package.json

{
  "response": {
    "status": "ok",
    "userTier": "developer",
    "total": 75321,
    "startIndex": 1,
    "pageSize": 10,
    "currentPage": 1,
    "pages": 7533,
    "orderBy": "newest",
    "results": [{
      "id": "music/2015/sep/24/iain-chambers-bascule-chambers-concert-tower-bridge",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Take it to the bridge: making music out of a London landmark",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T06:05:00Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "809",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cjp6",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"d5718fc904fea12ff1324bf6c90a1ef2070dff0d\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443024233677/d50861c7-e8d2-461f-8a72-bf93683e96e0-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Iain Chambers in the Bascule Chambers at London Bridge.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">‘Tower Bridge has the acoustics of a small cathedral’ … Iain Chambers in the Bascule Chambers, where Docklands Sinfonia will perform his work during the Totally Thames festival.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph:  Steve Stills</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>The bascule chambers of <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2015/jul/24/vlogger-jumps-off-tower-bridge-video\">Tower Bridge</a> are two of London’s great unknown spaces: the caverns that contain the counterweights of the bridge when it’s raised. Sitting beneath the water line of the Thames, they’re brick amphitheatres, steps rising ever more steeply from the ground like stalls for a theatre that’s never used.</p> <p>Until this week at least, when the Docklands Sinfonia brass ensemble and mezzo-soprano Catherine Carter will perform works specially composed for the space by Iain Chambers. “It’s got the acoustics of a small cathedral,” he says. “You feel like you’re travelling back to Arthur Conan Doyle’s era when you go down there.” </p>  <aside class=\"element element-pullquote\"> <blockquote> <p>If you pitch the sound of a lorry braking down eight octaves, you get beautiful crystalline music</p> <footer> <cite></cite> </footer> </blockquote> </aside>  <p>But it’s not just a natural auditorium – the very sound of the bridge being raised is incredibly musical. As the engine that drives it whirrs into life, it emits a minor chord, and the muffled clanks of machinery are like far-off timpanis. Chambers’ central work will be a kind of duet, with the performers playing alongside a field recording of the bridge in action.</p> <p>“It sounds like music,” says Chambers of the recording, made by Ian Rawes of the <a href=\"http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/\">London Sound Survey</a>. “Quite abstract, yes, but it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It feels like it’s going through a life cycle, like a mayfly, living briefly and then ending. I find it bizarrely moving.” </p> <p>The brass players at first imitate the notes played by the bridge, then play variations of them, teasing out weird new pitches and harmonies. “I don’t just want to work with sounds as we hear them,” says Chambers, “I want to uncover something. Some people slow birdsong down to analyse it. <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/27/poetic-visions-my-vingt-regards-to-messiaen\">Olivier Messiaen</a> tried to score birdsong to understand it more, like looking at a still life.”</p>  <figure class=\"element element-embed\" data-alt=\"Bascule chambers\">  <iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/224124208&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\"></iframe> </figure>  <p>Chambers’ egalitarian approach has led to all sorts of work. He’s documented Gateshead car park in sound with his group Langham Research Centre, written a piece from the backstage noises of Oslo’s opera house and another made up of bike bells being rung along a stretch of London towpath. These everyday sounds set off a jukebox in his head. “You know when a lorry goes past and you have to cover your ears because the brakes are so shrill? If you pitch that sound down about eight octaves, you get this beautiful crystalline music, that comes out of these very close harmonies. If a lorry’s reversing and beeping, it’ll conjure up a Fauré piano quintet that starts like that. Hammering on a building site could set off a bit of The Rite of Spring.” .</p> <p>“There was a road drill right outside my house, so I stuck a microphone through the letterbox and recorded it,” he says. “It had these really irregular rhythms – 7/8, 5/4 – and the time signatures were changing every bar. I was really gripped by it. It was doing so much – more than a lot of music does!” A drill is as unlovely as sound gets, but Chambers suggests that it’s all a matter of control – harness the sound, put it to work and you can manage its ugliness. “I made a piece where this guy was doing that really irritating thing of blowing leaves around aimlessly while I was trying to work on a piece, so I went out, recorded it, and brought it into the piece. </p>  <figure class=\"element element-image element--supporting\" data-media-id=\"12dda070f31f8013fc77599aff8a06368471bb8b\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443028495755/951101ae-cd97-4aad-aad1-f4dff683be53-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Composer Iain Chambers in the control room of Tower Bridge.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Composer Iain Chambers in the control room of Tower Bridge.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Steve Stills</span> </figcaption> </figure>  <p>“One of my aims is to encourage people to listen to environmental sounds and treat them as music,” he continues. “If someone tells you to look for a certain shade of purple on the way to work, you start seeing it everywhere. I find that with sounds. We’ve been listening to boats, and now when I’m at the Thames, I start tuning in to them. Before, you just thought it was a tugboat of some sort; now you’re listening to it in a fine way. You become a connoisseur.”</p> <p>Unsurprisingly, one of his heroes is <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/aug/15/john-cage-centenary-tribute\">John Cage</a>. The bascule concert will also feature a performance of Cage’s Aria, a piece for soprano where the singer imitates various voices – pub drunk, boxer, opera singer – and makes non-musical sounds such as barks, claps, and sighs of delight. “We performed it in front of a number of two- and three-year-olds, and they totally got it. It really stops you pigeonholing your audience when you see toddlers taking so much pleasure from hearing John Cage,” he says. “George Osborne was in the audience with his family – he came up to us afterwards and cross-examined us about what we were doing. If you can convince George Osborne that <em>musique concrète</em> is a good thing, there’s no limit, is there?”</p> <p>• Bascule Chambers will be performed the <a href=\"http://totallythames.org/events/info/bascule-chambers-concert\">Totally Thames festival</a>, London, from 26-27 September. The concert will be later broadcast on Resonance FM.</p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "newspaperEditionDate": "2015-09-24T00:00:00Z",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "He makes sweet music out of shrieking lorries, screaming drills and even leaf-blowers. Now composer Iain Chambers is using the sound of Tower Bridge in a new work performed below the Thames in its cavernous Bascule Chambers",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Take it to the bridge: making music out of a London landmark",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Ben Beaumont-Thomas",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T06:05:00Z",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443024234250/d50861c7-e8d2-461f-8a72-bf93683e96e0-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "newspaperPageNumber": "19",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-10-01T04:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>He makes sweet music out of shrieking lorries, screaming drills and even leaf-blowers. Now composer Iain Chambers is using the sound of Tower Bridge in a new work performed below the Thames in its cavernous Bascule Chambers</p>",
        "linkText": "The man staging a concert under Tower Bridge",
        "creationDate": "2015-09-23T11:04:49Z",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T09:48:42.000+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/24/iain-chambers-bascule-chambers-concert-tower-bridge",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/24/iain-chambers-bascule-chambers-concert-tower-bridge",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/24/punk-label-severs-ties-aids-drug-price-rise-martin-shkreli",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Punk label severs ties with man behind 5,000% rise in price of Aids drug",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T04:36:03Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "591",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4ckjj",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"545c9d47437e1629090c49dc5d39bdd90de89c76\"> <img src=\"http://media.guim.co.uk/545c9d47437e1629090c49dc5d39bdd90de89c76/415_286_1622_975/1000.jpg\" alt=\"Martin Shkreli … Least popular man in punk\" width=\"1000\" height=\"601\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\"> Least popular man in punk …Martin Shkreli</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>A piece of price gouging by a pharmaceutical company has had an unexpected knock-on effect on a US punk label, after the actions of Turing Pharmaceuticals caused Collect Records to end relations with one of its investors.</p> <p>Earlier this week, <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?_r=0\">the New York Times reported</a> that Turing, set up by former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, had increased the price of a drug called Daraprim from $13.50 per tablet to $750 – a 5,000% increase. Turing had acquired the rights to the drug in August. It is used to treat toxoplasmosis, and for people with weakened immune systems, including Aids patients.