Everywhere you look you see signs that the music industry has moved well beyond the humble CD. These days it seems music consumption and sales are all about downloads and streaming – with new streaming platforms from big hitters like Apple, Twitter and Google expected to join established players like Spotify in killing CDs completely….
Listening to records on vinyl is still considered by many as the best way to listen to their favourite bands. However, the convenience of online music streaming means that it is rapidly becoming a universally popular way to listen to music. Spotify is arguably the best known streaming service available. It started as a completely…
There is such an incredible amount to see in Las Vegas – with the casinos, shows, thrill-rides and nature parks – that it can be a difficult task to work out where to start. Luckily, this year will see some huge performances from world-famous stars; here are five of the best.
This fourth effort from Sheffield’s indie darlings was somewhat overlooked this year, despite it being right up there as one of their most consistent and interesting albums to date. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been around so long and delivered great albums so consistently that a new, great Arctic Monkeys album has now just become an…
Who says there are no great protest songs any more!? PJ Harvey proved this year that there is still plenty of room in the music world for a politically charged protest album about the horrors of war – winning the Mercury Prize along the way. The most striking thing about Let England Shake, though, isn’t…
This past January, one of the biggest news stories in the music industry occurred when Beats Music launched in the U.S. Since then, there have been even more, and perhaps even bigger, stories making headlines. Beats has remained a prominent figure, as expected, and upped its share of the market after being purchased by Apple for…
Number one in our run down of the top albums of 2011 unsurprisingly goes to The Horrors, for their rich, textured and nuanced third album Skying. After a spot of label trouble the Southend band decided to go it on their own and produced Skying themselves – a decision which led to them making an album…
This question has been bugging me for ages now, so I thought it was about time I tried to answer it – and get a few things off my chest while I’m at it…. Now, before I go on I just want to make it clear this is in not intended to criticise Adele in…
Second albums are supposed to be difficult for everyone. In the case of Florence Welch, whose debut album was the ridiculously successful Lungs, this follow-up album was supposed to be more in the realms of impossible than difficult. Luckily for Florence, she doesn’t seem to give a damn about all this and just concentrates on…
With Christmas fast approaching and the thick end of 2011 behind us, it’s time to take stock and look back at the albums that soundtracked our year – and what better way to do that than a good old fashioned top 10 list!? We’ve gone back through all of our album reviews over the past…
