Music

As the Second World War took shape, a big band leader dominated the year. While, from very different quarters, a Disney film and an emerging folk star signalled sounds of the future.SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The year began with a sense of foreboding. Four months on from the Nazi invasion of Poland, Britain faced the start […]

As the Romani brought a gypsy beat from the east, Europe’s greatest musical innovator, Hildegard of Bingen, found a sound that could examine the human condition, as much as praise God. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Not even a century on from the Norman conquest, 1150 found England in the grip of political crisis. Henry I had […]

As a hit new documentary provides Bros with an unlikely comeback, SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back to the eccentric twins’ first embrace 
of fame Tiffany, wearing a black hat and her hand placed on her cheek. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis/VCG via Getty Images For Britain, 1988 was a manic year. […]

The castrato singer Farinelli was the undoubted superstar of an era in which musical advances were made not just with compositions, but instruments too. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports In the 1730s Britain was alive with colonial ambition, making power plays for continued dominance in the world abroad, and in possession of thrusting cities at home. The […]

X Factor’s advent was shortly to end the traditional fight for the festive top slot. But it went out with a bang in 2003, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. Comedian Avid Merrion launches his bid for the Christmas number one spot with Bo Selecta single “Proper Crimbo”. Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Christmas […]

A self-confident Britain holds sway, with the Spice Girls and Oasis to the fore. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Los del Río’s Macarena was an unlikely smash hit, but it became the biggest single of 1996. The middle-aged Latin pop duo from Seville had been knocking about since the early 1960s, but when this rumba from an […]

The singer re-emerged in one of his most ebullient incarnations, while another star unveiled his own signature move. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports That the international hit of 1983 was Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon proved that Britain still outstripped the rest of the world for boundary-pushing music. Pleasant pop it was, but its lyrical undercurrent of anguished […]

English music takes a radical turn which continues to resonate three centuries on – SOPHIA DEBOICK​ reports. After more than six years of civil war, the fabric of British society had been riven and the system of government dismembered by 1649. Religious certainties had crumbled as old power structures were torn down. In Scotland there […]

A dominant, if unconventional, Irving Berlin was confounding the critics, as music took its first tentative steps towards ‘pop’. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Sheet music cover image of ‘That International Rag’ by Irving Berlin. Picture: Sheridan Libraries/Levy/Gado/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Progress was the watchword of 1913. The US was at the vanguard, with the […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a forgotten TV classic from the 1970s, which treated its viewers like grown-ups. Talfryn Thomas in Survivors (1975) – Credit: Archant On the Wednesday night of April 16, 1975 at 8.10pm, immediately after the BBC 1 family film – a 1950s western starring Wildfire the Wonder Horse – Britain was hit with […]

A year on from rock and roll bursting on to the scene, 1956 was the moment youth culture truly took hold. SOPHIA DEBOICK on a pivotal moment. Hot on the heels of rock and roll’s breakthrough year, 1956 was an even more important 12 months in the history of music. While 1955 had seen Bill […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a year when the pop charts were filled with vibrancy and variety.. characteristics that were about to become severely stifled There was never a dull moment to 1986. While the Sun gave us ‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster’, 30 million watched Dirty Den leave Angie on Christmas Day, and globally millions more […]

Before the Britpop steamroller removed it, the charts were filled with subtlety. SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back on a year of complexity Grunge seemed to be taking over the world as 1992 rolled into 1993. As Nirvana released In Utero in September and recorded their MTV Unplugged concert in November, their ascent continued unchecked, while Pearl […]

As recovery from the war continued, a new era of individualism and hedonism was already on the horizon. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Al Jolson was the biggest star of 1920, a Broadway sensation who was fast emerging as a dominant recording artist. The hit song of the year, Gershwin’s Swanee, only became so after Jolson put […]

French pop provided the pioneers, as protest music also took voice. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Before the Beatles invented the modern teenager in Britain, the Europeans were already ahead of the game. In 1962, France was churning out an iconoclastic, Americanised pop that threatened the grand tradition of chanson française at a time when the country […]

