Simply the best?

A few years ago, Charlie Burchill and Jim Kerr were interviewed for a BBC documentary about music’s messiest break-ups. Which may seem like an odd booking, given the pair’s famously adamantine bond. B

In April 1985, when Prince released his seventh album, Around The World In A Day, his star was already riding high. The rock-oriented Purple Rain – for many still his crowning artistic achievement – h

The third Thompson Twins Best Of and first since 2003 is significant as the only compilation the trio have authorised: Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie chose the tracklist and are extensively interviewed

The accessibility, affordability and portability of synthesizers in the late 70s had a profound effect on popular music, particularly in the UK, where the likes of Ultravox!, Gary Numan and OMD reshap

Of course Trevor Horn is a genius. But part of Horn’s talent is in seeing ideas through to their maximum potential. And this gigantic boxset of possibly the ultimate 80s album reveals how the initial

1985’s Brothers In Arms reinvented Mark Knopfler’s songcraft and guitar style – and rewarded Dire Straits with more fame than they could handle. 40 years later, in a rare interview, the band look back on the biggest British rock album of the 80s