Coldplay's long-awaited Viva la Vida may not sell as many as their last album — but it’s brimming with the new ideas they so badly need, says David Smyth.
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Since signing to London-based label XL, who found them via their MySpace page, Vampire Weekend have wasted no time building up a following. Their two UK tours to date have both sold out, while they are already pencilled in for a slew of summer festival appearances. The band have also been credited with rejuvenating the New York pop scene
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Green Day are back under pseudonym Foxboro Hot Tubs; making retro, carefree garage rock, The Tom Richards Orchestra is a gentle giant and The Ting Tings release their debut.... more
Doomed youth is one of director Gus Van Sant's favourite subjects. But, he says, there's hope for the skater boys and girls in his latest film Paranoid Park.... more
Sir Elton John and Hillary Clinton, Johnny Marr's reinvigoration, and a new pop release from Moloko's Roisin Murphy are on David Smyth's agenda.... more
Unfailingly polite, moving with the curious, gawky grace of a prep school pupil auditioning for Gilbert and Sullivan, John Aizlewood was fascinated by The Rakes singer Alan Donohoe.... more
Debuts by The View and Jamie T are shot through with slices of life on the street, while The Earlies and Robert Gomez also turn in great albums.... more
Having invented the latest generation of punk-funk The Rapture seemed then to stand still but their sell-out Koko gig showed that perhaps there is life after hip after all.... more
Patti Smith brought down the curtain on the punkiest, grungiest and most mythologised piece of rock history when she performed the final set at the New York club CBGB.... more
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Home Secretary talks about dangerous dogs, Jon Venables, his deprived childhood in Fifties Notting Hill - and why he won’t rule out standing for Labour’s top job
The £2.6bn Large Hadron Collider is to close again for maintenance. Brian Cox, the astrophysicist making science sexy — and who used to be D:ream — still believes things can only get better
How do you sell a below-par van Gogh for a tidy profit? I hear one canny businessman is sending it to market while it happens to be on display at the Royal Academy of Arts
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