Less than two years into the new decade, it’s already been eventful. A global pandemic and #blacklivesmatter protests have already created ten years’ worth of chaos. Because the decade’s only just started, it will take a while to populate this page.
Arooj Aftab was born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents. She taught herself guitar and became a viral sensation in Pakistan, an early adopter of the internet with hits ‘Hallelujah’...
The members of Black Midi met at the BRIT School in London, a performing art college whose other alumni include Amy Winehouse, Adele, FKA Twigs, and Imogen Heap. With access...
IntroductionBoygenius Album ReviewsBoygenius (Ep)The Record Introduction Female solo artists Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, and Phoebe Bridgers had never all been in the same room together when they decided to form...
Indie singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers was born in Los Angeles and studied vocal jazz at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Bridgers grew up with parents who were...
Smooth R&B artist Erika de Casier was born in Portugal with a Belgian mother and Cape Verdean father. She's now based in Copenhagen, Denmark, starting her career working in a...
Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell was the first musician born in the 21st century to score a number one single in the United States. Eilish had already been building a...
Natalie Hemby was born in Illinois, the daughter of a Nashville studio guitarist. She almost signed a record deal with Sony in her early 20s but it fell through. Instead,...
Pop music has become a much more respected art form in the past decade. Records like Taylor Swift’s 1989, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion, and Robyn’s Honey have attained the acclaim usually reserved for more...
Miami synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay consists of songwriter/vocalist Mica Tenenbaum and musician/producer Matthew Lewin. The pair met as high school students, first playing together at Live! Modern School of Music....
Producer and musician Kelly Lee Owens grew up in a small Welsh village. She sang in her school choir and played bass and drums in indie bands. She became an...
Caroline Polachek grew up in Connecticut and was formerly the vocalist for the indie-pop duo Chairlift. Chairlift enjoyed a surprise hit in 2008 with ‘Bruises’, which featured in an Apple...
IntroductionOlivia Rodrigo Album ReviewsSourGuts10 Best Olivia Rodrigo Songs Introduction Olivia Isabel Rodrigo came to prominence as an actor, appearing in Bizaardvark and High School Musical. She signed a recording contract in 2020, and...
Margaret Debay Rogers grew up in Maryland, the daughter of a Ford salesman and a nurse. She began learning the harp at the age of 7, and writing songs by...
British collective Sault have eschewed all the usual rules of music-making in their brief and eventful career. They’ve veiled their identities, never played a live gig, never released a music...
Lindsey Jordan grew up in Baltimore also home to Beach House and Wye Oak, while at one point her guitar teacher was Helium's Mary Timony. Seeing Paramore at the age...
Sophie Allison was born in Switzerland and grew up in Nashville. She self-released guitar-pop as a teenager on Bandcamp, before releasing her official debut, Clean, in 2018. While she records...
IntroductionCleo Sol Album ReviewsRose in the DarkMotherHeavenGold10 Best Cleo Sol Songs Introduction Born in London, Cleopatra Nikolic's parents met in a jazz band - her Jamaican dad plays bass and...
IntroductionSquid Album ReviewsBright Green FieldO Monolith Introduction A whole crop of young, critically acclaimed post-punk bands emerged in the UK around 2020. It's tough to keep up - I can...
Indie artist Nilüfer Yanya was born in Chelsea, West London. She's the daughter of two visual artists, with Turkish, Irish and Barbadian heritage. Yanya grew up listening to her father’s...
This page collects album reviews for 2020s artists of whom I’ve only reviewed one or two albums. This page became a little long to edit easily so there's a part...
The consequence of reviewing new releases each week is that I already have too many records for one page. Here's part two, continuing from part one. Manchester Orchestra | Cass...
Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person.
Graham Fyfe is probably the only music blogger to appreciate both Neil Diamond and Ariana Grande. Based in Fleet Street (New Zealand), he's been writing this blog since around 2000. Aphoristic Album Reviews features reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
Review Pages
Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:
Kimbra Johnson was earmarked for stardom early. There are videos online of her singing as a pre-teen, while she placed second in New Zealand’s national secondary school rock quest at the age of 14. But after a generic debut single ‘Deep For You’, she took time out and became more […]
As he helpfully informs us in his song ‘Leningrad’, Billy Joel was born in ‘49, a Cold War kid from Long Island, New York. As a teenager, he enjoyed the music of The Beatles and Traffic and began playing in local bands. After stints in psychedelic bands and the power […]
Marlon WIlliams grew up in Lyttleton, New Zealand. He toured Europe as a member of the choir of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and started playing guitar in high school. His band The Unfaithful Ways, formed with two friends and his school’s science teacher, were successful. They released the […]
Little Simz is a London-based rapper, singer, and actor with Nigerian heritage. She became a public figure in her mid-teens; in 2010 she appeared in the TV series Spirit Warriors and released her first mixtape Stratosphere. Her first full-length albums, released in her early twenties, received little attention. 2019’s Grey Area […]
Los Angeles teenagers Randy Wolfe, bassist Mark Andes, and vocalist Jay Ferguson formed The Red Roosters in the mid-1960s. The band was put on hiatus when Wolfe’s step-father Ed Cassidy moved the family to New York in search of work. In New York, Wolfe played guitar with Jimi Hendrix in […]
Kate Bush was discovered by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour as a teenager. She was placed into a training scheme by her record label EMI, where she was taken out of school and studied dance, mime and music. Bush quickly blossomed into an outstanding performer; her 1978 debut album, The […]
Blog Posts
I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:
The late Scott Walker was one of the most fascinating artists of the rock era, successful as both a crooner and as an avant-garde composer. Accordingly, this list of Walker favourites is scattershot, ranging from easy listening covers to his experimental later work. Scott Walker was born in Ohio but […]
Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul, a powerhouse vocalist and a talented pianist. Growing up in the Church, her music was always steeped in gospel. She delivered hits for a long period of time; her first R&B chart topper was ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love […]
Genesis formed in the 1960s, when Peter Gabriel, Tony Bank, and Mike Rutherford met at Charterhouse School. By 1971, they’d found their classic quintet of vocalist Peter Gabriel, drummer Phil Collins, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist Mike Rutherford, and guitarist Steve Hackett. But their first album together, Nursery Cryme, initially missed […]
Dire Straits emerged at the height of punk in the UK, where Mark Knopfler’s smooth and accomplished guitar playing was at odds with the prevailing trends. Coupled with Mark Freuder Knopfler’s questionable taste in sweatbands, Dire Straits were never cool. Most of these ten tracks are taken from 1980’s Making Movies and […]
Birmingham band The Moody Blues have one of the most misleading names in popular music. It fit to start with – their early repertoire was based on American blues, and their cover of Bessie Banks’ ‘Go Now’ topped the UK charts in early 1965. They played on the Ed Sullivan […]
Michigan’s Stevland Hardaway Morris started his recording career young – taking the name Little Stevie Wonder, he recorded his first album at the age of 12. His second album, Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius, and his 1963 single ‘Fingertips’ both topped the pop charts. Wonder was only getting […]
