Music – Page 12 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Songs, songs and more songs #68: Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maggie Rogers, Betty Who, MUNA + new ABBA lyric video for “SOS”

Posted on July 1, 2022July 20, 2022 by aussiemoose

It’s been a rough two years and an even rougher few weeks and I honestly I need some upbeat, effervescent pop joy in my life. Thankfully songs like the five in this post, which have come to my attention via YouTube, music blogs and Shazam-ing TV shows, means that the Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #67: Tove Lo, The Knocks, Khalid, Alesso, Lizzo + Kate Bush goes to #1 thanks to Stranger Things S4a

Posted on June 17, 2022December 17, 2022 by aussiemoose

Music and lyrics go together beautifully. Hardly a seismic statement lyrically to remake history since d’uh of course they do, but there’s something about these five near-perfect songs that remind you how good it is when just-so lyrics meet perfectly-realised music. When that happens, and it’s not always a given, Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #66: Em Beihold, Chappell Roan, Pabllo Vittar, Alexandra Stan, Harry Styles

Posted on May 27, 2022May 27, 2022 by aussiemoose

One of the many great things about listening to really good pop music is the way it can capture with three-minute eloquence and searingly honest insight what you’re feeling, what your life experiences have been or the state of your life. All those words you’ve been struggling to frame into Continue Reading

When everyone has left the stage … the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 grand final wrap-up

Posted on May 17, 2022May 15, 2023 by aussiemoose

The Eurovision Song Contest is over for another year. It’s sad, as always, because if there is one thing Eurovision does better than just about any other event, it’s remind us that good and wonderful things still exist in the world. Beset as we are by war, climate change, rising Continue Reading

Whimsically powerful pop: My 5 favourite Eurovision songs of all time

Posted on May 13, 2022May 12, 2022 by aussiemoose

Like a lot of people I have been watching the Eurovision Song Contest for a great many years. During that time, I have fallen in love with a great many songs – contrary to what the naysayers and trolls say the contest produces far more catchy songs than it does Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2022: Week 7 – The Big 5 – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom (grand final)

Posted on May 8, 2022May 8, 2022 by aussiemoose

What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #65: Benji Lewis, Meltt, Hermitude, Jamie Lane and ODESZA

Posted on May 6, 2022May 3, 2022 by aussiemoose

Life is loud. Life is big. Life is frantic. There’s a lot going on and sometimes all you want to do is sit back, soak in some beautiful music while still engaging your mind and let the reverie flow. These five thoughtfully talented artist deliver up transportive music, rich in Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2022: Week 6 – North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Sweden (semi-final 2, part 3) + Semi-final 2 top 10 picks

Posted on April 30, 2022May 14, 2022 by aussiemoose

#Eurovision 2022 – Italian cultural festival music review: Sangiovanni, Fedez + Achille Lauro + Orietta Berti, BLANCO, Colapesce + Dimartino, Capo Plaza

Posted on April 29, 2022April 27, 2022 by aussiemoose

The #1 position of a music chart is always a heady place to occupy. Reaching that coveted spot means lots and lots of people not only love your music but love it enough to stream it, buy it and keep playing it over and over; it makes sense, when selecting Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2022: Week 5 – Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Israel, Malta, Montenegro (semi-final 2, part 2)

Posted on April 23, 2022April 22, 2022 by aussiemoose

One last roll of the planetary dice … Project Hail Mary releases its first gripping trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAstronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakens with no memory of himself or his mission. He deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must Continue Reading

This just ain’t his story. It’s our story.” Washington Black makes the leap from book to screen

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFollows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When an incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges & Continue Reading

Book review: Thoroughly Disenchanted by Alexandra Almond

(Harper Collins Publishers Australia) What great longing rests in the depths of our seemingly endless hearts and soul? For most of us, it’s really no more than a guess though if pressed we could likely name a few wished and longed-for things that we would like to see manifest like Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Appearances, as we all know and have been instructed about repeatedly, can be deceiving. For one reason or another, people project one thing while living quite another, a white lie in most cases that avoids emotional entanglement, vulnerability or the need to share in something that Continue Reading

Book review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

(courtesy Penguins Books Australia) Delving deep into someone’s life over a long period of time is something rarely afforded to us unless they are a family member or close friend. We might know people well and converse, laugh and cry with them over all sorts of life events but really Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #124: GRANT KNOCHE, MO, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Lil Nas X + Miley Cyrus

(via Shutterstock) Life is a LOT. And while there’s no escaping that, you can find ways to work through the myriad of emotions that summons, including of course channeling it into some highly cathartic music. These five artists do that brilliantly and well and the resultant songs manage to get Continue Reading

Book review: Salvage by Jennifer Mills

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) What would happen if the world “ended” in slow motion? In other words, rather than the big bang and boom of the usual fall of civilisation that we have seen documented in all kinds of apocalyptic storytelling, what if the cataclysmic hell of the end of Continue Reading

Movie review: Flow

(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s a rare thing indeed to emerge from watching a movie of any kind and feel both soothed and euphoric. Surely the two states are antithetical, with the more active one bludgeoning the other into emotional oblivion with boundlessly energetic vivacity? Or the former chilling you the Continue Reading

Breaking free: How Jim Henson and his team made the Muppets magic happen

(courtesy Muppet Wiki / (c) The Jim Henson Company / Disney) SNAPSHOTThe illusions that have baffled me for years is when muppets go outside when they seem to break free from their puppeteers and become little sentient creatures….These movies were released before CGI was ubiquitous. These are in-camera effects. What Continue Reading

Book review: The Emilie Adventures by Martha Wells

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Growing up should be a time of limitless optimism and possibility, a temporal place where imagination runs riot, adventure is the order of the day and all the burdens of the world don’t fall upon your still small shoulders. But sometimes, all those good and wonderful Continue Reading