The queen of hooks

Close harmonies, smooth grooves, infighting and ‘the bag’: making an album on stage

MUM?” Becky said. “When did you know Dad was the man for you?” “What? Pretty early, I think,” Frances replied, taken aback. “It’s so far in the past, I can’t remember.” “It’s important. Try and think

From pop star to Kitchen Disco icon, Sophie Ellis-Bextor has brought joy to lives and homes across the globe. She talks to Rosamund Dean about marriage, menopause and why the music must go on

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Fans were disappointed none of Scary Spice’s bandmates were in attendance

Celine Dion, a tree made of coat hangers, Crufts… Thirty years after the startling experiments of Tilt defined SCOTT WALKER ’ s latter-day career, his collaborators reveal all about the idiosyncratic working practices that took him from teen idol to avant-garde hero. “It was almost like a rejection of his past,” one eyewitness tells Rob Hughes. “Almost like anti-music.”