Music

Sophie and the Giants are virtually unknown at home - but bona fide disco royalty elsewhere

In 1992, Wales' most incendiary political rock band took to the stage of the Reading Festival for the first time

A film about the female conductor of a major German orchestra is set to light up the awards season this year. Unfortunately, it's fiction

This list puts an emphasis on the perfectly formed pop single

Jan Kiepura's ability to break down the barrier between performer and audience meant he was a shoo-in as a leading man as the talkie arrived

When Weller and co went all French on us

The chancellor has accepted tickets to see Adele, Billie Eilish and attend Capital's Summertime Ball to indulge his newfound passion

The most unlikely duo imaginable, Erasure are proof that genius often resides in British eccentricity

What happened when pianists from Ukraine and Russia met at a competition set up by a Texan who wowed Moscow at the height of the cold war?

Elvis wasn't The King to me. But he was to millions and that has to be respected

This year’s Lerici festival in Italy marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Percy Shelley with a celebration of British culture

If Amon Amarth's Johan Hegg is a Viking, he’s one who is fully paid up to modern Scandi liberal values

Why Germany is swaying to the sound of a controversial hit

Public service radio orchestras have played far more than just a cultural role over the last century but they are now under threat

In a new documentary, French superstar DJ Laurent Garnier recalls his part in the birth of dance music and traces his career all the way from Manchester’s Haçienda to Tbilisi’s Bassiani

Will Self on the new, colour-conscious Madama Butterfly

The electronic music pioneer on Brexit, rave, streaming and re-imagining the band's hits three decades on

A new recording of a Bob Dylan classic takes our columnist back to a bathetic night in Wisconsin

Hip hop and rap are holding a mirror up to a changing Latvia, its problems and its obsessions

The return of the band who made a continent cool

You can’t win the fight against ageing. But, it’s part of the human condition to try

Salem is the King of Manele – the Middle Eastern-flavoured Romanian pop music descended from Roma folk music. But, some of his material divides audiences

If Angela Rayner’s trip to the lawns of Glyndebourne put a different social spin to opera, music bosses will surely be buying her champagne

Heilung's ancient-sounding music has slotted neatly into pop culture’s current enthusiasm for a bloody and merciless northern European past

Musical instruments are becoming investment vehicles and collectables for hedge funds, keeping them beyond the reach of those who want to play them

A record label representing talented musicians with experience of going through the criminal justice system is helping them to make a career out of music

A new edition of the closest we got to a David Bowie autobiography lifts a little of the on-stage mask

Miss Ross is still the boss, and always will be

Quartiers nord is Marseille rapper Alonzo's most affectionate tribute to his hometown yet

Fifty years ago, with a couple of vans, children and dogs in tow, Paul McCartney set off to Europe with a new band to realise a dream

Jeton Neziraj’s new play explores the lesser-known side of Nobel Prize-winning author Peter Handke

A new boxed set provides a rare insight into the life and mind of one of the most popular cultural icons of the 20th century during what were to be his final days