The December issue of Q Magazine is an 'Artists Of The Century' special edition, covering all of the acts that the fine staff of the good ship Q feel are the most important of the century so far. As befitting a special edition of the UK best selling music monthly requires a special cover was commissioned world renowned photographer John Wright has spent over a year shooting 34 artists to fit on triple fold out cover.

The issue is packed to the gills with pieces written by Russell Brand on Noel Gallagher, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis on Coldplay and Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on The Arctic Monkeys. In addition it also includes exclusive interviews and photos from the likes of Amy Winehouse, Dizzee Rascal, U2, Dave Grohl, Lily Allen, Rihanna, Sir Paul McCartney, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Elbow's Guy Garvey, Pink, Muse's Matt Bellamy, Murdoc from Gorillaz, The Kings Of Leon, Mark Ronson, Mika, Nick Cave, Robert Plant, Florence Welch, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Tom Chaplin of Keane.

What do you get when you throw Pitchfork's favorite albums in a blender with NME's? Q's favorite albums of 2009 are (questionable & very UK-centric and) listed below..

Continue reading "Q Magazine's Top Albums of 2009 "

photos by Alexis Maindrault

Near the end of their first New York show in 10 years, at Webster Hall on October 7th, singer-guitarist James Dean Bradfield of the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers hit the plaintive opening lick of the Small Faces' 1966 British hit "All or Nothing," leading the rest of his group into a verse and chorus of that mod-soul classic -- a song about giving without quitting -- before veering into the Manics' own 1990 Molotov cocktail "Motown Junk." You can count the number of times the Manics have played New York on one hand; this was the biggest room I've seen them in here. But Bradfield, drummer Sean Moore and bassist Nicky Wire, traveling with a second guitarist and a keyboard player, ran through the whole of their history in 90 minutes -- a greatest-hits set anywhere across the Atlantic, a long list of shots in the dark in the U.S. -- like still-hungry animals with conquerors' pride. There was no encore but, as Bradfield told the ecstatic faithful on the Webster floor, "That doesn't mean we don't love you from the bottom of our filthy Welsh hearts." [David Fricke]

They play Boston tonight (10/8). More pictures from Webster Hall below...

Continue reading "Manic Street Preachers & Bear Hands @ Webster Hall - pics"

by Bill Pearis

This fall Manic Street Preachers will tour the US for the first time in 10 years -- including an October 7 stop at Webster Hall. Their last NYC show was Bowery Ballroom in September 1999 in support of This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, one of the few dates of that tour that didn't get cancelled. The Manics are one of these bands who were massive in the UK, but never got more than a shrug from Americans who tend to like their bombast via Michael Bay movies, not sloganeering rock bands from Wales. I think Pitchfork's Joe Tangari sums up the band pretty well here in his review of their bsides collection Lipstick Traces...

Continue reading "Manic Street Preachers -- first US tour dates in 10 years"