Music
Record Collector
A KIND OF MAGIC
Remastering engineers specialise in revamping vintage recordings. Jim Allen wonders how they work their magic
9 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Starr turn
Collector of The Beatles seeks Ringo Starr correspondents
1 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Live and let Live
Survey of gig-goers calls for government and industry action
2 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Stiff little memories
Author seeks RC readers help for a people's punk history
1 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
THE MOTOR-CYCLE GIRL
Despite advance hype (\"the greatest pop artist since Aretha Franklin,\" according to her label, Atlantic), 19-yearold New Yorker Lotti Golden's opus, Motor-Cycle, stalled in 1969. She tells Charles Donovan how a determined reissue label and some enthusiastic bloggers helped her rev it up in 2025
10+ min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Remixed Fortunes
Rock veterans' live set gets a makeover – and now even their frontman has come 'round to it.
5 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Bob Stanley Why Pipes Of Peace most certainly does not blow
Poor Paul McCartney. He delivered two terrific, twinned albums with Tug Of War (1982) and Pipes Of Peace (1983) and critics were unrelentingly mean, for no reason other than he wasn't John Lennon.
4 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
"IF I WAS STILL USING I WOULDN'T BE DOING THIS INTERVIEW"
Depending on what papers you read, back in the 00s Peter Doherty was either co-frontman of the most influential British guitar band of their generation or a crack-piping jailbird forever in the crosshairs of Fleet Street. A miracle, then, that in 2025 the Libertines and Babyshambles singer is not only drug-free but back with his strongest solo album to date. “Everything has shifted,” he tells Simon Goddard. Wastered youth: Roger Sargent
10+ min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Sweet Soul Music
Revisiting an organic funk classic which regenerated the groove.
2 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
33 ⅓ minutes with... Kerry Minnear
Kerry Minnear joined Gentle Giant in 1970. Whereas the core of the band - brothers Phil, Derek and Ray Shulman - progressed from popsike hitmakers Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, Minnear came more or less straight from The Royal Academy of Music where he graduated with qualifications in musical composition, piano and classical percussion.
4 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Crazy For You
Artpop’s fraternal Odd Couple deliver further proof of genius. By Simon Price
5 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Essex Serpents
Southend siblings' dark, daring and brilliant fifth.
4 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Boss tones
Bruce Springsteen unissued treasure trove due in box sets
1 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Underground Netherlands auctioning spree
The Velvet Underground single sleeve sells for £20k+ at the world's largest fair, as Daryl Easlea reports
3 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
bat out of hell
If, goth-wise, Siouxsie ruled 2023 and The Cure did the same in 2024, then 2025 looks set to be the year of Peter Murphy. The Bauhaus frontman and goth O.G. is back with a career- best solo album, recorded with Killing Joke’s Youth in Spain and featuring guest appearances from Boy George and Trent Reznor. But will the Silver Sufist grab a golden opportunity, or will he, dogged by personal issues, clutch defeat from the jaws of victory once more? One thing’s for certain: he'll do it his way. “Forty years on, I don’t chase trends,” he advises Jeremy Allen.
10+ min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Shed and buried
London's Victoria & Albert Museum plans an exhibition on 80s-20s concert halls
1 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
Vesuvius And Them
Floyd's 70s film goes HD and Steven Wilson gets hold of the audio to create a right old Bacchanalian beanfeast.
3 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
JAZZ COLLECTOR
Even though there's been a veritable glut of previously unissued BILL EVANS live recordings in recent years, his devotees won't complain about another hitherto unavailable archival release.
4 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
IN SEARCH OF SPACE
Not content with being the crown prince of 21st century prog, Steven Wilson is now the No 1 go-to guy for surround sound remixes of rock reissues. He's also a member of six different bands (by our rough calculations) and his style-shifting solo career keeps his loyal fanbase guessing - and coming back for more. Now he has joined forces with one of his childhood heroes for an album that delves back into his concept-loving roots to \"attain some perspective\" on our universe. The Overviewer: Jeremy Allen. Lime Bandit: Kevin Westenberg
10 min |
June 2025
Record Collector
ANGELIC UPSTARTS THE MURDER OF LIDLE TOWERS POLICE OPPRESSION
I think I've got a really rare record. It came to me through my late brother who was a big punk fan and bought a lot of records back in the late 70s and early 80s.
10+ min |
June 2025
Record Collector
WINDOWS ON THE WORLD
At the peak of their powers in the early 70s, by 1975 there were signs that Led Zeppelin were burning out, and their legendary appetite for excess, not to mention stadium-straddling, mythically charged, epically inclined hard rock, might be waning.
10+ min |
February 2025
Record Collector
HI-FIDELITY?
Running a record shop is a dream for many music aficionados. Steve Burniston investigates how to run a successful one
6 min |
February 2025
Record Collector
THE ENGINE ROOM
The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music
4 min |
February 2025
Record Collector
UNDER THE RADAR
Artists, bands, and labels meriting more attention
4 min |
February 2025
Record Collector
45 SHEFFIELD 45s
Continuing our celebrations of RC's 45th birthday and following on from our look at the best 45s to come out of Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, we focus on the urbanisation formerly known as Steel City: Sheffield. Close to the (Nether) Edge: Jeremy Allen
1 min |
February 2025
Record Collector
Finished Symphonies
In the late 80s, Shelleyan Orphan made rarefied, ravishing, precious (both meanings) baroque pop, all chamber quartet accompaniment and literary reference points, like an 18th century Cocteau Twins.
8 min |
February 2025
Record Collector
"BLACK BRITISH PEOPLE HAD SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT"
Breaking new ground for black music in Britain from his teenage years in Matumbi in the early 70s, Dennis Bovell went on to become one of reggae's most highly regarded producers, helping popularise lovers rock. He also played a pivotal role in post-punk's experimental incorporation of dub influences on records like The Slits' Cut and The Pop Group's Y. As new compilation, Sufferer Sounds, reaches back to his early days to compile some of his best early dub plates, Lois Wilson gets the full backstory from one of British music's most enduring forces.
10+ min |
February 2025
Record Collector
FRENZY REUNITED
Swindon's finest musical export, XTC were also one of the most quietly influential British bands, setting a template for Britpop while pioneering a brand of left-field guitar pop – from herky-jerky invention to consummate craftsmanship – that has spawned many imitators.
10+ min |
February 2025
Record Collector
Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.
The books every record collector should read. Vinyl, you may have heard, has made a big comeback. In 2022, sales of vinyl albums surpassed compact discs (CDs) for the first time in more than three decades in terms of global revenue, racking up more than $1.2bn.
10+ min |
September 2024
Record Collector
"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.
David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods. For many, 1984 remains the nadir of his Phil Collins” phase; an artistic/sartonial/tonsorial disaster area. But was it really that awful? Forty years on, Matt Phillips explores Bowie's so-called annus horribilis.
10+ min |