Quite often, when an artist releases a new album, the reviews say "this is their most personal yet". Generally, though, you can take that with a pinch of salt. The writer may just be searching for something to say that would give you a reason to listen to it. In the case of Kae Tempest's…Read more Self Titled
hip hop
Ezra Collective
Last night, the missus and I watched a film that had been languishing on the video recorder, waiting for us to find a free 2½ hour slot in our evening schedules. It was called Hidden Figures, and it was about three African-American women working as 'computers' assigned to NASA's Mercury space program in the early…Read more Ezra Collective
Mercury Music Prize 2021
This year's shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize was announced on 22nd July. The prize celebrates albums by artists from the UK and Ireland released in the qualifying year. According to its website it is "the music equivalent to the Booker Prize for literature and the Turner Prize for art". Allowing for some understandable self-promotion…Read more Mercury Music Prize 2021
Antiphon
Arguing with Antiphon History records Antiphon of Rhamnus as an orator in ancient Greece. He was, in fact, a professional ghostwriter, writing speeches for disputants in the courts, and was regarded as perhaps the finest exponent of rhetoric in Athens at the time. Curiously, though, he only addressed the public directly once, when he was…Read more Antiphon
Afronaut
... there will be no opera, no Viennese waltzes, no country music, no hip-hop and nothing ponderously slow. - Crotchety Man Home Page Two of the blogs I follow have recently suggested that hip hop is a genre that can not be dismissed by any music fan who claims to have an open mind. One of those blogs…Read more Afronaut
Sasse
A band called Antiloops appeared on the Crotchety Radar recently. I liked what I heard and added Luna from their 2014 Electroshock album to my list of tracks to feature in these pages. Then, two days ago, I played Luna again to refresh my memory of the music and to think what I might say about it.…Read more Sasse
Dirty Harry
There is a comedy slot on BBC Radio 4 at 6:30 p.m. weekdays. One of the programmes is called "I've Never Seen Star Wars". In it the comedian, Marcus Brigstocke, talks to well-known people and encourages them to do something they've never done before, especially if every other Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet seems…Read more Dirty Harry
Crotchety Man 