</p> <p>It transpires that Shkreli was also an investor in Collect Records, the label run by Geoff Rickly, the singer in No Devotion, the group he formed with the former members of Lostprophets. He operated as a silent partner, exercising no control. <a href=\"http://pitchfork.com/news/61324-geoff-rickly-explains-collect-records-relationship-with-turing-pharmaceuticals-ceo-martin-shkreli/\">Rickly told Pitchfork</a>: “I want to believe that Martin wants to do the right thing overall. I’ve seen the guy give away money to schools, charities, and frankly, our bands, who if anyone really knows the industry, is a hard sell. I am struggling to find how this is OK.” He added: “Though I want to believe that there is some reason that he would do this that is some remotely positive way, the only thing I can see is that it is totally and completely heartbreaking.”</p>  <figure class=\"element element-image element--supporting\" data-media-id=\"8ec03e3f209381335f62f8c0b100e1650aef1b1e\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/24/1443068796678/e209ab0e-6ec1-4aaa-8285-5802bff83a56-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"No Devotion … With Collect Record boss Geoff Rickly, front.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">No Devotion … With Collect Record boss Geoff Rickly, front.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: PR company handout</span> </figcaption> </figure>  <p>Individual acts on the label – Nothing and Sick Feeling – had already said they would not have anything to do with Collect so long as Shkreli was involved. </p> <p>Rickly duly issued a statement:</p> <blockquote class=\"quoted\"> <p>Today, Collect Records — with the support and encouragement of all of our artists — have agreed to fully sever our relationship with Martin Shkreli, effective immediately.</p> <p>When I decided to get into business with Martin, we took him on as a patron. He was completely silent and allowed us to do business as we pleased. His only ask was that we sign bands that we believed could make great art given the right environment and not to focus on a profit, no matter how dire the bottom line. </p> <p>Never in a million years did any of us expect to wake up to the news of the scandal that he is now involved in. It blindsided and upset us on every level. As such, we know it is impossible for us to continue having any ties with him. For my part, I’ve always strived to make Collect a place that was so liberal, encouraging, and artist-friendly that no one would ever walk away from us willingly, though to do so at any time would be very easy. To that end, I hope that our bands continue to believe in our guidance and passion. Any of them that have had an incurable crisis of confidence will be allowed to leave with nothing but the kind of encouragement that we’ve built our label on. <br /></p> </blockquote> <p>Shkreli has since announced he will lower the price of Daraprim. <a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/09/23/even-after-price-cut-martin-shkreli-wins/\">However, Forbes argues, this should not be taken as a victory</a>. “Shkreli won,” wrote Matthew Herper. “He made a huge price increase, rode through the resulting controversy, and now has settled in to taking a less huge price increase, but probably still very big price increase. When I reached him this morning, he told me that doctors don’t stop prescribing drugs because of bad media coverage. They prescribe them to save their patients’ lives. Shkreli may have made himself an industry pariah and the most-hated man in America, but he claims not to care.”</p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "Martin Shkreli had been a silent partner in Collect Records, but no longer, after bands said they would leave the label if he stayed involved",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Punk label severs ties with man behind 5,000% rise in price of Aids drug",
        "byline": "Guardian music",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T04:36:03Z",
        "thumbnail": "http://media.guim.co.uk/545c9d47437e1629090c49dc5d39bdd90de89c76/415_286_1622_975/140.jpg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-30T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Martin Shkreli had been a silent partner in Collect Records, but no longer, after bands said they would leave the label if he stayed involved</p>",
        "creationDate": "2015-09-24T04:07:02Z",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T08:51:33.782+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/24/punk-label-severs-ties-aids-drug-price-rise-martin-shkreli",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/24/punk-label-severs-ties-aids-drug-price-rise-martin-shkreli",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/24/bob-dylans-latest-bootleg-series-release-to-cover-his-classic-196566-recordings",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Bob Dylan's latest Bootleg Series release to cover his classic 1965/66 recordings",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T04:05:01Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "234",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4ckjc",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"376ddc598062292f553b0ac0698cfe228107e8b9\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/24/1443067391979/1c4dcfb0-ba79-4f43-bf0f-8240c6636fe4-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Bob Dylan … Whole lotta listening.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Bob Dylan … Whole lotta listening.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>The latest instalment of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series looks set to be most exciting set yet. Ultimate Classic Rock <a href=\"http://ultimateclassicrock.com/bob-dylan-bootleg-series-12/\">reports</a> that The Cutting Edge 1965-66: The Bootleg Series Vol 12 will include demos, unheard versions and outtakes from Dylan’s “thin, wild mercury sound” period, which saw him release the albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.</p> <p>Though there has been no official statement from Dylan’s camp or from Sony Legacy, the label that releases The Bootleg Series albums, the report seems credible, based on information the Guardian has seen. Ultimate Classic Rock reports that the set will come in three different versions – a two-CD set, a six-disc edition, and an 18-disc package, which will include comprehensive coverage of the sessions for Like a Rolling Stone. </p> <p>If the18-CD set manages to come anywhere near 80 minutes of music per disc, it will include around 21 hours of recordings, which would allow scope to include an enormous amount of the material Dylan recorded in during an incredibly fertile period.</p> <p>The report says the set will include one of the great unreleased sessions of Dylan’s career – the original recordings for Blonde on Blonde, made with the Band, before Dylan scrapped that version of the album and decamped to Nashville to record it with session musicians from the city.</p> <p>The sets will reportedly be released on 6 November.</p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "Report suggests Dylan obsessives will be in for a treat with an 18-disc collection of his ‘thin, wild mercury sound’ recordings",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Bob Dylan's latest Bootleg Series release to cover his classic 1965/66 recordings",
        "byline": "Guardian music",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T04:05:01Z",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/24/1443067392406/1c4dcfb0-ba79-4f43-bf0f-8240c6636fe4-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-30T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Report suggests Dylan obsessives will be in for a treat with an 18-disc collection of his ‘thin, wild mercury sound’ recordings</p>",
        "creationDate": "2015-09-24T03:51:04Z",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T08:55:17.299+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/24/bob-dylans-latest-bootleg-series-release-to-cover-his-classic-196566-recordings",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/24/bob-dylans-latest-bootleg-series-release-to-cover-his-classic-196566-recordings",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/musicblog/2015/sep/24/morrissey-what-we-learned-about-him-from-list-of-the-lost",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Morrissey: what we learned about him from List of the Lost",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T03:19:02Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "1650",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cktz",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"0ca14c6891a451adc02d86698117a4239942d887\"> <img src=\"http://media.guim.co.uk/0ca14c6891a451adc02d86698117a4239942d887/0_232_4500_2702/1000.jpg\" alt=\"Morrissey… Don’t give up the evening job.\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Morrissey… Don’t give up the evening job.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Pedro Gomes/Redferns via Getty Images</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>It’s commonplace in this kind of article to tell you we’re reading the book so you don’t have to. It’s a tease, usually. In the case of List of the Lost, however, it’s absolutely true. Do not read this book; do not sully yourself with it, no matter how temptingly brief it seems. All those who shepherded it to print should hang their heads in shame, for it’s hard to imagine anything this bad has been put between covers by anyone other than a vanity publisher. It is an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination. </p> <p><a href=\"http://true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_150923_03\">The singer himself has described it thus</a>: “The theme is demonology … the left-handed path of black magic. It is about a sports relay team in 1970s America who accidentally kill a wretch who, in esoteric language, might be known as a Fetch … a discarnate entity in physical form. He appears, though, as an omen of the immediate deaths of each member of the relay team. He is a life force of a devil incarnate, yet in his astral shell he is one phase removed from life. The wretch begins a banishing ritual of the four main characters, and therefore his own death at the beginning of the book is illusory.”</p> <p>Not that you need to know that, really. All you need to know is not to buy it. Please don’t encourage Morrissey to write any more novels. While <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/13/autobiography-by-morrissey-review\">Autobiography</a> was fascinating, at times beautiful, and with enough charm to balance out the bitterness, List of the Lost offers nothing but the astonishing feat, in a book so brief, of being boring.</p> <p>But what can we learn from it?