INTERVIEW

The story of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot became a parable 25 years ago. Will The Golden Dregs’ Godspeed soon provide another?


NICK DRAKE

The Remaking of Nick Drake: Is the complex artist finally stepping out from behind the ‘doomed genius’?

I

STATE OF SOUND

The New Independent Voice of Music

Paul Simon’s greatest solo albums, ranked!

ALBUMS 5-1

EDITOR’S PICKS

TRENDING

Watch the trailer for Thin Wild Mercury: Dylan 1966, a new multimedia exhibition at the Bob Dylan Center

According to the museum website, the exhibition ‘captures the spectacle, power and fury of Dylan’s landmark year’.

NEWS

‘We've poured years into protecting this culture': Britain's first museum of youth culture opens

The Museum of Youth Culture is to open in Camden, London, on 15 May 2026

THE 1970s COUNTERCULTURE

Rupert Bear with a huge penis: how the Oz magazine obscenity trial inspired the Bookshop Band

The Oz magazine obscenity trial of 1971 sent shockwaves across Britain. 60 years later, The Bookshop Band’s Ben Please tells us how it inspired their new EP.

THE BEATLES

‘Please Please Me’: How the Beatles sang about sex and got away with it

The Beatles could only break America by conforming to its prudish sexual attitudes. But did Lennon and McCartney have the last laugh?

FEATURES

7 ALBUMS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

7 albums that changed my life with The Bookshop Band

The Bookshop Band’s Ben Please on listening to Bob Marley at his father's farm, searching for baroque metal albums as a teenager and being stopped in his tracks by Sufjan Stevens.

28 March 2026

‘Pete Townshend had us running around spinning the speakers’

INTERVIEW

On the release of the Bookshop Bands’ new EP Oz Sucks, Ben Please talks about the creative chaos of working with Pete Townshend.

When Liam told Noel, ‘Mate, you're as good as the Beatles now!’

INTERVIEW

Legendary music writer Paolo Hewitt on the madness of touring with Oasis in 1997, Liam's reaction to one of Noel Gallagher's best songs and why the working classes have always had the best taste.

STATE OF SOUND

The New Independent Voice of Music

Founded by writer David Rea, State of Sound cuts through the noise with incisive music journalism, providing an analogue voice in a digital world. Free of advertising to ensure a frictionless reading experience, we cast an independent eye across a wide range of genres and eras, publishing everything from in-depth essays on legacy artists to informed reviews of the latest releases. SUBSCRIBE HERE

Photo: James Edmond / Alamy Stock Photo

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REVIEWS

NEW RELEASE

The Former Site Of

The New Pornographers

This is a really enjoyable and at points captivating album, if a little beaten down by the world.

27 March 2026

Robyn Hitchcock at the EartH theatre in London.

Wasted on Youth

The Molotovs

The Resurrection Game

Emma Swift

All is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade

Of Monsters and Men

The Demise of Planet X

Sleaford Mods

THE STATE OF SOUND INTERVIEW

‘There are many Bob Dylans but there's only one Lou Reed’: Emma Swift on her album of Lou Reed covers

In 2020, Emma Swift’s album of Bob Dylan covers, Blonde on the Tracks, brought her widespread acclaim and a new audience. In the midst of making an album of Lou Reed covers, she talks to State of Sound about searching for the real Lou, and what it was like trying on his leather pants.

21 March 2026

ESSAYS

NICK DRAKE

THE REMAKING OF NICK DRAKE: Is the complex artist finally stepping out from behind the ‘doomed genius’?

The new box set The Making of Five Leaves Left illuminates a focused and forthright artist at his genesis, and further undermines the idea he was an isolated, haunted romantic.

by David Rea

25 October 2025

1980s MUSIC

Live Aid at 40: The story of a punk, a prime minister and a Britain now vanished

The extraordinary story of the Greatest Show on Earth recalls a very different Britain, one which came together to help a faraway African nation. It is difficult to imagine the same thing happening today.

ESSAY

How the Jam invented Britpop’s ethos

Critics couldn't take the Jam seriously at first, claiming they were just a bunch of gimmicks. But their ‘hail your heroes’ ethos was entirely authentic, setting the blueprint for Britpop two decades later.