Garth Stahl, University of South Australia and Pete Dale, Manchester Metropolitan University
Since the 1970s, a panic about “disaffected” boys underachieving in formal schooling has gripped Western society. Despite efforts in Australia like Boys: Getting It Right and the UK Raising Boys Achievement…
Could Nirvana really be about to replace Kurt Cobain? This month marks the 20th anniversary of his tragic death and also the induction of Nirvana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (April 10). Since bands…
A few years ago a student of mine turned up to class wearing a T-shirt that had Kurt Cobain’s suicide note printed on it. I recognised it straight away - I suspect many people around my age spent a period…
American East Coast rappers the Wu-Tang Clan have developed a revolutionary model for musicians to make money from their work. They are about to sell a copy of their new album, but in doing so they will…
You’re watching one of those films that I think of as “torture porn”, like Saw or The Collection, in which human captives have their bodies mutilated, dismembered or painfully abused. You’ve paid your…
The singer of “extraterrestrial” thrash metal band, Gwar, was found dead on the weekend. Known as Oderus Urungus, Dave Brockie founded one of contemporary metal’s most controversial groups. Spanning the…
Thursday March 20 is the United Nations International Day of Happiness, and so I thought a short post would be in order to help you to select some appropriate music for the day. Numerous researchers have…
There’s a diagram that does the rounds online that neatly sums up the difference between the quality of equipment used in the studio to produce music, and the quality of the listening equipment used by…
John Zorn’s appearance at the Adelaide Festival last week spread across four evenings – totalling over 12 hours. The cost of bringing Zorn and more than 20 musicians from New York to play at the Adelaide…
In 1981, MTV was launched with a woman in a tinsel wig being beamed to Earth (well, she actually slid awkwardly down a plastic tube) to join men in shiny suits playing wood-grained synthesisers. The Buggles…
The world’s largest annual music conference South by South West (SXSW), continues this week in Austin, the capital of Texas; and the dynamism behind creative music cities such as Austin, Melbourne and…
The inaugural Festival of Live Art (FOLA), which begins today in Melbourne, celebrates some of the most exciting artists working in performance today and yet, the exact meaning of the term “live art” is…
Think of your favourite piece of music. Do you get shivers when the music swells or the chorus kicks in? Or are the opening few bars enough to make you feel tingly? Despite having no obvious survival value…
When it was announced recently that Burt Bacharach would be headlining this year’s Wilderness Festival, The Guardian were quick to point out the age of the veteran composer turned performer: The 85-year-old…
Research published today in the journal Cell Biology describes a new condition, musical anhedonia – the inability to experience pleasure from music. Specifically the researchers were able to identify a…
As I think of the recently deceased guitarist Paco de Lucía, there is one thought that immediately comes to mind: he has arguably brought about the most thorough transformation of flamenco in the second…
The Conversation is running a series, Class in Australia, to identify, illuminate and debate its many manifestations. Here, Katrina McFerran discusses how access to music education can reaffirm social…
One Direction got lucky this year, taking two awards away from the Brits. One of these was in the new Best British video category, judged by the British public via a live vote over Twitter. And this was…
A number of my friends have a fervour for Bruce Springsteen I have never been able to understand. I have always thought of his work as prosaic and literal. His songs teeter on the edge of despair at the…
David Bowie, the Arctic Monkeys, and Ellie Goulding were among the winners at Wednesday night’s Brit Awards. In theory, these were awarded because they were the cream of last year’s music crop. To qualify…