Music

By Harry Bedford, Music Editor  Taylor Swift is one of biggest selling recording artists around today. Her evolution from country teen to pop princess has been incredibly successful and her latest album 1989 is already the best selling album of the year. However, the charismatic 25-year-old has caused a little controversy in the music industry this week by removing all of her back-catalogue from the music streaming service Spotify. In 2012, she refused to add her album Red to the...

By Holly Carter, Music Reporter Last weekend Asaf Avidan played two shows at The Islington Assembly. Asaf is an Israeli singer-songwriter currently signed to the record label Polydor. He is well known for performing as part of Asaf Avidan & The Mojos but in 2012 he decided to focus more on his solo career which saw the release of live album Avidan in a Box. Throughout his career he has performed alongside and supported legendary musicians such as Bob Dylan,...

By Harry Bedford, Entertainment Editor The civil rights movement and popular music were married together back in the 1950s and 1960s. Artists such as Sam Cooke singing 'A Change is Gonna Come’ and Bob Dylan singing ‘The Times they are a-changing’ were hugely significant at the time. So it makes sense that a musical, set in Memphis, about the integration of black and white culture would work. Memphis tells the story of the over-confident, under-educated young white man Huey, played...

Tomorrow sees the 2014 Mercury Prize awards. This prestigious music prize is awarded to best album of the year released in the UK and Ireland. Previously won by such artists as The Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Franz Ferdinand and was won last year by James Blake. Spotify has created the official Mercury Music Prize Playlist of this year's nominees. Have a listen below.

By Chris Tate, Music Reporter A lot has changed in the last six years. For Jackson Browne, things are all too similar to how they were 50 years ago. Love, hate and conflict has always dominated his music, and his latest offering, Standing in the Breach, touches on all these points. It seems all too easy for an experienced artist to slip into the retirement era of their music. Where there was once hits and inspiration, there sits uninspiring album...

By Chris Tate, Music Reporter On Friday morning I switched on Radio 2, my usual morning ritual, to hear the new single by Take That. It will mark their first release as a trio since Jason Orange left little less than a month ago. This got me thinking. Is it really Take That? Can they justify releasing a new album under that name? Then I thought a little more, can you really blame them? Bands all over the world are...

By Harry Bedford, Music Editor Si Cranstoun was given a recording contract earlier this year at the age of 39 after two decades of working the London music scene. Despite the singer-songwriter - from Caterham, Surrey - working the scene for 20 years, he actually sounds like he has come to the charts 60 years too late. His soul style is much more akin to the likes of Jackie Wilson and The Drifter than anyone else today. Nevertheless his optimistic,...

Jack Peat reviews the refined and polished Charlie Simpson at the Roundhouse.  Charlie Simpson is a physical embodiment of the journey all young musicians embark on, yet his tremendous success has resulted in his particular journey being very much in the public eye. There are very few teenage bands that start up in their parent’s spare room punching out Thom Yorke melodies and Bob Dylan-esque lyrics with a young Keith Moon propped precariously on a plastic stool in the corner,...

By Harry Bedford, Music Editor Since the late 1970s, as the punk era took hold and music became a political weapon, rock music became very much about realism with musicians focussing on the ups and downs of everyday life. But back in the late 1960s things were slightly different. There was more fantasy in the music, more imagery in the lyrics and the music was generally more colourful. You only have to compare The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix to the...