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Picks of the week
Can anyone learn to be a top songwriter?
‘Push through the feelings of: I’m worthless, this sucks’  
Can anyone learn to be a top songwriter?
Songwriting courses are exploding in popularity, with everyone from Mark Ronson to Alicia Keys as teachers. On a retreat in north Wales, our folk music critic tries to write her first song
‘Who wants to stare at a computer?’  
Pop duo the Lemon Twigs on the joys of analogue life
‘You a scam artist’  
The most brutal moments in Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track
‘It meant so much to him’  
Shane MacGowan’s wife on the hunt for his missing Easter Rising rifle
‘I was sad in a way I never knew possible’  
Yaya Bey on grief, poverty and using music as therapy
‘I wasn’t worried about what gringos wanted!’  
Ludmilla, Brazil’s next pop superstar
Reviews
Alexis Petridis's album of the week  
Dua Lipa: Radical Optimism – ‘psychedelic pop-infused’? Pull the other one!
Dua Lipa: Radical Optimism – ‘psychedelic pop-infused’? Pull the other one!
Folk album of the month  
Goblin Band: Come Slack Your Horse! – rowdy, flamboyant folk
Album review  
Jessica Pratt: Here in the Pitch – retro pop with the feel of a forgotten classic
Album review  
Kamasi Washington: Fearless Movement – the sax star dials up the tempos
Album review  
Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice – desert bluesman on incendiary form
Album review  
Rachel Chinouriri: What a Devastating Turn of Events – a debut that’s better than it thinks
Spotlight
Duane Eddy’s twang remains one of rock’n’roll’s greatest sounds
Music  
Duane Eddy’s twang remains one of rock’n’roll’s greatest sounds
The late guitarist was rightly ubiquitous in the late 1950s thanks to his otherworldly sound, earning admirers from Bruce Springsteen to John Peel
Classical
Classical album of the week  
Yunchan Lim: Chopin: Études Op 10 & Op 25 – prodigiously gifted young pianist confirms he’s something special
Yunchan Lim: Chopin: Études Op 10 & Op 25 – prodigiously gifted young pianist confirms he’s something special
Concert review  
Llŷr Williams – Welsh pianist of an infinite range of colours
Llŷr Williams – Welsh pianist of an infinite range of colours
Concert review  
CBSO/Yamada – Anna Clyne’s Atlas is a brilliantly coloured musical scrapbook
CBSO/Yamada – Anna Clyne’s Atlas is a brilliantly coloured musical scrapbook
Opera review  
Götterdämmerung – Jurowski’s six-year completion of Wagner’s Ring cycle was well worth the wait
Götterdämmerung – Jurowski’s six-year completion of Wagner’s Ring cycle was well worth the wait
Album review  
Brian: The Cenci album – composer’s lack of flair for music drama all too evident
Brian: The Cenci album – composer’s lack of flair for music drama all too evident
Opera review  
Larmes de Couteau/Full Moon in March – two supremely weird operas
Larmes de Couteau/Full Moon in March – two supremely weird operas
 
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Add to playlist
‘Scalding emotional intensity’  
Geoff Dyer on the spiritual power of saxophonist Zoh Amba
Geoff Dyer on the spiritual power of saxophonist Zoh Amba
Gabrielle’s honest playlist  
The song I wish I’d written? Wonderwall
One to watch  
The Cavemen
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The starry life and strife of singer-songwriter Lawrence Rothman
‘Bowie told me it’s OK to be messy’  
The starry life and strife of singer-songwriter Lawrence Rothman
They’ve played with everyone from Lucinda Williams to a pre-fame Billie Eilish. Now, on their intensely personal new album, they confront the trauma of being pistol-whipped and dealing with an eating disorder
Station to station  
The European language DJs taking radio to new realms
Cian Ó Cíobháin’s show, ‘one of the most radical in the world’, has been beguiling listeners in Irish for 25 years. Others, from Warsaw to Lyon, offer similar musical adventures
‘We handed out raw fish to clubbers’  
The mind-bending acid house tour of London
George Georgiou gave British rave culture its smiley face. Now he’s placing plaques where hardcore clubbers sweated till dawn. Our writer joins the designer – and DJs Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway – on a face-melting trip
Everyone Knows That  
Internet music mystery solved via 1986 adult movie
The search for song that has consumed thousands of Reddit users is over, with discovery that it was written for pornographic film
‘A silent film of dance underscored by an album’  
Inside the audacious Sufjan Stevens musical
With Illinoise Justin Peck has transformed the artist’s 2005 album into an ambitious and eye-opening modern dance show like nothing else on Broadway
Billy Bragg  
There’s nothing like going out there singing your truth. That ain’t changed
The activist singer-songwriter on fighting for trans rights, his 40 years in the music business and his forthcoming tour with his son
Live music this week
Mitski  
Unusual, enigmatic and utterly compelling
Unusual, enigmatic and utterly compelling
Kitty Empire's artist of the week  
Paraorchestra: Death Songbook – bittersweet ballads with Brett Anderson and friends
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