Cat Power’s ‘The Greatest’ and Beth Orton’s ‘Comfort of Strangers’

Master producer Rick Rubin’s reinvention of Neil Diamond

Franz Ferdinand, the band that changed the rock song

When mention is made of a new Rolling Stones album the mind immediately races back to their golden period, that evocatively named series of records from Beggar’s Banquet in 1968 to Exile on Main St. in 1972. Before that were the singles: “Satisfaction”, …

Falling for Nana Mouskouri

This is a Sunday afternoon barbecue record: people milling about, sausages turning, maybe some Mexican beer. “Who’s this?” someone asks. “It’s the guy who used to be in The Pixies,” someone else replies. There are blank looks until another …

The strange and the strangely familiar lurk in ‘A River Ain't Too Much to Love’

Ballads, blues, babes and a man still expressing himself: ‘B-sides and Rarities’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

‘I Am a Bird Now’ by Antony and the Johnsons