Music and Opera

The film critic Anne Billson wrote a typically pugnacious piece recently about the phrase ‘guilty pleasures’, which has spread like Japanese knotweed beyond its origins in pop music and taken root throughout popular culture. In film a guilty pleasure would be something like Four Weddings and a Funeral, which we’re not ‘supposed’ to like because it’s not La Règle du Jeu, but which we do like very much because it’s fab. My nomination in this category, and a possible reason my career as a film critic never quite reached the heights, would be Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. You might think that Citizen Kane or Vertigo is the

There are those to whom the word ‘volare’ means nothing. But for  us Eurovision enthusiasts, it’s all starting with the opening ceremony tonight. Two semi-finals this week, then the big one on Saturday. It’s transmitting live in China, New Zealand and Canada this year – making Eurovision the most-watched non-sporting television event on the planet. The annual, spectacular clash of nations, cultures and politics is also becoming a major betting event. A friend of mine in Sweden (where Eurovision is not seen as a massive gay pride festival) usually makes a killing getting it right. To do so requires pretty good knowledge of music, European politics, trends in trading relationships,

To curate a festival these days is to put oneself in the firing line. There is every chance that all one will earn is the charge of stirring up apathy. It is a risk; and there will be no knowing how it has gone until it is much too late to withdraw gracefully. In the recently concluded first edition of the London International A Cappella Choral Competition, held at St John’s Smith Square, it could have gone either way. What will stick in my mind is how the wind got behind it round about day three, so that by the end a packed house could go mad at a Spanish

It’s twenty years since the height of Britpop, but does anyone still care about it? YouGov has carried out some polling on the subject today. Although 35 per cent stated that they like or really like Britpop (compared to 20 per cent who dislike/really dislike), 44 per cent replied ‘don’t know’. There’s also a lot of indifference on whether music has been better or worse since. Nine per cent think better, 26 per cent worse, and 34 per cent stated they also don’t know. At the height of Britpop, Oasis painted themselves as a working class band, the lads, in contrast to the perceived effete and posh boys of Blur. Based on

It is coming to something when relatively young pop stars die not of drugs or misadventure but, essentially, of old age and decay. Frankie Knuckles, the house DJ and producer, breathed his last recently at the age of just 59, and several ageing ex-clubbers of my acquaintance told me that it was the end of an era. But it always seems to be the end of an era these days, and very rarely the beginning of one. We read that the New Musical Express, that inky irritant to generations of music lovers who bought it every week even if they disagreed with every word it printed, now sells about three

When Chicago DJ Frankie Knuckles died last week, a novelty number by a Brylcreemed Aussie pop punk group had just reached number one. It displaced Duke Dumont & Jax Jones’s I Got U and ended a three week-run of house singles at the top of the charts. I suspect the following statement may piss off dance nerds, but it’s fair to say that Knuckles had as much claim as anyone to having ‘invented’ house music thirty odd years ago. Essentially, he took the kitsch out of disco and turned it into a synthesiser-heavy global brand. Was it worth the effort, though? Frankie Knuckles and the other Chicago house pioneers made

Has anything ever been more luvvie than this?

W.H.Auden once wrote: ‘Real artists are not nice people. All their best feelings go into their work and life has the residue’ — which puts those who aspire to be artists in a bit of a quandary. Is it a measure of one’s success as a ‘real artist’ that one is not a nice person? Is it in fact possible to be a real artist and a nice person? And, if it is not, is it better to be a real artist or a nice person? Auden, who was speaking from first-hand experience, implies that it must be one or the other. By the time he wrote this, Auden was

So Lebedev’s London Live has launched. And I don’t know about you but I’m hooked. I’d totally forgotten what really bad TV looked like. It’s as if the chief execs at Channel 5 got together with Alan Partridge for a 21st-century rebrand. London’s new TV channel did get one nice review from the, oh, Lebedev-owned Independent – moving swiftly on. From what I’ve seen of London Live’s first full day, it’s as if a posh, ethnically very chic primary school won a Blue Peter competition where they got to dress up as adults for the day and run their very own TV channel – all by themselves! The top news story

‘The truth is,’ says Gordon Back, lowering his voice, ‘that if the violin finalists from the BBC Young Musician of the Year were to enter the Menuhin Competition, they wouldn’t make it to the first round.’ Not through the first round, note, but to the first round: they wouldn’t be good enough to compete. Back is artistic director of the Menuhin, held every two years in a different country. In effect, it’s a search for the next Yehudi Menuhin, who recorded the Elgar concerto with the composer at the age of 15. Some critics think Menuhin never quite fulfilled that astonishing early promise — but I wouldn’t dare suggest that

George Michael and Kylie Minogue have albums out this week. And while they might both be distinctly second-division these days, they’re both still rather remarkable. George Michael got famous for not being Andrew Ridgeley, and has since redefined the status of adult-oriented pop. He has also written the only Christmas song in history worth playing all year round and made the Hampstead branch of Snappy Snaps a tourist destination. I like him a lot. Minogue, meanwhile, is cheesy, knowing and resolutely budget in the international diva stakes. As Aldi is to Waitrose, so Kylie is to Beyoncé. But she’s made some terrific records – have you given up pretending you

Earworm: what a wonderful word. It describes, as nothing else quite can, the effect a really invasive melody can have on your consciousness. Hear the song once and you will hear it again and again, on a loop in your brain. At the pub quiz the other night, the answer to a question was Brotherhood of Man, and at least two of us subsequently suffered the torture of hearing ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’ in our heads for the rest of the evening. I don’t usually think of myself as Drinking To Forget, but this evening might have been an exception. So are people who love pop music more susceptible

listen to ‘Fraser Nelson on Britain’s 2014 Eurovision entry’ on Audioboo

One of the unlooked-for side effects of the financial crisis has been what might be called the desocialising of music funding. Whereas once many arts organisations could expect to survive solely on public money, just recently there has been an almost unseemly rush to tap private sources of cash. The time lag between the original catastrophe and the realisation that oblivion may be just round the corner is probably explained by the disinclination of politicians to dump high-profile organisations overnight. But now, finally, there is no escape. Philanthropists the world over are besieged. This would make such a lovely subject for a university student in the US, on one of

Victims of state persecution, ambassadors for day-glo knitwear and wank fodder for beardy liberals the world over, the members of Pussy Riot have been filling both prison cells and column inches since 2012. In the process, they’ve also become one of the most famous bands on the planet. But let me ask you this – have you ever actually heard any of their music? And crucially, is it any good? Was it purely their politics that led the Cossacks to attack them with horsewhips last week, or is that just the way they do pop criticism in the Caucasus? We took to the internet to get some balanced and entirely

Age has never been an impediment to great musicianship. YouTube is full of extraordinary late musical testaments from pianists who, refusing to retire, hit their stride in their eighth, ninth and, in Alice Herz-Sommer‘s unique case, tenth decades. Here is a selection of the finest: 1. Mieczysław Horszowski gave his first recital at the age of eight in 1900, his last at the age of 98 in 1991. He was present at the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913. He heard Busoni perform, played for D’Albert, Fauré and Saint-Saëns and was pals with Granados, Villa-Lobos and Szymanowski. His Chopin at the age of 98 in this Wigmore Hall recital