ADRIAN THRILLS: Never Forget My Love is Joss Stone s latest attempt to reboot a career dotted by false starts and fresh beginnings - but it might just be the record that puts her back centre stage.
For a moment back there it looked like we’d lost Eddie Vedder to the ukulele. The Pearl Jam singer began learning to play this most divisive of stringed instruments sometime in the mid-90s, initially as a joke. By the time of his 2011 solo album, Ukulele Songs, things had become serious. One of the most distinctive voices in rock had become the grunge George Formby. Vedder’s third solo album proper is no less surprising, but for entirely different reasons. Where Ukulele Songs seemed designed to keep the singer’s A-list fame at arm’s length, Earthling finds him fully leaning into it. This is a mainstream rock record by a man who has spent a career signalling his discomfort with being a mainstream rock star, a set of songs that willingly embrace the middle ground. The list of guest appearances alone reads like a Prince’s Trust Charity gig: Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Ringo Starr all chip in.