and had unspecified amounts of cocaine, alcohol and codeine in his system at the time, an inquest has heard. The 49-year-old was found dead at his home in the Essex hamlet of North End on 4 March. The coroner’s officer, Linda Calder, told Wednesday’s brief inquest hearing in Chelmsford that Flint was found hanging at his home by a friend. She said a...
Brown was arrested following the incident, and was sentenced to community service and domestic violence counselling, plus a restraining order. In a new film documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life, he goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he “felt like a fucking monster”. He said that he had intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after he lied about a sexual...