Members of South Korean boy band Bangtan Boys, or BTS, arrive for the Asia Artist Awards 2018 in Incheon, South Korea, 28 November 2018.
Kim Hee-Chul/EPA
K-pop has claimed its share of the world market. It is about time that I-pop gives its best to do the same.
Paul Weinberg
More than just a musical accolade, UNESCO has recognised the social and political importance of Jamaican music.
The recorder was one of the most popular instruments during the Baroque period, and was more commonly made of wood.
Many school music teachers aren’t trained recorder players. And cheap and badly made recorders are often sold in discount stores. But this an instrument with a fine musical pedigree.
André Rieu performs in his Sydney Town Hall performance.
André Rieu Productions
Few classical musicians can fill out an 8,000 seat hall. But then few classical musicians are like André Rieu.
Christians go to fewer concerts and are less likely to listen to genres such as heavy metal.
Shutterstock
Christians go to fewer gigs, are less likely to listen to heavy metal, and prefer classical music. The reason likely comes down to morality.
‘It’s really difficult to live as a rock musician in Bangladesh,“ says Samir Hafiz, a guitarist in the heavy metal band Warfaze.
Facebook
For decades, Bangladesh had a very vibrant – and highly political – rock scene. But the genre is struggling to survive the country’s crackdown on dissent and increasing Islamic conservatism.
In tune.
SpeedKingz/Shutterstock
For every £1 invested in a north Wales community music programme, researchers saw as much as £6.69 created in social value.
As we look to improve the reading outcomes of our young children, more music education in our preschools and primary schools could be the answer.
www.shutterstock.com
Learning music in the early years of schooling can help children learn to read.
Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, came from a family of Zoroastrians.
atelier nerodimARTE/flickr
Born Farrokh Bulsara, Mercury came from a Parsi family that practiced Zoroastrianism, a religion that influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
A raised fist carving on a highway at Touho, Grand Terre. Kanaks, New Caledonia’s Indigenous people, have struggled for independence for over 150 years.
Michael Webb
Indigenous New Caledonians, who will vote in an independence referendum next week, have been struggling since French colonisation in 1853. Through songs, they have chronicled past traumas and resistance heroes.
Kat Austen
Bombarding people with scientific information has little effect. Something else is needed to jolt us out of our current climate trajectory.
The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions.
AP Photo/Frings
Fifty years ago, Sly and the Family Stone sang ‘We got to live together, I am no better and neither are you.’ The words ring just as true today.
That year, the pillars of 1960s pop music released unfocused, confused albums.
Thitkorn Krireuk/Shutterstock.com
A few musicians metaphorically took to the streets. But most fled for cover.
Hydra 1960, including Leonard Cohen (bearded, left) and Redmond Wallis (centre right in cotton shirt).
Photographer unknown. Reproduced with the permission of Dorothy Wallis.
Leonard Cohen’s final (posthumous) book was released in Australia this week. Another new book sheds light on Cohen’s life on Hydra in the 1960s and the relationships he forged with Antipodeans seeking liberation there.
Romy Vager performs during the concert at Melbourne’s State Theatre on Saturday night.
Prudence Upton
Some of Australia’s finest songwriters joined members of the Go-Betweens to mark the 30th anniversary of a seminal album.
John Barker Sorrowing mother c.1916, oil on canvas.
70.8 h x 90.2 w cm.
National Gallery of Australia
Seven Australian composers feature in an epic communal piece of music honouring the Australians who died on the Western Front. It will have its premiere in Canberra, this Saturday.
Kendrick Lamar performing in Portugal.
Jose Sena Goulao/EPA
Music is an underutilised tool when it comes to steering curricula away from strictly Western and colonial models.
Musical expression can help kids develop scientific thinking.
Mignon Van Vreden
Children feel less frustrated and are allowed to be creative and expressive in spaces where they make choices.
Artists can be denied control of their creations for life. Bryan Adams at the 2015 AFL Grand Final.
Julian Smith/AAP
Individual creators get too small a share of copyright’s rewards. What Bryan Adams is proposing in Canada could also work in Australia to help authors get paid and keep works available to the public.
Robert Plant, the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, performs in Hamburg, Germany in 1973.
Heinrich Klaffs
How can a band so slavishly derivative – and sometimes downright plagiaristic – be also considered radically innovative and influential?