LTW newsletter 103

Hail warriors,

We are gathered here today to survey the pop culture realm in all its high decibel glory…

Trying to make sense of the senseless, but with a great soundtrack, this week has been dominated by the big Oasis shows in Cardiff, which have been jokingly referred to as the band’s two 80,000 capacity warm-up gigs for their four-month world tour before they theoretically stop again. 

As ever, the internet is full of ‘takes’ on Oasis adhering to the time-honoured first law of pop culture, which is that ‘the bigger you get, the more haters thou gather…’. 

A cult band rarely gets haters as no one outside their immediate circle of fans even knows they exist, but the more they emerge from their musical burrow, the more the ‘anti’s’ pile in with their hot take opinions before it gets to the point where it feels like an avalanche of angst and a tsunami of opinion! 

May the debate continue!

LTW home city Manchester is about to be engulfed not only with the huge Oasis audience for five Heaton Park shows but all manner of festivals like the annual Manchester International Festival and other events which sees a footfall of nearly two million music and culture fans engulfing the city this summer…it’s boom time for the culture fiends and there is also plenty of action on the underground. 

As ever LTW will try and keep abreast of all this ‘stuff’.

Glastonbury has dominated the site in the last week. It already seems a long time ago since the festival in that curious way that pop culture time bends but the after glow of the annual mind blowing event saw us post three reviews taking in different takes on the huge sprawling affair that is almost impossible to get any kind of overview on especially if you are at its heart.

We had a great attempt at an overview…

Mark Muldoon presents his absolutely fictional Glastonbury awards ceremony, whilst discussing Neil Young, Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp, The 1975, Beth Gibbons, Wolf Alice, Taskmaster and much more. https://louderthanwar.com/glastonbury-2025-the-worthy-awards/ (Opens in a new window)

And a review of the punkier leaning acts of Billy Bragg’s Leftfield stage.

Always controversial and always difficult to ignore John Lydon has been criss crossing the UK with Public Image Limited. Behind the bluff and the opinion he is fronting a band that can still deliver and have been sounding much better on this recent jaunt as our reviewer explains.

Lana Del Ray somehow made her intimate songs of heartbreak and poetic disillusionment make sense in arenas. Or reviewer reports, ‘You could see the show as an admirable refusal, even to such an enormous stage, to compromise her own artistic vision, to give us anything other than the exact show she envisioned herself.’

Still one of England’s best-kept musical secrets after half a century on the road, the singular Robyn Hitchcock docks around the clock, bringing his bucolic psychedelia for a mini-residency on The Golden Hinde. Steve Morgan clambers eagerly aboard.

Growing up in Blackpool the very idea that Stevie Wonder would be pitching up at next door neighbour town, St Annes and headline a festival on the prom would have been an alien concept but in 2025 it seems like anything is possible and here he is…

Long been a LTW fave it was great to see that Big Special suddenly out of the blue released a new album which of course we had to make into one of our albums of the week. The midland duo go against the norm by springing a surprise release on an unexpected public which has all the hallmarks of a not so difficult SECOND album, full of ideas and Black Country wit. Wayne AF Carey says ‘efcharisto’…

Our other album of the week and trust me its hard to hone down to a couple come from manchester based Autocamper, the hotly tipped Indie four piece deliver their debut album, What Do You Do All Day? after a series of self-released singles and several celebrated gigs. It’s like all the moments of indie classic combined into one. 

Gina Birch is back on the scene with a blistering new album Trouble coming on the 11th July. Following on from her excellent debut solo album I Play My Bass Loud her theme remains the same. Just like her art and beliefs it’s and odd yet exhilarating listen which is what Gina was always about with The Raincoats. Sometimes uneasy listening in the past yet always capturing the minds of the likes of the great Kurt Cobain for instance, Gina has fun experimenting with so many sounds on this new one it’s hard to fit into one genre. I’ve pinned her down to send me her top ten influential albums and it’s as eclectic as her pinball mind. Read on…