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TORI AMOS AT 60 | Her 20 best songs, ranked

As the priestess of the piano turns sixty, we count down her all-time best. Tori Amos is the kind of artist who saves lives. Starting out as a classically trained lounge pianist, she burst onto the American alt-rock scene with her revelatory debut album Little Earthquakes (1992). This starkly explored the issues of sexuality, religion, upbringing and female identity which would become common threads in the tapestry of her career; which would inspire academic studies and graphic novels alike; and which would establish Tori Amos as our greatest living songwriter. Exhibiting a voracious approach to genre, she has mastered many in her time. Industrial rock, classical crossover, gospel, electronic and folk are just a few of the myriad textures in her palette, all united by one linking thread: the piano. A famously virtuosic instrumentalist, she's customarily found at the bench of a nine-foot-long Bösendorfer, but has also had flings with Wurlitzers, harpsichords and organs over t
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ALBUM REVIEW | Amaarae | "Fountain Baby"

The transnational alté popstar's second full-length might just be the Album of the Year. Brought up between Atlanta and Accra, Amaarae (born Ama Serwah Genfi) wanted to reflect both of these worlds in her second full-length release.  The Angel You Don’t Know , her critically lauded 2020 debut, had established her as a rising star within the alté genre (a fusion of Afropop, hip hop and R&B), but with   Fountain Baby   she aimed to also encapsulate “the freedom of the vision that exists outside of this pocket”. Studying Britney, Janet and Stevie Nicks to create this boundary-pushing sophomore, Amaarae wanted “to shift the style of music that’s being played on the dance floor”. The results are musically and lyrically complex, talking about how the empowering effects of love often come at a cost, but that doesn’t mean   Fountain Baby   shouldn’t be lighting up every dance floor in the world. It feels like the whole world can be found within   Fountain Baby . Cinematic scene-

THROWBACK | Madonna | "Love Profusion"

'Love Profusion' is the most annoyingly normal song on Madonna's most innovative album. 2003's American Life is a startlingly original work of post-9/11 folktronica, Mirwais Ahmadzaï's stuttering vocal treatment and sparse electroclash textures melding guitars and synths to produce an aggressively left-field pop album. The lyrical concepts are some of Madonna's best, investigating the intersection of the personal, political and cultural in a world tarnished by the horrors of 9/11 and saturated with materialism. Interspersing critiques of a fame-hungry culture with love letters to Guy Ritchie (the marginally less awful of her two husbands), American Life rejects the stereotypes that 1980s 'Material Girl' Madonna had sought to cultivate, and aims to answer the question of what 'the American Dream' actually is these days. The fourth and final single, 'Love Profusion', advocates cutting out all the noise, and instead focusing on the on

SINGLE REVIEW | Dua Lipa | "Dance The Night"

The synthpop superstar's new single understands the  Barbie  assignment perfectly, delivering unadventurous plasticky pop that you can't help but dance to. Three summers since the disco-inflected pop masterwork  Future Nostalgia  propelled her to stratospheric stardom, Dua Lipa’s back for more. At the request of superproducer Mark Ronson and director-of-the-moment Greta Gerwig, ‘Dance The Night’ is the English-Albanian’s contribution to the soundtrack of the much-anticipated  Barbie  (out July 21; realistically  already  the movie of the summer). It’s clear what the brief was: “more of the same, please”. A riot of swooning strings, elastic bass and irresistible double handclaps (via ‘Levitating’!), ‘Dance The Night’ glistens with disco swagger. Dua teases ‘ Turn the rhythm up, don’t you wanna just / Come along for the ride? ’ , clearly revelling in the song’s groovy catwalk stomp. There’s an almost imperious coolness to the whole affair, but with more than a dash of Barb

SINGLE REVIEW | Kylie | "Padam Padam"

It’s been an exciting few years to be a Kylie Minogue fan. After 2014’s Kiss Me Once represented something of a career lull, the 80-million-selling popstar reassessed and realigned, and her decision to sign with BMG Rights Management has sparked a veritable renaissance. Under this new label, 2018’s Golden and 2020’s Disco both topped the UK Albums Chart, sandwiching a career-spanning compilation album which repeated the feat. Even whilst forging a blazing trail through cultural history as the first female artist to score a UK Number One album in five consecutive decades, she’s still found time to launch a successful wine empire (try the Prosecco Rosé!) Onto the scene now bounces ‘Padam Padam’, the first offering from the upcoming Tension album (which releases Sept. 22). And it immediately signals another change in direction. Minogue’s last two albums are generally viewed as successful but unadventurous; Golden hopped onto the country-pop trend, with its successor enlisting