Soundtracks are knitted into the soul of every movie you see. Often well done, sometimes not, but where they work, and work superbly, they add immeasurable depth, breadth and spine-tingling, soul-stirring emotion to a film, augmenting stellar performances by the cast. elevating key plot points and ensuring that, Continue Reading
Music
All aboard! What’s happening with Eurovision 2018? (update 2)
Time is tick-tick-tocking on with the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 less than 2 months away! Preparations at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, where Portugal will host its first ever Contest after Salvador Sobral won with the exquisitely-beautiful “Amar pelos dois (Loving For Both of Us)”, are well under way as Continue Reading
Pop Culture Typography: Iconic logos and fonts get a fun musical re-imagining
Ever-more creative and colourful lyric videos have become quite the thing of late for many music artists. Whether as a stop-gap till a live-action clip is filmed or the final promotional product itself, the best lyric videos entrance, entertain and move perfectly in time with the song they’re accompanying. Continue Reading
Now this is music #104: IZNiik, Raindear, Cashmere Cat, VÉRITÉ, Dana Buoy
I love anyone and anything that sits outside the usual boundaries of what people consider “normal”, which if you’re conservative is pretty much anything outside the beige and the banal. Rather than decrying people who push boundaries and are exceptionally, interestingly creative, we should celebrate them, hold them high, Continue Reading
Now this is music #103: Car Seat Headrest, Young Fathers, Ariel Beesley, Black Light White Light, Club 8
Life is too short, way too short, to waste it on artists and songs that say nothing of any consequence. That’s not say that every song you listen should be a philosophical treatise set to music – having some mindless, go-with-the-groove fun can be good for the soul – Continue Reading
Now this is music #102: Troye Sivan, Pond, TRACE, Nilüfer Yanya, Frills
Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of follow-the-leader music out there, bereft of distinctive identity, an assembly of parts that belies its lack of one-of-a-kind inspiration. Thankfully there are an awful lot of immensely-talented people out there creating music that is anything but beige and uniformly the same, and Continue Reading
Glitter and glam! 100 days to the Eurovision Song Contest 2018
On the night of 13 May 2017, with the cheers and encouragement of the packed International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, Ukraine ringing in his ear, and the landslide votes of Europe propelling him to a resounding victory, Salvador Sobral secured an historic first victory for Portugal in the Eurovision Continue Reading
Now this is Australian music: The Presets, Bajillionaire, GAUCI, Stella Donnelly, India Sweeney
It’s Australia Day and while there is considerable, very much necessary debate about the validity of observing our national day on a date seen as Invasion Day by indigenous people, it is still a good day to reflect on what makes this country great. (For the record, I think Continue Reading
Now this is music 101: Yung Lean, Gabriel Black, Said the Sky & FRND, Pale Waves, Sir Sly
I love listening to music. (If you haven’t figured that out yet, then clearly you haven’t been paying attention.) But more than that, I need the music to say something meaningful to me, to dig into the marrow of life and really think about what makes it tick, what Continue Reading
Now this is music: Scandipop special 2 – Bishat, EIRIK, Blissful, Louam, Stockholm Noir
I remain, as always, a devotee of all things Scandinavian. It started as a child with books and TV shows – obviously at that age I had no idea they were Scandinavian; I simply loved the quirk and storytelling idiosyncrasies of the material – and continued on with ABBA Continue Reading