For many people, their knowledge of extreme metal mainly springs from the nefarious activities of a small group of Norwegian musicians in the 1990s. But there’s more to this genre than meets the eye.
The electronic band STS9 is known for having intoxicating light shows accompany their live performances.
Shannon Tompkins/flickr
Why do certain songs and colors make us feel a certain way?
American rapper Tyler the Creator cancelled his Australian tour following a campaign by feminist grassroots activist group Collective Shout.
Pemberton Music Festival/ Mark C Austin
Arts activism isn’t new, but online activist movements are changing the way it gets done. In this anonymous virtual landscape, does activism democratise social relations, or nurture inequality?
Fans cheer on the heavy metal band Motörhead.
brandi/flickr
Parents and politicians once feared heavy metal music would inspire devil worship, reckless sex and rampant drug use. A new study investigates what became of young metal fans.
After travelling through the bush, returning to the cacophonies of the sonic city can be exhilarating.
drp
After travelling through the bush, returning to the cacophonies of the sonic city can be exhilarating. The body is immediately swamped with an energy that speaks of action, progress, and possibility.
With Blue Note Jazz Club opening a venue in Beijing, a genre that’s flagging stateside may experience a Far East revival.
In a track called Bring it Back Home, Hugh Masekela bemoans the tendency by politicians, who after ascending to power, discard the people who helped them get there.
Andrea De Silva/Reuters
Concert organisers began to compete for government contracts. Often these contracts came with conditions as to who, among musicians, was desirable at government events.
Although the intention is to tell the story of Mushroom Records founder Michael Gudinski, rather than a business, the two are never far apart. So what do we learn from ‘the book Gudinski never wanted’?
Time for a jolly singalong.
Wellcome Library, London
She might now seem rather light-entertainment, but as the only female act to make a success out of ‘Merseybeat’ and go on to an ITV career as a female powerhouse, she deserves more.
Soon to croon about SPECTRE?
Sebastian Widmann/EPA
The first film to see The Beatles in technicolour is 50 years old.
Men at Work were found liable for copying two bars from Kookaburra Sits on the Old Gum Tree – a ‘fair use’ exception would have prevented this.
Jolene Bertoldi
Nicolas Suzor, Queensland University of Technology and Rachel Choi, Queensland University of Technology
A new book and documentary tell us more about the story behind Men at Work’s song Down Under – and the court case it eventually led to. They also prompt questions about current Australian copyright law.
Music – as a tool of mobilising people against power – tends to suit a more progressive agenda.
AAP/Richard Milnes
Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh was played at Reclaim Australia rallies in various cities last weekend – but won’t be again, after a public statement by the band’s frontman, Jimmy Barnes. Was it a good song choice?
A Grateful Dead fan wears a shirt commemorating the band’s farewell tour.
Stephen Lam/Reuters