Album

Three lessons in future-beat history

Sonic Boom, once of Spacemen 3, reworks Welsh experimentalist Dafydd Morgan

Stephin Merritt, whose piquant playfulness with The Magnetic Fields has seen him described as this generation's Cole Porter or Irving Berlin, may not be quite ready for that league—not just yet. But his sanguine voice, shrewd words and mauve melodies do mark him out as a songwriter of genuine, um, merit. Here he colours Peter Hedges' new film with five new songs and five drawn from his albums with the Fields and The 6ths. There are clever couplets and wry winks, but the melancholy is authentic.

Uneasy listening by out-spoken wordstress

Influential pre-grunge landmark re-emerges after years in limbo

Expert Appalachian pickers on fire in '74

Tom Waits, Chrissie Hynde et al join gospel veterans on Christmas album

Like everyone, I'm prone to enthuse how utterly electric the jiggling phenomenon known as Beyoncé is. Yet the honeymoon's expiring, and those first doubts are creeping in. She is mutating into Mariah Carey, or, worse, Tina Turner. She does one magic single, then we turn a blind eye to three rubbish ones. She has the cold eyes of a mugger. She has another film out, and is tapping into the profitable gospel market.

Extraordinary hotel-room musings in vinyl-only form

1989 box set rejigged again