Nick Reilly
Nick Reilly is a music journalist and editor at Rolling Stone UK whose work centres on live pop and rock performances, high-profile artist coverage, and news that tracks how major music moments resonate with fans and the wider industry. He covers marquee acts such as Harry Styles alongside legacy bands and cult favourites, moving between reviews, news pieces, and interviews that connect onstage spectacle with cultural impact. His coverage stands out for the way it treats live shows, reunions, awards and streaming spikes as pivotal events in contemporary music rather than routine items on the calendar.
Live pop performances and tour moments
Reilly devotes a significant portion of his work to documenting major live performances, particularly from global pop stars playing large venues. His review of Harry Styles under the headline “Harry Styles Just Delivered the Greatest Performance of His Solo Career” frames a single show as a career-defining night, signalling his focus on turning tour stops into narrative milestones. In another piece, “Harry Styles Live in Manchester: An Almighty Dance Party,” he again centres the concert experience itself, emphasising the atmosphere and energy of the crowd as part of the story. Beyond one artist, his Rolling Stone coverage includes reviews and reports that follow touring cycles and festival appearances, giving communications teams a sense of how he treats performance, staging and audience reaction as core elements of music coverage.
His Rolling Stone UK archive includes pieces that blur the line between music reporting and wider cultural events, such as coverage of the Wembley crowd celebrating a World Cup win alongside Harry Styles, which ties a concert setting to a national sporting moment. This pattern shows that he is drawn to nights where music intersects with other live spectacles, and he tends to highlight the sense of occasion as much as the set list. Whether he is writing for the flagship Rolling Stone edition or its UK imprint, the live show is often the lens through which he introduces artists and their current phase to readers.
Music news, awards, and streaming trends
Alongside reviews, Reilly regularly files news pieces that track developments in the careers of established artists and the broader industry metrics around them. His reporting on Placebo winning the Pride Icon Award at the Attitude Pride Awards 2026 shows his interest in the recognition of bands within LGBTQ+ and alternative scenes, taking awards as a point of entry into conversations about longevity and cultural standing. He also covers reunions and their commercial impact, as in his article on how Oasis’ reunion announcement affected streaming numbers, using data from platforms like Spotify to illustrate shifts in listening behaviour. This combination of artist news and streaming analysis marks him out as a reporter who not only chronicles events but also follows their measurable footprint in the digital marketplace.
Reilly’s work spans different formats of service and commerce-oriented journalism as well. His byline on “RS Recommends: The Best Digital Pianos and Keyboards to Play Right Now” positions him in the recommendation and gear space, where he helps readers navigate products linked to music-making. This shows he is comfortable moving from narrative reporting to practical guides when the subject is relevant to musicians and serious fans. Across these pieces, awards, reunions, and product round-ups are treated as newsworthy touchpoints that keep his beat grounded in both culture and the business of music.
Interviews with legacy artists and cultural icons
Reilly also conducts interviews that bring readers into conversation with long-established artists and cross-media personalities. In one notable piece, he talks with Mark Knopfler and Brian Johnson about their new show, using their perspectives to explore how veteran musicians approach fresh projects and collaborations. This kind of interview work complements his reporting on newer pop stars, giving his portfolio a breadth that spans generations of performers. His coverage of Placebo, Oasis and other long-running acts adds to this picture of a journalist who treats legacy artists as active participants in current music culture rather than purely nostalgic figures.
Beyond print, Reilly shares insights into his craft at journalism workshops and masterclasses, where he speaks about his career in music reporting and editing. These appearances underline his role not just as a writer but as a practitioner who articulates how contemporary music coverage is made. For story placement, this means he is engaged with the broader conversation about how artists are framed, interviewed and contextualised within modern music media.
Obituaries and cultural milestones
Reilly’s beat occasionally extends into obituaries and retrospective news, particularly around figures whose work defined eras of pop music. His piece on the death of Village People lead singer Victor Willis at 74, covering the loss of the voice behind “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man,” shows his willingness to treat the passing of artists as moments to revisit their catalogue and cultural significance. This strand of his work sits alongside his reporting on Pride awards and reunions, reinforcing an interest in how musical legacies are marked, celebrated and remembered.
Across these different formats—live reviews, news updates, interviews, recommendations and obituaries—Reilly maintains a consistent focus on the artists and events that shape mainstream and alternative music culture today. He writes across multiple Rolling Stone editions and other outlets, but his centre of gravity remains music: the shows, announcements, honours and stories that define how listeners experience artists in the current moment.
4 more music journalists.
Abigail Kellett
Abigail Kellett is a news reporter at the Halifax Courier who stands out for visually led coverage that shows how culture, nightlife and local life play out on the ground. She documents gigs, festivals and major live shows at venues such as The Piece Hall through curated photo sets that capture atmosphere, crowd and setting as much as performers, and she uses extensive image galleries to tap reader nostalgia for nights out in Halifax town centre. Her beat spans arts, entertainment, going out, heritage, books and literary events, along with community life, people stories, local challenges, milestones, transport, regeneration, lifestyle and food. She reports through photographs, checklist-style features, reader-driven lists and roundups of most-read stories, turning announcements, programmes, author events, festivals, shop lists and everyday characters into stories about place, shared memory and how people spend their time.
Adam Lyon
Adam Lyon is a digital audience and content editor whose news beat sits at the intersection of Ayrshire’s cultural life, business environment and public affairs. He works for the Ayr Advertiser and as Digital Audience & Content Editor for Newsquest in the west of Scotland across multiple weekly titles. He covers Ayrshire news with a strong thread of music and local culture alongside business, courts and public affairs. He reports on music when it has a clear community or national hook, treating songs as news events rather than reviews. His business work explains how local firms and retail policy shape town centres. His court coverage uses round-ups of sheriff court cases to show patterns and outcomes. He also fronts video previews and is active in a football supporters trust community.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose work links big-name gigs, new venues and cultural flashpoints to everyday fan culture and inclusion. He covers music, nightlife and the wider cultural scene for the Manchester Evening News, focusing on how concerts, openings and immersive events land with real people and communities. His beat spans live music, arenas and stadiums, new restaurant and bar openings, food reviews, exhibitions, street art and nightlife infrastructure, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ audiences and neighbourhoods. He reports on venue ambitions and problems, cultural institutions and equality issues, and franchise-led experiences, using straightforward, on-the-ground reporting and clear description. Drawing on a background in community reporting, he looks for underrepresented perspectives and uses social media, analytics and local sourcing to find stories where culture, identity and place meet.
Alison Brinkworth
Alison Brinkworth is a freelance journalist who treats music as a gateway into place, history and everyday life, often through exhibitions, performances and city-centre events. She covers music within the wider cultural and lifestyle scene, leaning toward accessible, on-the-ground stories framed by familiar artists, venues and local attractions. Her work often focuses on music exhibitions and attractions built around well-known performers, alongside theatre reviews, live events and city attractions. She brings a lifestyle, travel and human-interest sensibility, using interviews and personal stories to show how people spend their time. With over 25 years of experience across print, digital, social media and internal communications, she writes clear, factual, audience-facing articles with dates, locations and organisers, suited to listings, guides and practical recommendations.