</p> <h2>Morrissey’s ego remains untrammelled</h2> <p>That, surely, is the only reason for the publication of List of the Lost in this form. It appears to be unedited, the curse of the writer whose commercial clout is stronger than their publisher’s willpower. It’s not just the typos and grammatical errors – of which there are plenty – but the endless digressions, the inability to come to any sort of a point. There might be a tolerable 20-page short story nestling in here somewhere (there probably isn’t, but let’s be generous for a moment), but no editor has been allowed to search for it. The ego that demanded Autobiography be published as an instant Penguin Classic has this one published in a jacket redolent of the great Penguin editions of the 1960s. This book is not fit to share a bookshop with them, let alone a bookshelf.</p> <h2>Morrissey is still hugely hung up about sex</h2> <p>We learned in Autobiography that Morrissey has had partners. We learn from List of the Lost that his attitudes towards sex remains odd: it is associated with death, for one thing. It seems to be predatory: older men feed upon the young. Which makes it all the odder that Morrissey writes about his track team in such a fetishising way. “Imperishable, they train insatiably, companions in pleasure and passionate in sentiments, they are the living picture of the desired physique.” (Ask yourself if a 56-year-old man writing in that manner about women in their teens or early 20s would be considered anything other than a bit creepy.) When he comes to describe sex itself, it’s even worse. “Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”</p> <h2>Morrissey can’t write dialogue</h2> <p>Every character in List of the Lost speaks like a parody of Morrissey at his most florid and self-indulgent: bad puns, hopeless “quickfire” dialogue, and desperate self-pity: “I suffer greatly in painful silence and I speak to you, now, with servitude whilst also pleading for your understanding. I am alone and I agonize in an exasperated state.” That, one strongly suspects, was not a common pattern of speech in Boston in 1975. That line one might defend by saying it comes from what might very well be an apparition, yet the apparition speaks much as the flesh-and-blood characters do – you could not tell the characters apart from their speech – and in the next paragraph goes into a remarkable matter-of-fact description of where to find the body of her murdered child, “all neatly blanketed by a durable covering of weather-soaked layers of sheet metal”. Durable covering, you say? Hmmm. What sealant did the murderer use? Not something weather-resistant, evidently …</p>  <figure class=\"element element-image element--supporting\" data-media-id=\"f8ce7e4fc1e6a4d8b87db38ccf9e6f6593f8cff8\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/24/1443064147518/9f77e13f-cde7-4c6f-a711-f6c09daf4733-274x420.jpeg\" alt=\"List of the Lost\" width=\"274\" height=\"420\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">List of the Lost … A novel not to treasure.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Penguin</span> </figcaption> </figure>  <h2>Morrissey still has scores to settle (part one)</h2> <p>Character upon character reminds us that justice and law are different things, and that the legal system is not to be trusted. <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/17/morrissey-autobiography-hits-back-judge-nme\">That judge who branded Morrissey “devious, truculent and unreliable”</a> and who failed to find in his favour when the Smiths’ rhythm section sought more money has not been forgiven. Even the “Fetch” Morrissey has referred to – a homeless man the four relay runners encounter in some woods – manages to get his dig at judges in before being unceremoniously killed. “Judges don’t live in the ghetto … they are exclusively verbal beings. What can they understand about the way life moves? … Would judges even recognize dog shit if they saw it? … Judges have to live in secrecy, don’t they, because they’ve done so much harm to society.” One half expects the character, with his dying breath, to sigh: “And Joyce and Rourke never deserved a penny!” Bafflingly, this American demon, in an American wood, speaking to American people, also wants to let them know that royalty is a meaningless concept. It’s possible, living in a republic, that they already knew that.</p> <h2>Morrissey still has scores to settle (part two)</h2> <p>Remember those <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_nEKykI0Og\">belligerent ghouls who ran Manchester schools</a>? Turns out they’re running Boston colleges as well. Only this time they’re doing worse than grabbing and devouring, and kicking while you’re showering. In fact, this one prefers to sodomise with “hatred and bloodlust and bigotry”. But let’s not ruin it for the poor souls who plan to read List of the Lost.</p> <h2>Morrissey still has scores to settle (part three)</h2> <p>Damn you, meat eaters. You might think there would be no particular reason for a lecture about the slaughter of animals in a book about athletes being stalked by a malevolent force. You would, of course, be wrong. “At the human hand the animals are whacked and hacked into chopped meat whilst gazing up at their protector with disbelief and pleading for a mercy not familiar to the human spirit, ground and round into hash or stew for the Big Mac pleasure of fat-podge children.”</p> <h2>Morrissey still has scores to settle (part four)</h2> <p>And his greatest grievance is with Britain itself. A whole section, inexplicably, is devoted to Morrissey’s disgust at the conduct of British establishment during the second world war (along with a contemptuous repetition of the rumour that Winston Churchill and Ivor Novello were lovers, which is odd, given that he also complains that Churchill being credited with winning the war stole the credit from <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/24/enigma-codebreaker-alan-turing-royal-pardon\">Alan Turing</a>, denied glory because he was gay). Rare is the writer who is willing to complain that the big problem with Churchill during the war was that he was, frankly, a bit of a coward and unwilling to try to identify with the people he governed, but Morrissey is that writer. “Churchill himself would experience World War 2 safely and in a suite of rooms at Claridge’s most luxurious Mayfair hotel, with not a complicated twitch or pang to trouble his elaborate evening meal.” We’ll leave aside the fact that he makes it sound like Claridge’s is a chain, with the Mayfair branch simply its most upscale outpost – “Yeah, I was going to go stop at the Travelodge, but I got a deal on the Claridge’s at Peterborough services” – and instead note that the entire passage reads like a polemic written by a particularly single-minded street corner pamphleteer (see also Morrissey’s writing about the pernicious power of, wait for it, local television news. Damn you, Look North, with your hegemony!).</p> <h2>Morrissey does not favour the light touch</h2> <p>The most prominent character in List of the Lost is Ezra. He is the one who loves and is loved, the one who seeks justice for the wronged, the unofficial leader of the gang. Yet he’s also the one who commits the crime that sets the tragedies in motion. Ezra’s surname is Pound. <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/books/ezra-pound\">Ezra Pound</a>, of course, was the poet and defender of his contemporaries who went on to become a fascist, and broadcast propaganda against his native United States from Italy during the second world war. Think about it, yeah?</p> <h2>Morrissey may not be the world’s leading expert on sport</h2> <p>One of the more surprising revelations of Autobiography was that Morrissey had been a talented runner, so it’s perhaps not surprising that a relay team is at the centre of the narrative. What’s more surprising is that they are a half-mile relay team. Now, I am willing to be corrected on this, but I’ve looked around and can see no evidence of such an event existing. There are two rarely contested relays that might fit the bill – the 4x200m and the 4x800m – but they appear to be so rarely contested that it seems hugely unlikely a college would have a specialist team in either, or that such an event would be part of a televised college athletics meeting. Frankly, though, that’s the least of List of the Lost’s problems</p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "Morrissey’s first novel is out and … well, it’s not very good. But the classic Moz tropes are present and correct",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Morrissey: what we learned about him from List of the Lost",
        "byline": "Michael Hann",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T03:19:02Z",
        "thumbnail": "http://media.guim.co.uk/0ca14c6891a451adc02d86698117a4239942d887/0_232_4500_2702/140.jpg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-10-01T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Morrissey’s first novel is out and … well, it’s not very good. But the classic Moz tropes are present and correct</p>",
        "creationDate": "2015-09-24T01:58:09Z",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T09:59:12.703+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/sep/24/morrissey-what-we-learned-about-him-from-list-of-the-lost",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/musicblog/2015/sep/24/morrissey-what-we-learned-about-him-from-list-of-the-lost",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/24/chris-brown-should-not-be-allowed-into-australia-says-minister-for-women",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Chris Brown should not be allowed into Australia, says minister for women",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T01:46:28Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "438",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cktx",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.theguardian.com/culture/video/2015/sep/24/chris-brown-australia-visa-domestic-violence-conviction-video\"            data-short-url=\"http://gu.com/p/4ckj4\"                    data-show-ads=\"true\"            data-video-id=\"2377057\"            data-video-name=\"Chris Brown should be denied Australian visa, says Michaelia Cash – video\"            data-video-provider=\"AAP\"            > <video data-media-id=\"gu-video-5603610ee4b0855df1def92f\" class=\"gu-video\" controls=\"controls\" poster=\"\"> <source src=\"http://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/09/24/150924Cash_FromGAus-16x9.mp4\"/><source src=\"http://multimedia.guardianapis.com/interactivevideos/video.php?octopusid=10811059&amp;format=video/3gp&amp;maxwidth=700\"/><source src=\"http://multimedia.guardianapis.com/interactivevideos/video.php?octopusid=10811059&amp;format=video/3gp&amp;minwidth=700\"/><source src=\"http://multimedia.guardianapis.com/interactivevideos/video.php?octopusid=10811059&amp;format=video/m3u8\"/><source src=\"http://multimedia.guardianapis.com/interactivevideos/video.php?octopusid=10811059&amp;format=video/mp4\"/> </video> <figcaption>Chris Brown should be denied Australian visa, says Michaelia Cash. <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/culture/video/2015/sep/24/chris-brown-australia-visa-domestic-violence-conviction-video\">Link to video</a></figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>The new minister for women, Michaelia Cash, has indicated that US singer Chris Brown may not be allowed into Australia due to assault convictions stemming from a domestic violence incident.