No sugar and 2am workouts: Lenny Kravitz gives 60 the rock star treatment
How the music legend looks – and feels – this good as he tours the globe.
Music
Missy, Troye, Stingray among APRA song of the year finalists
The creativity and diversity of voices on display in this five-song playlist is remarkable, and together show that Australian music is in rude health | READ THE FULL LIST
Actors playing The Beatles in Sam Mendes’ biopics unveiled
The Oscar-winning director will bring the Fab Four back to the big screen with The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, an ambitious multi-part biopic touted the first ‘binge-able theatrical experience’.
Tommy Emmanuel: ‘I never coast out there, ever’
Ahead of an Australian tour, the master guitarist speaks about giving his all on stage, avoiding retirement, searching for silver linings and being inspired by the music of Taylor Swift.
MJ Lenderman Sydney Opera House review — dudes rock
North Carolina’s slacker saint, who put out one of the finest albums of last year, played the biggest show of his career on Tuesday.
‘Madonna would take what everyone was doing and make it hers’
When Cyndi Lauper’s first album was released in 1983 it was a huge hit – but there was another smart-talking, working-class, Catholic-raised pop star waiting in the wings. Ever after they were compared by the press and set up as rivals.
The K-pop megastar playing a shy resort employee on The White Lotus
The sky’s the limit for Lalisa Manobal as she releases a solo album and makes her acting debut in The White Lotus.
Jason Isbell goes the full monty on vulnerable post-divorce LP
Solo album No.4 for this acclaimed US singer-songwriter is naked in both form and content: several songs address Isbell’s 2024 divorce from wife and musical partner Amanda Shires.
‘Within seconds there was a dolphin right underneath me’
Canberra musician Sally Walker could not believe what happened when she played her flute on the water in Port Stephens.
MSO wants ‘political case’ thrown out
Former MSO managing director Sophie Galaise is on track to settle a political discrimination claim brought against her by a pianist who criticised Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs pleads not guilty to new indictment
A case has been building against the one-time rap superstar since late 2023, with a superseding indictment alleging he sexually abused people and coerced them into drug-fuelled sex parties.
Tom Morello: ‘Good political art is always created on enemy territory’
Ahead of an Australian tour, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist speaks about knocking on Springsteen’s door bearing hellraising ideas, raising a 13-year-old guitar hero in-the-making, and the impossible task of separating his politics from his art.
‘No pants dance’ just the beginning
‘Mad March’ has revealed more than one naked truth in the festival-fuelled South Australian capital.
Rocked by weather when on a roll
When dangerous weather forces concerts to be rescheduled, the cost for touring artists can be significant, as Brisbane band The Butterfly Effect discovered.
‘The endless cycle of maintenance’: hard rocker Tim Rogers’ big life change
After a deeply personal confession about his drinking made headlines, the You Am I frontman reveals his relationship with booze now, taking up team sport in his 40s and ‘outrunning the black dog.’
What happens when AI infiltrates the art of songwriting?
Artificial intelligence is fast becoming ubiquitous. But what are the consequences for music when the creative struggle is reduced to a set of text prompts? We meet some of the globe’s greatest songwriters to find out.
The ‘best band in the world’ play the Sydney Opera House
Dublin rockers Fontaines D. C. — hailed as the greatest by Elton John — brought their stadium-ready Romance to the Opera House forecourt for a blistering set blending post-punk fury with emotional depth.
Bernard Sumner: ‘If you’re a working class white male, you’re a bit forgotten about’
The Joy Division guitarist and New Order frontman on the necessity of creative escape and the promise of punk.
Honeymoon exhumed: ‘It’s very traumatic, being in a band’
Life, loss and longevity: behind the scenes with The Cruel Sea amid a surprise victory lap for the veteran rock act — with no less than Cold Chisel watching on in a packed arena.
Now famous at 30, Fender flicks switch to epic on third album
All the government ad campaigns and slogans will never do for young men – and young women – what a few great songs from the likes of Sam Fender can achieve, as the British singer-songwriter shows once again here.
Opera in danger of dying out, warns festival heavyweight Stone
Poised to unveil his international opera hit, Innocence, at the Adelaide Festival, director Simon Stone warned the art form would soon die out if it failed to return to its ‘entertainment roots’
The verdict? Kylie’s still got it
On stage for her new world tour, the 56-year-old singer was magnetic, and despite the surrounding gloss and glitter, it was hard to look anywhere but at this wonder of a performer.
From sexed up circuses to a roll call of comedians
With its carnival vibe, Australia’s largest arts festival transforms the South Australian capital.
Roberta Flack, who won back-to-back Grammys for Record of the Year, dies at 88
Her first big hit – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face – took off after Clint Eastwood featured it in his directorial debut.
Stickman ‘Snowy’ key to Easybeats’ historic success
The Easybeats’ sound came together quickly and their electrifying string of hits from 1965 established them as our top rock act.
Perth Festival’s first homegrown artistic director frames a city in transition
The nation’s oldest arts festival returns with a program that pushes the boundaries even as it honours Perth’s history.
Drone flies into Drake’s $40k-per-night Sydney penthouse, scares superstar
The drone recorded the Canadian singer walking onto the balcony of his 88th floor Crown penthouse before he panicked and attempted to throw a shoe at the device.
Stunning sounds of silence, and emphatic joy, at Billie’s tour debut
Now 23, and having ridden the wave of fame to its highest crest, it’s undoubtedly an older, wiser Billie Eilish who began her fifth Australian tour in Brisbane on Tuesday.
NSW to trial pill-testing at Wollongong’s biggest music festival
For the first time, a government-run pill testing service will operate at a music festival. The trial, announced in December by the Minns government and led by NSW Health, aims to reduce drug-related harm by allowing attendees to check substances for purity and potency.
Symphonic gig offers a blank canvas for Byron’s lords of the moshpit
In 1999, one of the world’s biggest metal bands collaborated with an orchestra to produce S&M: Symphony & Metallica. In June, Australia’s own heavy metal leaders Parkway Drive will make a similar creative leap at the Sydney Opera House.
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