Latest music features

<p>J Balvin: ‘Latinos can be whatever we want, we don’t just work in construction’ </p>

the saturday interview

J Balvin: ‘In the super macho man reggaeton world, I looked weak’

He is one of the biggest artists on Spotify, with 57 million monthly listeners. Yet his career hasn’t been straightforward. As the Colombian star prepares to play the O2, he tells Annabel Nugent about learning from his mistakes and why his young son is the reason he keeps going

<p>Pretty, calming and aggressively OK: Dido’s 1999 album ‘No Angel’ </p>

playback

The pleasure and tedium of Dido’s No Angel at 25

<p>Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill: ‘There was no HR in punk rock. Nobody is here to step in, step up for you’</p>

interview

Bikini Kill: ‘There is nothing more punk than a menopausal woman’

<p>‘I respect how Swift has charted her journey to rising above and calling out all that grin-and-bear-it, good-girl bull’ </p>

I used to be a music contrarian – now I’m an unlikely Taylor Swift fan

Interviews

<p>News that Coldplay will once again headline Glastonbury next month has been met with sneers by many ticket holders </p>

comment

Coldplay have always been cool, and it’s ludicrous to claim otherwise

<p>Caleb Followill: ‘The older I get, the more political I get’ </p>

Interview

Kings of Leon: ‘Nepo babies? I’m not giving my kids s***’

<p>Joan Baez: ‘We’re fighting uphill against an avalanche of evil, sadism and bullying’</p>

Interview

Joan Baez: ‘It feels good to have changed the world’

<p>Porter Robinson: ‘Being with my normie jock friends at school, the family PC emerged as this beacon to me’ </p>

Interview

Porter Robinson: ‘Avicii’s death was a wake-up call for many people’

Music Box

Jordan Rakei performs song ‘Hope And Dreams’ on Music Box

Wings Of Desire perform acoustic version of ‘Chance Of A Lifetime’

Music Box season 10 launches with indie rock band Wings of Desire

On Trend

New Sensations

Interview

Rachel Chinouriri: ‘I’m a Black girl making indie music’

<p>Motley blue: the band have a formidable live reputation </p>

interview

Blue Bendy’s Arthur Nolan: ‘I see a lot of myself in Kendall Roy’

<p>‘When I think about Madonna, Lady Gaga, Janet Jackson, Britney and Gwen Stefani, I think my album has the same fundamental pop cues that those albums have had,’ says 29-year-old pop star Amaarae </p>

interview

Pop star Amaarae: ‘African artists are all lumped under one umbrella’

Reviews

<p>‘BRAT’ is Charlotte Aitchison’s 10th album, released under the moniker Charli XCX </p>

Charli XCX is her best brattish self on these clever, anarchic beats

Poised at the precipice of mainstream, the Essex artist gets busy untangling the contradictions of her ‘cult classic’ status

<p>Lenny Kravitz releases his 12th studio album ‘Blue Electric Light’ on 24 May </p>

Lenny Kravitz hides behind platitudes and cowbells on his new album

About to enter another decade at the mic, the musician still knows how to strut his rock stuff – but his latest outing lacks heart

Live music

<p>Van Morrison performing onstage in 2020</p>

Van Morrison at the Royal Albert Hall is good, bad, and often baffling

The 78-year-old singer treats the historic London venue to a characteristically mercurial night of covers

<p>Reality star JoJo Siwa, in her new, Gene Simmons-inspired get-up, on the main stage at Mighty Hoopla</p>

Mighty Hoopla 2024 was sublime and ridiculous

Jojo Siwa, Rita Ora and the ‘Real Housewives’ star Countess Luann steal the show at a two-day event nearly blighted by rumours of mud

Retrospectives

<p>‘They were just kids that were going out clubbing in London seven nights a week,’ says Martin Kelly of Heavenly Recordings </p>

Playback

Flowered Up were brilliant – but they were headed for tragedy

<p>New fans are discovering the music of Oakland musician Judee Sill </p>

The tragic life of Judee Sill, folk-rock’s forgotten star

<p>Those early Nirvana shows were experienced by fans as deeply communal and endlessly relatable</p>

Inside Nirvana’s final show: Kurt Cobain and a prophetic declaration

<p>Before he was famous: A young Cillian Murphy chats to Ireland’s RTE about his band, Sons of Mr Green Genes</p>

Features

How the 1990s Cork music scene helped make Cillian Murphy a star

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