</p> <aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\"> <p> <span>Related: </span><a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/chris-brown-must-be-denied-entry-to-australia-says-activist-petition\">Chris Brown must be denied entry to Australia, says activist petition</a> </p> </aside>  <p>In 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to assault charges after attacking his then girlfriend, pop star Rihanna.</p> <p>Cash, who was appointed as the minister for women on Monday, intimated that <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/chris-brown-must-be-denied-entry-to-australia-says-activist-petition\">Brown would be denied a visa</a> for an upcoming tour of Australia on character grounds.</p> <p>“I can assure you that the minister for immigration and border protection will be looking at this very, very seriously,” Cash said. “I am clearly not going to pre-empt a decision by the minister, however, I can assure you what my strong recommendation would be.” </p> <p>Cash was in Melbourne with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, heads of the Council of Australian Governments (Coag) advisory council, Australian of the year Rosie Batty, and former Victorian police chief Ken Lay, to announce <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/24/malcolm-turnbull-announces-new-strategies-to-tackle-domestic-violence\">$100m worth of anti-domestic violence measures</a>.</p> <p>“People need to understand if you are going to commit domestic violence and then you want to travel around the world, there are going to be countries that say to you ‘You cannot come in because you are not of the character we expect in Australia,’ and certainly, without pre-empting the decision of the minister, I can assure you it is something that the minister is looking at,” Cash said, referring to the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, who has ultimate say in the decision to deny visas on character grounds.</p> <p>On Friday, advocacy group GetUp <a href=\"https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/surge/australians-say-no-to-violence/no-chris-brown-you-re-not-welcome-in-australia\">created an online petition</a> calling on Dutton to deny Brown a visa. By Thursday morning, about 9,700 people had signed it.</p> <p>“If we stand by and do nothing while he performs around the country … we are implicitly sending the message that if you brutally beat a woman, in a short amount of time you will be forgiven, or even celebrated,” the petition said.<br /></p> <aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\"> <p> <span>Related: </span><a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/10/us-rap-artist-tyler-the-creator-cancels-australian-tour-after-visa-ban-campaign\">Tyler, the Creator cancels Australian tour after visa ban campaign</a> </p> </aside>  <p>Brown’s planned December tour would take in shows in New Zealand, but his past conviction means he will have to apply for a special visa to get into the country.</p> <p>Brown, who was sentenced to five years’ probation for assaulting Rihanna in 2009, has visited Australia twice since the sentencing, in 2011 and 2012.</p> <p>In February, boxer Floyd Mayweather was <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/feb/04/floyd-mayweather-australia-visa-delay\">denied a visa to enter Australia</a> due to his criminal record. He had been jailed in 2012 for assaulting his ex-partner in front of their children.<br /></p> <p>Cash referred to Mayweather’s visa denial as an example of the government not being “afraid to say no”. </p> <p>“I don’t believe we are afraid to exercise that discretion,” she said.</p>",
        "productionOffice": "AUS",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "Speaking at the launch of a new domestic violence strategy, Michaelia Cash says singer should be denied a visa on character grounds over his assault conviction",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Chris Brown should not be allowed into Australia, says minister for women",
        "byline": "Shalailah Medhora",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-24T01:46:28Z",
        "thumbnail": "http://media.guim.co.uk/30d593668495e3d84d30954f5a19e82f61daa920/0_573_1980_1188/140.jpg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-27T11:45:00+10:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Speaking at the launch of a new domestic violence strategy, Michaelia Cash says singer should be denied a visa on character grounds over his assault conviction</p>",
        "creationDate": "2015-09-23T23:45:15Z",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T04:06:22.000+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/24/chris-brown-should-not-be-allowed-into-australia-says-minister-for-women",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/24/chris-brown-should-not-be-allowed-into-australia-says-minister-for-women",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/23/drake-future-what-a-time-to-be-alive-mixtape",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Drake and Future's What a Time to Be Alive is mutual backslap too far",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T17:46:40Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "838",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4ckb7",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"2b8b1dd35241c110294738559cd5140a74cae30a\"> <img src=\"http://media.guim.co.uk/2b8b1dd35241c110294738559cd5140a74cae30a/0_0_620_372/500.jpg\" alt=\"Future and Drake: making up is fun to do\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Future and Drake: making up is fun to do.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Getty Images</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>Nobody better seizes on trends than Drake. When the Toronto rapper hears a new sound, he’s quick to incorporate it into his style, and when he sees a new artist bubbling (say, Migos or <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/25/fetty-wap-trap-queen-new-jersey-rap-hip-hop\">Fetty Wap</a>), he’s quick to do a track with them. It’s probably no coincidence that Jay Z has also long been a master of this approach, or that Drake is poised to have a similarly lengthy and successful career. The two have, through this process, become kingmakers. When Jay collaborated with Kanye West for 2011’s Watch the Throne, it represented a formal acknowledgment that Jay’s former protege was now on his level – a top echelon superstar in his own right.<br /></p> <aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\"> <p> <span>Related: </span><a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/21/drake-future-suprise-mixtape-what-a-time-to-be-alive\">Drake and Future release surprise mixtape What a Time to Be Alive</a> </p> </aside>  <p>A similar thing happened to the rapper Future over the weekend, when he and Drake released their mixtape, What a Time to Be Alive. Future, an Atlanta MC affiliated with the Dungeon Family collective (also known for spawning Outkast and Goodie Mob), has been bubbling since the beginning of the decade, breaking out in 2011 with his appearance on the YC song Racks, and his critically beloved 2012 debut Pluto. His mixtape from March, 56 Nights, will get many album of the year votes, and his July album DS2 (short for Dirty Sprite 2) hit No 1. He’s been on a tear. </p> <p>Drake and Future have collaborated often, but things haven’t always been smooth between them. There were reports that Drake would kick him off his 2013 tour (though it <a href=\"http://pitchfork.com/news/52680-future-back-on-drake-tour/\">didn’t happen</a>), and that same year Future said he played an <a href=\"http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.25026/title.future-says-he-inspired-drake-s-started-from-the-bottom-\">uncredited songwriting role</a> in Drake’s single Started From the Bottom. But the pair are clearly simpatico now. Drake said he <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/21/drake-future-suprise-mixtape-what-a-time-to-be-alive\">recently travelled to Atlanta</a> intending to work with Future on only a few songs, but it quickly mushroomed into an entire collaborative album, crafted in six days. </p> <p>The result, What a Time to Be Alive, is marketed as a mixtape, though if you don’t have Apple Music you’ll have to buy it on iTunes. It’s partly an early Christmas present for Apple – with whom Drake signed this year, for the approximate GDP of Ontario – and also represents Drake’s knighting of Future as hip-hop royalty. Drake has never really done a collaboration like this before, and it puts the two of them on the same plane, with Drake’s crisply articulated melancholy musings alternating with Future’s druggy, Auto-tuned epiphanies. </p> <p>Is it any good? At times, yeah, it’s a pleasure to hear their different takes on similar themes, such as on Live From the Gutter. “<a href=\"http://genius.com/7835725\">I watched my broad give up on me like I’m average</a>,” laments Future, perhaps referencing the mother of one of his children, singer Ciara, who’s now with Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. (To console himself, Future goes up to his attic to count his money.) Drake, meanwhile, raps mysteriously about his entourage and his close associates trapped in situations they can’t get out of. He obliquely references his stress over the <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/28/drake-meek-mill-hip-hop-ghostwriter\">Meek Mill ghostwriting allegations</a>, but addresses their beef more directly on 30 For 30 Freestyle, his one solo track on the work. (Never mind that it doesn’t sound like an actual freestyle.)