The occasional lapse into white-boy reggae aside, The Clash’s masterpiece was all the better for the fact that it transcended punk. Ska, rockabilly and jazz all...
If ever there was an album that created a triumph out of a tragedy, it was Back In Black. The band had slogged their way from...
“You know when astrologers talk about a planetary line-up?” Iron Maiden’s singer Bruce Dickinson once mused. “Like, ‘this conjunction only happens once in a blue moon’,...
1 January 2021, Mick Bolton, the keyboardist best known for playing with Mott the Hoople and Dexys Midnight Runners died age 72. During the 80’s Bolton...
1986 was make or break time for Bon Jovi. After their self-titled, debut album in 1984 had put them firmly into the trench, everyone took it...
On 31st January 1987, Paul Simon went back to No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘Graceland’, the singer-songwriters seventh solo album. The album brought Simon...
Back in the 1980’s, U2 under-took a gruelling nine-month tour following the release of The Unforgettable Fire, which took in 54 US dates and led to...
In June 1985, just four days after new guitarist and former Hollywood Rose member Slash had been recruited, Guns N’ Roses left their Los Angeles base...
Def Leppard were under no illusions about what they wanted to do: they wanted to become the biggest band in the world, and were prepared to...
After a nine-month break in 1989, Metallica played nine shows in Europe to knock off the rust. The last of those was in Glasgow. Backstage afterwards,...
1990, and Seattle’s music scene is booming, the culmination of almost a decade’s worth of bands working as a community, putting out their own records, and...
In 2002, not long after the 10th anniversary of the release of Nevermind, Dave Grohl was asked whether he felt that Nevermind had had an impact...
BloodSugarSexMagik was released on the same day that Nirvana released Nevermind and is recognised as an influential and seminal component of the alternative rock explosion in...
Born with a voice to die for, his audacious debut Grace made him one of the most popular alternative artists of the ’90s, accentuated by his...
Towards the end of the 80’s, Manchester gave us ‘Madchester’, a mix of alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music. This scene, exclusive to the North...