Emma Madden

Last month, the term’s status was legitimised when it was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary. How did it become the representative adjective of our times?
The other night, as I stood at the bus stop, some traffic lights spilled into the leftover rain on the pavement, causing a rainbow like gleam across the street. “Doesn’t that look Lynchian?” I heard a man ask his friend at the bus stop.
His comment reminded me of Kafka. Or rather, of ‘Kafkaesque’. "What I'm against is someone...

"I think sometimes there's a misconception, because my records have been sad that I've had a miserable decade," says Marissa Nadler. "And that would be untrue. I use songwriting as a balm, as a medicinal therapy for myself. So I don't write songs about the good stuff because I'm too busy enjoying them. I've always been attracted to melancholy. It's the aesthetic leaning towards the slow and the minor key, but I'm not, like, a miserable person."
Listeners would be forgiven for their assumption...

Reinvented as Chris, the randy protagonist of her second album of the same name, Christine And The Queens’ Héloïse Lettisier has embraced ’80s funk and pan-sexuality to five-star effect (see our review). But, the morning after a Brief Encounter-style moment at a London train station, she’s got romance on the brain too, finds Emma Madden
Last night, Chris – or Christine And The Queens, or Héloïse Lettisier, they’re one and the same – was running to the train station, screaming, “No! Don’t leav...

This Parisian showcase, in honour a new Apple-produced documentary, is one of the year’s slickest pop performances
Words: Emma Madden
It’s 7pm in Paris, and the sky looks as though cigarettes have been burned out on it. A long line of fans, Apple employees and journalists (and people who look important) are waiting for the doors to open at Salle Pleyel, where Christine and the Queens, or ‘Chris’ as she’s recently rebranded herself, will perform. It might be jarring to see industry men dressed...

on authenticating strategies of white trash employed by white rappers

There’s hardly an image more enduring than a female artist’s tears, and there’s hardly a story in indie rock’s history that has persisted quite like the one behind the music video for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' beloved mid-'00s single “Maps. “They were real tears,” frontwoman Karen O. confessed to the NME about her emotional video performance in 2007. “My boyfriend at the time” -- rumoured to be Angus Andrew of the band Liars -- “was supposed to come the shoot - he was three hours late and I was ab...

From the mother, to the daughter, to "Wuthering Heights" – here are the essential stages of Kate Bush's career.
In a copy of Q Magazine from 1990, Kate Bush recalled how – growing up – she would dance to the music on the telly. “It was completely unselfconscious and I wasn’t aware of people looking at me,” she says. “One day some people came into the room, saw me and laughed and from that moment on I stopped doing it. I think I’ve been trying to get back there ever since.”
By the time of that...

During one, long confusing summer I signed up to Habbo Hotel, pretended to be a boy called Matt and fell in love – here’s why
Sometimes, our identities alone can prohibit us from fulfilling our desires. Contrary to popular belief, the desire to deceive others on the internet sometimes starts with an innocent rather than a sinister intention. I say that largely because it’s true, but also to save some face. Long before I came out as a lesbian, I catfished. It started when I was 10, long before...

"I'd love to video you right now so you could see yourself," an old girlfriend told me as we got to that hysterical point of fighting in which one party (me) had convinced themselves that the way to win the argument was to behave like a child.
"I'd love to video this," I said, imagining the entire world on my side. If only they could see us! We'd upload the video onto YouTube, it would go viral, everyone would feel sorry for me, Malala would parachute in through my window and hand me the Nobe...

In the final week of her gruelling twelve-week tour, rock musician and visual artist Emma Ruth Rundle speaks to Emma Madden about alcoholism, the next record and fans who cross the line

The first thing you should know about Mitski Miyawaki is that she’s a true professional. She shakes hands like she means it. She seldom loses eye contact. She treats you like a candidate who is suitable for the job.
Her last album, Puberty 2, was released two years ago to almost universal critical acclaim. Lyrics from it, like the epigrammatic adage, “My body’s made of crushed little stars” have been tattooed across torsos and stretched across sweaters which have sold out within hours on her ...

There's like, 15, maybe 20 songs in the Christmas tunes canon. We shelve them away each year, then unleash them sometime in November and annoy the hell out of everyone with them. You've got your Mariahs, and your "Fairytale of New York"s, and your brrrraaaam bram bram bram brams (that's my rendition of "Little Drummer Boy," anyway), but what about the ones that get left behind? That's right, I'm talking about the weird Christmas songs that time has forgotten.
There are so many delightfully ri...

Warner Bros./Comedy Central
Friends, which followed the lives of six New Yorkers who could inexplicably afford real estate near Central Park, was a triumph. It became the world's most popular comedy, as well as arguably the most heterosexual. Ross and Rachel's on-again, off-again relationship kept viewers captivated for 10 seasons, while myself and the rest of the gays screamed "don't go there, sis" from the start. Sure, it had Carol and Susan, but it also had sexy cousins, and Ross and Monic...

Marc Tirl / Epa/Shutterstock
If you're not already her biggest fan, then the name Robyn should at least ring a bell. She's had a slew of hits in the UK, and her most famous song "Dancing On My Own" was played loads on the radio last year. But it wasn't Robyn's voice you would have heard. It was the slowed down cover version from singer Calum Scott, which showcased the great simplicity and sadness behind Robyn's original club banger. You might not know it, but Robyn is one of the most influent...

When Lana Del Rey first emerged with her viral hit "Video Games," her critics — and there were many — laid it on thick. She was unfairly accused of being an inauthentic industry plant, who only made it big because of her father's money, as Digital Spy reports. These critics also spent more time speculating about her appearance over her actual music. Today the conversation has shifted, with more people now seeing Lana for what I think she is — one of this generation's most fascinating talents....