</p> <blockquote class=\"quoted\"> <p>Never thought I’d be talking from this perspective</p> <p>But I’m not really sure what else you expected</p> <p>When the higher-ups have all come together as a collective</p> <p>With conspiracies to end my run and send me a message</p> </blockquote> <p>This stanza has the ring of the absurd. Beyond Meek Mill’s efforts and that of a few, shit-talking others, there has hardly been an organized conspiracy to knock Drake off his perch. Further, Drake by almost all accounts emerged victorious from their verbal dust-up. He’s on top now, for real, and nobody’s really arguing any more.</p> <p>This lack of stakes is ultimately what sinks What a Time to Be Alive. Earlier in the year, Drake was caught up in real drama, which helped imbue his Meek Mill response songs and <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/feb/18/drake-why-the-rapper-has-something-to-mope-about\">If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late</a> with interesting tension. Now, however, feels like the time for his victory lap. Instead, we get paranoia, entitled boasts, and veiled threats, like on the grating Big Rings. (“I got a really big team/ And they need some really big rings/ They need some really nice things/ Better be coming with no strings.”) </p> <p>Future’s parts are more interesting and fun. His solo track, Jersey, is a manic, scrambled series of surreal images describing what it’s like to be on wild ascent like his. “Crime rate’s goin’ crazy, crazy/ Cause my young niggas so thirsty/ Couple commas, made a purchase/ Caught the wave, I ain’t surfin’.” And the album’s beats, from a variety of producers closely associated with the two rappers, do well creating an unsettled mood. </p> <p>But the works lacks an urgency to make it memorable, especially when both artists have already released such strong work this year. To make what is perhaps an obvious point: perhaps they should have spent more than six days working on it. </p>",
        "productionOffice": "US",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "The two rappers have had their issues but new mixtape shows they’ve made up and produced some of the most boring music of their careers in the process",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Drake and Future's What a Time to Be Alive is mutual backslap too far",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Ben Westhoff",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T18:46:40.635+01:00",
        "thumbnail": "http://media.guim.co.uk/2b8b1dd35241c110294738559cd5140a74cae30a/0_0_620_372/140.jpg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-26T13:45:00-04:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>The two rappers have had their issues but new mixtape shows they’ve made up and produced some of the most boring music of their careers in the process</p>",
        "linkText": "Drake and Future's What a Time to Be Alive is mutual backslap too far",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-23T19:17:25.372+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/drake-future-what-a-time-to-be-alive-mixtape",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/23/drake-future-what-a-time-to-be-alive-mixtape",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/23/the-clash-10-of-the-best",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "The Clash: 10 of the best",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T17:14:05Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "2131",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cj3v",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"fc69cf58ce1296c3dee7033922786b3551fd434d\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/22/1442946681871/d2db6f22-3320-4364-9741-e721af5e340f-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Clash City Rockers … Mick Jones, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon onstage in 1981.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Clash City Rockers … Mick Jones, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon onstage in 1981.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/REX/Nils Jorgensen/REX</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<h2><strong>1. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TcKiC2yB0s\">Complete Control</a></strong></h2> <p>Few British bands have had as much impact as the Clash. Blazing out of the London punk scene in the 1970s, they sought nothing less than to change the world and, for many of their fabs, they managed it. In fashion, their early spray-painted outfits inspired bands from punk peers to the Manic Street Preachers, while their later dark-suits-and-hats look was adopted by scores of louche young musicians, notably the Libertines. Politically, they made being committed seem not just acceptable but essential to scores of young musicians. However, their biggest contribution was musical. They were looking to leave punk behind almost from their inception, incorporating reggae, dub, rockabilly, ska, funk and later hip-hop and electro, making quantum leap after quantum leap. Unlike many of their peers, their impact was international, as they sold millions of records and played Shea Stadium in the US withthe Who, who were among their many admirers. Although virtually every track on their debut album has a justifiable claim to be included here, this non-album 1977 single is the high watermark of the Clash’s punk period. And yet, even as the punk fires burned, the song hinted at the dizzying musical adventure to come. In a very shrewd move, it was produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Jamaican reggae legend who had also co-written <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/dec/03/junior-murvin-five-great-performances-police-and-thieves\">Junior Murvin</a>’s Police and Thieves, which <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6FZwVvS8_8\">the Clash covered on that first album</a>. Complete Control’s lyrical tirade against their label, CBS is not exactly revolutionary – the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlFcrtVnfXg\">Sex Pistols did a similar thing with EMI</a> – but the passion still raises goose pimples, as does the song’s hurtling sense of romanticism and drama (not least, Mick Jones’s blistering guitar solo) as the Clash are found in a familiar position: cornered but coming out guns blazing, like Paul Newman and Robert Redford at <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geOqbM03Hf0\">the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</a>.</p> <aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\"> <p> <span>Related: </span><a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/23/the-clash-mick-jones-paul-simonon\">Clash city rockers – Mick Jones and Paul Simonon recall the glory days</a> </p> </aside>  <h2><strong>2. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkM5lrrnq_Y\">(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais</a></strong></h2> <p>This brilliant 1978 hit encapsulates the Clash’s ability to cover many bases simultaneously, yet at the time it was met with some confusion even among the band’s own fans. “We were a big fat riff group,” Strummer later explained. “We weren’t supposed to do things like that.” What he means is how the Clash incorporated reggae into punk and rock so seamlessly that it became a natural fit, while the song contains what could be the singer’s most complete lyric. It was inspired by a trip to a reggae all-nighter at the Hammersmith Palais, during which Strummer felt that the performances by Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson were more lightweight than the roots reggae he’d expected. From this kernel of disgruntlement comes a state of the nation address that takes on everything from the rise of the National Front (“If Adolf Hitler were in England today, they’d send a limousine anyway”) to racism (“white youth, black youth, better find a solution”), the distribution of wealth, to pop culture. Along the way, Strummer namechecks Robin Hood, has a pop at some rivals (long believed to be <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20064,00.html\">the Jam</a> – “they’ve got Burton suits, huh, you think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money”), then punk’s second wave (“the new groups are not concerned”) and even aims a quip at his own pale, speedy self (“I’m the all-night, drug-prowling wolf, who looks sick in the sun”) One of Strummer’s own favourite Clash songs, it was played at his funeral in 2002. </p>       <figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96UtZPLiT90\"                                                                        > <iframe width=\"460\" height=\"259\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/96UtZPLiT90?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure>   <h2><strong>3. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6UTZb-_vI\">Safe European Home</a></strong></h2> <p>The Clash’s second album, Give ’Em Enough Rope, was given a cool critical reception – produced by Blue Öyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman, it was seen as too rock, too American (a big sin for many, given the song <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A13vj5vdlCU\">I’m So Bored With The USA</a>). The debut had been laid down in London in an amphetamine-fuelled hurry, but this US-recorded follow-up was more painstaking, as Pearlman favoured a more detailed approach, recording take after take and spending an age on each drum sound; Strummer moaned that Pearlman was “trying to turn us into Fleetwood Mac”. The album certainly has its flaws, but contains some real gems, including one of the Clash’s great rock anthems. Ironically, given the band’s embrace of Jamaican music, the song – written in the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston – describes their ill-fated trip to the country, where they didn’t find the promised land of their favourite 12in singles, but a nation riven by crime and gunfire. Thus, “Sitting in my safe European home/ Don’t wanna go back there again.”</p> <h2><strong>4. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAM7dnEcptg\">Armagideon Time</a></strong></h2> <p>Although all the Clash members loved reggae, bassist Paul Simonon was pivotal to the wayJamaican music fired the band. He had grown up amid Brixton’s West Indian community and had been exposed to reggae from early childhood. This 1979 version of <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmjx1r1omgY\">Willi Williams’s single from the previous year</a> is the definitive example of the Clash playing reggae. Williams’s version is great – woozier, more ska – but on the B-side of London Calling, the Clash made it their own, from the echoey keyboard intro to the way the groove kicks in over Simonon’s marauding bassline. The lyrics, meanwhile, could have come straight from the Clash’s own songbook – “A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight … so a lot of people are going to have to stand up and fight” – while the sound of fireworks and bombs and Strummer’s seeming ad libs further embellish the song’s smouldering, simmering atmosphere: “OK, OK, don’t push us when we’re hot!” This shouted instruction to the engineers was prompted by the studio clock approaching the three-minute mark – the time agreed that the song would end. It was sounding so good, though, that the band just kept playing. </p> <h2><strong>5. