The 16th annual AU review countdown of the 40 best albums of the year has arrived. This year, as always, our contributors bring together a mix of artists from Australia and around the world. Hopefully your favourite album(s) made the cut – and maybe you’ll discover a few new ones along the way, too. Read…
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It’s that time of year when our team of music writers and editors get together to count down the 40 best albums of the year. And while this has been no usual year, the quality of music that has been released has been incredibly high. Suffice it to say, this has been a very difficult…
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Over the same weekend that West Coast legend DJ Quik was set to play a small Sydney gig in the cramped side room of Metro Theatre, fellow Compton emcee Kendrick Lamar performed two tightly-packed shows at the staggeringly large Qudos Bank Arena as part of his global The Big Steppers tour. Two enormous symbols of…
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We’re officially barrelling towards the end of 2022, a year that has been packed with international and local live music springing back to life after a series of crippling lockdowns. It’s been jam-packed, to say the very least, and next year is looking even stronger as some truly big-ticket acts like Elton John, Red Hot…
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With 2022 just past its halfway point, we’re taking a look at some of our favourite albums released over the past six months. 2022 has started off with plenty of quality releases that are sure to remain on repeat as we head into the second half of the year. With the year already off to…
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Kendrick Lamar is a virtuoso of rap. His music often takes on a dramatic form that unfurls itself into so many branches of spectacle. West Coast greats like Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre have vocalised adamant support for Lamar, for keeping alive a pure form of hip-hop that exemplifies the characteristics that built the genre….
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*UPDATE* [19/05/2022]: Well, the news is out now. Every single music fan in Sydney is going to be knocking down the online Live Nation door as of Friday 20th May in a frantic attempt to scrape up tickets to Kendrick Lamar’s new Australia tour for 2022. The Compton emcee, who just released the brilliant Mr…
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America’s newest music festival Grandoozy kicked off in Denver yesterday with Kendrick Lamar, Phoenix, Tennis, Ty Dolla $ign, Bishop Briggs, Jade Bird, Bayonne and more. Taylor Mithelman brings us photos from the first day:
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Denver has always been known as an amazing city. Set with the beautiful background of the Rocky Mountains, the city has long been a hot bed of live music, a thriving arts scene and a welcoming area of all things culture. But one thing has been a missing, a 3-day major music festival to rival…
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After the heavy rainfall of the first day, BIGSOUND attendees finally saw that famous Brisbane sun. Most people would have rested from the late night of enjoying the best up-and-coming bands, but a mid-morning keynote talk with Aussie legend Paul Kelly made the early start worthwhile. Chatting with The Australian’s Andrew McMillen at a packed…
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Next month one of the biggest Music Festival promoters brings a lot of big names and good times to the Rocky Mountains with hopes to establish one of the best new parties of the year. Grandoozy is slated for Overland Park in Denver Colorado from September 14-16 and is being organzied by Superfly Productions. Superfly…
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Splendour in the Grass is back again for another year, held this year in North Byron Parklands from the 20th-22nd of July. If you’re heading out to Splendour for the first time, chances are you’re going to have a helluva bender – what a stacked line up to pop your SITG cherry! As the weekend…
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This week, I had the chance to catch up with Black Panther composer Ludwig Göransson while he was in his LA based studio, working on a new Childish Gambino record. We spoke about working with Childish, as well as Kendrick Lamar, who curated Black Panther: The Album and performed a number of tracks for its…
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Okay, okay, we know we’re a bit early on the proper hype train but screw it, Kendrick Lamar is touring. And touring properly. Not just chucking a Melbourne and Sydney show alongside his headline Splendour in the Grass appearance. K.Dot has shown love to fans in Adelaide and Perth too, locking in dates in South Oz…
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This week, we brought you an end of year list detailing some special Australian albums released this year, the Top 20 in fact, that have made their mark. With Gang of Youths‘ Go Farther in Lightness taking the Number One spot, and the likes of Jen Cloher, Ecca Vandal, Winston Surfshirt and more also featuring prominently, we revisited some of…
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Earlier this week, we unveiled our list of the 20 Best Albums of 2017 so far – as voted by our team – with The Smith Street Band reigning supreme with their acclaimed album, More Scared of You Than You Are of Me. Breaking things down even further, today we throw the spotlight on some of the…
