Nicki Minaj is the preeminent female rapper. Her latest album Queen embraces a kind of girl power that has been criticised both within and outside the rap world.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Contemporary music
Displaying all articles
Music streaming services have stopped promoting R. Kelly as part of a crackdown on musician's alleged conduct. But we should separate the art from the artist.
Since it began in the 1950s, Eurovision has embraced everything from metal to the global juggernaut of Scandi-pop, and of course the Eurodance and disco synonymous with Eurovision.
Brian Eno's Music for Airports, released 40 years ago, marked the formal beginnings of ambient music. It is still provoking composers and audiences to contemplate new ways of listening.
A.B. Original made waves in 2017, but Indigenous hip hop has flourished since the 1980s.
Listeners often describe the music presented at Tasmania's Mofo festival as 'weird'. But to do so sells the experience short.
Heavy metal music was traditionally associated with white, working class masculinity. But the genre has diversified - with many subgenres -
and now embraces causes ranging from whale protection to labour conditions.
George Michael's posthumous documentary Freedom reveals the star's tension between pop-stardom and privacy.
From The Smiths to Kendrick Lamar, Conversation readers tell us their favourite albums.
In Different Class, Pulp got fans singing and dancing to searing commentaries on class and privilege.
Audiences of a certain age still gush about Countdown, the ABC’s music show that ran between 1974 and 1987. The ritual of sitting down to watch the ABC at 6pm on a Sunday (and maybe again for the Saturday…
Brisbane's Rock and Roll Writers Festival rubbed musicians and writers up against each other in just the right way.
When bands "return to their roots," is it a genuine search, or a way to court critics and sell records?
Like ambulance chasers, gimlet-eyed entertainment lawyers have been trained to detect the most trivial copyright infringements.
Sir Paul McCartney has been making some waves. On New Year’s Eve, Kanye West released a new single, Only One, a collaboration with The Beatles great on keys. On Twitter, Kanye’s fans reacted, wanting to…
A magnificently scornful piece in The Guardian this weekend flagged the trend for “sad bangers”, music in which, “Sensitive lads across the land have abandoned their cardies and acoustic guitars for varsity…
We rightly marvel at the skills of a talented musician, especially witnessing them perform live. But how does someone become so skilled? Obviously hours and hours of dedicated practice is a necessity…
For a band that once sang “Every year is getting shorter / Never seem to find the time” – which followed an explosion of alarm clocks – Pink Floyd’s songs always seemed to take their time. During the band’s…
The charity song is an odd thing. Generally composed with the simple intent of raising money for a cause, the musical quality of the thing somehow falls by the wayside. In the charts, it’s an anomaly…
What, one might wonder, is the value of an international festival of exploratory music? And why is it in Bendigo, in north-west Victoria? In Australia, we have so many festivals featuring music, film…
Top contributors
-
Senior Lecturer in Humanities, University of Southern Queensland
-
Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
-
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute of Sport, Exercise & Active Living (ISEAL), Victoria University
-
Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University
-
Associate Professor of Popular Music, University of Sydney
-
Casual lecturer, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
-
Visiting Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University
-
Professor of Cultural Studies, Director, Graduate Program in Gender Studies and Feminist Research, McMaster University
-
Assistant Professor of Music Performance and Theory, Ramapo College of New Jersey
-
Principal Lecturer in Media and Communication Design, Northumbria University, Newcastle
-
Adjunct Lecturer, The University of Queensland
-
Professor of Music / Director of the Music Industry Program / Director VALE Music Group, Lebanon Valley College
-
Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Creative Practice, University of Tasmania
-
Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University
-
Piano tutor and Lecturer, Sydney Conservatorium Music, University of Sydney
