Essential Tracks
“I think my attention span is probably somewhat like Elvis Costello’s – I’ve been told that before.” Ben Folds said this to me in 2016 just prior to kicking off an Australian tour alongside chamber music ensemble, yMusic. It was a reference to his continual desire to change things up over the course of a […]
Midnight Oil have always been a hard band to categorise. Forming in Sydney in the mid-1970s, they’ve long been lumped under the “pub-rock” banner. But this tag doesn’t give you a sense of the band’s left-wing politics and anti-racist messaging, which are as essential to the Midnight Oil DNA as angular electric guitars and Peter […]
CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses mental health and suicide. Logic (aka Sir Robert Bryson Hall II) has steadily emerged as a game-changing MC in a little over a decade. Like Kanye West, J Cole and the late Mac Miller, Logic is a studio polymath, capable of cutting his own beats. Still, he’s known for […]
As revealed last week, Aussie rock icons Powderfinger are reuniting for one night only on Saturday, coming together to entertain us all in the comfort of our own homes to raise much-needed funds for Beyond Blue and Support Act. The return of the Brissie rockers is set to provide a boost to my happiness and […]
Augie March topped triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2006, but they’re a true anomaly in the countdown’s history. Their music isn’t easy to pigeonhole, even six albums into their career. The band’s debut LP Sunset Studies came out 20 years ago. It’s an album of guitar music, melodic, wordy and sophisticated. It’s not airless or […]
Patti Smith isn’t your conventional rock star. The New Jersey-raised performer emerged on the eve of punk’s watershed moment. Her debut album, 1975’s Horses, ushered in the spirit of liberation that defined the punk movement, but Smith’s appeal isn’t centred on anti-establishment lyrics or charging electric guitars. Although she can maniacally scream with the best […]
You often hear songwriters say that once their work is made available for public consumption, it’s theirs no longer. This isn’t a matter of rights ownership, but rather one of subjective significance as the writer’s personal intentions are trumped by the multiplicity of listener interpretations. The hit-heavy catalogue of Elton John epitomises this phenomenon. Rarely […]
Nearly seven years on from calling it quits and going their separate ways, My Chemical Romance shocked the world at the end of last week by announcing their official comeback with a headlining show that well and truly sold out within a minute of going on sale. This taught us two things. One: The Jonas […]
Vincent Furnier was an LA nobody. The son of a preacher, he was a wannabe, a guy in a go-nowhere band calling itself Alice Cooper. Vince had hung out with Jim Morrison and released two dud albums recorded by Frank Zappa. Other than that, he didn’t have all that much to boast about. Then he cracked it. His million-dollar […]
