His first studio album for eight years finds Cohen addressing waning physical powers and moral uncertainties...

The man in black takes it to the masses across three decades and two CDs...

Whatever it was meant to be, it wasn’t fun. In the closing years of the 1960s, the Kinks’ managers Robert Wace and Grenville Collins cajoled Dave Davies into recording material for a putative solo album - long known to fans as A Hole In The Sock Of Dave Davies. Hard-pressed and still heartbroken from being parted from his school sweetheart, what the Kinks guitarist delivered was too gloomy for anyone to handle.

It’s 1978 and the Rolling Stones have just left the soggy vagueness of their mid-70s career behind, only to come across punk and new wave.

As I mentioned the other day, after a grim 2011 it looks like 2012 has the makings of a good year for film. Later this week, I’ll be posting Jonathan Romney’s review of Alexander Payne’s tremendous The Descendants. But meantime, I hope you’ll indulge me while I throw forward to one of February’s best releases, Young Adult – a terrific sort-of-comedy from the Juno team of director Ivan Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody.

The 2012 Academy Award nominations have been announced today (January 24) in Los Angeles. Martin Scorsese's 3D children's film, Hugo, leads the way with 11 nominations, closely followed by Michel Hazanavicius' black and white silent movie, The Artist with 10. Here's the nominations in the key six categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

Haul out the Vespa! Jimmy the Mod rides again on two and five CD reissues of Townshend’s 1973 opera. Plus demos, photos, posters, studio diaries…

Shakespeare tragedy gets aggressive Balkan makeover...

White Denim, as their frenetic live shows would suggest, are not a band much given to idling. Last summer, while the master tapes of their scintillating third album D were withering on the reel, awaiting record company approval of a reworked song that the band never wanted on the album in the first place, the Texan crack shots decided to use their downtime productively.

It didn’t require a telescope to spot Craig Finn’s first solo record glinting on the horizon. The most recent Hold Steady album, last year’s Heaven Is Whenever, hinted at creative restlessness within the ranks. The band carved out a little more space and Finn scaled down his narratives to something less obviously cinematic, yet it seemed clear there was ample room for further exploration.