The Definite Article

It's been a long, long time since the last true rock record entered the charts. Oasis' Be Here Now was released in August 1997 at a time when a band like themselves were half way to conquering the world, monopolising the music business and bringing the national press to a standstill. Yeah, they were that big. At that time in history, it became normal for rockstars like the Gallaghers, renowned and unashamed of their hedonistic lifestyles, to be invited to functions usually only attended by socialites and actors. They associated with A-list celebrities like Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, and even rubbed elbows with the Prime Minister as Tony Blair attempted to connect with the people and anchor his New Labour policies into place by mingling with the middle-class. But what got them there in the first place was the music. As 2017 hurtles on, the charts are still dominated by the modern idea of popular music; computerised, pre-made sounds assembled into monotonous beats...

The original ten islanders of the 2017 line up Thirty years ago, many people never have predicted that the entertainment industry would stoop as low as to put ten singletons in a house and make them couple up after approximately 18 seconds of knowing them. And never did we think it would be so painfully addicting. Love Island, which premièred in 2015 and is now running it's third series, is a television programme based around the ancestral notion that if you put a male and a female together, they'll eventually mate. Two weeks into series three and we've already had two 'couples' fornicate on live TV, with many more likely to follow in the upcoming weeks. The luxury villa in Mallorca includes deck chairs and a swimming pool The Big Brother-esque show sees a number of bronzed peoples between the ages of around twenty and thirty living in a villa in Mallorca for a grand total of seven long weeks. At various stages throughout the process, the membe...

Ben Thatcher (left), and Mike Kerr of Royal Blood. With most musicians who are blown into the fray with a meteoric debut record, it is extremely difficult for them to follow it up with an effort just as contemporary and mind blowing as the first. They have to have a unorthodox ability to not be caught up with all the demands and lavishings of life in the spotlight; to not be carried away with the financial benefit they might've stumbled into as a result of their initial effort. Most sequel albums are simply not as good as their predecessor because the unprecedented quality of it was what made it blow up in the first place: they were in the right place at the right time. With a second album, artists are much more liable to experiment and dabble within genres; with more money at their expense, they get carried away with production, trying out new instrumentation and including it unnecessarily. There is a knack and a God-given talent - and a fair amount of resistance needed as wel...