Robin Askew
Recent articles by Robin Askew
13 albums dashed off by rock icons… to get out of tedious recording contracts
A deep dive into the spite-fuelled masterpieces and 'odds-and-sods' collections born from the music industry's most high-stakes legal battles
Here are 17 brilliant, but obscure 1970s bands. How many do you remember?
Unsung heroes: 17 brilliant 70s bands, from psych-folk to operatic prog, that deserve a fresh listen
Shattered: the 15 messiest breakups in rock history
Bands fall apart every day – but these splits were absolute carnage: betrayal, addiction, lawsuits, and wounds that still haven’t fully healed
The 21 juiciest rock memoirs you should read
Controversy! 15 times rock made the front page... for the WRONG reasons
Rock has never been a stranger to controversy. Here are 15 unforgettable examples of rock stars crossing the line
So, here are 23 rock stars with bizarre hobbies
Beekeeping, WW2 memorabilia.... owning a football club? Iconic rockers have found some colourful ways to relax down the years
27 rock icons with criminal records (OK, we cheated a bit with one of them)
Big hits, bad behaviour. Robin Askew introduces 15 rock legends with a rap sheet
Lone wolf: rock's 12 greatest one-man bands (number 9 is a haunting tale)
From Mike Oldfield to Dave Grohl, discover the virtuosos who shredded the rulebook to record entire masterpiece albums completely alone
Hiding in plain sight: 17 classic album covers with weird, eerie details
From Led Zeppelin's Wiltshire thatcher to Rick Wakeman's unexpected Tricky Dicky, here are 16 classic album covers gone delightfully offbeat
Sabotaged! Rock’s 10 most self-destructive bands
Rock stars in the movies: often a recipe for disaster. Here are the 17 worst performances
Rock stars on the big screen: when charisma meets a script, sometimes it’s magic… and sometimes it’s gloriously, painfully awful.
Dark magic: 15 classic rock songs about witches and wizards. Mostly witches, actually
From Black Sabbath via the Eagles to Kate Bush, 15 songs in thrall to the strange magic of witchcraft and wizardry
These 15 albums are basically perfect from start to finish
From Boston to the Beatles (via Steely Dan and Slayer), 11 classic rock albums that don't put a foot wrong from start to finish
'Everyone wore capes and played endless keyboard solos': 7 dumb myths about 1970s rock
Hobbits? Capes? Ten-minute keyboard solos? Our resident Seventies svengali Robin Askew debunks some prevalent 1970s rock myths
Rock bottom: 11 rock legends and their WORST songs
Even rock's gods don't make magic every time. From The Beatles to Floyd, here are 11 legends - and the tracks they don't need reminding about
11 rock stars who found God... but it didn't turn out quite as expected
Many an iconic rocker has found religion or spirituality. It hasn't always led them where they might have hoped
'Don't call us PUNK!' 13 bands WRONGLY swept up in 1977's revolution
Pinned to a trend they didn’t invent, these 13 outliers used punk’s frantic momentum to mask their true, non-conformist musical identities
You did WHAT? The 12 strangest decisions in rock history
Rock's uniquely colourful story is littered with moments that just make you scratch your head in bewilderment. These are 12 of the best
Here are 15 brilliant, forgotten 1970s rock albums
From Poco to Eno, Caravan to Creedence, 15 extraordinary 1970s albums that, undeservedly, have slipped through the net
These are the 21 greatest heavy metal albums of all time
Our resident metalhead Robin Askew ranks the greatest heavy metal LPs ever committed to vinyl
Meltdown! 15 times rock icons lost their cool onstage
From incendiary walk-offs to visceral confrontations, witness the unvarnished chaos of rock’s most monolithic icons losing their cool on stage
I read 47 rock memoirs... and ranked them from worst to best
From Keith Richards' rawest confessions to Don Felder's revelations on life in the Eagles' nest, here are rock's 47 most gripping memoirs
Cult bands: 21 rock groups whose influence far outweighed their fame
From The Melvins to Slint, discover the unsung architects of rock whose records sold poorly but started a revolution
These 15 rock songs haven't aged well
From 'casual' domestic threats to blatant stereotypes, these classic rock anthems prove that some legendary lyrics definitely haven't aged gracefully
