Music
Record Collector
Pauline Black – "We Protested and Were Heard"
Pauline Black and The Selecter may have had their 'moment' at the height of 2 Tone in the late 70s/early 80s alongside The Specials, Madness and The Beat, but that doesn't mean they have been inactive since. In fact, their latest album, Human Algebra, is merely the latest - their 16th in a line of long-players calling out injustice to a rocksteady beat. Not for nothing was Black awarded an OBE for services to entertainment - she's full of surprises, though that doesn't quite explain the telegram from Marlene Dietrich or marriage proposal from Fela Kuti. "I do like the double-take when people hear me open my mouth," she tells Lois Wilson
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Obsession?
Record collectors can cop flak for their passion. But if more people understood the psychology of record collecting, might they cut we collectors more slack?, asks Tim Jones
9 min |
March 2023
Record Collector
David Crosby: 1941-2023
"When I started writing things like Guinnevere, I began to hit my stride"
5 min |
March 2023
Record Collector
Everything Under The Sun: The Dark Side Of The Moon at 50
Pink Floyd's eighth studio album, The Dark Side Of The Moon, is one of the cornerstones of modern music., capturing a band at their peak, honing and refining the experimentation of their recent past into linear progressive pop songs. Haunted by the spectre of their absent leader Syd Barrett, and bewildered by the rituals of adulthood, Roger Waters wrote of ageing, war, religion, avarice and lunacy in a manner so recognisable that it has resonated down the ages. As for its artwork, nestling just behind Sgt Pepper's bass drum, the prism on the album's cover is one of the most iconic in rock. The icing on the VCS 3, Waters' vision would be nothing without the textures provided by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the album, issued originally on 1 March 1973, Mike Barnes and Jo Kendall explore this classic from new angles, from the live shows that shaped the record to the music press reaction. They meet the young woman behind the lens on tour, and assess the album's impact on the next generation. And Stefano Tarquini and Joe Geesin provide expert discographical detail...
10 min |
March 2023
Record Collector
Jeff Beck: 1944-2023
Just how good he sounded in his seventies was made clear by his last album, 18
5 min |
March 2023
Record Collector
Seminal Works
The records that helped the art-pop trailblazers crack the big time - and broke their original line-up.
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Method In The Sadness
The 21st-century Karen Carpenter fashions a marathon of meta-melancholy, with a few new tricks.
2 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Revival Stories
Startling modern soul from sexagenarian comeback kid.
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Single File
Make room on the crowded Beatle shelf for this magnificent tome.
2 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
DEMIGODDESS
Scottish rocker delivers glimmering display in symphonic setting
3 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Dark Magic
Three-decade high from Basildon's finest on blackest celebration yet.
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
THE ENGINE ROOM
The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
UNDER THE RADAR
Artists, bands, and labels meriting more attention
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
A Fitting Farewell
When two songwriting greats combined.
3 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Daisy Cutter
Double-LP reissue becomes an unintended tribute to a hip-hop great.
5 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
33 1/2 minutes with...Paul Jones
Since his rise to mid-60s stardom with Manfred Mann, Paul Jones has been one of Britain's premier blues/R&B singers.
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
JAVID QUANTICK LIKES
To write a column for Record Collector. Yay Best Known Album Syndrome
3 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
MUSIC TO VISIT
Bob Stanley carries pop's baggage everywhere Shhh... library music
4 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Not Forgotten
He demanded 48 vocal takes from Cilla, before choosing the second
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Diggin' For GOLD
Our regular look at the more arcane corners of record collecting. Includes Vintage Venue
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
PAN PEOPLE
Delphina James, whose homage to Kraftwerk is a new entry in the RRPG, tells lan Shirley about arranging electronic music for steel bands and her new project, playing the music of modern composer Ludovico Einaudi
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
The Collector
Sonic Youth RC reader Al Harwood
6 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
NUMB ANGEL
Lewis Taylor was a contender, hailed by the critics and name-dropped by everyone from Paul Weller to Elton John. Following attempts to sell him as a soul boy when he was more a UK Tame Impala - less Acid Jazz than acid and jazz he made a few dazzling records, then disappeared. Rumours circulated that he'd absented himself from social media and the music industry in general and was living as a recluse. But, after nearly two decades away, he's released a new album, NUMB, which shows him in as rude vocal and compositional health as ever, and finally ready to explain where he's been. It's madness: Matt Phillips
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
"YOU GET UNDER MY SKIN...”
The Only Ones were the new wave-era band with one foot in the pre-punk, rock classicist past. They recorded three albums of erratic flaming beauty, but it was a single of theirs, three minutes of ragged insinuating perfection, that really helped them make a mark. Here, adapted from Simon Wright's new book on the band's debut LP, is the story of Another Girl, Another Planet.
10+ min |
April 2023
Record Collector
LET'S SHOP
There's nothing more that Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and The Arcs likes more than a good few hours spent digging through the crates at his favourite UK record store. Which is why we join him by the racks at London's Stranger Than Paradise. Chris Catchpole witnesses the vinyl love.
9 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
CHAIRMAN OF THE KEYBOARD
With a new illustrated account of his life, Keith Emerson, out now, the partner of ELP's keyboard virtuoso, Mari Kawaguchi, and his son, Aaron Emerson, tell us his story via 12 key images from the book, all the way from 1966 right up to his death in 2016.
5 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
Full Moon
As much of their classic as you buy, beg, borrow or steal.
2 min |
April 2023
Record Collector
33½ minutes with...Francis Rossi
"Quo's last record got 3.5m streams... which is apparently fuck-all"
5 min |
March 2023
Record Collector
Alan Parsons – "It Was Pure Convenience"
So Alan Parsons tells Jo Kendall, looking back on the opportunity that took him from EMI lab lackey to Abbey Road engineering icon. But his production work with The Beatles, Hollies, Pink Floyd, Pilot, Al Stewart, Ambrosia and more wasn't the end of the story. When Parsons met musician and producer Eric Woolfson, his creativity translated into the enormously successful Alan Parsons Project, and a long-lasting solo career to sit alongside his Art & Science Of Sound Recording educational programme and occasional forays as not just a technical wizard, but a real life one, too. Oh, oh, oh, it's magic, you know...
10+ min |
March 2023
Record Collector
AUTEUR TO AUTHOR
Luke Haines writes the shuk out of rock'n'roll Cale'n'arty
3 min |