While the US produced a very raunchy scandal, British pop’s great controversy was a little more tame. Peter Andre and Katie Price coupled on I�m A Celebrity… (Photo by David Westing/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images Lewdness was in in 2004. As Justin Timberlake tore off part of Janet Jackson’s bustier at the Super Bowl […]

With the Space Race very much on, 1959 reeked of the future. And one band were particularly influential, Sophia Deboick reports. One event on its own secures 1959’s position in musical history. February 3 was ‘the day the music died’, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed instantly when the plane […]

For a few years at the height of the Sixties, the epicentre of cool was to be found between junctions 16 and 17 of the M1. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports on an unsung cultural landmark World at her feet: Sandie Shaw at the Blue Boar services on the M1. Photo: David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images – Credit: Redferns/Getty […]

For a world still recovering from the horrors of war, pop culture offered escapism and a glimpse of a brighter future. Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials. Picture: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM photo archives – Credit: Archant Theodor Adorno said ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. Looking at the hits of […]

The English Renaissance took music into new directions and saw that emergence of a tune which still echoes down the ages. Sophia Deboick reports. Elizabeth I had been on the throne for more than 20 years as the 1580s dawned, and was presiding over a peaceful England. But these years were the calm before the […]

The Doors’ frontman was supposed to go to the French capital to find inspiration, but found only disintegration. Sophia Deboick pieces together his final weeks. For three days after his death in an apartment at Number 17 Rue Beautreillis, Jim Morrison’s body remained at the property. Wrapped in plastic and packed in dry ice, it […]

A sterile-sounding genre is revived by an injection of illicit creativity. SOPHIA DEBOICK on the musicians who put the soul into rural America’s music At the mid-point of the 1970s rock was in its pomp. The Who set a record for the biggest indoor concert (78,000 at Pontiac, Michigan in December). Led Zeppelin sold out […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a year in which the last lingering cobwebs of Victorianism were blown away by a new sound. Before the First World War announced the 20th century as an era in which humanity would pervert technology and ideals of gallantry into lethal forces, its earliest years were marked by legendary feats of human […]

There’s something rather familiar about 1981. America had a new president better known for showbiz than politics, the Labour party was being led by a scruffy leftist, a new age of nuclear paranoia was dawning and a devastating London fire became the focus for protest at social and racial inequality. The pop scene that year […]

David Bowie’s death led to an explosion of activity around the star’s life and music. Lifelong fan DYLAN JONES explains why he chose to write one more Bowie book If you had ever doubted that David Bowie would have an afterlife, all you really need to do is go onto Instagram. Here, in the virtual […]

In 1972 Ziggy played guitar, Marc Bolan hit his stride and blokes across Britain made nervous moves towards their sister’s make-up bag. Here SOPHIA DEBOICK rediscovers glam Britannia David Gilmour of Pink Floyd performs on stage, London, 1972. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images The events of the year were notoriously dreadful. […]

The mid-90s saw the triumph of two very different double acts – Robson and Jerome and the Gallagher brothers. Jerome Flynn and Robson Green – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Robson and Jerome – the stars of ITV’s military drama Soldier Soldier – double A-side Unchained Melody/(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover was […]

When American rock met European art – a bizarre chapter in rock history to which countless other acts, from David Bowie onwards, owe a debt of gratitude. Salvador Dali, Spanish surrealist painter – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images As a solo act Alice Cooper is known as a golf-playing born-again Christian, a preacher’s son who played […]

Two centuries apart, Handel and Jimi Hendrix set up home in the same London property from which they proceeded to redefine music. The house in Brook Street, Mayfair both made their homes 200 years apart – Credit: Archant George Frideric Handel and Jimi Hendrix shared two things: musical genius and a London address. The Handel […]

Bernard Sumner recounts his cultural European journey, from the early days of Joy Division to New Order's latest album