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ertt3o1x65c\">Spanish Bombs</a></strong></h2> <p>Already we’ve heard the Clash as a punk band, reggae band and rock band, but this track from 1979’s double album, London Calling, shows just what they could do with a handful of hooks and a pop melody. As ever, the interplay between Strummer and Jones’s combined vocals produces some wonderful two-part harmonies, while the lyrics compare the experiences of freedom fighters fighting fascism in the <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/galleryguide/0,6191,395635,00.html\">Spanish civil war</a> with modern-day tourist visitors. As with so many great Clash songs, the lyrics are an education and Strummer excels himself by singing in what he called “Clash Spanish”, but one doesn’t have to be versed or even interested in political history to recognise that it’s an absolute gem of a tune. </p> <h2><strong>6. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Yl4ehzX-o\">Train in Vain</a></strong></h2> <p>Topper Headon is often remembered for being sacked from the band owing to his heroin abuse. which led to him, some years later, selling his gold and platinum discs to fund a raging habit. However, as Strummer would remind anybody, the drummer’s musical contribution to the Clash was Herculean enough to far outweigh such negative aspects towards the end, and went far above the normal for a drummer in a rock band. Although this third single from London Calling is one of Mick Jones’s pop songs, it’s Headon’s superlative work behind the drum stool which takes it into another dimension. His killer drum intro lays down the terrific groove which Jones would later compare to a train – hence the title – and is typical of the kind of deceptively complex, swinging playing that the American novelist Scott Kenemore, also a drummer, once described as “an undiscovered treasure for many”. Happily, Headon eventually recovered and, in 2008, made an emotional return to the stage with Jones, who was then fronting Carbon/Silicon, to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw0NVxVrb-E\">play this song together for the first time in 25 years</a>. The song’s ability to travel between musical boundaries is perfectly illustrated by <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_6WXMJ3saw\">an unlikely cover by country star Dwight Yoakam</a>.</p>       <figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNot47WRBFk\"                                                                        > <iframe width=\"460\" height=\"345\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/eNot47WRBFk?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure>   <h2><strong>7. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttJBdr6eBuo\">Bankrobber</a></strong></h2> <p>Such was the Clash’s musical output that they could afford to release some of their best songs as singles only, and still have enough in the locker for their albums. This August 1980 seven-inch illustrates the point: originally available only on import, it ended up reaching No 12 in the charts. Bankrobber finds the Clash at their most musically undefinable. Produced by Mikey Dread, it’s perhaps closer to dub than anything, and features a fine Strummer yarn about how his father was a bank robber (“he never hurt nobody”) amid a wider point about how capitalism forces people to grovel. The accompanying video alternates between footage of the band in the studio and comical clips of Clash crew members Garry Baker and Johnny Green mocking up a bank heist, complete with bandanas over their faces that proved so realistic that they were stopped by the police. </p> <h2><strong>8. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ScaGjwkg2Y\">The Call Up</a></strong></h2> <p>Released just three months after Bankrobber, this November 1980 single from the Sandinista! triple album isn’t the most widely heard of the Clash’s hits, but illustrates the band’s ability to craft a brilliantly genre-busting anthem with a powerful message. The music begins with a siren and the US Marines’ military cadence, and the lyrics reference the <a draggable=\"true\" href=\"http://thebulletin.org/three-minutes-and-counting7938\">University of Chicago Doomsday clock</a>, which supposedly indicates the proximity of the world to nuclear disaster. Mostly, though, as the title indicates, it’s a song about the draft, written soon after President Jimmy Carter had reintroduced selective service registration – the precursor to calling up adult males to the armed forces – in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The lyrics “It’s up to you not to heed the call up / I don’t wanna die / I don’t wanna kill” are as straightforward and direct as Career Opportunities, London’s Burning or any of their great punk era protest songs. </p> <h2><strong>9. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcHL8efKKPE\">The Magnificent Seven</a></strong></h2> <p>By this point, the Clash’s musical adventure was going full steam ahead, and their music shifted up yet another gear when they started assimilating the sounds they were hearing coming out of the Bronx, as they recorded Sandinista! in New York. At this point, few if anyone in the UK had heard of rap or hip-hop, never mind the names of early pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash, the Sugarhill Gang or Afrika Bambaataa. However, Mick Jones became so fascinated with the rapidly emerging music that he took to carrying round a beat box to blast out hip-hop sounds. Just as they had seamlessly incorporated reggae, The Magnificent Seven is Strummer’s take on rap, in the form of a tirade against the cost of capitalism with plenty of quipped, funny detours (“Italian mobster shoots a lobster / Sea food restaurant gets out of hand”). Arguments still rage over whether this or <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHCdS7O248g\">Blondie’s Rapture</a> – recorded a month or two later, but released three months earlier) is the first white rap hit, but the song, written and recorded inside two hours, is undoubtedly an enduring moment. Incidentally, this is one of the few Clash recordings that doesn’t feature Paul Simonon – he was elsewhere, so the nimble bassline was played by Norman Watt-Roy, more usually found in Ian Dury’s Blockheads. </p>       <figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijiazWlawUY\"                                                                        > <iframe width=\"460\" height=\"345\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/ijiazWlawUY?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure>   <h2><strong>10. <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkyCrx4DyMk\">Straight to Hell</a></strong></h2> <p>The Clash’s catalogue is so mammoth and so wide-ranging that even 10 tunes barely scratches the surface, and I’ve left out the likes of London Calling (so familiar everyone has surely heard it by now), White Riot, Rock the Casbah and some lesser known gems such as <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq_HtgGOIfE\">Police on My Back</a>, Somebody Got Murdered, Gates of the West or their fantastic remodel of Toots and the Maytals’ <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyv16mZakVE\">Pressure Drop</a>. This track from 1982’s Combat Rock proved impossible to ignore. Straight To Hell again bears the wonderful signature of Topper Headon, who – in one of his last recordings with the group – lays down a memorable bossa nova beat, while Strummer played the bass drum with a lemonade bottle. By this point, the band were imploding, as musical differences, drug problems and personal disagreements – coupled with the pressure of five years in the public eye – started to take a toll. It wasn’t quite the end, a Jones/Headon-free line-up made 1985’s Cut the Crap, but Combat Rock saw the classic line-up bow out with a bang on their bestselling and arguably most experimental album. Nothing in the canon sounds quite like this haunting revenge anthem, as recently sampled by MIA, a blast at at American soldiers in Vietnam who left local women pregnant. Strummer pulls out one of his more mournful vocals for the otherwise scathing lyrics: “Let me tell you ’bout your blood, bamboo kid / It ain’t Coca-Cola, it’s rice / Straight to hell / Go straight to hell boys.” Strummer once declared the song to be their “absolute masterpiece”: they’d certainly travelled a long, long way from the speed-snorting quartet who started life supporting the Sex Pistols to 50 people in the Black Swan pub in Sheffield and who had declared, “We’re a garage band … we come from garageland.” What a band they were. </p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "Punk, rockabilly, reggae, rap – all grist to the mill of one of the bands most treasured by rock’n’roll romantics",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "The Clash: 10 of the best",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Dave Simpson",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T18:14:04.850+01:00",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/22/1442946682265/d2db6f22-3320-4364-9741-e721af5e340f-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-30T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Punk, rockabilly, reggae, rap – all grist to the mill of one of the bands most treasured by rock’n’roll romantics</p>",
