Music & Entertainment Blog

This July will mark 30 years from Queen’s legendary Live Aid performance, which stole the show and was one of their finest moments. We’ve already blogged about Queen’s talented guitarist Brian May, and in today’s blog we’ll be taking a look at the front-man of the ground-breaking group. A true entertainer with an incredible voice, Freddie Mercury has become a rock'n'roll icon. His theatrical and charismatic persona onstage is infamous, and his impressive vocal range is almost unmatched in the history of rock'n'roll. Queen came together in 1971, and the energetic band has its ups and downs but produced a great number of best-selling hits and transformed the face of 70s music. Freddie wrote many of the most well-known Queen songs – 'Killer Queen', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Somebody to Love', 'Don’t Stop Me Now', 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', 'We Are the Champions' – many of which are instantly recognisable and remain much-loved. Mercury had an affinity with musicality and rhythm that set him apart, with his expressive performances and daring, confident and inventive work – such as combining opera with rock music – making him as much an intriguing character as a great musician.

Both understated and complex, Johnny Cash survived a roller-coaster 50-year career and transcended his 1950s country-and-western roots to become a popular music icon continually appealing to new generations. He is remembered as a groundbreaking figure in a number of musical genres, from country through to gospel to rock’n’roll.

Taylor Swift is the name on everybody’s lips nowadays. She just dropped her fourth album, 1989, in October, and it sold more copies in its first week than any other album in the past 12 years. With this album, she moved away from her country roots, and she says that it’s her first true “pop” album. With this album, she hosted secret listening parties for her superfans at her homes in LA, NYC and her parents’ home in Nashville before it was released. She baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for her guests to enjoy, and when she was finished singing, she took Polaroid photos with every single person she invited. She even let them pose with her various awards and her cat, Olivia Benson. 

The new Foo Fighters album Sonic Highways is out in under a month now, as it is released on 10th November 2014, and its popularity is already sky rocketing. The band have done a lot to promote this album, including releasing the single 'Something From Nothing' earlier this month, spurring fans to send out adoring messages on Twitter, the anticipation is building.

While seemingly not as remarkable or unbelieveable as other rock album releases this year, Slash's new album, World on Fire, is a testament to his perseverance throughout his life and his status as a rock god. Released in September, it was received to wide acclaim, and it shows how even though his projects in the past have fallen apart, his desire to create music carries him though life.

On October 27th, a remastering of Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy, two of the most popular, chart-topping rock 'n' roll albums ever created, will be released along with companion albums of never before released rough tracks and other related music. "The material on the companion discs presents a portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin,” says Jimmy Page, lead guitarist and producer of this project. “It is a selection of work in progress with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions, and new material recorded at the time.” Led Zeppelin has been a classic, hugely popular band since its inception, and with all of the latest technological advances, why wouldn't Jimmy Page want to improve on something that was already so great? The first three albums (Led Zeppelin I, II, and III) were released in June, and the rest of the albums will be released later, but it is not everyday that a feat like this happens. The fact that Jimmy Page himself is acting as the main force behind the project makes it all the more incredible.

With Pink Floyd’s first studio album in 20 years set to drop in November, it’s good to look back at the band’s importance in rock and roll history. Richard Wright was a key player in creating most of the band’s releases, even writing and singing lead vocals for some of the tracks. His death in 2008 led everyone to believe that Pink Floyd’s 1994 album, The Division Bell, would be their last, but The Endless River will feature some of Wright’s recordings from as far back as 1969.