Posts Tagged ‘John Lennon’

As part of the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Sessions, Jake Bugg has covered the John Lennon classic ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)‘. The performance, in which he also segues into ‘Working Class Hero‘, can be viewed below.

In this week’s Soundbites – our look back at the past week’s news, reviews, features and occasional tabloid nonsense – The Rolling Stones emerge from their slumbers, some top new album releases are reviewed, Muse use Pink Floyd as inspiration for their new tour, and the most popular video of the past seven days is highlighted.

Sir Paul McCartney has revealed he is hoping to enter the studio with Jeff Lynne in a bid to finally complete a John Lennon track which first resurfaced during work on The Beatles‘ Anthology documentary series in the mid-Nineties.

Songwriter Frank Turner has said John Lennon‘s hugely popular single ‘Imagine‘ has ‘always grated on him’ for a variety of reasons, including the popularity of the song and its production.

John Lennon has been crowned as NME’s ‘Ultimate Musical Icon Of The Last Sixty Years’ as the magazine celebrates six decades in publication.

Sixty nominees were unveiled by NME back in March, with Lennon, Liam Gallagher, Alex Turner and David Bowie eventually being whittled down to the final four.

In the end, former Oasis and current Beady Eye frontman Liam has finished one place behind his idol, with Bowie in third and Arctic Monkeys‘ singer Alex Turner a further spot back.

Lennon cemented his iconic status during his time with The Beatles throughout the 1960s, and later carved out a successful solo career before his tragic, untimely death in December 1980.

Elsewhere on the poll, which cast the opinions of 160,000 voters, Kurt Cobain has placed at #5, while Liam’s estranged brother Noel is in ninth.

NME’s Ultimate Musical Icon, Top 10:

1/ John Lennon
2/ Liam Gallagher
3/ David Bowie
4/ Alex Turner
5/ Kurt Cobain
6/ Amy Winehouse
7/ Jimi Hendrix
8/ Morrissey
9/ Noel Gallagher
10/ Ian Curtis

In today’s Soundbites – our look back at the past week’s news, videos, features and tabloid gossip – Blur perform their own rooftop concert, Coldplay search in vain for some excitable fans, The Stone Roses at Heaton Park is reviewed, Suggs makes Sting playing in Oxfordshire seem exciting, and the week’s most popular video is revealed.

The childhood homes of Beatles legends Paul McCartney and John Lennon have been given a Grade II heritage listing, which marks them out as ‘nationally important and of special interest’.

Classic Christmas hit originally released in 1971

It’s hard to imagine a world without ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band‘. The physicist C.P. Snow once said if Einstein hadn’t locked himself away, indulged in a spot of chin-stroking and eventually conceived the General Theory of Relativity, which revolutionised the way we think about science, we’d still be waiting for that idea to occur to someone else now. In the same vein, you have to wonder that if The Beatles hadn’t locked themselves away in Abbey Road during those few fruitful months over 40 years ago, following their self-imposed exile from live duties in 1966, whether we might equally still be waiting for a band to revolutionise the face of popular music today.

Miles Kane probably wishes he’d never mentioned the fact that Noel Gallagher appears on his debut solo album. Perhaps he underestimated the huge media storm it would trigger and the distraction it would cause in the build up to what is a very important album for him. Anyone that has heard ‘Colour Of The Trap‘ will know by now that Gallagher’s appearance is a treat but by no means overshadows the breadth of top drawer songwriting that is peppered all over this impressive debut.