        "linkText": "The Clash: 10 of the best",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-23T18:15:42.000+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/the-clash-10-of-the-best",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/23/the-clash-10-of-the-best",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/23/roger-waters-the-wall-interview-pink-floyd",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Roger Waters: 'The most terrifying thing I've done? Stand up in front of 80 10-year-olds'",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T16:31:03Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "1307",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cjym",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"0f5d5132ed72ec9cc755b1e9927d68a73b2fd426\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443009460837/dbb6dffc-b62a-429e-9540-83e2f1278ee0-460x395.jpeg\" alt=\"Roger Waters\" width=\"460\" height=\"395\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">‘I’ve come to realise how lucky I am that people like what I’ve done’ … Roger Waters</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>I’m asking Roger Waters a question about <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/23/roger-waters-the-wall-review-pink-floyd\">his new film</a> – the fourth and most successful attempt to bring Pink Floyd’s 1979 concept album The Wall to the big screen – when he suddenly interrupts me. “You know why I don’t read the Grauniad any more?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. I’m afraid I don’t. “I’ll tell you why. When I did The Wall in Berlin in 1990” – a record-breaking charity performance – “<a href=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443026566462/Guardian-23-July-1990-001.jpg\">they printed a big picture</a>, half a page, no article, and underneath it said something like ‘Last night, Pink Floyd played their record The Wall in Berlin and the sound was terrible.’ Full stop. And I thought, ‘Fuck you, that paper is never coming through my letterbox again.’”</p> <p>This is, of course, precisely the kind of thing Roger Waters is supposed to do in interviews. Always the most uncomfortable of rock stars – it is hard to think of anyone who made heavier weather of being a vastly successful musician than Waters did once <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/pinkfloyd\">Pink Floyd</a> went stratospheric in the 1970s – he is also, legend has it, far more prickly and defensive than you might expect someone who’s sold more than 250m albums to be. He is ever watchful for a slight, real or imagined, such as suggesting that he wasn’t the band’s main creative genius after the departure of the late <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jul/12/popandrock.sydbarrett3\">Syd Barrett</a> in 1968, or that his subsequent solo career may have failed to match that of his former bandmates. Indeed, before I meet him, I receive what I think is a tacit warning from his publicist about one line of questioning. It takes the form of a story about a foreign journalist who attempted to kick off a recent interview with the words: “A friend of mine wanted to ask you <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/14/pink-floyd-are-done-says-dave-gilmour\">if Pink Floyd would be re-forming</a>.” Waters is reputed to have responded: “Tell your friend to fuck off.”</p> <p>But his ongoing disappointment at the Guardian’s 25-year-old picture caption notwithstanding, Waters at 72 positively radiates health and contentment. On <a href=\"http://rogerwaters.com/\">his website</a>, amid stuff about his support for the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, you can find video of Roger Waters cheerfully taking part in a TV cookery show, a state of affairs that would once have seemed no more likely than Roger Waters being appointed archbishop of Canterbury. “Well, over the years, I’ve come to realise how lucky I am that people like what I’ve done and are happy when I walk into the room and start playing my songs,” he says. “It never really dawned on me until, I think, 1999. Don Henley asked me to do a charity gig in Los Angeles. It’s about 6,000 people, and I walked up and felt this whoosh of what you could only describe as love from the audience. I thought, ‘Fuck me, this isn’t bad!’”</p> <p>Hang on, you realised that you enjoyed playing live almost 35 years into your career? “I’m serious! I think that was the great turning point. I thought, you know what? Maybe I’ll go back on the road. I like this. There’s something great about it.”</p>       <figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wzHpQOBZE\"                                                                        > <iframe width=\"460\" height=\"259\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/34wzHpQOBZE?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe> <figcaption>Watch an excerpt from Roger Waters: The Wall – video </figcaption> </figure>   <p>It is a point underlined by the new film, which matches footage of Waters visiting a memorial to his father, who was killed in action in Italy in 1944, with film from his 2010-2013 world tour, the all-time highest grossing by a solo artist. For all the emotional impact of what Waters describes as “the road trip”, it is the live stuff that’s striking. There shouldn’t be anything odd about seeing a rock star enjoying performing an arena show, except for the fact that, well, Waters is performing The Wall, an hour and a half of music inspired by, and frequently about, how ghastly it is playing arena rock shows. “I’ve become confident, a lot more confident, and lot more comfortable on stage.” He thinks it might have something to do with an occasion some years back, when he was asked to speak to pupils at his son Harry’s school. “The most terrifying thing I ever did. The idea of standing in front of 80 10-year-olds was absolutely terrifying. I’m serious. Couldn’t sleep for weeks. I couldn’t think what I was going to do. It was really weird, I couldn’t work out why I was so scared. So that’s something I had to confront. And I’ve transcended it in some way. I don’t know what’s happened, but something internal has happened.”</p>  <figure class=\"element element-image element--supporting\" data-media-id=\"9cfd67996c9c4a4134096bf6a63398b6198e9ffc\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443010194906/6e180f64-3620-4e7c-9f12-3725cbc6dfae-323x420.jpeg\" alt=\"Roger Waters on tour in 2011.\" width=\"323\" height=\"420\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">Roger Waters on tour in 2011.</span> </figcaption> </figure>  <p>For all his sunny disposition, you still occasionally get a hint of the man who wrote the lyrics for Pink Floyd’s Animals, one of the most rancorous albums of the 70s. At one point, an innocuous question about the state of the music business ends with him embarking on an extended rant about the tax arrangements of Apple – “Why do we give a shit about society? Why should we pay taxes? Bollocks to you!” <a href=\"http://www.contactmusic.com/roger-waters/news/roger-waters-leaves-britain-in-disgust-over-hunting-ban\">One report claimed he’d relocated to the US in protest at the 2004 hunting ban</a>. He frowns when I mention it. “Of course not. That’s not quite how it was.” He pauses. “Well, it may well have been that in some interview or other I might have been so strongly pro the people of the British countryside … I went to Hyde Park and joined 100,000 of them who had marched from all over England to protest about <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/nov/19/houseofcommons.lords\">the anti-hunting bill</a>, and I felt very strongly that it was a terrible piece of legislation.” </p> <p>He doesn’t want to talk about this, he says, but he can’t seem to stop himself, and off he goes: the ensuing monologue takes in “MPs who’ve never been to the countryside”, a passage from <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/23/books.artsandhumanities\">Rudyard Kipling’s Stalky &amp; Co</a>, and the difference between hunting a fox and snaring animals for fur. “You know what people should do, if they’re really concerned about wild animals, is to stop people from owning cats,” he says. “They kill 35m songbirds a year. I mean, I’m not saying they should, but this particular hobbyhorse about foxes …” His voice tails off. “Anyway,” he says, “I don’t mean to go on.”</p> <aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\"> <p> <span>Related: </span><a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/23/roger-waters-the-wall-review-pink-floyd\">Roger Waters: The Wall review –</a> </p> </aside>  <p>He’s making a new solo album, his first since <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amused_to_Death\">Amused to Death</a> in 1992. Like <a href=\"http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6308-the-final-cut/\">The Final Cut</a>, it is another concept album about war, but as Waters points out, he’s been writing about that particular topic since 1968. “One of the first songs I wrote was <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_Clegg\">Corporal Clegg</a>,” he says. “I’ve always been shackled to that sort of socialist, humanitarian idea that there must be a better way of doing this. We need to start chipping away at the idea that somehow socialism lost and capitalism won, and the free market is the answer to everything and everything will work itself out and everybody will live happily ever after. No, it won’t. That’s not going to work.”</p> <p>He says one of his demos for the forthcoming album contains a caveat, that may or may not make it to the finished version: “There’s a bit in it where it goes, ‘If you’re one of these people who says, ‘Roger, I love Pink Floyd, but I can’t stand your fucking politics …’” He pauses and laughs. “‘You might as well fuck off to the bar now.’”</p> <p>With that, our time is up. But just before he goes, the topic of the Grauniad’s response to his 1990 Wall concert rears its head again. “I’ll tell you what I’d like you to do: check the archive,” he says. “If I’m wrong let me know. Sometimes I get things completely wrong. And I’m always happy …” He corrects himself: “Not happy, but very prepared to be wrong about everything.”</p> <ul> <li><a href=\"http://www.rogerwatersthewall.com \">Roger Waters: The Wall</a> is in UK cinemas for one night on 29 September.</li> </ul>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "newspaperEditionDate": "2015-09-24T00:00:00Z",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "The Guardian",
        "trailText": "Cookery shows, classroom talks, revisiting The Wall … at 72, Pink Floyd’s famously grouchy co-founder is radiating happiness – although he would like to take issue with a picture caption the Guardian ran 25 years ago",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "headline": "Roger Waters: 'I'm prepared to be wrong about everything'",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Alexis Petridis",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T17:31:03.365+01:00",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443009611314/dcda7ced-8a30-43df-b361-a28fddc73419-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "newspaperPageNumber": "16",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-09-30T03:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Cookery shows, classroom talks, revisiting The Wall … at 72, Pink Floyd’s famously grouchy co-founder is radiating happiness – but he’d like to take issue with a picture caption the Guardian ran 25 years ago</p>",
