Barnaby Smith

Kate Tempest's début is the expansion of a story she threaded through her 2014 album of protest hip-hop, Everybody Down. In its transformation to novel form it has become part love story, part state of the nation, part existential treatise. This much-admired spoken-word artist's venture into prose is a compelling attempt at capturing the restlessness and anger of disenfranchised 'millenials' (Tem ... (read more)

Like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, Morrissey is among the relatively few figures in popular music deemed worthy of serious academic attention. Scholarly theses on Morrissey are common, dissecting the poetic cadence and social relevance of his remarkable song lyrics, from The Smiths' self-titled début album of 1984 to more recent solo albums. It is not surprising, therefore, that such a 'literary' ... (read more)