Operating in the interstice where Sonic Youth meet the Jackson 5, Brighton dance-rock outfit The Go! Team are deservedly brewing up a storm with their debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike.
Why the musical legacy bequeathed by Michael Jackson will ultimately outlive and overshadow the huge morass of questions surrounding his life and death...
A STRANGE sound can be heard in L.A. late at night, when the traffic has finally begun to die down, Mickey Rourke has parked his Harley, Bruce Willis has turned off his 1,000 megawatt speakers and the denizens of the Dream Factory are getting ready to embrace the great unconscious.
Not since the death of Elvis has the passing of a music legend so gripped the world. As fans and detractors alike struggle to come to grips with the sad, strange end of Michael Jackson we assess his legacy – as musician, celebrity and enduring icon and talk to some of the people who knew and understood him best.
The wild rise and fall of the coke-snorting, heavy boozing, rampantly horny music biz mogul who knew Dylan, Jagger, Jackson, Springsteen and Streisand better than most. And now he’s ready to tell all.
It all went to hell when he started calling himself The King Of Pop. The backroom boys work their usual production juju, but Invincible has the air of everything Prince has done since Diamonds & Pearls: beautifully crafted tracks, top-notch performances, not a blemish in the merchandise (unless of course it was put there on purpose) but still light years from his best work.
There's no point in beating around the bush here: Jay Kay has to be one of the most loathed men in pop. Put it down to a perceived smugness, that spritzer-eating grin, a penchant for posh autos, a celebrity girlfriend - anything but the music.
Another one from the archives: in a feature from 1987 – as Michael Jackson releases Bad – Neil McCormick charts the phenomenal career of the enigmatic star.
