A copy of the original White Album signed by George Martin: his son Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell have remixed the album on its 50th anniversary.
Julien''s Auctions/Supplied by WE/AAP
Remixing a Beatles album might be seen as both artistically redundant and cynically commercial. But this remixed classic allows us to experience the album in a new way.
Nick Cave performing with The Bad Seeds in Budapest in June. His song lyrics, with those often melancholy, churchy organ chords, are dripping in references to what might be called sacredness.
Zoltan Balogh/EPA
The enquiry into sacredness is not over, it’s just beginning for the 21st century, and in wildly disparate modes and places. In music, Nick Cave, Hozier and Dr G. Yunupingu have led the way.
Dubbed the greatest album ever by Rolling Stone, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is turning 50. We asked six experts how it had stood the test of time and found opinions diverged widely.
Mandoza at the South African music Awards in 2012.
South African Music Awards/flickr
Kwaito music star Mandoza was an important symbolic figure in the post-apartheid cultural scene. His success and his refusal to relinquish his tsotsi identity redefined what kind of man could be respected in a free South African.
The small, geographically isolated country of Iceland is a leader in technology, environmentalism, experimental music and feminism. And Bjork, one of its most famous exports, mines all these themes in her new Sydney exhibition.
A still from Lemonade: a new way of experiencing music.
Lemonade/Tidal
Why must women’s art be seen as autobiographical when we readily accept the idea of male auteurs spinning fictionalised yarns? In her much analysed video and album Lemonade, Beyoncé may be playing make believe.
Prince performing during his ‘Diamonds and Pearls Tour’ in London in 1992.
Reuters/Dylan Martine
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…