Phonk isn’t just a new-age TikTok trend. It’s the music of a generation rallying against the state of the world.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Contemporary music
Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 articles
The artist’s fabled archive spans his entire career, showcasing his playful curiosity, his need for beauty and his respect for style.
Rising to prominence in The Exorcist soundtrack and the first album from Richard Branson’s Virgin Records, the layered sounds of Tubular Bells became a template for further innovation.
Four Indigenous composers were asked to create works for a square piano from a painful period in our nation’s history. They did so in creative, honest and powerful ways.
Toy pianos typically have a range of 12-36 keys, roughly one quarter the range of a full piano. But they are used by composers and music makers to write everything from concertos to pop songs.
Clyde Stubblefield’s drumming has been sampled or imitated more than 1,000 times since it was recorded in 1970.
Classical music station RNZ Concert may have been saved by an outcry from music lovers – but as a composer, it’s clear to me that its management still doesn’t realise what a national treasure it is.
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.
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?
Top contributors
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Associate professor in Humanities, University of Southern Queensland
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Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
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Deputy Head of School, Senior Lecturer in Piano and Musicology, School of Music, Australian National University
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Casual lecturer, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
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Visiting Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University
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Professor of Cultural Studies, Director, Graduate Program in Gender Studies and Feminist Research, McMaster University
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Assistant Professor of Music Performance and Theory, Ramapo College of New Jersey
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Principal Lecturer in Media and Communication Design, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Adjunct Research Fellow, Griffith University
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Professor of Music / Director of the Music Industry Program / Director VALE Music Group, Lebanon Valley College
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Associate Professor in American Literature, University of Leeds
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Reader in Popular Music, University of Glasgow
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Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Creative Practice, University of Tasmania
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Associate Professor, Griffith University
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Senior Lecturer in Critical Popular Music Studies, Massey University