        "linkText": "Roger Waters: 'The most terrifying thing I've done? Stand up in front of 80 10-year-olds'",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T09:48:42.000+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/roger-waters-the-wall-interview-pink-floyd",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/23/roger-waters-the-wall-interview-pink-floyd",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/23/mozart-arias-cd-review-christian-gerhaher",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Mozart: Arias CD review – Gerhaher's ambitious but thoroughly rewarding collection",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T15:06:25Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "348",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cjp5",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"8ebcecb762f51de2b7299692f0176d1eb7de4d25\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443016814240/cc7d6070-96c5-4bd3-8f20-a4f5636ea65d-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Hard to fathom, but endearing … Christian Gerhaher.\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\">‘Whatever the rationale behind the album, there’s no denying that much of the singing is very fine.’ Baritone Christian Gerhaher.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Leica Camera AG</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p>What looks at first glance to be a conventional showcase for the outstanding <a href=\"http://www.gerhaher.de/index.php/en/\">German baritone Christian Gerhaher</a> built around arias from <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/mozart\">Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas</a>, turns out to be rather more ambitious and harder to fathom. Gerhaher has devised the running order of the 19 tracks himself – the recordings were evidently made at concerts in Freiburg in January, though applause and audience noise have been eliminated to produce what the sleeve notes suggest is a kind of Mozart <em>pasticcio</em>, which makes connections between material from different operas, as well as finding a dramatic shape and purpose for the whole sequence.<br /></p> <p>A group from Don Giovanni starts things off – Leporello’s Catalogue Aria, followed by Giovanni’s Serenade and Champagne Aria; then extracts from Figaro, Così fan Tutte and Don Giovanni again, before the emphasis changes completely for Papageno’s three numbers from Die Zauberflöte. There’s a more substantial Figaro group, and finally two more of Guglielmo’s arias from Così. Interwoven with those vocal items are the four movements from Mozart’s C major Linz Symphony K425, played with stylish energy by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Gottfried von der Goltz, beginning with the presto finale, which follows after the Champagne Aria, and ending with the opening allegro, which separates the final pair of Così extracts.</p>       <figure class=\"element element-video\" data-canonical-url=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2A9fgklQ4\"                                                                        > <iframe width=\"460\" height=\"345\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/ql2A9fgklQ4?wmode=opaque&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure>   <p>While I’m not convinced that I grasp the dramatic integrity of Gerhaher’s concept, he is too fine and intelligent an artist for the whole idea to be dismissed as a whim, and whatever the rationale behind the album, there’s no denying that much of his singing here is very fine. With <a href=\"http://www.aviavital.com/\">Avi Avital</a> drafted in as mandolinist for the Don’s Serenade, and Kristian Bezuidenhout playing the keyboard glockenspiel in Papageno’s Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen, no expense has been spared. Gerhaher is more convincing as a patrician in these arias than as a servant, more suavely believable as Don Giovanni than Leporello, more comfortable as Count Almaviva than as a slightly hectoring Figaro, but he makes an endearing Papageno, without too much trace of caricature. However it all came about, it’s a thoroughly rewarding collection.</p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "theguardian.com",
        "trailText": "While I’m unconvinced of the dramatic concept behind this particular collection – or Mozart <em>pasticcio – </em>that Gerhaher has put together, his singing is very fine",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "starRating": "4",
        "headline": "Mozart: Arias CD review – Gerhaher's ambitious but thoroughly rewarding collection",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Andrew Clements",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T16:06:23.082+01:00",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1443016814718/cc7d6070-96c5-4bd3-8f20-a4f5636ea65d-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-10-23T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p>Gerhaher/Freiburg Baroque O/Von der Goltz</p><p>(Sony Classical)</p>",
        "linkText": "Mozart: Arias CD review – Gerhaher's ambitious but thoroughly rewarding collection",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-23T19:03:24.112+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/mozart-arias-cd-review-christian-gerhaher",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/23/mozart-arias-cd-review-christian-gerhaher",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }, {
      "id": "music/2015/sep/23/florian-boesch-graham-johnson-review-wigmore-hall-schubert-song-series",
      "type": "article",
      "sectionId": "music",
      "webTitle": "Florian Boesch/Graham Johnson review – Schubert song series opens with a brilliant, unsparing evening",
      "webPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T12:36:53Z",
      "fields": {
        "shouldHideAdverts": "false",
        "wordcount": "293",
        "shortUrl": "http://gu.com/p/4cjjz",
        "main": "<figure class=\"element element-image\" data-media-id=\"94f5a6c2a2d567512374cd6dcf219109a154616e\"> <img src=\"http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1442999647385/686c9ce5-9857-4a07-821f-f7059623ceed-460x276.jpeg\" alt=\"Florian Boesch & Graham Johnson at the WIgmore Hall, September 2015\" width=\"460\" height=\"276\" class=\"gu-image\" /> <figcaption> <span class=\"element-image__caption\"> Florian Boesch … A performer constantly striving for new subtleties of meaning and expression.</span> <span class=\"element-image__credit\">Photograph: Simon Jay Price/Wigmore Hall</span> </figcaption> </figure>",
        "liveBloggingNow": "false",
        "body": "<p><br />The Wigmore Hall is embarking on a major survey of <a href=\"http://wigmore-hall.org.uk/artistic-series/schubert-complete-songs\">Schubert’s complete songs</a>, a big project entailing some 40 concerts over the next two years. The series opened with a fine recital by baritone <a href=\"http://www.machreich-artists.com/kuenstlerinnen/_biografie.php?id=114\">Florian Boesch</a> and pianist <a href=\"http://www.askonasholt.co.uk/artists/accompanists/graham-johnson\">Graham Johnson</a>, both exceptional communicators, on peak form. </p> <p>They began at the beginning with Schubert’s first song, Lebenstraum, written when he was only 12, and setting a prolix text by one Gabriele von Baumberg about “the holy race of singers from times both old and new”. He left it unfinished – Boesch and Johnson performed it as a fragment – and it’s no masterpiece, though its opening piano chords have a bittersweet quality prophetic of much that followed. </p> <p>Thereafter, the programme traced the outline of Schubert’s career in two big sequences of songs, some familiar, others not, beginning with Der Fischer of 1815 and closing with <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB8586sqvPc\">Das Lied im Grünen</a> of 1827. In between came some little-known gems: five songs written in 1816 to texts by Johann Georg Jacobi that depict the progress of an affair from desire to disillusionment; and the difficult, depressive Der Sieg, with its contemplation of suicide. </p> <p>Never one to rest on laurels, Boesch constantly strove for new subtleties of meaning and expression. For the Jacobi settings, he used a complex tonal palette that shifted from silk to steel as love turned sour. Both Der Tod und Das Mädchen and <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4oLefs3L0\">Auf der Donau</a> involved thrilling descents into a cavernous bass register that I didn’t know he possessed. Totengräber’s Heimweh was an unnerving glimpse into the expressionistic world that late Schubert so disquietingly pre-empts. Johnson, as one might expect, brought a lifetime’s experience and understanding to bear on it all. A brilliant, unsparing evening, that bodes wonderfully well for what’s to come. </p>",
        "productionOffice": "UK",
        "newspaperEditionDate": "2015-09-24T00:00:00Z",
        "hasStoryPackage": "false",
        "publication": "The Guardian",
        "trailText": "Baritone Florian Boesch and pianist Graham Johnson, both exceptional communicators, were on peak form for this Schubert song recital<strong><br></strong>",
        "allowUgc": "false",
        "starRating": "5",
        "headline": "Florian Boesch/Graham Johnson review – Schubert song series opens with a brilliant, unsparing evening",
        "isInappropriateForSponsorship": "false",
        "byline": "Tim Ashley",
        "commentable": "true",
        "firstPublicationDate": "2015-09-23T13:36:53.482+01:00",
        "thumbnail": "http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/9/23/1442999647822/69ed8759-befd-47ee-931f-57ca2a068e8a-140x84.jpeg",
        "isPremoderated": "false",
        "newspaperPageNumber": "32",
        "commentCloseDate": "2015-10-23T00:00:00+01:00",
        "standfirst": "<p><strong>Wigmore Hall, London<br></strong>Baritone Florian Boesch and pianist Graham Johnson, both exceptional communicators, were on peak form for this Schubert song recital<strong><br></strong></p>",
        "linkText": "Florian Boesch/Graham Johnson review – Schubert song series opens with a brilliant, unsparing evening",
        "showInRelatedContent": "true",
        "lastModified": "2015-09-24T00:00:42.225+01:00"
      },
      "webUrl": "http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/florian-boesch-graham-johnson-review-wigmore-hall-schubert-song-series",
      "apiUrl": "http://content.guardianapis.com/music/2015/sep/23/florian-boesch-graham-johnson-review-wigmore-hall-schubert-song-series",
      "sectionName": "Music"
    }]
  }
}