Richard Cook (1957-2007)THE DEATH of Richard Cook at the age of 49 robs us of one of the finest writers UK music journalism has produced. He was probably the most knowledgeable and erudite jazz critic we've had on this side of the Atlantic, and the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (co-written with Brian Morton) remains an essential part of any self-respecting music library.I knew Richard well when
More >
Posts by Barney Hoskyns
Richard Cook 1957-2007
Geoffrey O'Brien - Sonata For Jukebox
Fantastic book recommended by my friend Tom Nolan (the first great LA rock writer and author of brilliant Ross McDonald biography): Geoffrey O'Brien's Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory & the Imagined Life (Counterpoint, 2004), especially the beautiful second essay "House Music" but also the hymn to the Beach Boys that is "The Lonely Sea". Some of the best prose I've ever read about how we hear
More >
Annoying Midlake at the Royal Festival Hall!
-
Artist:
-
Album:
TRIALS OF VAN OCCUPANTHER was my favourite album of 2006... so imagine my disappointment when Tim Smith turned out to be a right tit - so pleased with himself he couldn't even be bothered to sing in tune. Love the band, can't stand his phoney over-excitement and wanky hand gestures... somebody tell him just to sing the songs and let the music do the expressing! Also to stop ingratiating himself wi
More >
Amy Winehouse, Live in London town 20 July
-
Artist:
-
Album:
Boring I realise to point out what we all already know... but I just have to say that Ms Weinhaus was astoundingly great on Friday night, just the right mix of tattoo'd-toughness and wounded vulnerability... what could so easily be another lame Stax/Motown-revue pastiche is in fact deeply real, personal, contemporary, and dramatic. Car-crash-story her career may be; when she shows up she's the rea
More >
Unlikely Funk Classics!
-
Artist:
-
Track:
So I was listening to the new reissue of Warren Zevon's EXCITABLE BOY in the car this evening and the stunningly funky "Nighttime in the Switching Yard" suddenly came on... and I thought, "What other examples are there of stunningly funky tracks by fundamentally unfunky people?" Three came instantly to mind: ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses," Ian Dury's "Reasons to be Cheerful," and Metallica's "Sad But
More >
Great but Underheralded Guitar Solos!
-
Artist:
I was listening to Neil Young's TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT tonight - and yes, it simply IS NY's greatest platter - and as "Speakin' Out" ended I suddenly thought, "Why does no one ever cite Nils Lofgren's harmonics-laden solo on this song as one of the greatest fingerwanks of all time?" It's quite stunning, and it prompted me to solicit other examples of underheralded solos... anyone out there got any se
More >
Is There Anyone Out There Who Doesn't Think Elton John Is Shit?
-
Artist:
-
Album:
I was in my local south London gym and 'Candle In The Wind' came on in the changing room and it prompted to ask the above question.
More >
Album of the Year
-
Artist:
-
Album:
So I'm nominating Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" as my album of 2006. She is quite incredible - really a very great singer, and really a very great writer. "Back to Black" is like '60s soul - not Motown but Brill Building or Chicago 1963-1966 - with a totally contemporary edge and attitude. The songs are rude but passionate, debauched but hurt and fucked-up. I don't know how much producer Mark Ro
More >
Songs About Songs
Reading about the SPAMALOT power ballad "The Song That Goes Like This" prompted me to muse on the matter of Songs About Songs, those meta-compositions in which the singing subject refers in real time to the words he's writing about writing about writing... and so on in an infinite narcissistic loop that's like a hall of mirrors. "Here I sit, writing this song for you, a song that says that I'm wri
More >
Locating MOG account...