Author: James Rose

Music can get pretty complicated. Production techniques and superstar producers can put as much weight on the way an album reaches us as the musicianship of the creators. All the bells, wheezes and whistles can sound great and enhance a sound. But they can also detract. For the purists of popular music, there’s an alternative

My 12-year-old daughter listens to the usual bevy of flashy female singers: Swift to Gomez, Perry to Goulding. Now they all seem a little generic, warbling on about their conception of life’s numerous struggles, all against a catchy back beat. It all sounds like it’s been there forever. But it hasn’t. Female artists singing about

Musical acts don’t generally make their name on a live album. Usually the act is well-established and the live set comes out to feed the beast; capitalise on momentum built in the studio, and/or to give the artist time in rehab.

Boys. The vast majority of popular music over the last decades has been aimed largely at this demographic — including those who are still there mentally. Much of this has been posturing and hip thrusting, aggressive and misogynistic; beta males imagining themselves as the alphas on stage, or on their stereos.

Iceland seems like a strange place. With its weird language and pale blond people living in toy houses it has forged a society rich in social justice and human rights. But, the place is also known for its suicide rates and alcoholism.

There’s a band of kids in every hall in the country. Teenagers hitting postures and clanging half-arsed chords, pretending to be big time. It’s almost a rite of passage.

Imagine the sound inside a person’s head. Let’s say those electronic impulses and blips were well wired up and mic’d up all over the place. Then it was all pumped out through huge, wall-sized speakers. Got it? Ok, now go listen to Exit Planet Dust by The Chemical Brothers.

What is it about a soft, high-pitched voice against a hard rock back drop? Think Led Zepp and Plant or Acka Dacka and Scott/Johnson. It’s ethereal yet grounded, heavenly yet earthy, like an angel come in from playing footy. Powderfinger with Bernard Fanning’s seraphic voice reached, if not similar heights in global terms, then certainly

There are those for whom vinyl is unsurpassed as a music listening medium. For decades, popular music did well enough churning out black plastic wheels with the songs of the day etched into them. But, for all its upside, vinyl, with all its scratches and creaks, along with cassette tapes, are inconsistent and often unfaithful