A number of my friends have a fervour for Bruce Springsteen I have never been able to understand. I have always thought of his work as prosaic and literal. His songs teeter on the edge of despair at the…
David Bowie, the Arctic Monkeys, and Ellie Goulding were among the winners at Wednesday night’s Brit Awards. In theory, these were awarded because they were the cream of last year’s music crop. To qualify…
The latest shocking footage from Sochi shows members of the Pussy Riot collective being whipped, apparently for protesting at the Olympics. The incident occurred yesterday, Wednesday February 19, as they…
There’s no shortage of professional critical opinion about music – a wealth of blogs and websites, plenty of column inches in the weekend newspapers. We’re bound to see a plethora of articles around the…
We reap the benefits when we engage with music.
Ed Yourdon
What role does music play in your life? Music surrounds us, in shops, at work, on television, and at the movies. We program our own personal soundtracks effortlessly via iPods and similar devices. With…
Luke Arnold as Michael Hutchence in Never Tear Us Apart.
Channel Seven/Narelle Sheehan
Maybe the ads ruined it for me. Certainly, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart was thoroughly cross-promoted on Channel Seven. I think Kochie may have even mentioned it once or twice. The ads, though, pointed to…
Fifty years after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the band is still the benchmark for Anglo-American relations. With their swift rise to fame in the US, they started the so-called British…
Thirty years ago, a new name joined popular music’s aristocracy with an album and movie that catapulted him, almost overnight, from cult celebrity to the higher tiers of rock’s pantheon. Since then, the…
Twitpic does all the hard work these days, so A&R men don’t even have to leave the office.
marfis75
Twitter has decided to woo the music industry with a promise to share data on up-and-coming artists in a deal that would whet the appetite of most music lovers. It makes sense for one of the largest social…
On Sunday, legendary singer Bob Dylan was the face and voice of the 2014 America Super Bowl commercials, lending his voice to Chobani and the Chrysler 200 advertisers. So Bob Dylan now writes songs to…
Tertiary music education is currently in a state of crisis.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
A broad crisis of confidence has, it seems, beset tertiary music education in Australia. Since returning from Europe in 2006, I have witnessed turmoil of often existential proportions erupt in several…
US folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, who died this week in New York.
Skip Bolen/EPA
We Shall Overcome became the theme song of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. It is most identified with Pete Seeger, the great American musician who died January 27. Yet as Arlo Guthrie…
The death of Pete Seeger marks the end of an astonishing career. His music, political activism and teaching gave him an extraordinary influence that shows no sign of abating. Although the American folk…
“Lorde is indie – original and authentic. Miley and her ilk are not.”
Paul Buck/EPA
Earlier this week, New Zealand singer Ella Yelich-O'Connor – AKA Lorde – won two Grammys, including best song for the sleeper hit Royals and – almost – topped Triple J’s Hottest 100 (her song Royals came…
Can you overcome “classic album fatigue”? The performers who played Big Star’s Third in Sydney last week gave it a good shot.
Jamie Williams/Sydney Festival
“Alex Chilton’s dead!” exclaimed a friend of mine when I told him I was going to a concert devoted to a Big Star album at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre. It’s easy to see the line of reasoning: tickets are being…
Nodding to the past in the present.
Matt Sayles/AP
Given the group’s sonic ownership of last summer with Get Lucky, it seems apt that Daft Punk collaborators dominated last night’s Grammy Awards. They had a total of seven wins, including Album of the Year…
Is Annie Lennox really the only notable female composer?
EPA/MARK KEHOE
Last week, Jude Kelly, artistic director of London’s prestigious Southbank Centre, was the most recent arts luminary to wonder in public why women in music are rarer than English cricket victories in Australia…
Arctic Monkeys are certain to feature in this year’s most voted songs.
AAP Image/MG Promotions
Australia’s national youth station, Triple J, has come in for some criticism lately, with a spate of articles accusing it of homogenising Australian music tastes or excluding too many local acts from the…
The music venue Night and Day in Manchester is threatened following complaints from residents living nearby about noise. They suggested pictures fell from walls because the bass was so loud". The venue…