Author: James Aldred

A lot can happen in seventeen years. Come to think of it, seventeen years ago was a whole millennium ago. It also happened to be the year (1999 if you need prompting) that a talented, unprepossessing three-piece from small-town Illinois released their first and, until now only, full LP. That album, American Football, was a […]

If you were to ask the average person to imagine the loudest, heaviest, most punishing band active right now it’s unlikely that they will picture a sextet of middle-aged and elderly men. Yet the New York based Swans have always been an unimaginably odd band. Across their 30+ year history they have indulged in almost […]

On the 13th of October 2016 Bob Dylan added the Nobel Prize in Literature to his already extensive collection of accolades including Grammy awards, a Golden Globe and an Academy award, among many others. A Minnesota born singer-songwriter, Dylan’s effortless everyday lyricism has touched the lives of many, and firmly situated him as an important […]

A lonely choir fades into the background, replaced by a menacing, looped bassline. The angelic is replaced by the earthly, the serene by the disturbed. Earlier this year Leonard Cohen wrote a letter to Marianne Ihlen, after he was informed that a former lover and the woman who inspired one of his most famous songs […]

Over the past few decades the Oxford Union has welcomed many musical icons through its famous double-doors. In 2001 Michael Jackson gave his first public speech in over a decade, launching the charity Heal the Children and talking openly about his unhappy relationship with his father. Since then famous names have included sinister Swedish telepaths, […]

Here’s a controversial opinion: Skepta’s album Konnichiwa should not have won the Mercury Prize. In fact, despite all the hype, Konnichiwa isn’t actually that great. Yes, it has the anthem of all 2015-era school leavers’ parties – That’s Not Me – and the similarly massive Shutdown. And yes, it has features from king-of-the-hill Drake, and […]

The story of Bon Iver has been repeated ad tedium. “The old records are of this kind of sad nature,” Justin Vernon explained during a press conference held last month. “I was healing myself through that stuff”—a “healing” in the form of 2007’s For Emma, Forever Ago, born out of a Thoreauan, convalescent stay in […]

1. The Gap Yah Inbetween long stories about how they built a well in Kenya or chundered everywhere in Budapest, this specimen will inevitably utter the phrase: “I’m really into world music”. It’s hard to select a specific track to represent the Gap Yah, since the result of such contrived eclecticism is an interest in […]

Brexit, Brangelinexit, and Bake Off-exit: it’s certainly been a summer full of depressing news. But can you remember what’s gone in the world of music? Fear not, for OxStu will help refresh your memory about what’s been happening over the Vac… 23rd June – As morning breaks over the field of Worthy Farm, so does […]

On the last morning of the festival, everyone gathered around the campsite to pour a libation over the heap of crumpled beer cans and crisp packets that formed the centre of our community. The scene would have made for a good skin cancer awareness advert, as we sat there rubbing Tp onto our red knees. […]