Music – Page 18 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 6 – San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine

Posted on May 8, 2021May 15, 2021 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

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 5 – North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia

Posted on May 1, 2021April 29, 2021 by aussiemoose

Songs, songs and more songs #48: Kito, Vanjess & Channel Tres, Amy Shark, Jagwar Ma, AlunaGeorge, Wallows

Posted on April 30, 2021April 26, 2021 by aussiemoose

I love new music. There’s something about hearing the latest and the greatest and knowing that this song, or these songs to be more accurate most of the time, will be with you for the duration. But then there’s also something great about discovering tracks you somehow missed from ages Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 4 – Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova

Posted on April 24, 2021April 24, 2021 by aussiemoose

Songs, songs and more songs #47: Brooke Alexx, Isaia Huron, John Errol, Jelani Aryeh, Sorry

Posted on April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 by aussiemoose

Being human is a complicated business. We love our mothers. We struggle with weird and frenetic thoughts. We get caught in existentially sapping lockdowns. We drive across country on a bus decorated with marigolds (or something like that) and we wonder if this wonderful called love, which feels so perfect Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 3 – Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Iceland

Posted on April 17, 2021April 17, 2021 by aussiemoose

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 2 – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark

Posted on April 10, 2021April 10, 2021 by aussiemoose

Songs, songs and more songs #46: Love Level, Kartell & Tim Atlas, José González, Lauren Auder, Will Stratton

Posted on April 9, 2021March 29, 2021 by aussiemoose

Are you frazzled? L Is life too intense and too full-on for you to collect your thoughts and think about what it all means, if it in fact means anything at all? Then sit down and listen to these five tracks which offer you not only lyrical introspection and thoughtfulness Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 1 – Albania, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium

Posted on April 3, 2021April 11, 2021 by aussiemoose

Songs, songs and more songs #45: G Flip, KUČKA, MAY-A, Odette and yergurl + Eurovision 2021 update

Posted on March 26, 2021March 24, 2021 by aussiemoose

Life isn’t simple; we all know that. But expressing the many and varied things that life can throw at us can often feel like mission impossible when we’re dealing with break-ups or falling in love or wanting celebrate, really celebrate, the wonderful inspiring women in our lives. Thank goodness then Continue Reading

Book review: Love Bites by Cynthia St. Aubin

(courtesy Tor Publishing Group) The crime genre, early teenage voracious consumption of Agatha Christie’s entire output aside, has never really compelled this reviewer to sit down and read like, say science-fiction or slice-of-life quirky dramas. While most sections of my favourite bookshops see regular footfall from me, the crime section Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Stich Head by Guy Bass (writer) and Pete Williamson (artwork)

(courtesy Larrikin Press) It’s a recurring theme in all kinds of creative expression – just who are the monsters really and might they be lurking where you least suspect? The answer, to the second question at least, is an emphatic “YES!!”, owing to the fact that humanity, despite millennia of Continue Reading

Retro movie review: Tron

(courtesy IMP Awards) Jumping back in time, if not literally then at least cinematically, is always an interesting exercise. Nostalgia exerts a powerful pull on all of us, and watching how it fares when it comes to seeing the object of its hagiographying live and in person again is a Continue Reading

Book review: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Life can often like a series of existentially testing events, punctuated by rare moments of levity and joy and wrapped in a lifetime of pain, hurt, loss and hard-won gains. That might seem bleak but for most it’s an accurate take on this thing called life, and Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #129: Georgia, BENEE, Sigrid, Ella Collier + Moyka + ABBA performimg “Mamma Mia” in 1975

(via Shutterstock) There are some months that just reward you with brilliant songs. Songs that, for a whole host of reasons, you play over and over again and which, for this beleaguered commuter reviewer at least, making walking to the train station and back not feel quite so arduous and Continue Reading

Don’t let the bullies win … The Twits drops its feisty trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAcademy Award-nominated filmmaker Phil Johnston reimagines Roald Dahl’s iconic characters, Jim & Credenza Twit, in their first feature animated adventure. The Twits tells the story of Mr. & Mrs. Twit, the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people in the world who also happen to own and operate the most Continue Reading

Book review: The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Plunging into the latest novel by John Scalzi, and fortunate to have read a number of his books before this, I was well aware of just good a writer this man is and how well he imagines realities beyond our own, bringing them to life with Continue Reading

Movie review: All of You

(courtesy IMP Awards) Knowledge, especially when it’s anchored in scientific truth, is a good and powerful thing. Though there are far too many in the world today who believe that facts are situational and malleable and able to bent at will to suit whatever purpose you have in mind, the Continue Reading

Book review: Foreign Country by Marija Peričić

(courtesy Ultimo Press) One of the ways we survive the many vagaries of life is to tell ourselves stories; they’re usually self-serving storylines that reinforce the internal narrative we have long told ourselves to help us make sense of events that would otherwise defy easy categorisation. Are they always truthful? Continue Reading

One week for a lifetime … Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation gets the cinematic treatment

(courtesy BRIT + CO via Yahoo) SNAPSHOTFree-spirited Poppy (Emily Bader) and routine-loving Alex (Tom Blyth) have been unlikely best friends for a decade, living in different cities but spending every summer vacation together. The careful balance of their friendship is put to the test when they begin to question what Continue Reading