Refugee from Soviet Kitsch

Regina Spektor's family fled Moscow for the United States but, she tells Fiona Sturges, it was a conversation on an Israeli mountain that began her transition to New York alt-folk darling
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Baby, we weren't born to run

He is the working-class hero, the champion of the underdog, the everyman in search of the American Dream. His place in the pop canon is irrefutable, his name mentioned in the same breath as Tom Waits, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. So why is it that Bruce Springsteen leaves me cold?
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The return of dance music

After a period of commercial decline, the original trailblazers of Nineties dance music are back in a big way. The rush of nostalgia is well deserved, argues Fiona Sturges
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Lady Gaga: How the world went crazy for the new queen of pop

She's pop's newest princess and the paparazzi's latest plaything. But it is Lady Gaga who is calling the shots. By Fiona Sturges
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Hello campers!

Joe Orton's The Erpingham Camp is coming to Brighton Pier, complete with audience participation and fish'n'chips. Fiona Sturges reports
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Maxïmo Park: Clinical but never cynical

Landfill indie? No way, insists Maxïmo Park's Paul Smith. Fiona Sturges hears how they challenge the medium of pop
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Stand-up women

Despite the macho culture of many comedy clubs, the number of female comics is on the rise, and a national women-only competition is thriving. But, as Fiona Sturges finds out, the struggle isn't over
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Madonna: 'Quiet, concentrated, a little moody'

After Martin Schreiber paid an unknown New York dancer $30 to pose naked for an art class, little did he know that he was sitting on a potential gold mine. Fiona Sturges met him
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Pop Idol

As his swinging art bus rolls into town, artist Peter Blake talks to Fiona Sturges about his life's work, his false retirement and 'that' album cover...
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Peaches and cream

The charts are full of sassy young female solo stars, but Peaches was there first. With a reputation as a shocking exhibitionist, she tells Fiona Sturges she has a vulnerable side too
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Music review - PJ Harvey, Corn Exchange, Brighton

PJ Harvey has never been one to pointlessly bask in the limelight. Judging by her interviews – and she doesn’t give many – she’d rather be sitting in her local in Dorset discussing the finer points of jam-making than giving it the big rock-star ‘I Am’.
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Gomez land a bigger prize

The Southport band had a meteoric rise to fame when they took the Mercury Prize in 1998, but were soon forgotten. America has been their salvation, says Fiona Sturges
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Obituary - Jade Goody

From the moment Jade Goody emerged from Channel 4's Big Brother house in 2002, bursting out of an ill-fitting pink satin dress, she was a media phenomenon and an icon for the reality television-addicted, Heat magazine-loving masses.
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Music review - Emiliana Torrini

In a recession-battered industry, it's a smart singer-songwriter who is able to broaden their assets. The part-Italian, part-Icelandic, Brighton-based singer Emiliana Torrini has pulled off what looks to be the ultimate professional balancing-act.
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Music review - The Noisettes

On the ubiquitous critics' lists of über-cool pop babes destined to hit the big time this year – see La Roux, Little Boots, Lady Gaga – one name was conspicuous by its absence.
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