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Shockingly, we find ourselves in the second half of 2017 already. In terms of new music, we’ve been hit with some heavy releases from some of pop music’s biggest names, while some of our favourite Australian artists have come out swinging with impressive album and EP releases all their own. As the first week of…
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Rihanna is one of modern pop music’s most bankable artists. Since her “Pon De Replay” days, the Bajan vocalist has been an in-demand name both as a solo artist and as a hot guest artist on many a pop and hip hop chart buster. The years have seen Rihanna collaborate with the likes of Maroon…
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The second weekend of the 2017 Coachella Music & Arts Festival wrapped up in Indio, California last night, with an eclectic mix of performances around the festival. On the main stage, New Zealand pop star Lorde and headlining rapper Kendrick Lamar closed the festival with big budget sets full of pyrotechnics, fire and a slew…
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Let’s be real, I don’t think everybody’s completely recovered from the release of Kendrick Lamar‘s DAMN. yet. I know we’re not. Following his Easter weekend gift of an album and that Coachella performance, the online arena doesn’t know whether to be shook or woke right now but Kung Fu Kenny hasn’t waited round, instead coming through again; this time,…
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After letting fans lose their minds over mammoth single “Humble” for nearly two and a half weeks, the Compton rapper has finally shared the official artwork and title-tracks to his fourth studio album, DAMN. DAMN. will be released April 14th via Aftermath/Interscope/Top Dawg and follows up 2015’s iconic To Pimp a Butterfly and last year’s untitled…
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Our Top 20 Singles from 2016 represent not only what was a strong and diverse year in new music, but they also presented themselves to be solid indicators of the trajectories of some of our favourite new artists. From NGAIIRE‘s “House on a Rock” to B Wise‘s “No Questions”, through to huge international hitters in Childish Gambino‘s “Redbone”…
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Looking back at last year’s run of new releases, it’s safe to say there were some definite hits alongside those that may not have lived up to the hype. We saw the return of some esteemed artists after a long time out of the spotlight, while some of our own emerging superstar talents came through strongly…
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For Hip Hop, 2016 was the year of cosigning anything and everything. So called ‘mumble rap’ became a thing and there was a massive push back against the term ‘real Hip Hop’, championing newcomers like Lil’ Yachty and Lil’ Uzi Vert (who, like it or not, have been attached to the music and the culture)…
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As Austin returns back to normal following the 15th annual Austin City Limits Festival, we reflect on our favourite performances of the second weekend of the event. The two-weekender festival continues to stand out as one of the best in the world (read our official recap) and while there were many highlights, here are our top…
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Saturday at ACL started hot with the blistering sun and ended even hotter with the incredible headlining sets from Kendrick Lamar and Kygo. Nothing can signify the electric and diverse lineup more than the headliners Saturday night. On one side of the festival was the Compton born rapper who has skyrocketed to be one of hip hops greatest…
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Austin City Limits began as one of the most important television programs spotlighting the greatest music the world had to offer. So the fact it shares its name with one of the biggest music festivals on the planet tells you all you need to know about the magnitude and excellence of Texas’s biggest music festival….
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Having tipped the midway point of 2016, we asked our team to look back on what’s been a strong six months of new music releases already. Across the genres, there’ve been some stellar local and international albums dropping and drawing some heated conversation across fandoms. Whether it was in The Drones‘ release of arguably their…
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Well, after another brilliantly executed social media campaign that sparked the interest of the Beyhive and anyone with any passing interest in anything Beyoncé, Lemonade has finally been revealed. Coming to fans in the form of a hotly anticipated HBO Special, the Lemonade special showed a whole album’s worth of visuals and new songs. The…
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Tame Impala are absolutely everywhere at the moment, adding an appearance atop the Saturday night bill of this year’s FYF Fest to their list of shows for 2016. The Perth boys are the only Australians aside from Jagwar Ma to feature on the American festival bill, which also boasts the likes of Kendrick Lamar, LCD Soundsystem and Grace Jones at the top of the…
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