Curtain down! See out 2023 with our favourite portraits – in pictures
From Jacqueline Wilson to Rosamund Pike via activists, artists and breakdancers, here’s how we photographed the faces of the year
May 2023
Sparks: The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte review – one artful banger after another
Sparks review – it’s impossible not to be swept up in their manic delight
December 2022
Move in and rock out: why bands love a residency
From Harry Styles to Adele and Hot Chip, residencies are increasingly popular – but what do they mean for fans?
October 2022
Ranked
The 100 greatest BBC music performances – ranked!
As the Beeb celebrates its centenary, we take a look at its most memorable pop moments, from the birth of grime to the first sightings of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, plus TOTP goes Madchester and countless classic Peel sessions
August 2022
Thursday quiz
Batteries, Beatles, boxing and Ron Mael from Sparks – take the Thursday quiz
Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?
July 2022
‘An old strain of English magic had returned’: stars on why they fell in love with Kate Bush
As a new generation continues to discover her via Running Up That Hill, musicians including Sharon Van Etten and Brian Molko reveal how the singer changed their lives
September 2021
Mark Kermode's film of the week
Annette review – Leos Carax’s bonkers but beautiful musical fantasy
Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are all but upstaged by their puppet child in this tragicomic pop opera
August 2021
Mark Kermode's film of the week
The Sparks Brothers review – a match made in heaven
Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright is a perfect fit for the absurdist antics of art pop’s most elusive duo in this stranger-than-fiction documentary
July 2021
The Sparks Brothers review – Edgar Wright’s giddy tribute to the Gilbert and George of pop
The fanboy director’s exhaustive doc follows Ron and Russell Mael over their 50-year career as pop’s great arch humorists
‘We have a hostility to being boring’: Sparks, still flying in their 70s
Their Adam Driver musical sent Cannes into raptures and Edgar Wright has made an all-star documentary about them. The Mael brothers explain why they’ll always be hopelessly in love with pop
Annette review – Adam Driver magnificent in wild Sparks musical
Driver and Marion Cotillard brim with nervous energy in this bizarre musical collaboration between Leos Carax and the Sparks brothers, which kicks off this year’s film festival
April 2021
Sparks musical with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard to open Cannes film festival
Written by Ron and Russell Mael and set in Los Angeles, Annette is the first English-language film by Holy Motors director Leos Carax
February 2021
First look review
The Sparks Brothers review – Edgar Wright's electric portrait of the pop duo
The director’s imaginative documentary covers the often underappreciated career of Sparks in a funny and vibrant manner
September 2017
Sparks: Hippopotamus review – Ron and Russell Mael at their arch-pop best
August 2017
Culture webchats
Sparks webchat – your questions answered on Morrissey, moustaches and pre-concert rituals
The Mael brothers talk about how British bands write the best lyrics, working with Tony Visconti and their hardest songs to sing
April 2017
This week's new tracks
Sparks’s Hippopotamus: the Mael brothers return with a piscine nightmare
Also this week: Rag’n’Bone Man is back with his cod-soul basics range and Iggy Azalea is still twerking, for some reason
December 2015
What you should hear this week
Why Sparks' The Island Years is the one box set you should hear this Christmas – video
Alexis Petridis finds himself in a state of delighted bafflement revisiting Ron and Russell Mael’s albums from the mid-1970s
August 2015
FFS review – Sparks, and Franz, fly onstage
The oddball electropop veterans and Glasgow indie’s archest hit it off live as much as in the studio
June 2015
FFS review – a frenetic performance that escalates through genres
Art School, Glasgow Two art-pop bands, born decades apart, translate their wondrous electronica-inspired mayhem onto the stage with ease and elan
