THE CARTERS Everything Is Love (Sony) Beyonce and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter just know how to do this. While I’ve never really been a fan of the idea that success is the best revenge (I’m old fashioned, retribution-laden, ex-Catholic enough to believe extreme suffering and a life lived long enough to regret in exquisite detail the original sin, is the best revenge) I do get that success is a raised finger and fuck you grin in the face of your bete noire. In many ways, for many good

It's not exactly Fromelles, or even the streets of Ferguson where one of many black men was shot by the police. Though the shots of a political war could be heard throughout the Grammy Awards as artists such as Beyonce took mostly subtle aim at President Trump, in her case with with reminders that her black consciousness album, Lemonade, made to "confront issues that make us uncomfortable", was intended to show her children they should be able to look at the Grammys, the Supe

The best songs of the year were all over the shop as numbers 11-20 showed, and numbers 1 to 10 are no different. Brandy Clark tops the list with something sharp and punchy (and closes the list with something sad but potent, if you remember) which sounds nothing like the pulse-and-sooth of Underworld or the Indo-Australian hip hop melange of L-Fresh The Lion. Clark is not the only country act on the list but at this end of the table she’s sharing space with the liquid R&B of D

The best songs of the year? Quite possibly. The songs I played the most, sang the most, enjoyed the most this year? Definitely. Many of them come from collections which will appear on the list of the best/favourite albums of the year. Not surprisingly. All of them exist independently though. Cracking power plays, strong final statements, quite beautiful and sad moments, slinky sensuous grooves and not one sign of Fergie, Meghan Trainor or Shannon Bloody Noll. Instead there’s

Offline this began with Beyonce’s Sorry, from one of the best albums of the year and one of the most important albums of the year, but when your (hoped for) next fortune is meant to come from a streaming service not that many people are going to willingly, or at least with much enthusiasm, you take whatever measures you can to drive traffic. And hell no, I’m not going to Tidal. Got enough trouble justifying Apple Music and Spotify, let alone a third. ​ ​If there’s an ‘’80s/ea

Beyonce and Solange Knowles are one of the great music stories of 2016. Two sisters as solo artists releasing number one albums in the one year is impressive enough. It’s never happened before – and before you ask, no, not even the Minogues. And it’s never happened to two brothers either - no, you don’t need to ask, it certainly didn’t happen to the Gallaghers after Oasis. But to do it with albums that aren’t just collections of songs but broader, deeper, commentary about bla

BEYONCE Lemonade (Sony) “I plugged my menses with pages from the holy book but still inside me, coiled deep was the need to know: are you cheating on me?” whispers Beyonce six minutes into the film and music of Lemonade, the scorchingly great latest in a genre she pretty much owns since her self-titled 2014 record, the “visual album”. She’s already made it clear that this is not something asked without cause - “In the tradition of men in my blood, you come home at 3 a.m. and

The second half of the near impossible task of pulling 50 songs from 50 years. A mad idea, filled with frustrations at all the ones I couldn’t pick. But, yeah, fun nonetheless. 1990: Sonic Youth – Kool Thing The year I finally got Sonic Youth, or they crossed over to my side. Droll, sexy and sung by one of my favourite bassplayers (along with Tina Weymouth, Bruce Thomas, Paul McCartney & Andy Rourke). Found out recently she’s a pretty cool interview too. 1991: Joni Mitchell –

BEYONCE Beyonce (Sony) That Beyonce Knowles released her album with no warning and initially on a download site is mostly of academic interest. That the album is a long record accompanied by an even longer pool of videos – one for each of the 14 tracks and three extras – which are all high quality, often intriguing and genuine companion pieces to the songs is more interesting, though hardly shockingly new (she made videos for all the tracks on a previous album too eventually)