The Smu Reviews

In the years since their unannounced, early naughties disbandment, Shampoo’s legacy has been left in the hands of others, somewhat abandoned and scattered to the wind. It’s fantastic, then, to see their blistering smash and grab through the late-90s pop landscape stylishly repackaged in this way for 2024, finally getting some love and the treatment it deserves. 

Despite a career spanning three decades, dousing the charts with their uniquely super-chic brand of funky acid-jazz pop hits, anyone who has caught The Brand New Heavies on their current tour, or heard their most recent album TBNH (as good as it is succinctly named) will know that they show no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Is it possible to commit a forgery against yourself? It may seem ironic to complain about the reinvention of a character so chameleonic, but while Mark Leipacher’s staging of The Talented Mr. Ripley takes Patricia Highsmith’s iconic origin story in a stylishly stylised direction, it is ultimately with mixed results.

Suede’s third album, first line-up change and metaphorical second debut turns 25 this week. I look back on the lazy days, the crazes and the fads to find out if there is still chemistry between us.

While the infamous helicopter was a spectacular sight, it’s not the heart of Miss Saigon. The true key to its enduring success lies in its emotional core - the human cost of war, love, and loss - captured so successfully by Boublil and Schönberg's incredible score. If you leave the theatre only thinking about the missing helicopter, you’ve missed the point.

Ten years ago a birth of magnificent and magical proportions took place. Lady Gaga’s pivotal second album, Born This Way, passes its first decade hovering in the musical multiverse this week and I reflect on one of the most fascinating records, and periods, in pop history.

There is nothing worse than blandness. Bland food, bland music, bland musicians. When I go to see someone perform I want to see a SHOW. When I listen to a song I want it to have a personality. When I love an artist the most it’s usually when they are pissing off a high percentage of the population. I don’t care what the genre is, I want to see it cranked up to 110%.