Is it me or is music shit?
It’s day after Australia Day, so Australia’s taxpayer-funded hipster national radio station Triple J has run its Hottest 100 songs of the previous twelve months. They are voted by the …
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What will be the classics of today?
Just the other day I was again browsing at Lifeline Bookfest, the twice-yearly largest charity book sale in the world, which takes place – of all places – in Brisbane, …
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Baby It’s Woke Inside
In this week’s chronicles of outrage and offence: “Radio stations around the U.S. and Canada have dropped the 1944 Christmas tune from their lineups over lyrics including, ‘I ought to …
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Nothing Compares to Insh’allah
An artist formerly known as Sinead O’Connor becomes a Peace* Symbol: Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has revealed she has renounced Catholicism and converted to Islam, taking the new name “Shuhada’ …
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What do metalheads and Papuans have in common?
A lot apparently, according to an anthropologist: Heavy metal fans have evolved to communicate with each other like remote tribes in Papua New Guinea, a study by anthropologists has found. …
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Christian Devil’s Music
A much maligned music genre has a long history and an interesting present: In 1972, when Larry Norman was still feeling optimistic about his musical career, he set out on …
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Fighting racist stereotypes with gangsta rap
I don’t know how well thought out this strategy is: The video for KUDZAI’s 4 Deep In The Suburbs starts off menacingly — a police siren wails, and four figures …
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The right is the new punk, the German edition
i confess to guiltily liking heavy music from Germany, from Rammstein, which is just nasty, to In Extremo, which combines thumping guitars with bagpipes and draws from varied sources, including …
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Do They Know It’s Christmas?
A lifetime ago, a charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid made the UK recording history. Released on 3 December 1984, by the last day of the …
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Jerusalem, if I forget you…
Some good news from Spain, where the courts have finally started fighting anti-Semitism, which so often in Europe comes disguised as anti-Zionism: A court in Spain’s southeastern Valencia province has admitted …
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On Iron Maidens and the power of music
I’ve just finished watching an oldish (8 years) doco about Iron Maiden’s 2008 “Somewhere Back In Time†world tour and it got me reflecting on the wonder that is music. …
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